NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document
contractors, followed by air asbestos testing. Contractors’ employees will not be
required to use asbestos abatement protective clothing or respirators unless OSHA
determines such use is required or unless sampling results exceed airborne standards.
An oversight function will be designed into tins initiative to assure that when large
amounts of visible dust have accumulated in apartments, and/or no cleaning has bear
performed to date, or any other unexpected circumstance arises that puts employees at
risk; no cleaning will take place, or cleaning will immediately be discontinued until EPA,
OSHA and the City coordinate to ensure that the employees performing the cleaning use
appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment commensurate with the potential
for emloyee risk.
b) Testing for airbome asbestos within residences or building areas. (Should testing results
identify an airbome asbestos problem, arrangements can be made rapidly to have
professional clean up done.)
c) Providing HEPA vacuums to residences who request to perform their own cleaning on an
ongoing basis.
Projected Cost: Needs to be determined. (The March 11 broad mission assignment submittal was for
$80 million based upon a gross estimate of 5,000 apartments requesting clean up and post
testing.) Vacuums cost approximately $400/each. Apartment cleaning is approximately
$14,000/apartnient. Testing for asbestos is approximately $3,i /apartment. Commercial
space cleaning and testing is $6-8 /sq. foot. Total costs will not be available until the information
campaign is complete and EPA can determine the extent of what will be required.
2. Targeted Sampling to Determine if There are Occupied Locations Require Additional Cleaning
Objective: To determine whether there are levels of airborne asbestos in excess of benchmarked level
in a geographic sample of indoor environments in Lower Manhattan.
Program: EPA will collect airborne asbestos samples within a variety of residential buildings in different
geographic areas of Lower Manhattan, south of Canal Street. Based upon tins data, and other
data available, EPA and NYC expect to have a better ability to provide a qualitative
reassurance that clean ups already conducted by building owners and residents are effective.
EPA will identify the locales to be sampled and will work with building owners and residents to
obtain access for this sampling. If sampling determines that cleaning is required, EPA, working
with NYC, will ensure that the cleaning is tmdertaken as soon as possible. EPA will publically
release the information collected from this sampling as it becomes available on a rolling basis, to
keep the public informed of results.
Projected Cost: $3i per location sampled. Estimate 25- 50 locations.
3. Pilot Building Cleaning Effort to Confirm Cleaning Techniques
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