DOH/DEP asbestos fact sheet draft, 105 Duane Street

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

accumulations that in ATC's opinion was consistent with widespread deposition of material that emanated from the collapse of the World Trade Center Buildings." • Taken over 200 TEM asbestos air tests (by ATC) in apartments and common areas, including any apartment requested by a resident, over a period of months with outstanding results. 207 of the 209 tests had ZERO asbestos structures and the other 2 had only 1 structure each. • Provided copies of the air test results to the residents • Had ATC perform indoor air quality tests in a common area and found no indoor air quality issues based on testing for fiberglass, pcb, CO, CO2, volatile organic compounds, respirable particles, copper, lead and chromium. • Hired a firm to perform an exterior building cleaning including hepa vacuuming and wash down according to an ATC established protocol. • Hired Techclean to perform a duct and vent cleaning using wet methods and hepa vacuums according to a protocol by ATC and with their oversight. Said cleaning was stopped soon after the start due to the "publicity" and the request of some residents that they have an "expert representative" present to discuss and oversee the cleaning methods for the ducts. • Had ATC perform TEM tests on the night of December 12`b' on the same floor as that referenced by the Olmsted test, under the supervision of a DEP representative and NO asbestos was found.

A representative of your agency, Mr. Carl Lutchmedia (cell number 917.324.0746) has been to the building a number of times and supervised the most recent air testing that was performed last evening.

Note that the Channel 4 reporter either misstated or neglected to mention the following information that I provided to him verbally:

(Ifazed him and he acknowledged receipt of your agency's September 2(1h memo to building owners which in part indicated that "Wipe sampling and/or micro-vacuuming sampling are not recognized methodsfor asbestos sampling and should not be used". He also received the ATC December 111h Summary of Ambient Air Sampling to Date which is one of the attachments to this letter.)

The Channel 4 report claimed that: • Many apartments were covered with dust on 9/11. Simply not true. • Vents were sealed of in an apparent attempt to keep the building from becoming contaminated.. They were sealed off only as part of the duct cleaning protocol, and appropriately so. • Asbestos levels were well above the recommended limit set by ASTM. As you well know, there is no recommended limitfor this test and indeed the 1000 structures per square centimeter is a detection limit! • Quoted me as characterizing the resident test as "irresponsible". This is also untrue. In fact I stated that taking a single test, using a method that was not approved by DEP and publishing the result on a web site as indicating a high level of asbestos contamination in the building, was irresponsible.

I had also told the reporter that Mr. Olmsted had advised Mr Kupferman of 1- the limits of the usefulness of the test method, 2- that DEP did not recognize the method and 3- that the test result doesn't correlate with any level of asbestos exposure.

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