World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

hazards all at once—i.e. worker hazards, respiratory hazards, smoke and dust. In both places, there was an unprecedented array of hazards—air, water, dust, debris, and waste removal. The pollutants presented unique challenges—asbestos, for example. Because the World Trade Center towers were built before asbestos was prohibited in 1980, the material could be found in parts of the building; yet EPA had never regulated it as an outdoor pollutant and therefore had no standard for it.

There were also traditional environmental health concerns and routine public health checks— food handling, sanitation, etc.—that needed to be tended to while managing the crisis. Plus the crisis triggered other secondary threats—like potential rat and vermin problems and infectious disease outbreaks.

Furthermore, both required a much bigger response than heretofore and more coordination among other agencies (some of which weren’t used to communicating), as well as more complicated need to communicate with the public.

Both of these incidents required coordination with emergency response officials at EPA and coordination with worker safety departments. But agencies with past experience collaborating in natural disasters or hazardous materials incidents in this case had greater difficulty. At the Pentagon, for example, EPA noted that local responders failed to recognize its crucial role in emergency response.

At the same time, public health professionals in these disasters began working with more law enforcement and military people. Unlike other natural disasters where environmental health professionals would have been called in, the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters were considered crime scenes.

“When disaster strikes you will be called upon to be there 24 hours a day,” says Ron Burger, Public Health Advisor for National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC). “What’s different now is that you will have people standing behind you carrying guns.” (4)

While there are many differences, the events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shared certain challenges that made them different from other health emergencies or disasters.■ While many observers were quick to commend the cleanup effort, environmental health agencies have drawn an equal number of critics. The condition of New York’s environment in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks became the subject of heated debate in Manhattan. EPA maintained that their studies showed the air and water were safe, while the public, local politicians and even EPA’s own ombudsman charged that the environmental health concerns were downplayed in the interests of “getting the nation back to work.”

“A driving force and priority in this crisis was to re-open the downtown area especially Wall Street. Public health was not government's main priority when the Mayor announced that Wall Street would be open the following Monday—only six days after the collapse,” charges Joel Shufro, Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. “These decisions were made at the highest levels—probably at the White House. Politics, not public health, was in command.” (5)

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