Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document CHAPTER 2 EPA STATEMENTS ABOUT AIR QUALITY NOT ADEQUATELY QUALIFIED Report Conclusions/Recommendations: Condusion: “EPA's early statements about air guality were incomplete in that they lacked necessary qualifications and not supported by dara available at the time. CEQ influenced the final message in EPA’s air quality statements. Competing considerations, ach $ national security concems and the desire to rcopen Wall Strect, also played a role in EPA's aie quality statements. The safety” of the air io Lower Manhattan after the collapse of the WTEC towers is stilt being debated and studied. However, given the current tack of health-based benchmarks, the lack of research dala on synergistic effects, and the lack of vsliable information on the extent of the public’s exposure to these pollutants, the answer to whether the outdoor air around WTC was “safe” to breathe ray not be seitied for ycars to come.” Recommendation: That the EPA Administrator develop procedures fos emergency risk communication to ensue that EPA‘s public pronouncements regarding health risks and environmental quality are adequately supported with avadlable data and analysis. EPA Response: NYC-WTC_000145652 The EPA “statement” referred to in the report was made days after the attack, based on Bir sons sampling 31 seven sites merounding the WIC site. The Agency knew, from testing ieee Appendix R conducted at the time of the 1993 WTC bombing, that asbestos was the primary Note 12 contaminant of concern omside the WTC site. Following 9/11, the news modia was filled with stories about possible asbestos contamination of the air. Tens of thousands of residents and hundseds of thousasds of ovarkers were displaced and scared, EPA's initial statement was made in direct response to the public’s concern abont asbestos contamination. The EPA press release fiom which the statement was quoted detailed the monitorite that led to the statement and made it clear that further monitoring for asbestos and other contaminants would take place. EPA subsequently made this and extensive additional monitoring data available on an interactive Web site that allowed people to track data at respped monitoring stations. EPA never withheld data from the public and sampling results were reposted out as soon as they were reviewed. Results were communicated in discussions with media occ oolcceccctttteeesnee representatives, federal, state and focal officisis, clected officials and interested citizens See Appendix R The Agency did coordinate press releases with the Council for Environmental Quality [Note 13 (CEQ). This is neither unusual nor unexpected dusing a catastrophic disaster on the scale 2 121 Report No. 2003-P-00012