Memo with comments on EPA draft document, August 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

emergency. Also, the fourth sentence states that the City indicated that an indoor cleanup was not necessary. This is not correct. At no time did the City indicate that an indoor cleanup was not necessary. Ilie City;yvdthjhejigreem^3t^3fjJie EPAj3eldj3wnersj;esponsibleJ(ni^^ their property and taking appropriate action (cleaning in accordance with the guidelines that were issued or, when indicated, professionally assessing and then either cleaning or abating. depending on the results). In fact, early in the “Response Effort”, the City inquired concerning the availability of federal funds to pay for such a cleanup and it was determined that property owners would be Financially responsible but would have access to assistance through the DASC.t The City accordingly recommends that the second sentence be modified to delete the phrase, “and the Governor of New York did not declare a public health emergency for this incident.” We recommend that the fourth sentence of the paragraph be deleted. JNOTE2 ypu jhpuIdJmow that Sec'v Thompson of DHHS did declare a “public health emergency” early on 9/11. I have a copy of the document that states: Determination that a Public Health Entersency Exists—As a consequence of (he acts of terrorism committed against the United States of America on this date and after consultation with the Acting Secretary of Health, I, Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pursuant to the authority vested in me under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, do hereby determine that a public health emergency exists. " Date—Sep 11 2001 ” and signed by the Secretary Thompson. This was issued so that DHHS, specifically PHS (and thus the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) and CPC, could start an immediate response.

We had discussed at our meeting the fact that the FEMA does not have any special authority under the Stafford act for responding to a “public health emergency.”

Thank you for the opportunity to comment concerning the revised draft report. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff.

I did not see a comment regarding p.l5, the section titled "Unprotected Workers Cleaned Contaminated Oflice.s and Residences". First, worker protection is primarily, but not exclusively, an QSHA issue and, therefore, this section should be deleted unless it is part of a larger discussion of EPA’s response to all worker protections issues. If this section is not deleted, than it should change the title. The title, as it stands currently, implies that all workers were unprotected and that is unsupported by the facts. Lastly, the statement that “these workers reported health symptoms that first appeared or worsened after September 11, 2001” is. on the face of it. questionable because there was no response to WTC p/'zor to September 11.

Revised Draft SB Coinments.doc 7 8/3/3

NYC-WTC_000153370