News article on federal WTC air monitoring roles, undated

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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'^The federal c-nvouainentai Protection ‘ With Uncertainty Filling the Air, Agency took the lead responsibility for the air in public spaces — sidewalks and 9/11 Health Risks Are Debate^ streets. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was in charge at ground zero. The New York City Departments of Health and Environmental Protection By KIRK JOHNSON would take on the questions of building Five-year-old Phoebe Kaufman’s . tifically airtight, or obvious. Because ther safety. Testing and monitoring began al­ room was once filled with her has been little government testing of apan most immediately — what would grow in artwork. Now all that remains is a ments for air quality — and some test the ensuing months to become a sprawling single picture of a flower, which conducted months ago have still not beei database measuring everything from chro­ hangs by her bed. Her parents threw pujjlished — there is no public body of facts mium, PCB’s and lead Jo asbestos, silica out everything else because paper is no set of numbers that can bestow a feeling and benzene. □orous and might have absorbed , of certainty. Some building owners have hac “ And so, too, began what many health lust from the collapsing World their properties privately tested; others researchers now say was a huge political Trade Center towers that blasted ' have not. And every test that is done be­ blunder. Officials from the E.PA,. and the nto their Lower Manhattan apart- comes ammunition for one side or anothei city made broad pronouncements that the nent through an open window. — those who see great risk and those who de air downtown was safe to breathe, and not No one knows whether Phoebe’s not much of a long-term health concern outside irtwork had become dangerous, and How to clean an apartment or an office the immediate perimeter of the disaster. lir tests done in that apartment that was contaminated, how to know when it Although those conclusions have not been juilding, about a block from ground is clean enough, whether to pay for expen­ disproved by the thousands of tests conduct­ tero, have shown the air to be safe. sive tests or filters, whether to worry atwut ed since then — more than 10,000 air sam­ But decisions still had to be made, so how well the neighbors cleaned their apart­ ples by the E.P.A. — the second-guessing everything absorbent — stuffed ani­ ments and rooftops, are all questions that and suspicions began almost immediately mals, mattresses, coats — went into have for the most part been left to individual among many residents, and later physi­ tenants, owners and workers. cians, that the tests were inadequate, or the trash. partial, or that the many things that could It’s the floor that has the family in “People have essentially been left to then- a quandary now. The family’s insur­ own devices,” said Representative Jerrold not be known about the air impact were ance company said it would pay to Nadler, a Democrat from Manhattan who being minimized, resulting in a cloud of have their old wooden floor refin- represents downtown, and who believes that mistrust and uncertainty that has still not what he calls the microclimates of down­ gone away. ished, butthat idea was shot down by “I have the concern that the initial re-' their pediatrician, who said that the town — the homes and offices, the personal spaces'and lives of residents and workers — assurances were based on the desire to trade center dust, perhaps contain­ move ahead as quickly as possible — that ing asbestos or other hazardous ma­ have been mostly neglected in the disaster response. reassurances were given because it sup­ terials, was deep in the floor’s cracks ported public policy,” said Dr. Stephen M. and that sanding would throw it back But New Yorkers have not waited for science and government to catch up. In the Levin, the medical director at the Mount into the air. Sinai-Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupa­ “It’s such a uniquely American same energetic, impatient ways that have always shaped the city’s character, they tional and Environmental Medicine at the thing to think that science can pro­ Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who has vide an objective truth, but no one have simply gotten on with things. seen dozens of cases of respiratory ailments has an answer to these kinds of ques­ Beth Kaltman, 22, a model, cleaned her related to the trade center disaster. tions,” said Phoebe’s mother, Eliza­ own apartment using paper towels. So did What ensued, in part, was a war of data beth Berger. “There's no one to turn Dr. Jessica Leighton, an assistant commis­ and interpretation. The E.P.A,, in testing for to.” sioner of risk and environmental communi­ things like asbestos or other particles in the Community leaders in Lower Man­ cation at the New York City Department of air, used a 24-hour-averaging system, which hattan have estimated that about 75 Health. was considered the scientific standard for percent of the roughly 20,000 people Noreen Hennessy and her husband, Elliot gauging exposures. But that system was ..iio lived within a half mile of the Freeman, who live on Warren Street, a few attacked because it flattened the periodic trade center have returned to their blocks from the disaster site, hired profes­ spikes that were being recorded as dust and homes since the Sept. 11 disaster. sional cleaners. In the converted factory smoke drifted around the area. And all of them are facing the same building on Broadway where Phoebe Kauf­ The E.P.A. also focused on small parti­ series of questions and choices about man arid her family live, some people ripped cles, based on the scientific literature that how to live in this altered place and up their floors. Some mopped up and vacu­ said they were , the greatest concern. That how to assess the environmental umed, and others never came back. emphasis failed to reflect the larger parti­ risks that the proximity to a disaster Phoebe’s father, Frederick Kaufman, in­ cles that physicians and scientists say were site and cleanup project may entail. stalled filters to cover the air ducts that causing widespread misery and worry — This being New York, the diversity connect to the rest of the building, working from sore throats to red eyes — across wide <rf conclusions is boundless. Some on the theory that dirtier air from other swaths of Lower Manhattan. people see downtown as a toxic night­ apartments or common areas of the build­ The size of the asbestos fibers that the mare, a kind of Manhattan Love Ca­ ing could infiltrate. He cannot say that this, government was measuring also became nal that has permanently poisoned necessarylike throwing away Phoebe’s artwork, was a part of the battle. The E scientists said the area's'buildings and apartments . step; _ he also cannot say, when it that the larger particles they were testing with asbestos or chemicals. Others ! comes to the health of his daughter and his :or — and which were showing up in rela- believe the risks are overblown or ' son, Julian, 2, that it was not necessary, uvely few num^iT^^^'w^ the mtSTuaii-- nonexistent. either. gerous because their shape allow'ed them to But in another way, many resi- “You can no longer say this is a rational or this is an emoti&nal response, be lodged in the lungs, while smaller parti­ dents say, the diversity of views re­ response,just have to say, this is what I have to do cles would get sloughed off by the body. flects the deeper problem ti^y face: you feel safe," he said. And without conclu- Critics said that smaller particles were be­ that no answer seems certauL scien- ; to sive data, people also have little basis of ing deliberately overlooked. Some private i defending the decisions they do make, he tests showed concentrah^s of the tiniest ' said. asbestos fibers — tests than five microns in “Anybody doing more cleanup than I is a size — that were in some cases four times fanatic, and anybody doing less is crazy," he above the government's safetv threshold. said.

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