NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document
New York City Department of Enviromnental Protection
Bureau of Environmental Compliance
Asbestos Control Program
Environmental Survey and Assessment of Buildings in the Vicinity of the WTC
This proposal for sampling and assessment of building interior spaces was developed using information
provided by the Indoor Air Taskforce. Hie taskforce has representatives from various agencies including
but not limited to the USEPA, ATSDR, NYSDOH, OSHA, NYCDOH, and the NYCDEP.
This evaluation and assessment is targeted to identify substances based on current knowledge of existing
contaminants after building collapses and fires, and on the review of information from sampling data to
date. The Indoor Air Taskforce has identified seven preliminary contaminants that may have impacted
buildings in the vicinity of the World Trade Center disaster. These contaminants include asbestos, fibrous
glass, refractory ceramic fibers, silica, dioxin, lead and PAHs.
The initial phase of this building interior space evaluation will be performed at 100 buildings within a
four-block radius of the WTC site. The selection of buildings will be based on the location, lack of
sampling information from the building owner, requests for sampling from building occupants, and input
from various agencies and/or organizations. Four units in each building will be selected for sampling and
evaluation. The assessments will include environmental sampling for each of the identified contaminants.
The methodology for evaluation and assessment will vary dependent on the contaminant.
Asbestos
Asbestos air samples will be collected and analyzed by TEM analysis. Five samples collected
simultaneously at each location with a minimum volume of 1200 liters. The re-occupancy standard of 70
s/mni2 will be used as the basis for evaluation of the data.
Recommendations from the task force will be used to evaluate and assess the following contaminants
fibrous glass, refractory ceramic fibers, silica, dioxin, lead, and PAHs.
NYC-WTC_000149920
OCR can misread numbers and units. Confirm readings against the page image before using them.