EPA response letter with respirator policy revisions, August 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

substance release. We recommend that a footnote be added to this sentence noting that there was no hazardous substance release.

10. In the first paragraph of the sub-section labeled ’’Cleaning Instructions”, the report opines that as a result of failure of the City to recommend that residents obtain professional cleaning, long term health risks may have been increased for individuals, who cleaned their residences without using respirators and other professional cleaning equipment. This is speculation that is not supported by the evidence. As mentioned previously, the indoor sampling conducted by a number of entities, including the U.S. Public Health Service and the City in responding to asbestos complaints, indicates that asbestos contamination was virtually non­ existent. Consequently, asbestos abatement procedures were not required and the methods recommended by the City were perfectly appropriate. Accordingly, we recommend that this paragraph be deleted.

11. The last paragraph in this section is also inaccurate. The City strongly contests the current opinion of asbestos medical experts contained in the first sentence of this paragraph. First, asbestos contamination was virtually non-existent. Thus, not only is it misleading to state that there were asbestos contamination levels found, but the absence of levels of contamination does not support the conclusion of the experts. Also, the conclusion of the experts completely ignores the practicality of the situation, in that for respiratory protection to be effective, the user must be fit tested first and also that it is medically dangerous for an individual to wear a respirator without being medically cleared. Finally the last two sentences of the paragraph are sheer speculation, which should not be in an inspector general report. There is no evidence as to how the individuals cleaned their residences. More importantly, as noted previously, there is no evidence of asbestos contamination to support requirement to use abatement procedures and to support speculation that if abatement procedures were not used, health risks would be increased. Accordingly, this paragraph should be deleted.

12. The City notes that page 7 provided to the City is blank.

13. As a technical correction, the City notes that in the first paragraph on the page, the New York State Department of Labor, not the Department of Environmental Conversation is delegated the responsibility for implementing federal regulations under the NESHAP program.

14. Concerning the first full paragraph on page 9 of the draft report, the City believes that given the prominent mention of the NESHAP notification requirement, this paragraph should include a sentence indicating that the EPA because of its involvement had functional notice of the demolition and everything concerning the demolition and that as a practical matter, notification would have changed the manner in which demolition was conducted, actions would have been conducted. We recommend that the following sentence be added at the beginning of the paragraph, “While the EPA and other agencies were not provided formal written notice of the WTC demolition activities, the EPA and other regulatory agencies had notice, in advance, of the demolition activities and the manner in which they were being conducted as a result of the EPA’s involvement in the Response Effort. EPA did not object to these activities and even if formal written notification was provided, the activities would not have been conducted in any different manner.”

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