Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Pages Mr. Rick Beusae August 4,2003

samptos taken firom October 2001 thtwigh May 2002 there were only seven eitceedanecs oftheAHRRA standard/*

20. The second full par^jraph on page 20 beginning, “The indoor residential cleanup program” is inaccurate. The second sentence states that the Governor of New YoA did not declare a public health emergency, in fact, the Guvomor declared a “general emergency,” which is construed to include a public health emergency. Also, the fourth sentence states that the City indicated Art an iodnor cleanup was not necessary. This is not ccarcct. At no time did the Chy indicate Ant an iniloor cleanup was iwrt necessary. In feet, early in Ae “Response Effort,” the City inquired concerning the availability of fodetai funds (o pay for such a cleanup. The City also widely disscminalcd guidelines for bui Iding owners and tenants to clean indoor spaces. The Chy accordingly recommends Aat Ac second sentence be modified to delete Ac {Arase, “and Ac Governor of New York did not deciare a public health ema-gency for this incidcaA” We recommend that the fourth sentence of Ae paragraph be deleted.

21. We strongly recommend that the respirator sections cantainod within pages 16 through 19 be completely takes out ofthis report. Work; place safety and personal protective equipment arc matters within the jurisdiction of OSHA. These timers are, IheRffuie. inappropriate for assessment by BPA-OIG. Further, much of the material concenring respirators ;^ppears to be based on two reports that are inaccurate, incomplete and insufttciently rcscarciwd. If these scettons remain in the report, we advise the followir.g: The section entitled “Respiraior Use at Ground Zoo Lacking" should be changed to '‘Respirator Use at Ground Zero.” Within that section, the first sentence should be changed to read; “A widely publicized aspect of Ac WTC re^xmse was Ac less Asn 100% compliance with requirements to use respiratore by rescue and construction crews,” since Acre was not a total lack of rcspiratw use. The second sentence should be changed to: "Tt was beyond toe scope of this review to determine the extant ofnoocomptiance wiA respirator requirmneute and why Ais occurred” for Ae same reasem. The fourA senienue within that section should read: “Our limited woA in Ais ares indicated that respirators were widely available but provirions ofAe rite roquirwnents for using re^irators were not fully coo^lied wjA for a number of.reasmts” since Acre was a plethora of respirators at the rite. The sixA sentence cootains several inaccuracies and riiouW be changed to; “OAer reasons appeared to include tiie respirators’ interfcreRce, due to the state of Ae leclmofogy, with the ability of emergency workers to communicate and conflicting messages about tltc air quality at Ground Zero.”

22. The section entitled ‘'Reports on Ijack of Respirator Use” on page 17 should be completely deleted because, while it purports to rqnesent a total picture of site operalions, it in fort presents a very narrow ami skewed snapshot by Ae author, who was at Ao site for a very limited number of hours, and who miridentifted a key City agency -- Ae Department of Design md Construction - and its role in the rescue and recovery efforts. The bullet points slioald be taken out with the exception of the point starting wiA “During Ae September 22-26 period,” because Acre were thousands of rescue and clean­ up workers on the rite ami a DOC oHicial monitoriBg safety at the site personally

146 Report No. 2003-P-00012

NYC-WTC_000145677