Hurricane Floyd brought serious environmental damage to a number of areas along the East Coast, officials are warning. In North Carolina, wastewater treatment plants have been flooded, and industrial facilities and warehouses are leaking chemicals and contaminants that could get into water supplies. In the Chesapeake Bay area, a great deal of pollution-laden sediment, much of it from chicken farms, has been washed into creeks and rivers, burying fragile oyster beds and threatening seagrasses that are vital to young fish and crabs. The hurricane has also taken a heavy toll on wildlife, in particular sea birds, many of which were blown hundreds of miles from home.
