WTC document preservation notice, NYC Law Department

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Andrew Schneider, the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist, charges “the USGS data was not releas^ by the EPA nor apparently were the environmental agency’s own test results on the dust.” The EPA claims to have released this data to the public, but when Schneider reviewed all of the EPA’s statements made since 9/11, he found nothing that warned of these high pH levels. According to the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), such dust “once its in contact with moist tissue - the.throat, the mouth, nasal passages, the eyes and even sweaty skin - it becomes corrosive and can cause severe bums.” This is utterly scandalous. We must find out why the EPA hid this information from the public and we must see all the data now. I hope that Senators Clinton and Lieberman will join me in calling on the federal government to explain why New Yorkers were misled, and to demand the immediate release of the full compliment of data.

The EPA has not only provided false reassurances and misleading information. The EPA has also abrogated its responsibility to act. In a statement issued on January 17* in response to a press conference I held, the EPA states that it, “has lead [sic] the effort to monitor the outdoor environment while the City of New York has taken the lead regarding the reoccupancy of buildings. “ At least the EPA admits that it has delegated authority to the city. Unfortunately, the EPA has yet to provide any justification for doing so, nor has it provided any evidence of the oversight measures it is compelled to take to ensure that the city is actii^ in accordance with the strictest federal standards. On January 23"*, I sent a formal inquiry to Administrator Whitman asking for answers to these and other questions about the City’s response, which I submit for the record today. It has been over three weeks since the letter was sent and I have yet to g^ a response.

The EPA might say today, as it has in the past, that it does not have the proper legal authority to take the steps we are requesting to test and clean the areas affected by the collapse of the World Trade Center. It will probably say that the Clean Air Act, for example, does not govern indoor air and that it is therefore the responsibility of the local and state governments, or even that of the landlords and residents themselves. This is, again, all utterly misleading.

Under Section 303 of the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the authority in an emergency situation to protect human health when there is an “imminent and substantial endangerment” presented by a source of pollution. The intent of Congress is clear in this regard. A Senate Report from 1970 on Section 303 statM, “The levels of concentration of air pollution agents or combination of agents which substantially endanger health are levels which should never be reached in any community. When the prediction can reasonably be made that such elevated levels could be reached even for a short period of time - that is that they are imminent - an emergency action plan should be implemented.” In short, the EPA should not wait for people to actually get sick before it acts, and it clearly has the authority to act under this law. Indeed, an EPA memo entitled “Guidance on the Use of Section 303 of the Clean Air Act” was issued to the Regional offices on September 15, 1983 outlining these very points. I submit a copy of this memo for the record.

But the Clean Air Act is not the only governing statute. The EPA has the authority to act on indoor air under the National Contingency Plan (NCP) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). In fact, I understand that the EPA has t

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