HJBR Nov/Dec 2023

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  NOV / DEC 2023 11 distributing bottled water with the pow- dered formula. We’ll also be leaning heavily on what we call ready-to-feed formula. That will be paramount in our response. Then, for the end-stage renal disease folks, we have been in touch with the dialysis centers and really working in lockstep with those folks. They have a solution in place for home dial- ysis, which involves express packs and then also for their in-facility dialysis, they have a plan in place not to use tap water from the river, but a cleaner water supply. Editor So, we’re expecting that New Orleans citizens will not be able to use their tap water? Secretary Russo Well, what we’re expecting is, once those salinity levels get around 250 parts per million, that’s really where cer- tainly a healthy person could potentially drink that water and their body would be able to filter out those high chloride lev- els. Of course, it is not going to be water that you would enjoy drinking. I imagine once the salinity gets to that level, like it is in Plaquemines, for instance, that they would want to be drinking bottled water at that stage. Now, of course, those vulnerable populations I mentioned before will defi- nitely want to be leaning more heavily on bottled water. Downstream, in Plaquemines Parish and the lower intakes that don’t have that high of a gallon-per-day usage, they’re also using reverse osmosis machines. Those reverse osmosis plants will be able to han- dle the higher salinity levels they’re seeing down there. Editor Is the plan for the state or the fed- eral government to supply drinking water now for citizens in affected areas, or is that something that citizens need to go out and purchase? Secretary Russo We’ve been telling citizens that the department is going to be supply- ing it for use with formula, through ourWIC clinics. We have been telling the population down there, especially in Plaquemines, to start planning on using bottled water and purchasing bottled water. What we’ve been stressing to folks, though, is this is a situa- tion only being experienced right now, on this scale, in four Louisiana parishes. We’ve been trying to tell folks there’s no need to run out and by truckloads of bottled water and basically buy the store out. There will be ample supply of bottled water. If you can remember back in COVID, there were folks making a run on all sorts of things, like toi- let paper, and basically buying stores out. We’ve been stressing to folks that there’s not going to be a bottled water shortage, there are plenty of supplies statewide and nation- wide. But yes, in the end, if those salinity lev- els get high enough, bottled water would be the ultimate solution. Editor You have the ears of the healthcare leadership right now, many of whom have studied or taken classes in public health and done tours of the water treatment plants as part of their training. What important lessons have you learned, in the trenches, that we did not expect about the vulnerability of the drinking water for the citizens? Secretary Russo The department, especially since we came out with our grading scale, has taken drinking water from an account- ability standpoint of drinking water sys- tems and a transparency point with the public. The public deserves to know what their drinking water looks like and whether it’s safe to drink. We are concerned about Source: US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District Website.“An Overview of the Mississippi River’s Saltwater Wedge.” https://www.mvn.usace.army. mil/Missions/Engineering/Stage-and-Hydrologic-Data/SaltwaterWedge/SaltwaterWedgeOverview/