ATC Associates monitoring contractor review, Jan 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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Gilsenan, Michael From: Theodorellys, Penny Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 5:25 PM To: Radhakrishnan, Krish Co: Gilsenan, Michael Subject: ATC Associates

I visited the offices of ATC Associates (ATC) on January 30, 2003 to examine the monitoring contractor’s performance with regards to the USEPA indoor residential cleaning and testing program.

Overall, ATC Associates seemed to have had some tracking problems that are in the process of being corrected with changes being implemented. The tracking procedures are therefore in the initial stages, even though work had been proceeding with a paperwork system.

Here are the figures and specific comments: 1. ATC had been getting a poor response from residents in their contacting and scheduling. An overall improvement in the trend was seen after the implementation of the cancellation policy (subjective - not verifiable due to original tracking methods). 2. 1697 Total residence requests were received; 277 were for “test only” and 1420 were for “clean and test”. 74 “whole building” requests were received (duplicate requests in the system were for the most part corrected. 3. All 74 “whole building” requests have HVAC/exhaust system evaluations. All HVAC systems have been evaluated. Exhaust systems were not evaluated and ATC has to return to each of the buildings to complete these evaluations. Only 3 of the 74 were high rise buildings with more complicated systems. ATC has completed 31 inspections. None of the 31 buildings have been “dirty”. Accumulations of debris had been observed at 310 Greenwich and 80 North Moore but the accumulations were not consistent with the WTC debris. These were original inspections done where sampling was performed. Although not impacted by the WTC, these systems were found to not be functional with heavily coated filters and virtually no air flow. The report was sent to the building management and IPN and ATC is not aware of any further action. 4. ATC was directed that changes from “test only” to “clean and test” were no longer permitted during this past week. Overall, they had not received many requests for changes and most were from “clean and test” to “test only”. No figures available. The changes are reflected in the numbers above. ATC has been dealing directly with Dennis Santella at USEPA for changes in the database. 5. 250 residence clean ups have been completed. Of those, two were modified scope B and one more is pending. 54 test only residences have been completed. 6. The cancellation policy has been implemented, but as mentioned in the overall it is at its original stages. ATC had originally attempted contact with all requests in what was called a call “blitz”. There is a record on or in a file folder for 780 of these calls. This information was not entered or tracked and is not being considered in the number of calls for implementation of the cancellation policy. Therefore, the second calls that are now in progress will be counted as first calls for purposes of the cancellation policy. ATC plans to enter retroactive information back to 1/20/03 only. 7. 4 cancellation letters have been sent out. An additional 6 cancellations are in progress. When a cancellation is received in less than 24 hours, ATC sends an e-mail to USEPA and awaits USEPA instructions to remove the individual. A letter is sent out after USEPA instructs to remove. 8. 14 residents withdrew from the program. 9. ATC has an interesting tickler file cabinet with over 230 folders (based on a quick count). The cabinet contains residents where contact was made and in most cases the interview took place, but for various reasons the cleaning was not scheduled. By next week, ATC will incorporate 1

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