EPA coordination emails regarding air quality, March 28, 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Gilsenan, Michael From; Chapin, Diana [NYCDEP/QUEENS/D1ANAC3] Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 5:00 PM To: 'Maldonado, Jane' Cc: Sturcken, Charles; Lanaghan, Mark; Avaltroni, Robert; Gilsenan, Michael; Kusterbeck, William Subject: RE: EPA Task Force and Working Group meetings

Charlie's Office and mine have contacts and phone numbers for REBNY, BOMA, ABO, Lower Manhattan, etc. (so does Betsy Collins/Kusterbeck re water and sewer rates notices to interested owners). I doubt if there is much utility to OEM acting as a conduit to them since the agency talks to these groups much more frequently, unless it is a group we don't have knowledge of or a contact for in which case they could help.

—Original Message- From: Maldonado, Jane Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:56 PM To: Chapin, Diana Cc: Avaltroni, Robert; Hoffer, Mark; Hoffer, Mark 001; Sturcken, Charles; Sturcken, Charles 001 Subject: EPA Task Force and Working Group meetings

I attended the NYC Task Force meeting on Wednesday, March 27 and the EPA Air Working Group meeting on Thursday, March 28. The following are highlights of both meetings.

At the NYC Task Force I reported that DEP had received approximately 50 referrals from the WTC hotline and 43 had been resolved. In all cases where an inspection was made, no visible debris/dust was observed where a sample could be taken. In addition, I stated that since Senator Clinton’s hearing, DEP responded to approximately 100 complaints via DEPHelp and, in 99 cases no visible debris or dust was observed. In the one case where DEP was able to take samples, the sample came back positive and DEP verbally requested a cleanup and the landlord complies. As I write this, DEP has received 58 referrals from the WTC Hotline; 46 have been resolved and 12 are in progress.

Parks released testing information and cleanup of said parks; only one park tested positive.

DCAS will be sharing with us, as well as EPA’s Indoor Air Working Group, the test results that they have on 20 City-owned buildings as well as 40 leased City buildings. They will add to their report the same fields as we have in our Private Owners testing results report so that City Task Force and EPA Working Group can use and plot the information as needed for their studies.

DEP’s Private Owners testing report was shared with DOITT’s contractor. Plan Graphics; DCAS’ Sylvia Price; and Dore LaPosta from EPA. Before releasing said information, Lai- Sun and Steven Levi from NYC Law gave the okay to share it among the groups. Law’s position was that health and safety should be the groups number one concern. They noted that everyone involved should keep their files in good order since they expect many claims in the future. The next meeting of the Legal group is Wednesday, 10:00 AM, at HPD. I also mentioned to Lai and Steve that DEP was working on sending out a letter to buildings owners, in which DEP identified as having debris, to allow contractors access to the property so that it may be cleaned up. I told them that Mark had the letter and had some issues with our draft. Mark for your information. Asbestos has another draft of said letter including Russell’s comments. Asbestos will forward it to you on Monday.

I reported at both meetings about DEP’s progress in securing the contracts for the exterior cleaning of buildings. Bottom line is if everything falls into place, we can begin sometime 1

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