In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the government tightened control on information to the public.
After the winds died down and the debris began to settle, Katrina's waters flooded into New Orleans. And soon after, so did the questions.
Among them was what exactly was in the waist-high water that victims, rescue workers and journalists in New Orleans trudged through - a question the Environmental Protection Agency seemed none too eager to answer, but that reporters such as Mark Schleifstein of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune repeatedly asked. When the EPA failed to respond to his verbal request for specific information about the city's flood waters, Schleifstein filed a …