"New Orleans has avoided losing drinking water due to a saltwater ‘wedge’ traveling up the Mississippi River – but in Plaquemines parish, it has already happened".
"The first time Leah Chan’s hair fell out, her heart pounded and she wept with fear.
It was June this year, and the 55-year-old worried that the thick clumps left in her hands were a sign of cancer. But her doctor suspected another cause: the water running through her pipes.
Chan lives in a small trailer home in the community of Buras, Louisiana, a sliver of land that embraces the edge of the Mississippi River on one side and the increasingly eroded Gulf coastline on the other.
Earlier this summer, she noticed a funny smell from the tap water. It left her morning coffee tasting salty, like a warm broth. Soon her skin broke out in rashes and officials told residents here that their water was not safe to drink."
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