NYT Article on WTC Memorial Design Finalists, 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

iimoi Whitman: Pit fBy SUSAN EDEIMAN and STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN Christie Whitman ; has I three words for many of

crews biew off the Ground Zero rescue workers suffeting from “tower lung” and other lingering health problems: We warned you. Whitman, who headed Q Iff 103 the federal Environmental

healthwarning Protection Agency on 9/11 and afterward, said yesterday her agency did everything it could to See WHITMAN Page 2

Christie: 9/11 crews ignored EPA’s air alert WNnMAN/rom Page 1 warn rescue teams they From their mouths igHIVHIBHHHHBn some EPA work- ers were “verbally abused” needed to worry about their Mw 2M2z Under pressure, own health and safety while diut a felife^ifehtiYliigytSnO' the EPA begins cleaning conducting their heroic term, low-level exposutettp contaminated apartments work. asbestos] of the type that In lower Manhattan. “We said from the very be­ ginning that people should might havebeen produced / December 2002: EPA says sis’S?/5k wear respirators,” said Whit­ man, who resigned from the by the collapse of thS l^oMg- people who returned to the Trade Center building Is j : area around Ground Zero unlikely to cause sighlflcartt after Sept 17 were “unlikely gSKJT""'^ EPAinMay. »«,. 31.2*13; Whitman ‘ “gry rem*, by rescuers “We kept telling them over health effects.” to suffer short-term or and over again. I don’t think Sept l8.2001: Whltman adverse health ^cte“ we could have been any reassures New Yorkers “the from contaminated ain stronger than we were about air Is safe to breathe? h Aug. 21,2003: EPA inspector air duality.. fe of my way.” the danger to people work­ whitman said the EPA ing on the site.” Whitman’s all^ations fly in the face of

WHsSBSfiSBffi recent claims by the EPA’s inspector general that the agency authorized the White House to deceive tire public about air quality around Ground Zero after 9/11. problems. Everybody would “a slap in the face to all fire- attacks, and personally urged ministration, which oversees She said EPA statements at have been a lot better off.” fighters.” others to do so. workplace safety, might have the time — that Firefighter reaction to • “She’s trying to cover her The former New Jersey required the protection. contaminants into Whitman’s statement was ass,” fumed Harold Schait- governor said she under- Calls to the city Health De­ the air $osed “minimal” swift and angry. bergcr, general president of stands the workers were partment weren’t immedi- loiffi-term risks to downtown “She is ultimately respon- the International Association under great stress and emo- ately returned, and regional residents — sible,” said Steve Cassidy, of Firefighters. tional strain, but that the Whitman said that within have been corroborated in president of the firefighters “You could end with the EPA cannot be faulted for “days,” the agency provided subsequent tests and studies. union “When she said tliat EPA killing more people felling to warn them of dan- .30,000 respirators, a claim “Now you have the prob­ everything was OK, the fire- than the terrorists,” added gerous toxins at Ground called “totally false” by the lem of potential long-time fighters believed those state- Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Demo- Zero. firefighters union.

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