News article about recovery and commemoration, Sept 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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A WEEKLY REPORT ON REBUILDING LOWER MANHATTAN

EPA Says Toxins Near WTC Low, But Emissions Persist By Pete Bowles A large piece of STAITWRrraR steel is loaded The amounts of toxins in cleaned . into a track at apartments and offices near the World the site of toe Trade Center site are low and well tenner World within public health guidelines, accord­ Trade Center late ing to a study released yesterday by last September. the American Lung Association ofNew The EPA has York City. found toe But the study confirmed the fears of cleanup of toxic local residents that the concentration parUcie matter of diesel emissions from constauction around the site trucks and backup generators in lower meets federal Manhattan is “quite high.” requirements. “The equipment that was rolled in ex­ pressly to help this city rebuild and heal is, in fact, contributing to —long-t«mhealtai-concems,-saidPeter— Iwanowicz, the association’s director of environmental health. “The pollution from these engines is poisoning us and contributing to the incidence ofrespira­ tory illness today and in future genera­ tions,” he added. The association recommended that all equipment and vehicles running on diesel fuel be supplied with low-sulfur fuel to reduce the diesel emissions. 1^ New York City Transit currently runs all of its buses on low sulfur fuel and is installing filters as well. :^<'.b" ..J Diesel exhaust particles are known to exacerbate allergies, trigger asthma episodes and decrease lung function and can cause cancer with prolonged AP File Photo exposure, officials said. The study, which tested air samples “We knew that large amounts of “Our new analysis shows that in the at two apartments md two offices in very fee particles, which can get deep sites we tested, those very fee parti- May, found little evidence of very fee into a person’s lungs and cause serious cles either never penetrated the indoor particles from the collapse of the trade health problems, were released from spaces or were effectively removed by center once the spaces had been the super-hot WTC collapse piles,” professional cleaning,” he said. cleaned according to Environmental said Thomas Cahill, head of an The EPA announced in May that it Protection Agency guidelines. The air-quality research group at the Uni- would dean the apartments of area res- sites were checked for partides of sili- versity of California, Davis, who took idents worried about lingering debris con, sulfur, vanadium, nickel and lead, part in the study. from the site.

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