Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Recommendation

We recommend that the EPA Administrator:

2-1. Develop procedures for emergency risk communication to ensure that EPA’s public pronouncements regarding health risks and environmental quality are adequately supported with available data and analysis.

Additional recommendations regarding contingency planning, risk characterization and assessment, and risk communication are presented in Chapter 7.

Agency Comments and OIG Evaluation In her August 8,2003 response to our draft report, the EPA Acting Administrator stated that the report placed too much emphasis on EPA’s press releases and did not sufficiently acknowledge EPA’s many other communications. She further noted that EPA’s early statement that the air was safe to breathe was made in direct response to the public’s concern about asbestos contamination following the WTC collapse, and that the press release detailed the monitoring that led to the statement and made it clear that further monitoring would take place. The Acting Administrator also pointed out that EPA never withheld data from the public and made its extensive monitoring data available on its interactive web site. With respect to CEQ’s involvement in the preparation of EPA’s press releases, the Acting Administrator stated that the Agency coordinated with CEQ and that this coordination was neither unusual nor unexpected during a catastrophic disaster on the scale of the WTC attacks. Further, she noted that EPA acknowledges that mistakes were made and things could have been done better, and that there are lessons to be learned in the difficult area of risk communication. Improving risk communications is an Agency priority as it implements its “lessons learned.”

In our opinion. Agency press releases are a very important form of communication. As detailed in our draft report, EPA press releases result from a deliberative process that should reflect the Agency’s official position on significant issues. Press releases are made available to essentially all news media and may be quoted or paraphrased in radio, television, and other forms of communication. In our opinion, the Agency could have provided more complete and useful information in the press releases. Further, we reviewed other agency forms of communication including all communication-related documents provided by the Agency. These documents included videotaped interviews, newspaper articles, briefing notes, and other forms of communication. With respect to the Agency’s early statement about the air quality, we fully recognize the extraordinary circumstances that existed at the time the statement was made about the air being safe to breathe. It continues to be our opinion that there was insufficient information to support the statement.

The Agency’s complete written response to our draft report and our detailed evaluation of that response are contained in Appendices Q and R, respectively.

20 Report No. 2003-P-00012

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