Big Surprise: NYC Misled on Post-911 Air Quality 

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Chicago Tribune - February 12, 2002

   "New York was at the center of one of the
    most calamitous events in American history,
    and the EPA has essentially walked away."
    -Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)

Panel Told NYC Was Misled on Air Quality

by Stevenson Swanson
 
In a sharp departure from the nearly universal praise that government
agencies have received for their handling of the Sept. 11 attacks on
the World Trade Center, federal environmental officials came under
heavy criticism Monday for telling New Yorkers that pollution posed
no problem in lower Manhattan after the attacks.

By reassuring the public that the air around the trade center was
safe, the Environmental Protection Agency misled the public, charged
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), testifying at a Senate subcommittee
hearing on air quality.

The EPA's statements were based only on outdoor monitoring, he said,
and did not take into account the potential for cancer-causing
asbestos and other toxins from burning trade-center debris to reach
high concentrations in nearby apartments and offices.

"We now know enough to be alarmed and outraged at the federal
government's response to the environmental impact of Sept. 11,"
Nadler, who represents lower Manhattan, told Sens. Joseph Lieberman
(D-Conn.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). "New York was at the
center of one of the most calamitous events in American history, and
the EPA has essentially walked away."

Nadler's testimony was the harshest attack so far in a controversy
that has gathered momentum in recent weeks as confusion has spread
over how offices and homes near ground zero should be cleaned.

The EPA was responsible for monitoring outdoor air quality, but
shortly after Sept. 11 it delegated responsibility for ensuring that
indoor air was safe to New York City agencies.

EPA regional administrator Jane Kenny said later during the hearing
that the agency "used the most extensive data ever" in assessing air
quality in the neighborhood around the trade center site.
Reassurances by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman in September about
the safety of the air were meant to apply only to the outdoor air,
and Kenny conceded that for New Yorkers there was "a lot of confusion
about what was safe and what was not."

City officials said that tests in some lower Manhattan buildings
found low levels of asbestos, but critics say that private test
results of offices and apartments have found unsafe amounts of the
toxin in the dust that blew in through broken windows or was sucked
in by ventilation systems.

That has left apartment dwellers and business owners adrift as they
try to determine whether their cleanup efforts have been sufficient.

"It took eight guys in white suits and respirators five days to clean
my apartment," testified Elizabeth Berger, who lives with her husband
and two children in an apartment 150 feet from ground zero. "But is
it clean? No one tells you what to keep and what to toss."

Berger said her family threw away their sheets and towels, hundreds
of stuffed animals, and five mattresses, but doubts remain about
asbestos that may have settled in cracks in their floors or that may
blow in through their building's central heating system.

City officials said they were overwhelmed by the number of tests and
permits required to guarantee safe removal of pollutants from
interiors.

"I am not convinced that the environmental response to the Sept. 11
attack was as well-coordinated as other aspects," Lieberman said.

During the hearing at New York's landmark U.S. Custom House south of
the trade center site, several experts agreed that air quality in
lower Manhattan has generally returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels and
that relatively few violations of pollution standards have occurred
since late September.

But many firefighters and other rescue workers at ground zero labored
without respirators, leading to respiratory ailments such as the
persistent "World Trade Center cough," shortness of breath and
nosebleeds.

To determine whether any long-term health effects show up, a registry
is being created to track firefighters who worked at the site.

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune
 
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