Beware The Hazards Re: Sandbag Removal

[BGrigg07]

"It is a disaster, there are probably about 15 feet of sandbags flowing towards the water, a lot of them are breaking up," said Brenda Bachmann. "Apparently that sand is toxic."

SO many questions!

How was this missed by City crews?
How is this sand toxic?
Is it from the purported E. Coli or mold?
If it's inherent in the sand, why in H did the City use toxic sand?
Given that this sand was in contact with the lake water for months, why was nothing said earlier about its toxicity?

Or is this just official mountain making out of molehills?

[steve mc]

most strains of e coli are harmless so the rule is let not take any chance boil order are used alot more then needed as for the sand it will kill most coliforms uv sunlite will stop it from multiplying

[WalterWhite]

"It is a disaster, there are probably about 15 feet of sandbags flowing towards the water, a lot of them are breaking up," said Brenda Bachmann. "Apparently that sand is toxic."

SO many questions!

How was this missed by City crews?
How is this sand toxic?
Is it from the purported E. Coli or mold?
If it's inherent in the sand, why in H did the City use toxic sand?
Given that this sand was in contact with the lake water for months, why was nothing said earlier about its toxicity?

Or is this just official mountain making out of molehills?

As with any questionable information - consider the source and any possible agenda.

[gsc]

Ok so what I don't understand is why when all the sandbag removal crews where working this spot never came up.
I my self was on one of the crews removing sand bags from all over. Every morning for weeks we had meetings in the lot across from the fire hall on enterprise. We where all handed daily maps of locations to clean up and truck to one of the dump location. At one point there was a boat out scanning the beach line to see where bags had been placed so that we could remove them.

Yes some of the bags had mold and could been seen very clearly as well. We had masks and latex gloves on to remove them and they had to be handled gently so they would not break open. The white bags got brittle from the sun but the burlap ones where the main source of mold.

This task will be a lot harder after the hot weather we have had as most of those bags look very brittle. This job could have been done pretty fast when we had many hands on deck. Now we will have to wait and see how long this job will take and how many people will be getting there hands dirty.

Interesting to hear someone on the front line. I have a question you may have knowledge of.

F the sand bags were filled from above the lake out of gravel pits, why could this sand not be left on the beaches?

In my opinion it is no different then the sand that flows down the creeks off mountain sides during spring runoff.
I presented this to a highly educated individual and he had a dumb look on his face and no answer. I can certainly understand if the sand was imported from another region it may have foreign matter in it not from this ecosystem.

Lastly bags which were saturated with lake water now contain clean washed out sand, so what is the concern?

I may be missing something what do you know of this?

To answer your question I will tell you what I can and have seen.
First I will tell you many bags did break open and we did half to shovel it up. That said we did get to look at and see some of what was inside of them.

A few bags had chunks of broken glass in them along with random items. Now also not all sand bags had sand in them many had sand and a dark dirt combo. I can also say that the sand did have a smell to it as well and it did not smell like beach sand lol. I cant say where all the sand came from but just a guess would be that in the panic of events some of it could have been road sand. If that was the case it would contain road salt and de-iceing matter on it. I am not going to say that it was that sand but that could be a possibility.

Also the sand was dropped by dump trucks in empty lots and parking lots during deployment as I was also part of that as well. we trucked thousands of bags all over lake country and Kelowna. so while shoveling and filling sand bags from the piles of sand many people are scooping up ground debris as well. For the parking lot sand there would be oil from vehicles, dirt, possible garbage, the list go's on. like I said I had seen glass and other items in a few bags and after seeing and smelling them I wouldn't want it dumped on my property either.

[WalterWhite]

- and yet a boat is found half submerged and leaking petroleum pollutants into the lake and no action is required. More pollutants and materials damaging to the environment - and our drinking water - are flushed down drains and toilets daily than all the sandbags put in place during the summer floods.

This is a non-issue only brought to light by Ms. Bachmann to help in her publicity needs to bring attention to her proposed lakefront walkway, and happily granted an audience through Castanet - just the same as her previous front page embarrassment regarding sprinklers on docks attacking innocent pedestrians simply trying to walk the foreshore.

How this portion of flood control sandbagging was missed in the initial cleanup should be looked into, and the city has already said it will look after the cleanup since it's technically on public land. Fear-mongering about the "toxic" sand and sandbags is simply that - fear-mongering. Anytime anyone hears the word "mold" they conjure up visions of a gooey biological entity seeking out human victims. Most common types of mold are benign and simply the process of organic material breaking down.