Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document . EPA should define and clarify internal EPA organizational roles and responsibilities in responding to large-scale disasters. This should inclode designating teams of Agency experts — at both the National and Regional level ~ that can be mobilized to quickly provide needed technical support during a response. These areas may include specialized sampling techniques, exposure modeling and assessment, and risk assessment. .* EPA should develop and improve health-related benchmarks that can be used to assess health risk in emergencies (specific list recommended} * EPA should develop an emergency quality assurance sexnpling pian to be used as a guidance for monitoring environmental conditions after a large-scale disaster. It should address monitoring objectives, sampling and analytic methods, and siting of monitars. EPA Response: With respect to the conclusion, EPA emphasizes that, at the WTC response, itcertainly éd fee ite opinions and j Se rene wealth andthe. BK ae environment and will continue to do so within the context of its authorities and its role [Note 27 under the Federal Response Plan. With respect to the recommendations, it should be recognized that the Department of Homeland Security looks to EPA and other agencies to assist them in identification of potential targets and critical infrastructure. In fact, EPA has already provided much of the information recommended, to DHS. EPA callects the data under various legislative and repulatory programs and uses it to develop approaches aed establish plans of sction for protection of public health and safety in collaborution with State and local agencies. EPA gencraly agrees with the other Chapter 7 recommendations, 1) 130 Report No. 2003-P-00012 NYC-WTC_000145485