| 9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION |
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| DEMANDS CLEANUP NOW !!!!! NOT COVERUP !!!!! |
The EPA has a web page to inform the public about the panel >>>
The EPA also has a web site where you can read and/or submit comments to on the issues discussed at the Panel. It is: http://docket.epa.gov/edkpub/do/EDKStaffCollectionDetailView?objectId=0b0007d480230dd8 >>>
The press has given a fair amount of coverage to the formation of the panel. See the WTC related press pages. For more background information, see the pages on Transparency and Public Process and the on reactions of elected officials and others, on our website. Coverage continued off and on, but take special note of the reaction to the Report of the independent Expert Advisory Committee of six scientific experts, made possible through the the WTC Community-Labor Coalition, in January of 2005. The last months of 2005, saw the coverage of attempts to salvage the Panel and its final meeting.
For the WTC Community-Labor Coalition (WTCCLC) >>>
Public comments made at Panel meetings and submitted to 9/11 Environmental Action are available on our website on this page, by date, interspersed with some of the other significant documents that were generated as the community attempted to press for a plan for sampling that would be adequate to find the remaining contamination:
On August 21 the EPA's Office of the Inspector General published its damning report on the performance of Region 2 EPA following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, detailing the role of the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
The Inspector General's press release
EPA's Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement, Report No. 2003-P-00012
EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement, Assignment No. 2002-0000702 , The Supplemental Appendices
9/11 EA produced a one page flyer with excerpts from the Report, and on September 24, 2003, wrote a letter to Senators Inhofe and Hastert.
James L. Connaughton, of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, responded to Senators Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton's Sept. 9, 2003 letter and suggested the formation of an expert technical review panel under the auspices of the EPA, in a letter of October 27, 2003.
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION writes to Senator Hillary Clinton on the formation of the panel to emphasize the need for serious and unbiased review in a letter of November 9, 2003.
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION, Rebuild with a Spotlight on the Poor, and the Sierra Club New York City Group write to Senator Hillary Clinton to detail the parameters for an acceptable technical experts panel in a letter of December 22, 2003.
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION would like to present you with as much information as possible about what took place at the meetings, and with some of the correspondence that occurred between meetings. Some of the official presentations are available in the material for the meetings on the EPA web site, here.
News stories covering the events can be found on the April page of the WTC Related Press.
So far the public commentary submitted to that meeting is not readily available through EPA. Many of the presenters have sent us the comments they submitted for that day, and these we are making available to you in the order they were presented, as best we recall. If and when we receive more of the comments we will postthem. Because of the commotion caused by a minor fire and bursting water pipes, not all commentators had a chance to present.
TESTIMONY FROM THE MEETINGS WITH CORRESPONDENCE
The focus of the first meeting was to review the proposed mission statement of the panel and the processes and protocols for the conduct of the panel.
SECOND MEETING: APRIL 12, 2004
The focus of the second meeting was to discuss a draft re-sampling proposal to evaluate the incidence of recontamination in apartments cleaned in the EPA cleanup effort around the World Trade Center site. The panel also discussed the appropriateness of the use of asbestos as a surrogate measure for other contaminants of concern.
Catherine McVay Hughes, Community Liaison, Comments and Recommendations from April 12, 2004
On May 11, 2004, the community sent a letter to Paul Gilman, Chair of the EPA's WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, defining flaws in the process thus far, and suggesting corrective action.
CONFERENCE PHONE CALL: MAY 12, 2004
Information on how to access a recording of this two hour conference call, including the 10 minute period at the conclusion for limited public comment, and the documents pertaining to it, are to be found here, at: http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/meeting-20040512.html
The third meeting provided reports of the subgroups formed from suggestions made during the April 12th conference phone call. These three reports, the WTC Dust Signature, Other Sources of WTC Data, and Participatory Participation via Community-Based Public Research (CBPR) Protocol, and an an additional report, WTC (Post Collapse) Combustion Emissions are available on-line here at: http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/meetings.html. There was also further discussion of the sampling program design for a study of WTC contamination. The public comment period was shortened by approximately 25%.
Discussion at the fourth meeting centered on two primary issues, first, the proposals of the community for implementation of more effective operating procedures by the EPA WTC Expert Panel (timely posting of meeting agendas, accurate minutes, the public commentary, transcriptions of the meetings, , etc.) and and for adoption of CBPR protocols, and second, the validity of establishing a signature for WTC dust before testing protocols for a wide range of possible contaminants were established and sampling begun. Micki Siegal (Director, CWA District One Health and Safety Program on behalf of the Communications Workers of America, District One), substituting for Community Liaison Catherine McVay Hughes, made a presentation of the issues raised at the June 10 Community Meeting. Much of the testimony below was offered in support for that proposal and for beginning the extended sampling of areas believed to have been contaminated by WTC dust.
The EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel announced that it would recommend that testing for toxins and contaminants be extended north of Canal Street in lower Manhattan, and include public and private buildings such as firehouses and schools. Testing would begin as early as the end of 2004 and attempt to establish the geographic extent of contamination. Concerns expressed at the July 15 community/labor meeting were presented by the Community Liaison and Alternate. As a result of the comprehensive presentation by tenants at 125 Cedar Street (available on line through the EPA's WTC Panel website) explaining the concerns the Community has about the demolition of the Deutsche Bank Building, the Panel seemed enthusiastic about taking a role in overseeing the EPA's supervision of that project. So far there is little data or information in the public domain about the contaminants, the testing to date, the protocols for further testing or for environmentally safe demolition plans.
SIXTH MEETING: SEPTEMBER 13, 2004
Discussions at the sixth meeting of the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel concentrated on the draft proposal for testing as well as on early findings on health effects of the contamination. The panel announced that it would not be in a position to oversee the demolition of the Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street. The Community Liaison's presentation outlined the need for greater commitment from the EPA to the Community Based Participatory Research process, and emphasized points about the proposed sampling and monitoring proposals that do not meet the community's demands.
SEVENTH MEETING: OCTOBER 5, 2004
The seventh meeting of the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel began with the Community Liaison presentation of the community's concerns about process issues, the use of a WTC signature in determining cleanup parameters, and a demand for the EPA to commit in writing to 7 Principles that will ensure comprehensive testing, clean-up of contamination, public health monitoring and health care of those affected by the environmental disaster following the fall of the World Trade Center towers. Both the presentation and the public comment period produced a continuing dialogue between the Panel and the public.
EIGHTH MEETING: November 15, 2004
The presentation of the Community Liaison presented the concerns of the WTC Community/Labor Coalition as articulated in their meeting of November 10, 2004.
On November 24th, Catherine McVay Hughes, the Community Liaison, and Micki Siegel de Hernandez, the Alternate, on behalf of the WTC Community, wrote a letter to Dr. Paul Gilman requesting that the meeting scheduled for December 14th not be cancelled simply because of delays in the release of the EPA's draft proposed Sampling Program. The letter outlines the Community's desire to continue to discuss a variety of issues: including the incorporation of Brooklyn into Phase 1 of the Sampling Plan, the demolitions of 130 Liberty Street and Fiterman Hall scheduled to occur, and Legal Rights of Access to public and private properties for collection of public health information and removal of hazardous substances. .
On January 4, 2005, Catherine McVay Hughes and Micki Siegel de Hernandez wrote a letter to all members of the WTC Expert Technical Panel to bring them up-to-date on the efforts of the WTC Community-Labor Coaltion's work as part of the CBPR process to assemble an independent panel of experts to help evaluate the EPA's draft proposed Sampling Program, and express disappointment that the opportunity to discuss the comments both the independent expert panel and the WTC CLC would be submitting by the January 18th deadline would be lost with the cancellation of a January meeting. In addition, the Community Liaisons informed the Expert Technical Panel that both Congressman Nadler and the Lower Manhattan Development Council were echoing the community's call for EPA to be the lead agency in charge of the demolition at 130 Liberty Street.
NINTH MEETING: February 23, 2005
The Ninth Meeting of the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel was a forum for the discussion of the EPA's Draft Proposed Sampling Program. The morning session began with the presentations of the Community Liaison, on the concerns of the Community and its recommendations for the Sampling Program. This was followed by a presentation of Dr. David Carpenter on behalf of the Independent Scientific Advisory Committee assembled by the WTC Community-Labor Coalition to comment on the EPA's Sampling Program. Both the Experts' and the Community's Reports are available on this website, here. Despite some acrimonious discussion of points in dispute, the entire meeting reflected a willingness by everyone to work with the new Chair of the Panel, Timothy Oppelt.
The questionable validity of the peer review process for the WTC Dust Signature became the subject of an exchange of letters between the Community Liaisons and the Chair of the Panel, Timothy Oppelt. Catherine McVay Hughes and Micki Siegel de Hernandez letter of June 30th, 2005 was answered by Tim Oppelt on July 8, 2005. NEW
On June 29th, Senator Clinton sent a letter to EPA's Stephen Johnson, and urged the EPA "to consider all of the important modifications suggested by the WTC Community Labor Coalition."
ELEVENTH PANEL MEETING: JULY 12, 2005
The third panel meeting of 2005 was the public forum for a heated discussion of the viability of the WTC signature research to provide an actual signature without testing more samples, the legitimacy of the Peer Reveiw of the WTC signature, which as proposed would depart from standard procedures for public transparency and in fact, do no more than evaluate laboratory methods for the proposed WTC signature, and the EPA's latest Draft "Final" Sampling Proposal for the Phase I testing and cleanup of contamination from the World Trade Center disaster. Following the Community Liaisons' presentation of a comparison of the various sampling proposals to date and their overall failure to meet the Community's requests, an alternate WTC Proposed Sampling Program, with restructured objectives and sampling methodology was put forth by two of the Panelists, Jeanne Stellman, Mailman School of Public Health, and David Prezant, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and NYC Fire Department. Panel Chairman Tim Oppelt introduced the topic of unmet health needs by including reports by the WTC Health Registry and Claudia Thompson, Program Administrator, NIEHS, on current studies of health effects in the afternoon session. The public comments, wide in their range, emphasized the call for a scientifically sound sampling plan, adequate to the task of determining the extent of remaining WTC contamination.
TWELFTH PANEL MEETING: DECEMBER 13, 2005
At this final meeting of the Panel, members of both the community and the Panel expressed their frustration and anger when the hard won agreements, forged over nearly two years, were tossed by the wayside by the EPA. Ostensibly the EPA chose this course because their hand-picked peer reviewers for the WTC Dust Screening Study had determined that the study did not support use of slag wool as a marker that could determine what contaminants did or did not owe their origin to the World Trade Center disaster. Thus, a protocol dependent on such a marker was no longer viable. Turning down all offers from Panel and labor representatives, and community members the EPA reverted to a Test and Clean Program nearly identical to its 2002 Cleanup Program that had been so severely criticized by their own Inspector General in 2003. (It was the EPA's August 23, 2003 OIG Report which in fact, had led to the creation of the Review Panel process that was shut down this day.) The EPA has not yet documented the presentations at the meeting on-line. The WTC Community-Labor Coalition's PowerPoint Presentation is of particular value for its concise, pointed critique of the EPA's November 2005 so-called Test and Clean Plan. The public were equally clear and just as focused as they protested the unreasonable, unfair, and worst of all, unscientific resolution of the problem posed by the predictable failure of the signature study.