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NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

A Call to Action

The EPA must act in accordance with the NCP, and take action immediately to systematically and properly test and remediate all downtown buildings affected by the World Trade Center tragedy, using properly trained personnel, the best-available equipment and methods tied to genuine, established health-based standards. Seven months after the attacks, it is now clear that the EPA is the only governmental entity with the authority, resources, expertise and mandate to do this job. This is the only course of action if the EPA is to restore the public trust and protect the public health.

The Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force on November 19, 2001 called for then-Mayor Giuliani to designate “one city agency to oversee all environmental aspects of the debris cleanup in Lower Manhattan based on the ongoing work at the World Trade Center site, complaints by residents and business owners in the Lower Manhattan area about poor air quality, and their ongoing difficulty in obtaining information from the agencies involved in monitoring air quality.”*2®

By that time, it was abundantly clear to the local elected officials, through extended contact with constituents and outreach to agencies and other decision-makers, that confusion reigned regarding air quality. Among residents, building owners, small businesses, commercial tenants and workers, there was a paucity of information on proper testing procedures, cleaning protocols, funding sources and the myriad facts and instructions needed to cope properly with the environmental effects of the attack. At the time, it seemed that the most logical and appropriate remedy to the confusion would be for the City to provide a “one-stop shopping” agency that could oversee and guide the cleanup. This would have been a move from crisis mode management to ongoing, permanent administration.

The Task Force envisioned government functioning at its best: as a clearinghouse of information, a guidance center for the most complete and up-to-date rules, procedures and standards, and an enforcement unit to ensure that the strictest standards were observed to best ensure the public’s health.

However, the full extent of the chaos and the enormity of the call were not clear at the time. It was not known, for instance, that the EPA had delegated all responsibility for the indoor environment to the City. It was not known that the City, in him, had abrogated its responsibility bv reiving on building owners to test and clean public spaces of buildings (with little enforcement) and on individual residents and commercial tenants for private spaces (with no enforcement). The City’s negative reaction to the mere hint of mishandling of this situation, or to any constructive suggestions based on ongoing, empirical evidence inhibited success in the pursuit of this one-agency designation. Indeed- letters and phone calls to the Citv’s Office of Emergency Management went unheeded and unanswered. In the City’s quest to present the image of a neighborhood

Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force (Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Chair) Press Release, “Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force Calls for Cleanup Oversight Agency, Releases Independent Air Quality Study,” November 19.2001.

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