i vote for both

incompetence AND a coverup!

Critics Say EPA Withholding Information on New Orleans Contamination

Journalists, government watchdogs and a top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official have criticized EPA’s inability to provide adequate data on the location and danger of chemicals leaked into New Orleans communities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Last week Hugh Kaufman, a senior EPA policy analyst in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said of EPA’s water testing efforts, “There is not enough information to draw any conclusions other than EPA has become totally incompetent at water testing, or there is a cover up.” [1]
George Sorvalis, outreach associate for OMB Watch, a nonprofit government accountability group, told BushGreenwatch, “EPA does not appear to be testing for chemicals related to the petrochemical and oil industries, including diesel and byproducts of petrochemical refining. These are chemicals you would expect EPA to test for.”
“EPA’s sampling to date has been spotty and inconsistent,” says Darryl Malek-Wiley, a New Orleans-based environmental justice advocate for Sierra Club, who spoke to BushGreenwatch from Baton Rouge. “The amount of sampling that has been done doesn’t fully characterize what is happening in New Orleans.”
Sorvalis, who has been in close communication with a number of scientists and researchers working in the New Orleans area, said EPA’s failure to assess the presence and danger of such chemicals presents a particular concern for rescue workers and others exposed to the contaminated water. “Many chemical byproducts of the petrochemical industry are hazardous to human health and can breach certain types of protective gear,” said Sorvalis. “If EPA is not testing for them, how can people make the right choices to protect themselves?”
Not only has EPA failed to distinguish exactly which petrochemical industry byproducts lurk in the floodwaters, said Sorvalis, but the limited amount of information EPA has is poorly organized and difficult to access. “This information should be available by a click of the mouse, but it has taken me, a professional, days to find out the real story.”.........