DEP fax header with article title, June 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document jnN-09-2002 10:15 NYC DOH LfiSU 212 676 6159 P.04/06

recorded higher levels than the federal standard.

But Joel Kupferman, the environmental law project's executive director, is not convinced.

"They've created this false climate that things are safe," he said. "They're trying to insinuate that since September 11th, the problem is gone and it's going to get better."

Alerted to concerns about Tabb's building, he said, the project hired an independent industrial hygienist to conduct tests of surfaces there on Dec. 3, using methods published by the American Society for Testing and Materials. The tests found the presence of settled asbestos dust 555 times above the suggested acceptable level.

Asked about those results, spokesman Geoff Ryan of the city's Department of Environmental Protection said the department does not recognize this type of test, and that its own tests at the building, done on Dec. 12. had come back negative.

Scientists with HP Environmental Inc. of Reston, Va., warn that the asbestos dust in Lower Manhattan is so finely pulverized that the EPA’s more conventional tests may not pick itup. Ilie company tested the air forthe Port Authority of New York and New Jersey following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, andit returned after Sept. 11 to test for dangerous levels of asbestos.

Their first tests on Sept. 21 and 22 found that the air was safe.

But follow-up tests, aimed at detecting finer particulate matter, recorded much higher levels of contamination. Now they suspect that asbestos is embedded in the walls and carpeting of nearby buildings, according to the study team's leader, Hugh Granger.

EPA officials offer conflicting advice at this point. They say the apartments and office towers around ground zero are safe — but they advise landlords to seek professional asbestos cleaners. And they've advised all workers on the site to wear respirators.

"There is nothing we have found that is at a significant level," said Bellow of the EPA, "that would say you should not come here to live or work"

Some environmental experts say that the EPA, at the very least, failed to promptly communicate test results to the public. The agency was too quick, they said, to interpret a few test results as a clean bill of health.

"The public did not receive the information it needed in a prompt fashion," said Eric Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who is working on an environmental assessment of the World Trade Center area Asked about the EPA's early assurances that the air was

http7/www.washingionpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/Al 1173-2002Jan7.htnil 01/08/2002

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