underground injection wells

Where To Hide From Mother Nature - Wyoming? Nope. West Virginia? Think again.

Salon.com News "The entire community is now a toxic waste dump" - NP
Citizens in Mississippi fear that burying toxic secrets is standard operating procedure. Clinging to the north shore of Bay St. Louis, an inlet just west of Gulfport that flows into the Gulf of Mexico, the DuPont DeLisle plant, the country's second-largest titanium dioxide maker, was slammed by Katrina. The facility produces 14 million pounds of toxic waste per year, some of which is kept at on-site landfills. From 1999 to 2003, the most recent figures available, 2.3 million pounds of the waste were planted in the company's landfill.

DuPont also operates four underground injection wells, which shoot toxic waste into the earth at a depth of around two miles. In late August this year, a jury awarded $1.5 million to the first of nearly 2,000 local plaintiffs who claimed that dioxins from DuPont, released into the nearby air and water, caused their cancers.

Hurricane Katrina's storm surge overflowed DuPont's 25-foot-high levee, and the site was buried under 7 to 9 feet of water. According to the federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, a leaking pipe (now repaired) released a pound of chlorine gas, and rail cars containing coke, ore and chloride were tossed on their side. Despite this storm surge -- the same one that flattened most of the bay -- DuPont claims that not a drop of toxic waste escaped its on-site landfills.