Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Pagel Mr. Rick Bcusse August 4.2003

Before oommcntiHg on the excerpts that were forwarded to the City, we note flwt

allhou)^ this ofBce rc<|ucstod the entire draft report so that the City would best be able to address

the portions of die rqport concerning the City, only excerpts were supplied. Widrout access to

title esdte draft report to place sections concerning (he City into context, the City is

disadvantaged in providing comments to the excerpts. However, portions of the excerpts

concerning the City compel a response by the City and the City hcrdiy responds to the best ofits

ability, as follows.'

1. The third sentence in the first paragraph on pa^ 1 of tire excerpts of the revised draft report is misleading. The .sentence tnqilics (hat the ERA assumed a lead role in responding to indoor environmental concerns because of criticism of the City, ft implies furthermore that criticism ofthe City was warranled. The evidence does not support a conclusion that the EPA took a lead role with respect to this is-siie solely because of criticism of the City, There were a number of factors present id that time which appeis to have influenctxl the El’A, including criticism ofAe EPA and the initial availability of federal funds at that time to address this issue. More importantly, there is no evidence that any criticism ofthe City with respect to indoor taivironmental conc«BS was warranted. Also, the sentence refers to EPA initiating a multi-agency task force at that time. This implies that this was the first time (hut Ibdcral, state and City agencies worked together to address this issue. The documents supplied by the City show that federal, slide and City agencies worked logeihar beginning September 12, 2001 to address a wide variety of environmental issues, including indoor environmental concerns. We lecoountmd ttrat the sentence be revised to read, “EPA began to assume a lead role in Febroary2002, wlicu the .Agency chaired a midti-agcney task force to continue to address concerns about foe indoor environment."

2. The City has simitar comments with respect to the paragraph labeled ’‘Indoor CrKitamin^on Rci^ronsc” cm page 1. This paragraph refers to concerns raised by public and elected officials and specific criticism ofthe City. Again, including this criticism appears to imply that the criticism was warranted, particdarly since the City’s position is not presented. We note that in the same paragraph, where criticism of the EPA is set forth, the ERA’S position is presented in rebuttal to the criticism. The Qty believes that the evidence does not support: the criticism of the City. For example, criticism corweraing delegating testing and reraediation efforts to building owners and residents is unwarranted. The City did not delegate this responsibility to owners and residents. Tbe owners and reaidenta always have this r^ponsihility, it was never the City’s responsibility to do this ami consequently the City could not delegate what It did not have. Similarly, there is no evidence that die City did not cnlbrce proper procedure for cleaning asbestos where it had the enforcement authority or that the City gave improper

140 Report No. 2003-P-00012

NYC-WTC_000145495