Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Environmental Threats from Potential Terrorist Attacks Need to Be Assessed

It is understandable that the government and others were not fully prepared for what happened on September 11. Now that the country has experienced such an attack and lives under the threat of future attacks, it is important that the Agency anticipate and plan for different disaster scenarios. To the extent that EPA can anticipate various scenarios and plan for the type of environmental response needed before a disaster strikes, the Agency’s response efforts can be more focused on appropriate implementation and avoid making interpretative, technical, and policy-setting decisions with potential public health implications during the stressful and time-demanding circumstances created by an emergency.

The experience of September 11 has provided the Agency with considerable information on what to expect of a large-scale disaster involving office and multi­ family residential buildings in a densely populated urban environment. However, disasters involving other scenarios, other types of targets, and other locations may present different challenges. For example. New York City has significant emergency response and environmental resources - other cities may not and may require more assistance from EPA. In addition, EPA Region 2’s office was located within New York City and close to the disaster site, and EPA’s national Environmental Response Team was located in nearby Edison, New Jersey, approximately 30 miles away. This was important, because air travel was curtailed for several days after the attacks. EPA may not be as closely located to the next disaster.

Disasters in different parts of the country could present different, perhaps greater, environmental exposures than at WTC. EPA researchers told us the tall buildings in New York City combined to create a “chimney effect” that helped to push air and pollutants upward and away from street level. Winds also helped disperse and dilute WTC airborne emissions, and rain during the first week helped alleviate dusty conditions. If a similar disaster were to strike in a city with different geography and weather patterns, a more serious exposure scenario could develop.

Accordingly, EPA should work with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to share information on high-risk targets and areas, and develop plans for responding to an emergency situation in those areas. These plans should address the different scenarios anticipated from a disaster involving these targets and how EPA, other Federal, and the appropriate State and local agencies should respond to these different scenarios.

58 Report No. 2003-P-00012

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