World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

"Everybody in our field knows ultra-fines are very likely to be hazardous to our health," Perry told a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune. (17) "The EPA can't regulate such things imtil they have proof in hand or they'll get hammered in court."

Perry said the importance of his group's very-fine pollution findings was not to prove the EPA lied or set out to deceive. Rather, it was useful to show that officials failed to take into account how much emergency workers, spending large amounts of time on-site, may have been breathing in known carcinogens.

Perry said EPA's PM2.5 measurements of the area mirrored DELTA'S pollution readings near the site: “But a more thorough sampling protocol would catch all the ultra-fines his group found and offer a clearer picture of worker exposure and, possibly, what is behind the mysterious cough.”

Criticisms of the EPA On the heels of these revelations, Rep. Jerrold Nadler charged that EPA had failed to protect the public health. He remarked that “New York was at the center of one of the most calamitous events in American history and the EPA has essentially walked away.”

Rather than serving to inform the public on dangers to their health, Nadler claimed, EPA was continuously misinforming the public as to the safety of the conditions in downtown New York.

Although EPA Region II coimsel Walter Mugdan, admitted that “...a significant number of the WTC bulk dust samples that we have analyzed did have more than one-percent asbestos,” the agency repeatedly claimed the opposite. He quoted an October 3,2001 EPA memo claiming that the agency had found no “significant health risk” stating, “the vast majority of EPA and OSHA samples of air and dust analyzed for asbestos have been at levels that pose no significant health risk to residents and workers returning to their homes or area businesses.” Yet, charged Nadler, “This was one of the most often quoted EPA statements, and it continues to be echoed to this day.”

Nadler called on the federal EPA, which denied jurisdiction over indoor air hazards, to test and assure the safety of New York residences.

That went against EPA’s previously stated policy. Joe Martyak, spokesman for EPA in Administrator Christie Whitman’s office, said that already “there’s an enormous amount of money provided by the Presidential disaster declaration.” As to whether that money could be used to help in cleanup of homes and offices, however, Martyak notes, “indoor air is beyond EPA’s jurisdiction.” (13)

Nadler said that under the National Contingency Plan (NCP) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), EPA had authority to act on indoor air—and charged that EPA had not fully utilized the NCP in acting around Lower Manhattan. At the same time, he blasted EPA for on the one hand, by advising residents to clean dust- and debris-laden apartments with a wet mop or wet rag while it hired professional asbestos contractors with more stringent standards to clean its own local offices were cleaned by an asbestos contractor.

The Congressman also took aim at the various agencies passing health responsibilities aroimd like some sort of shell game. “EPA allowed the City of New York to handle indoor air quality,” he

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