NYC-WTC_000232862

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

No Potential for asbestos hazard

Dear Resident, Address

The New York City Department of Health, with the assistance of the U.S. Public Health Service the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), conducted environmental sampling in your building on _date_. This sampling was conducted to determine the potential for environmental exposures to materials from the World Trade Center collapse and possible health implications of the exposures. The specific focus of the sampling was to characterize the make-up and size ranges of settled dust and airborne dust in residential areas - both indoors and outside - near the World Trade Center site.

Up to four areas of your building were sampled, outside------- , the hallway------- , and two residences. At each location one dust sample and one air sampled were collected, unless otherwise noted. Although the samples were analyzed for asbestos, dust, fibers, silica and other minerals, only the results from the asbestos portion of the samples are available at this time. This letter only conveys and explains the findings of the asbestos and fiber analyses.

Neither the dust outside of your building, collected by scraping the sidewalk, nor the dust inside of your building, collected by vacuuming, contained any asbestos fibers. The vacuum sample was collected from a large section of open floor, and gathered many types of materials that are normally present in household dust such as: dirt from outdoors, hair, skin cells, and fibrous materials. All dust samples were analyzed by two laboratory methods to confirm no asbestos fibers were present (polarized light microscopy and transmission electron microscope). The laboratory methods were able to identify and quantify the fibrous material components. The attached summary shows these results and identifies the other types of fibers that were found in your home: wool, fiberglass, synthetics, and cellulose. Cellulose, may come from paper, cardboard or other wood based products in your home. Eabrics and textiles in your home may have natural (i.e. wool fibers) or synthetic fibers which may be present in the dust of your home. The presence of these materials in the dust sample is expected and does not indicate a hazard. Eiberglass is further addressed below.

The air samples, collected for over a 4 hour period in your building, did not indicate any fibers as analyzed by Phased Contrast Microscopy (PCM), {or} The air samples, collected for over a 4 hour period in your building, did indicate low levels of fibers in the air of your building as analyzed by Phased Contrast Microscopy (PCM). Since PCM cannot distinguish the fiber material, this result of__ fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc) of air may include fabric fibers, cellulose or fiberglass, which are not as hazardous of asbestos. However, even if all of the fibers seen were asbestos, the level of fibers in your home are well within the U.S. and NYC re-occupancy standard for asbestos in community and residential buildings of 0.01 fibers/cubic centimeter (f/cc) in indoor air. Additionally, since no asbestos was seen in the dust of your home, it is less likely that any of these fibers were asbestos.

In addition to samples taken in your home, we also sampled buildings located above 59* Street

CITY_21MC100_003153407

NYC-WTC_000232862