Weekly WTC conference call highlights on monitoring, Feb 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

AvaKroni, Robert From: Kelpin, Gerry Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 3:34 PM To: Gilsenan, Michael Cc: Avaltroni, Robert; Chapin, Diana; Nudelman, Harold Subject: Highlights of the weekly WTC conference call

The good news is that none of the agencies who are doing sample came up with any positive results over the last week. DDC who is doing perimeter monitoring for particulates was not on the call. They get some higher numbers at times since the monitors are close to the site but I don't think we have seen anything that has been above the standard. I just can't say with certainty what their monitoring for last week showed. We should get a summary sometime soon.

EPA is planning to propose a reduction in their monitoring efforts for dioxins, PCBs and VOCs. They won't stop unless they have buy in by all They just wanted to introduce the idea that they would be moving toward that end.

The indoor monitoring group is going to have a portion of the samples they took re-analyzed by another method that would look for fibrous glass in the dust samples. The procedure they mentioned is SEM. I don't anything other than it is able to distinguish between asbestos and fibrous glass. They might use the proposed NIOSH standard as the comparison point.

Tom Gentile from NYS DEC must have missed some of the other news stories, reports that interviewed Ms. Jenkins but saw one over the weekend. He expressed similar concern that Ms. Jenkins was represented as a spokesperson for EPA and that this report left one with the feeling that everyone in lower Manhattan was being exposed to a very dangerous situation. He didn't understand why EPA made no attempt to clarify or refute this report. A representative from EPA did explain that the Public Affairs people had spoken to the media, etc. In response to the NYCDOH letter, the draft response may say something like Ms. Jenkins position is not the agency's position and that it should be treated as we would evaluate other professionals who have commented on the work performed, methods used, data collected, etc.

Different parts of EPA and ASTDR are looking at the data that was collected by Dr. Tom Cahill from Univ, of C at the DOE building on Varick Street. There are still questions about the method and results. Dr. Cahill did testify at the Nadler hearing. It seems that various points will be debated - how far does fine dust travel; how should it be measured; what does it mean in terms of a health risk and on and on. The only thing that seems certain is that the best way to clean it up is as recommended by DOH - wet techniques.

Another topic was the indoor air taskforce. A summary is being prepared for distribution and the two items that were mentioned as all in being agreement on was 1. improved outreach and communication of information and 2. having DEP contain its assessment of the buildings and the development of a database for the asbestos sampling results for the buildings.

There was also mention that some kind of risk assessment for asbestos has to be done. It could have been phrased as "should be".

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