EPA announcement on hotline registration start date, May 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

➢ From: Sudhir Jain [SMTP:s PII > > Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 10:42 PM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: FW: CALL THE CITY'S AIR QUALITY HOTLINE (212) 221-8635 > > > > > -_=.=Original-Message===- ➢ > From' PII -.-. ------- --.. ➢ > Sent_.MondayL.March. l L.2002 9:56 AM > >To_ ._._._._._._._._._._._.PII = mhu hes@gol es.org; s PIi P11 [email protected]; [email protected] ➢ > Subject: CALL THE CITY'S AIR QUALITY HOTLINE (212) 221-8635

> Dear Everyone— The City's Air Quality Hotline, run by the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), begins taking calls today (March 11). That number is (212) 221-8635. As the NY Times reported, the phone line will operate Monday through Friday from 11 am to 7 pm. We should spread the word that everyone needs to start calling with their requests for info, clean-up and also accounts of health effects. (If they won't accept and agree to make a record of your health complaints, ask them whom you should call to make such a report. Ask them when the Health Registry will be up and running.) Ask them when the barge will be moved. Please take notes. When you get off the phone, write down the conversation as completely as you can, with the date and time of the call. At the City Council hearing last Friday, Council member Christine Quinn was very interested in knowing how well this hotline would work-- and I think we should give her a full report. Also it's important that folks who speak Chinese and Spanish call, and then let everyone know whether the city has made provision for non- English speaking communities.

➢ (FYI, The OEM has run hotlines in the last few summers to answer questions and address concerns about West Nile Virus and the pesticides the city was using, and to provide info on spray schedules. The Law Project has received many reports from residents about incorrect information, from unreliable spray schedules, to bad advice and inaccurate info about the pesticides. More than a week into the 1999 spray campaign, a Queens resident who had been directly sprayed discovered, when she called the hotline for information about the pesticide, that the OEM, which ran the campaign, did not even have the Material Safety Data Sheet for malathion--despite the fact that OEM was required by law to have it in their possession as •soon as they started applying the pesticide.)

Kimberly Flynn, NY Env. Law and Justice Project ~4L L

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