EPA letter to Congress regarding 114 Liberty cleanup, September 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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See Section L of my 7/4/03 report which discusses to 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 tom: “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 tot toy evacuated even though they were claiming at the same time tot this distance was far from Ground Zero and unaffected, telling the public there was no hazard nearer Ground Zero.

This is one of to most shameful, cowardly responses by EPA to 9/11. It is obvious that Region 2 is trying to avoid an adverse finding by to EPA IG about its sampling and abatement activities at 290 Broadway, even to to extent of falsifying the air monitoring data for its own building. If toy can convince to IG tot to air levels showed hazardous asbestos levels, then they can justify to 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 to 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 to 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.7/www.epa.gov/wtc/factsheets/monitoring_sow.pdf

For to detection limits achieved for silica at 110 Liberty St., see Table 11.2, results for Unit 5A-Test3B, 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. cit.

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 to EPA Office of Inspector General’s 1/27/03 interim report...” (op. cit.). For polychlotinato biphenyls (PCB’s), EPA had in its possession for over 1 year a report showing extremely high levels ofPCB’s in dusts in lower Manhattan after to lAT'C collapse. The report specifically noted to high levels, drawing attention to to fact EPA did not release to information to to 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 of Potential Concern document, to public did notice and become alarmed. EPA immediately claimed the data was a typographical error, but has never provided any chain of custody documentation to prove that this was in tot just a typographical error.

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

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

’’ This is to result of multiplying 50 gg/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-IA-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. http://ej)a.gov/wtc/bg_report_section I .pdf.

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