Caustic dust health hazard report, Feb 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Ilan, Lee From: Cooper, Barbara [email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 12,2002 11:19 AM To: '[email protected]' Subject: st louis dispatch article

Use link or see below; http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Health%20and%20Scienc e/6C8A9B4E472FA4DB86256B5B006841BB?OpenDocument&Headline=Caustic%20dust%20bl ankets%20World%20Trade%20Center%20area Caustic dust blankets World Trade Center area By Andrew Schneider , Of the Rost-Dispatch 2002 K) St. Louis Rost-Dispatch 02/09/2002 09:00 AM < . - '

The Environmental Rrotection Agency has decked out lamp poles on almost every block of lower Manhattan with clusters of air monitors and vacuum pumps to measure contaminants in the air from the collapsed World Trade Center. These monitors are of little or no value when it comes to determining the health hazard from dust contaminating apartments and offices. {Kevin Manning <mailto:[email protected]>/R-D) NEW YORK - Even as the dust from the collapsed World Trade Center was still settling, top government scientists were determining that the smoky gray mixture was highly corrosive and potentially a serious danger to health.

The U.S. Geological Survey team found that some of the dust was as caustic as liquid drain cleaner and alerted all government agencies involved in the emergency response. But many of those on the front lines of protecting the health of the public and workers cleaning up the site say they never got the information.

"I'm supposed to be in the loop, and I've never heard any specific numbers on how caustic the dust actually was," said Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "There is a large segment of the population here whose physicians needed to know that information that USGS submitted. Exposure to dust with a high pH could impact everyone, but especially the very young, the very old and those with existing pulmonary disease." Census data show large concentrations of young and elderly living near the World Trade Center site.

The ERA'S office in New York said it repeatedly told the public that the dust was caustic because of the cement that was pulverized when the towers collapsed. But an examination of all the ERA'S public and press statements made since Sept. 11 found nothing that warned of the very high pH levels found by the Geological Survey scientists. Nor did the statements disclose the specific levels that the ERA'S own testing found.

"We've not heard of ERA or anyone else releasing information on specific pH levels in the dust, and that's information that we all should have had," said Carrie Loewenherz, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, which provides assistance to more than 250 unions.

"It's the specific numbers - those precise pH levels - that we need to make the appropriate safety decisions for the workers, and they were never released," Loewenherz said. "The dust, once ifs in contact with moist tissue, the throat, the mouth, nasal passages, the eyes and even sweaty skin, it becomes corrosive and can cause severe burns."

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