Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Page 5 Mt. Rick Beusse August 4,2003

impossible for the City to comment on the source of the allegation. Again, the City at that time was willing and eager to accept all authorized federal assistance. Moreover, as shown in the documents submitted by the City, the City had accepted U.S. Public Hedth Service and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) assistance in conducting indoor air sampling. Thus, it would be inconsistent for the City to refuse the assistance of the EPA — another federal agency — in this mattn; la fact, EPA participated in the discussion with ATSDR. concerning the protocol for the Indoor Air Study. The City has already commented concoming the alleged statement made on September 30,2001, which is referenerd in this paragraph (see item 3, above) and will not repeat its comments. The City recommends that the two sentences that refer to the statements allegedly made on October 9,2001 and September 30,2001 be deleted. 8. The City believes that the paragraph labeled “Multi-Agency Residential Cleanup Undertaken” on page 5 is somewhat mislrading. The second sentence suggests feat the sole basis for EPA’s involvement in indoor air in February 2002 was feat it believed the City could not handle all the issues involved in this matter. This is not accurate. First, EPA did not just become involved in indoor issues in February 2002. As shown by fee documents submitted by fee City, BPA was involved in indoor air isBu» as early as September 29,2001. Second, there were a number ofevents feat coalesced around February 2002 that brought about more involvement in indoor issues by die EPA, including, public criticism of fee EPA and, perhaps most importantly, fee initial availability of federal funding for indoor cleaning ofprivate residmices. Therefore, fee City tocommoids that fee second sentence be deleted. 9. The first paragraph in the section labeled “EPA Role on Indoor Environment” on page S is misleading. It refers to fee portion ofthcNCP which allows a state or local agency to take the lead role in fee case of a hazardous substance release. However, in this case, fee site was not declared a hazardous waste site. We recommend that a footnote be added to this sentence noting that fee site was not declared a hazardous waste site. 10. In the first paragraph of fee subsection labeled ’’Cleaning Instnictions” on page 6, the report opines that as a result of fee failure of fee City to recommend that residents obtain professional cleaning, long term health risks may have been increased for individuals who cleaned their residences without using respirators and other professional cleaning equipment. This is speculation that is not supported by the evidence. Indoor air sampling data along wife the “Interim Final WTC Residential Confirmation Cleaning Study,” completed by EPA Region 2 in May 2003, confirm feat the methods recommended by fee City, and adopted in the EPA website, were appropriate. Accordingly, we recommend that this paragraph be deleted. II. The last paragraph in this section is also inaccurate. The City strongly contests fee currait opinion of asbestos medical experts contaiired in fee first sentence of this paragraph. First, a hi^ body of test results established feat asbestos contamination in indoor air was virtually nonexistent. Also, the conclusion of fee experts completely ignores fee practicality of the situation, in feat for respiratory protertion to he effective.

143 Report No. 2003-P-00012

NYC-WTC_000145674