Congressional committee correspondence, March 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

MAR-25-2002 01:14 DEP 716 595 3481 P.02/03

FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS, 2/11/02 NEW YORK CITY FIELD HEARING ON THE IMPACTS OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACK ON AIR QUALITY

To Commissioner Joel Miele, Department of Environmental Protection, Cityof New York

7rom Senator Clinton:

1. hl your testimony, you refer to an asbestos standard of 0.01. How does this compare to the 70 structures per square millimeter standard that EPA is using? You mentioned that the agencies were meeting daily. Why didn’t the agencies agree upon a common standard to use for asbestos?

2. You also indicated that asbestos levels of 0.01 carry an “extremely low iisk” of causing illness. Please quantify the risk associated with the 0.01 .'tandard.

3. In your testimony, you stated that the City has required building owners to “assess the presence of hazardous materials such as asbestos and remediate as required under applicable City regulations using qualified professionals.” Can you please elaborate? What do the City’s regulations require? How is the City ensuring that building owners are following these regulations?

4. Later in your testimony, you state that the City is providing “oversight and guidance.” Is this in addition to requiring compliance with the regulations?

5. You also state that interior cleanups remain the responsibility of building “owners and occupants." Please provide further detail and clarification of this point.

6. Have the instructions or directions that your agency has been giving out regarding interior cleanup changed at all between now and September 11?

7. In your testimony, you mentioned that you “had to come up with some methodology” to let people back into their buildings. Please provide a copy of the methodology that was developed for this purpose.

8. How often are the roadways around ground zero and along the routes to the barges being cleaned and how has this rate of cleaning been determined? What actions are being taken to ensure that particulates and other contaminants are not resuspended into the air?

9. What efforts are being made to clean the sid^w^ks in the area, especially those around the schools?

10. There have been reports that some of the trucks transporting debris from the site are uncovered and not fully wetted down. Who is responsible for monitoring this operation?

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