"Residents are advised to use a wet mop... to clean their apartments."
New York City Department of Health



September 11 was an event that has changed the world and life as we know it.  It was also an environmental disaster of epic proportions. Hundreds of tons of asbestos were pulverized into unusually small particles which the plume carried for miles to Brooklyn and beyond.
  
 The towers also contained approximately 50,000 computers each made with approximately four pounds of lead and this does not take into account the five other buildings that were destroyed that day. The tens of thousands of fluorescent light bulbs each contained 41 mg mercury.  The alkalinity of the dust was equivalent to that of liquid drain cleaner.
and from Aman Zafar


PCBs reached 75,000 times their previous record:  ["PCBs were detected at high concentrations. The Toxic Equivalency (TEQ)... is 151pg/L. In previous harbor work...the highest observed PCB TEQ was 0.002pg.L."  EPA Report, September 20, quoted in Fallout  Gonzalez, Juan]  The smoke detectors contained radioactive americium 241 (EPA Policy Analyst Hugh Kaufman ) In early October, 2001, Dr. Thomas Cahill of the University of Davis at California found levels of very- and ultrafine particulates that were the highest he'd seen of 7000 samples taken around the world including at the burning Kuwaiti oil fields. Months after the disaster the EPA recorded hitherto unseen levels of dioxin .  
  
  
Nonetheless, beginning on September 13, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman declared the air to be safe.  As a result, Ground Zero workers often labored without benefit of respiratory protection. At a hearing held by the EPA Ombudsman Robert Martin and his Chief Investigator Hugh Kaufman, Lieutenant Manuel Gomez testified that when he brought his own respirator he was instructed not to wear it for fear of frightening the public. New York City Transit worker Walter Jensen has stated that when he asked for a respirator he was threatened with disciplinary action and firing. He later suffered a heart attack and at the age of fifty-five says he will never work again. Scientists such as Dr. Cate Jenkins, Dr. Marjorie Clarke, Paul Bartlett and others warned of the consequences of inhaling the toxic dust and fumes but were unheeded by the agencies in charge. 
Also as a result of the EPA's repeated denials that there was anything amiss in the air, residents returned home. The EPA having renounced its authority overindoor air, the residents cleared thousands of tons of toxic dust according to instructions they were given by the New York City Department of Health:  Use a wet mop or wet rag. Workers also returned to their offices downtown. In early October, Borough of Manhattan Community College and Stuyvesant High School reopened. Since state and federal laws were suspended in the 'emergency' conditions that prevailed for the eight months of cleanup, the main waste transfer station was placed at Stuyvesant's North entrance next to the ventilation system intakes and across the street from BMCC's 17,000 students and a housing complex of 5000. 

The World Trade Center Environmental Organization was founded to protest these circumstances, in particular the barge operation. In March, 2002 we organized a demonstration which was attended by hundreds of protesters from the Stuyvesant Parents' Association, as well as residential and other organizations. Members of WTCEO went on to serve on the Steering Committees of 9/11 Environmental Action and Concerned Stuyvesant Community. The activists of these organizations have also demonstrated and testified at hearings at all levels of government as well as at the many scientific conferences that have been held concerning 9/11 toxic contamination. 
As a result of community activism as well as the efforts of Congressman Nadler, the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project, NYCOSH and others, in May, 2002, the EPA reversed its stand on indoor air and announced it would undertake a voluntary cleanup program of apartments in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero. The program was dangerously flawed, however, as was noted in the press. 

In August, 2003, the Inspector General of the EPA confirmed the suspicions of the community and government activists: It issued a Report which stated that the EPA had changed press releases at the instigation of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  (The CEQ has also recently been cited as the source of edited press releases about climate change.)

The worst fears of the early alarm-sounders were also being confirmed:  Ground Zero workers were manifesting persistent, debilitating respiratory symptoms which restricted their ability to work and live normally.  Analogous symptoms were also appearing among residents and office workers as well as in the school community.


World Trade Center Environmental Organization's Articles On Environmental Disaster of 9/11 and related topics
Three Monkeys Online article/interview

Archives

Comments

Post a Comment