What to Do with All the Sandbags? Never Mind the Millions of Acres of Farmland Flooded in Toxic Soup
June 27th, 2008The water that flooded millions of acres of farmland is so dangerously polluted that the sand and the sandbags—used for flood control—need to be disposed of in landfills.
Of course, the Associates Press doesn’t mention those millions of acres of flooded farmland in the piece below. Maybe the topsoil that didn’t wash away can just be taken to the dump as well…
Via: AP:
When Mayor Jo Anne Smiley looks down Washington Street at the soggy fortress of sandbags protecting her town, she knows it’s a view she will have to get used to.
The sandbags are ugly. They clutter the streets in the picturesque town of 500, blocking access to the century-old brick storefronts housing antiques stores and arts shops. Some of the bags — soaked with God-knows-what from the flooded Mississippi River — stink.
But they’re staying put.
“Certainly it will be the end of July before we even think about taking down the sandbags,” Smiley said. “No choice. We have to be diligent through the summer. We have to leave them up until we know the river has crested for the last time.”
As the waters finally begin to recede across the Midwest, dozens of flooded-out towns must now decide what to do with the millions of sandbags that were painstakingly filled and stacked against nature.
Dry sandbags can safely be kept for future use. The Army Corps of Engineers recommends, though, that communities remove their wet sandbags and take the filthy, contaminated sand to the dump once the threat of flooding has passed.
“Those sandbags can be contaminated with a lot of bad things from the river — feces, chemicals, all kinds of bacteria,” said Corps spokesman Ron Fournier. “You don’t know what could be in the water, and that absorbs into the sandbags.”
But removing them will be a monumental task, just as filling them was. And with the long-range forecast calling for a wet summer, many communities are keeping their sandbags in place for now, or they are storing them nearby, just in case.
“We are anticipating an entire summer of yo-yoing river levels,” said Jeff McReynolds, who led the effort to fortify the levee protecting Canton, Mo., with three feet of sandbags. “Are we concerned? I’m very concerned. Sandbagging efforts will remain intact for the rest of the summer.”
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Both the bags and the sand inside them can be taken to landfills. Most of the bags are made of polypropylene that will break down after several months. A few are made of burlap, which will decompose more slowly.
The sand from the bags should not used in sandboxes or for other recreational purposes because of contamination from polluted river water, experts say.
