美国国家公共电台 NPR Digging In The Mud To See What Toxic Substances Were Spread By Hurricane Harvey

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

When Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of rain on Houston, the floodwater a drain somewhere. Much of it went to the Houston Ship Channel, and it brought along a lot of contamination. Now scientists are sampling the channel mud to find what toxins¹ were left behind. NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports.

REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE²: Lindsay Critides is kneeling on the deck of a small, beat-up research boat improbably nicknamed Big Daddy. It's 8 a.m. and the oceanography master's student is trying to fix a winch before the team heads out.

LINDSAY CRITIDES: I grabbed the T Allen wrenches³, both sizes that would work.

HERSHER: They have to get everything ready before they leave the dock. The Houston Ship Channel is a really busy waterway. It's part of one of the biggest ports in the country. And this morning, barges⁴ and tanker⁵ ships are already passing each other in the wide, calm channel on their way to and from oil refineries⁶.

TIM DELLAPENNA: Right here. This toolbox right here.

HERSHER: Tim Dellapenna is an associate professor of marine⁷ science and oceanography at Texas A&M. He's leading this expedition today, and he says after Harvey, a lot of mud ended up in this channel.

DELLAPENNA: The Port of Houston's saying that they had up to 10 feet of storm layer deposited in the ship channel. And then I - that had us going, well, we need to go up there and sample that as soon as we can. And that's why we're here.

HERSHER: The plan is to go to shallower parts of the channel and use winches and straight-up muscle to sink long tubes down into the mud then compare what's in the different layers. They think they might find pollution from things upstream.

DELLAPENNA: And, specifically, we're downstream from where the big dioxin pits are for the Superfund site.

HERSHER: That's the San Jacinto Waste Pits Superfund site, contaminated with toxic⁸ dioxin since the 1960s. It's already polluted the channel before, and now they're worried Harvey has made things worse. And it's not just old industrial sites. Some of the largest petrochemical facilities in the world line the channel. Many of them were affected⁹ by the storm.

DELLAPENNA: We're actually going to do a full screening for dioxins, heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons¹⁰, called PAHs.

HERSHER: There are houses along the channel, too, which is one reason contamination here is a public health issue. People live here.

DELLAPENNA: OK.

HERSHER: The actual sampling is harder than it sounds. Their little boat has to dodge¹¹ enormous ships.

CRITIDES: We're going to go a little faster.

HERSHER: And the team is concerned that the new sediment¹² layer might be too soupy to stay in the tubes. They stop to take a sample in a shallow area surrounded by active oil wells.

DELLAPENNA: Ready? OK. Dellapenna and Critides lean over the side of the boat and sink a clear plastic tube deep into the mud.

CRITIDES: This mud is pretty soft.

DELLAPENNA: Is it coming? Yeah, it's coming. OK. You're good.

CRITIDES: Wow. Look at that. It's pretty.

DELLAPENNA: This is the storm layer right here, the light-colored stuff. That's still oxidized. That's the flood layer that we have here in this core.

HERSHER: The sandy mud left by Hurricane Harvey is about 6 inches deep here. Critides saws off the extra end of the tube, labels it, and the team moves on to the next area, making their way up the ship channel. At the end of the day five of these teams will go back to Galveston, where they'll be divided up and toxicologists will start analyzing¹³ what's in the layers. The whole process will take a few months. Rebecca Hersher, NPR News.

1 toxins   

n.毒素( toxin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The seas have been used as a receptacle for a range of industrial toxins. 海洋成了各种有毒工业废料的大容器。
• Most toxins are naturally excreted from the body. 大部分毒素被自然排出体外。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 wrenches   

n.一拧( wrench的名词复数 )；（身体关节的）扭伤；扳手；（尤指离别的）悲痛v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的第三人称单数 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• NEVER use wrenches or other persuaders to operate the valve. 禁止使用扳手或其它强制性工具来操作阀门。 来自互联网
• Thus, torque wrenches should be used for tightening DISS connections. 因此，应该使用转矩扳手来上紧DISS接头。 来自互联网

4 barges   

驳船( barge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The tug is towing three barges. 那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。
• There were plenty of barges dropping down with the tide. 有不少驳船顺流而下。

5 tanker   

n.油轮

参考例句：

• The tanker took on 200,000 barrels of crude oil.油轮装载了二十万桶原油。
• Heavy seas had pounded the tanker into three parts.汹涌的巨浪把油轮撞成三载。

6 refineries   

精炼厂( refinery的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The efforts on closedown and suspension of small sugar refineries, small saccharin refineries and small paper mills are also being carried out in steps. 关停小糖厂、小糖精厂、小造纸厂的工作也已逐步展开。
• Hence the sitting of refineries is at a distance from population centres. 所以，炼油厂的厂址总在远离人口集中的地方。

7 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

8 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 hydrocarbons   

n.碳氢化合物，烃( hydrocarbon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Hydrocarbons (HC), like carbon monoxide, represent unburned and wasted fuel. 碳氢化合物(HC)像一氧化碳一样，为未燃尽的和被浪费掉的燃料。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• With this restricted frequency range it is not applicable to hydrocarbons. 这个较紧缩的频率范围不适用于烃类。 来自辞典例句

11 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

12 sediment   

n.沉淀，沉渣，沉积(物)

参考例句：

• The sediment settled and the water was clear.杂质沉淀后，水变清了。
• Sediment begins to choke the channel's opening.沉积物开始淤塞河道口。

13 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句