EPA response letter with respirator policy revisions, August 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

characterized as sporadic. We recommend that the paragraph be revised to delete the table showing the exceedances and any reference to the table be deleted. And, also reference that two of the exceedances were near Stuyvesant High School. Reference to Stuyvesant implies that this location should be given preference over other locations near the site. The fourth sentence of the paragraph should be revised to read, “Out of approximately 40,000 samples taken from October 2001 through May 2002 there were only seven exceedances of the AHERA standard.” The seventh sentence should be revised to read, “The above information shows the virtual non­ existence of asbestos in the ambient air in publicly accessible locations at levels of concern established by EPA for the WTC response (i.e., the AHERA standard) from October 2001 to May 2002.”

20. The second lull paragraph on page 20 beginning, “The indoor residential cleanup program” is inaccurate. The second sentence states that the Governor of New York did not declare a public health emergency. Although the Governor did not declare a public health emergency, he declared a “general emergency”, which is construed to include a public health emergency. Also, the fourth sentence states that the City indicated that an indoor cleanup was not necessary. This is not correct. At no time did the City indicate that an indoor cleanup was not necessary. In fact, early in the “Response Effort”, the City inquired concerning the availability of federal funds to pay for such a cleanup. The City accordingly recommends that the second sentence be modified to delete the phrase, “and the Governor of New York did not declare a public health emergency for this incident.” We recommend that the fourth sentence of the paragraph be deleted.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment concerning the revised draft report. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff.

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