World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

It would take many months even for the experts to begin to assess the risks of the type of pollution event that occurred at the World Trade Center.

And when the anthrax crisis hit a few weeks later, government agencies would call on all resources at their disposal. For example, by October, some 58 Coast Guard Strike Team members managed by the National Strike Force Coordination Center in Elizabeth City, N.C., would deploy to the WTC Site, Washington, D.C., and Boca Raton, Fla., to assist other agencies with response as a result of terrorist attacks.

It would be the first time in the Coast Guard Strike Force’s history that they would be assisting in the mission of biohazard cleanup. EPA asked the Strike Force, specialists in emergency and chemical response to help with monitoring the air, overseeing contractors and washing stations in New York at Ground Zero and the Staten Island evidence collection site.

Unique challenges Typically, OSCs go into hazardous situations needing to monitor for a particular toxic chemical or set of chemicals—as might be of concern in a hazardous truck spill on the highway. But this mode was not adopted.

“Our initial response wasn’t viewed as a hazmat response,” says Touw. “When you have something like gas venting or a tank car derailed with a hole in it and spilling, then you evacuate the area, and neutralize it to stop it. ”

The pollution threat here was quite different. Here there were huge plumes of fiimes and dust laced with unknown chemicals.

“In this situation, the problem was a huge volume of debris with small amounts of hazardous materials, as well as large plumes of smoke containing unknown byproducts of so many things— burning plastics, carpets, computer parts,” says Touw. It was difficult to say how much PCB or heavy-metal content might be present or “could be burned off,” he says.

What rescue workers and New Yorkers might be breathing as a result of the fallout at Ground Zero was only one of many concerns Touw was “tasked with.” Within several days EPA had dispatched ten special vacuum truck equipped with HEPA filters to clean dust off the streets of Lower Manhattan.

Also unique to this disaster for EPA’s Touw was the vast range of environmental-oriented tasks needing to be addressed. Besides air and dust monitoring there was also:

• Setting up “washdown” stations for workers and for vehicles exiting the site: • Collecting hazardous materials in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, within the dozen subfloors; • Disposing of hazardous wastes, such as scrap metals that had to be staged while en route to various landfills or recycling companies, or drums and tanks that might be found; • Monitoring storm water discharges to the Hudson River, everything from chemicals that leached to the bacterial contaminants from body parts; • Securing respirators for the Department of Health. • Working with the contractors on the debris removal, should there be any particularly hazardous wastes unearthed.

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