Letter re: EPA/DEP WTC dust cleanup at 114 Liberty Street,

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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See Section L of my 7/4/03 report which discusses the fact that EPA Region 2 refused free TEM testing resources for dust for the rest of Manhattan from Region 8 on 9/12/01, telling them; “We don’t want you fucking cowboys here. The best thing they could do is reassign you to Alaska.”

It is very important for EPA Region 2 to cover up what happened at their own building after the WTC. Everybody knows that they evacuated even though they were claiming at the same time that this distance was far from Ground Zero and unaffected, telling the public there was no hazard nearer Ground Zero.

This is one of the most shameful, cowardly responses by EPA to 9/11. It is obvious that Region 2 is trying to avoid an adverse finding by the EPA IG about its sampling and abatement activities at 290 Broadway, even to the extent of falsifying the air monitoring data for its own building. If they can convince the IG that the air levels showed hazardous asbestos levels, then they can justify the unusual evacuation and abatement at 290 Broadway. In actuality, the only data indicating a hazard was settled dust levels. Section N of my 7/4/03 report to the EPA IG brought charges of bias and preferential treatment by EPA Region 2 on its own behalf in this regard.

US EPA (August 21,2003) Evaluation Report EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement Report No. 2003-P-00012. See p. 114. www.epa.gOv/oig/ereading_room/WTC_report_20030821 .pdf

’’ US EPA (undated) World Trade Center Indoor Dust Cleaning Program Monitoring Contract Scope of Work, http://www.epa.gov/wtc/factsheets/monitoring_sow.pdf

For the detection limits achieved for silica at 110 Liberty St, see Table 11.2, results for Unit 5A-Test 3B, and results for Unit 4A-Test 2A in EPA’s pilot cleaning study:

EPA (May, 2003) Final WTC Residential Confirmation Residential Confirmation Cleaning Study Cleaning Study, op. oil.

EPA has a history of claiming typographical errors whenever data it presents proves to be damning. See Section S, of my 7/4/03 report “Comments on the EPA Office of Inspector General’s 1/27/03 interim report...” (op. cit.J. For polychlorinat^ biphenyls (PCB’s), EPA had in its possession for over I year a report showing extremely high levels of PCB’s in dusts in lower Manhattan after the WTC collapse. The report specifically noted the high levels, drawing attention to the fact EPA did not release the information to the public or act upon it in any way. Then, in the fall of2002, when EPA included the report as a reference to its draft Constituents ofPotential Concern document, the public did notice and become alarmed. EPA iimnediately claimed the data was a typographical error, but has never provided any chain of custody documentation to prove that this was in fact just a typographical error.

Tn another instance described in my 7/4/03 report, the cleanup at EPN Plaza in NYC showed continual overloading of air asbestos samples. EPA’s Bany Breen first told the residents that nothing could be done about the situation, that it was probably only cigarette smoke causing the overloading, and that EPA had done its best and would not re-clean as required by the contractual statement of work. At this point, the press and other professionals (including myself) were contacted. Then, EPA conveniently came up with a new excuse. They claimed that they were looking at the wrong set of data, and that the sample was not overloaded at all, but instead passed the asbestos criterion.

EPA (May, 2003) Final WTC Residential Confirmation Residential Confirmation Cleaning Study Cleaning Study, op. cit.. Seepp. 9-10.

This is the result of multiplying 50 pg/m’ by 40 hrs./wk. and then dividing by 168 hours total in a week: (50) X (40/168) =12

US EPA (April, 2003) WORLD TRADE CENTER BACKGROUND STUDY REPORT INTERIM FINAL. Prepared for: United States Federal Emergency Management Agency lAG No.: EMW-2002-1A-0127. Prepared by EPA Region 2, New York City Response and Recovery Operations, Approved by; Kathleen C. Callahan, Assistant Regional Administrator, New York City Response and Recovery Operations, htlp://epa,gov/wtc/bg_report_sectionl,pdf.

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