World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Far more important, says Burger, would be everything to do with environmental health—from the smoke and dust affecting air quality to the potential problems of rodents and rotting food in the neighborhoods affected the buildings’ collapse.

“The biggest vacuum was getting protection for the rescuers,” remembers Burger. “Because many of the rescuers weren’t wearing much of anything.” Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Don Halasy

Environmental health gaps Yet environmental health didn’t get the respect, and resources, it needed, Leighton feels. Many other officials agree that the environmental health implications of the disasters weren’t accorded enough attention at the time.

As the EPA Inspector General’s report concluded, the crucial role for enviroiunental and health expertise was deliberately removed, as the White House downplayed any perception of a health crisis.

Before that, however, EPA concluded in its first “Lessons Learned” report, that the agency was hamstrung by the perception that it wasn’t a public health agency. “Many federal, state and local entities, however, failed to sufficiently recognize and understand EPA’s role, mission and capability as part of an emergency response with environmental and human health consequences,” the report stated.

At the World Trade Center, according to this report. New York City directed the response, and EPA was responsible for the health and safety of site workers. Many non-EPA responders did not recognize EPA’s authority in decisions involved protective equipment.” And at the Pentagon, the FBI excluded EPA’s On-Scene Coordinators from being fully brought into the emergency response.

Perhaps that is a symptom of an uneasiness between public health and enviroiunental professionals and the military. (27) Dr. Patrick Meehan, Director, Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services at the National Center for Environmental Health at CDC, says that working with enforcement agencies like the FBI, as it did during the anthrax incidents, was a new experience for many in the public health establishment.

“One of the lessons learned from the World Trade Center,” Meehan told NEHA, “is that local Health departments need a lot more robust capability, to provide trusted health based interpretations of hazards to the public.” Although the New York city Health department took many responsibilities upon itself - everything from managing traditional public health to tackling occupational health with respirators - “the dilemma,” says Meehan, “was enforcement.”

All this may have led to a vacuum in environmental health leadership. Not everyone blames EPA or the city exclusively.

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