World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

“All terrorist incidents start as local events and local incident commanders are key agents for protecting the public, and need to be informed,” says Bruce Lippy, an industrial hygienist and occupational health specialist with the National Union of Operating Engineers.

“Before 9/11 none of this wasn’t really being taken seriously,” says Thomas R. Ward, R.S. Environmental Health Director for the Union County Health Department in Monroe, N.C. “Now we’re getting better prepared, with contingency plans and problem solving along the lines of what is already done in anticipation of nuclear plant hazards or incidents.”

More money is now flowing for local training programs through the Centers for Disease Control, says Ward. Federal agencies are earmarking grants to health departments and environmental health departments for added preparedness efforts as well as emergency response in such areas as insect and vector control.

“All terrorist incidents start as local events and local incident commanders are key agents for protecting the public, and need to be informed.”

It’s vital that some of the billions of dollars spent on counter terrorism efforts at the federal level flow down to the local level. And much more needs to be done to enhance local and state capacities to better identify, prevent, and respond to a host of threats, by rebuilding and modernizing infrastructure.

More important than money, infrastructure and equipment in building preparedness, however, is the value of human resources and knowledge—^relationships, institutional history and the lessons of past experience. This report conveys those hard won lessons.

Terrorism by its very nature strikes without warning, as has been said; nevertheless, preparedness is key.

Footnotes: (I) "At one time, the worst things the New York Sanitation Department's Environmental Police Unit were called to deal with were corrosive acids, toxic asbestos, contaminated needles and medical waste. But in the age radiation threatsfrom dirty bombs, the 10 men on the team have begun tofeel that they are on thefront lines in the defense ofNewYork. " littl}:/.'Www.nvtimes.com/2002/07/23/nyregion/23GAI{B.html?paeewanted=print&Dosition (2) Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, United States Senate, October 23, 2001, for Department of Health and Human Services,. (31 Tricia Wachtendotf,, field director at the Disaster Research Center at the Department ofSociology and Criminal Justice, University ofDelaware in Newark,DE. Retrievedfrom the Internet: htti)://wi\'w.udel,edu/DRC/tricia/AEM?'o20Presentation%20Juh’%202002%20DRC,pdl'

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