Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Page 9 Mr. Rkk Beusse August 4,2003

observed n»ny who did 'wear (e^oatars diKgcntly. There arc huiutreds of photographs that depict the use of respiratory equipment and hard hats. Rc^nrator use was traded and enforced throughout the response to fee disaster. In addition, this was not a hazardous waste operation. OSHA defines the set^ of a “laz.airluus waste coloration” as “clean up opoatious requited by a govcrruuctrtai body, wticthcr federal, state, focal or other, involving hazardous substances that are conducted id uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.” Altoougli the debris produced by the collapse of the WTC did contain minor concentrattoBS of various contantinaBU, including aidtestas, fihcrglaRK and alfcatine cement dust, extensive sampling never indicated the ptcacnoe of hazardous waste as defined by die PPA in Resource Conservaitoa and Recovery Act rcgaladons 40 CFR Parts 260-280. In addition, there was an aggressive safety und health effort underway, spearheaded by the DDC and OSHA working in close collaboration. Bcgtiunng September 12,2001, daily health and safety meetings were held and attended by multiple City, State and Pedeaaf agencies, including EPA, FEMA, OSHA, DEC, DDC, DOH, DEP. FDNY, NYPD «m1 OEM, together with the contraclors’ safety persanitcl, al which air monitoring and PRE protocols were discu^cd and established. There was a prelinrinary “Accident Prevention Plan” in place foam September 14,2001 through October 29,2001, at whxdi time flw World Trade Cooter Emersency “Environment, Safely and Health Plan” wont into etlect. Teams of safety and hea’fe professionals worked around the clodt providing “direct intervention’’ to get workers to comply with basic safety and health reqirircracate, cspOciaUy the use of PPE. There wears as many as 30 siifety profes.siooals on site ^h day. OSHA employees wore constantly roving the site wife safety equipment, and provided hands-on instruction and preliminary fit cheeking at IS 89 and at supply caches on fee site. There are tens ofthousands of docuntenis which record these raulli-agewy Itcallh and safety efforts, many of which have already been provided to fee EPA, Addtlkinal docimiants can he provided upon request 23. On page 18, fee first sentence beginning with ‘Tn contrast” should read as follows; ‘Tn contrast to the recovery operation at the WTC site, the January 2002 report noted that workers condacting WTC debris sorting and. inspection at fee Freeh Kills landfill wore half-face re^iratws, hard hats, eye protection, and Tyvek suits.” The language that fee work at Prcrfi Kills was handled as a “hazardous waste opmdioo” ifeouM be eliminated because WTC debris al the Fresh Kills landfill, and at Ground Zero, did no* call for a hazardous waste response under OSHA or EPA standards, nor was it handled as such. The next sentence should bt^n; “The author opined” to avoid an erroneous impression feat the reported infomjation was an EPA finding. The sentence btqpmung “hi other words” is inaccurate and should be replaccxl with: “The author’s percqitlon was feat PPE use was more prevalent st the Fresh Kills landfill than ad fee WTC site.” The report as written is again misleading in describing tlie debris as hazardous waste, and mtscharacterizes fee Fresh Kills landfill operation, whid) presealed its own unique, mulli-feceted challenges, as “less hazardous.”

24. On pugc 19 the fast sentence of fee first foU parajpaph beginning “As the resraie phase processed,” should be changed to read as follows: “As the rescue |feasc

147 Report No. 2003-P-00012

NYC-WTC_000145502