66 JOHN 59 MAIDEN LANE

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

r! ■. I ' •

(ZZ 1

- hl VFn MvihSSIOHEil April 21,2003 ZDOJuAY-b P 2H3 Patrick Nucciarone, Esq. Suite 107,1540 Highway 138 Wall, New Jersey 07719

Dear Mr. Nucciarone:

We are writing to you again in your capacity as Federal Monitor of NYC Department of Enviroiunental Protection to apprize you of the current situation regarding the existence of asbestos and other pollutants in our offices on the IO'** floor at 66 John Street, New York City and DEP’s improper actions.

Our building, within 2 blocks of the World Trade Center, was severely affected by 9/11. The building was re-opened one week later on 9/18, and we had substantial concerns about the adequacy of the cleaning of the interior and exterior of the building. Some of us developed unexpected and unexplained physical symptoms at work, such as newly onset asthma, nosebleeds, rashes, coughs and decreased lung capacity. There concerns were verbally raised numerous times and we were repeatedly assured that management had been advised that the building was safe (however, documentary evidence supporting the claim that the building had been adequately cleaned and no pollutants existed was unavailable for our review)’. However, we found WTC debris in the radiators, indicating that a mere surface cleaning had been done. We requested on numerous occasions that the office be re-cleaned, but were always responded to with denials of the problem.

Finally, one of our staff members contacted Dr. Cate Jenkins, an EPA scientist (you have a couple of her e-mails) with experience in asbestos ([email protected]). She advised us that the best way to tell if asbestos is present in a residence or office is the EPA-approved “ultrasonication” method for carpeting, draperies or upholstery (the method number is EPA600/J-93/167, the Millette ultrasonication carpet method). According to Dr. Jenkins, over 100 times the amoimt of asbestos present will be found in carpet using EPA’s ultrasonication test, compared even to another approved test, the ASTM microvacuum sampling method; in addition, all air testing is problematic for determining whether there is an asbestos problem, and often produces completely negative results, even when asbestos is later discovered. Thus, on January 31,2003, we obtained a carpet sample and sent it for ultrasonication testing to an EPA-approved laboratory at our own expense. The lab determined that the sample was found to have a “significant” (according to the lab’s regional director Ed Cahill) amoimt of -——asbestos; 393,060 structures per centimeter square (s/cm2) (EMSL Anaiytical7THcr(21^

*We were informed that the air filter had been changed once. It is our understanding, that because of the continual disturbance of toxic debris at Ground Zero, it should have been changed monthly.

NYC-WTC_000156163