EPA and City Plan for Indoor Air Quality, May 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

— :r— r— ® U.S. Environmental Protection Agency • Region 2 A D» New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands 290 Broadway - New York, New York 10007-1866 www.epa.gov/region2

Contact: Mary Mears 212-637-3669

Contracts for EPA’s Downtown Residential Dust Cleanup Program Are Awarded

FOR RELEASE:Thursday, September 12, 2002

(#02XXX) New York, N.Y. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that eight contracts have been awarded for the downtown World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP). The cleanup program will be managed by EPA. Two contractors, one project monitoring contractor and one cleanup contractor, will work in each of four quadrants of the eligible cleanup area - south of Canal, Pike and Allen Streets, river to river. These quadrants were drawn to allow each contractor to handle an equivalent number of requests (see attached map of quadrants or visit EPA’s Web site at www.epa.gov/wtc ). The monitoring contractors will schedule cleanups and testing, do a pre-cleanup walk-through to gather information and answer questions, monitor the work of the cleanup contractor and conduct all sampling. This sampling includes post-cleanup air sampling, air sampling in homes at which only testing was requested and wipe samples taken in a subset of homes.

As of September 10, 2002, more than 4,000 residents of lower Manhattan have signed up to have their homes tested, or cleaned and tested, under EPA’s Residential Dust Cleanup Assistance Program. In May, EPA and its federal, state and city partners announced a comprehensive plan to ensure that apartments impacted by the collapse of the World Trade Center have been properly cleaned. The plan was developed in consultation with the multi-agency Task Force on Indoor Air in Lower Manhattan created by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. A hotline to register residents for the cleanup program was launched in June. EPA has already begun testing homes for asbestos in air, and cleanups are beginning this week.

The 8 contractors and contact information, listed by quadrant, are as follows:

Quadrant A Quadrant C Monitoring - ATC Associates Monitoring - Warren & Panzer Cleanup - Trio Asbestos Cleanup - Kiss Construction, Inc.

Quadrant B Quadrant D Monitoring - Cole Consulting Monitoring - Athenica Environmental Services Cleanup - JBH Environmental Cleanup - Terrmon Construction, Inc.

Contractors will have identification and will give the resident the confirmation number that was provided during sign up. If residents suspect that a company may be fraudulently posing as a contractor for the cleanup program, they should call EPA’s Office of the Inspector General at 212-637-3036. For more information about the cleanup program, visit EPA’s WTC Web site (: 7epa/gov/wtc) or call EPA’s WTC Hotline at 1-877-796- 5471 or, for the deaf and hard of hearing, TTY 1-800-396-1018.

NYC-WTC_000143955