News article on resident complaints regarding air quality near Ground

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

EPA hit " on risks to health By KATIE CAPERTON DAILY NEWS WRITER People who live in lower Manhattan complained to a “I cannot promise that federal investi^tor yester­ [we] will bring you justice, day that their concerns but we will go the extra about clean air and water mile,” said Hugh Kaufman, near Ground Zero aren’t be­ the ombudsman’s chief in­ ing addressed. vestigator. Maureen Silverman, who They said nosebleeds and lives in Independence Plaza asthmalike symptoms have about four blocks from persisted, even though the Ground Zero, told the om­ World Trade Center fires budsman that around-the- are out and much of the clock rumbling from trucks dust has been cleared. clearing the twin towers “This is chemical warfare site and dust from a debris against children,” said Jen­ barge in the Hudson River na Olkin, parent of a stu­ make life miserable. dent at Stuyvesant High “People can’t sleep,” she School, which is blocks said. from the Trade Center site. Marjorie Clarke, an ad­ Despite continuing com­ junct professor of environ­ plaints from neighbors, the mental sciences at Hunter Environmiental Protection CoUege, said she was shocked that people had Agency has said repeatedly been allowed to return to that tests show the fires and the area while the fires dust pose no long-term burned. health risks. “They let people back in But the agency’s ombuds­ too soon,” she said. “This is man, Robert Martin, has purely about the economic questioned those assuranc­ health of downtown.” es. Martin and his staffers “This is cheTTUcal warfare against children.” JENNA ORKIN met with neighbors at a law- ya-’s office on Broadway as a first step in an investiga­ tion into whether the EPA responded adequately to the disaster.

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