So did the EPA.

In May of 2000, the Parkers were ordered to leave their home, a 21-acre site along the Kootenai River just north of town where they operated Raintree Nursery. The property was heavily contaminated with asbestos.

Within the next year everything on the property the grand piano, the forklift, the house, the satellite TV, the boat, the garden shed was bulldozed. The Parkers documented 7,200 items that were completely destroyed.

That was five years ago. The Parkers still can't go home.

Nestled in a valley of the Cabinet Mountains in northwest Montana, Libby was home to the vermiculite mine operated by W.R. Grace & Co. from 1963 until it closed in 1990. In 1999 newspaper reports broke, blaming asbestos in the vermiculite for sickening and killing hundreds of people in the community.

The news sent the EPA into emergency response mode.

"We were scared to death," Parker said, flipping through pictures of the former nursery. "The newspapers said hundreds of people had died. We were so frightened of what was going to happen to us and even our grandchildren."

While many Montana towns faced reclamation in the face of closed mines, Libby is unique. The magnitude of the problems in Libby only recently was exposed. And as the cleanup goes on, residents are still sick and dying.

Doctors treat residents poisoned by the mine in clinics just blocks away from crews in HazMat suits cleaning up polluted homes.

Because of that strange juxtaposition, Libby remains the top priority for cleanup in the EPA's six-state region that includes Montana.

Only about 2,600 people live in Libby, but some 12,000 live within a 10-mile radius of town.

The Parkers are hopeful the cleanup on their property will be done, maybe even by spring.

But it is questionable when the EPA will ever be "done" in Libby. The Parker property, while one of the most complicated cleanups, is one of hundreds of contaminated homes and sites.

Investigators found that the tainted vermiculite wasn't just used as building insulation in Libby. People took home bags and used it as fill in gardens, playing fields and even on the high school track.

Libby was officially added to the federal Superfund cleanup list in 2002.

Reclaiming this mountain town is in high gear, and between $17 million and $19 million is spent on the effort each year.

The EPA figures about half of that roughly $9 million a year is pumped straight back into the local community either through jobs or dollars spent, said Mike Cirian, EPA remedial project manager in Libby.

"The people working for the contractors are almost exclusively local," Cirian said.

Four EPA staffers permanently relocated to Libby. And about 100 people work for a variety of contractors doing cleanup work. In fact, the EPA is the third largest employer in town.

Libby is becoming a training ground for construction workers to earn licenses for removing asbestos. The Flathead Valley Community College Lincoln County campus is teaming up with the state and federal government on the program.

"It will be free to local contractors on a first-come, first-serve basis," Cirian said.

The idea is to train Libby electricians, plumbers and other tradesmen to properly handle and dispose of Libby asbestos.

Long after the EPA and its contractors pull out of Libby, the community will continue dealing with asbestos removal. Asbestos can be found in insulation, boiler lining, fire protection, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, decorative surfacing, linoleum and even the mud between sheet rock.

Montana law says that trained and licensed asbestos abatement contractors must perform the removal of any asbestos-containing materials.

"This way it won't take that work away from local contractors," Cirian said of the training program.

It's impossible, however, to view cleanup jobs and college training in Libby in a fully positive light.

Hundreds of people in the community are dying from asbestos exposure. An estimated 250 people are already dead.

Nearly one in five residents screened in Libby has scarring of the lining of their lungs. Adding to concerns is that diseases associated with asbestos often have a latency period of 10 to 30 years and can be difficult to diagnose.

Asbestosis is a serious lung disease that worsens as time passes, making it harder and harder for victims to breathe.

At Libby's Center for Asbestos Related Disease, about 20 new patients a month come through the door.

The nonprofit clinic is devoted to caring for current and former Lincoln County residents. Since the dangers of Libby vermiculite were exposed in 1999, the clinic grew from three employees to nine. In the last two years, the clinic outgrew its old space and relocated to a larger office.

"We're seeing close to 1,400 patients now," said Kimberly Rowse, a registered nurse at the clinic. "And we are seeing more and more people present symptoms."

A state study shows medical costs for people sickened by asbestos exposure in Libby could exceed $32.2 million in the next five years.

Of the 3,500 Libby homes and buildings screened by the EPA, about one-fourth contained some level of asbestos fibers in the attics, walls or lawns.

EPA estimates that 1,200 to 1,400 residential and business properties need some type of cleanup. Cleanups are complete at 578 of them.

The EPA readily admits Libby has been a learning experience, and many of its techniques were untested.

Officials initially planned to remove asbestos-contaminated insulation from the walls of all Libby homes and businesses. They later decided it was not financially possible and likely not necessary. Officials now are removing exposed asbestos in attics and other exposed areas.

Cleanups can include pulling out Zonolite insulation, removing vermiculite used in yards and gardens, and zeroing in on other spots where the ore might have been used. In one garage, the dirt floor was 5 percent asbestos.

"People here found a lot of ways to use it," Cirian said.

Contaminated areas, such as the football field and the nearby track and field area where vermiculite was found, were some of the first areas cleaned when the EPA arrived.

The EPA developed new methods to determine what, if any, levels of asbestos might be acceptable.

"As this moved forward, the science has gotten better," Cirian said.

And a lot has changed since the EPA found as much as 12 feet of contamination in areas of the Parker property. At the time, the practice was to destroy everything on the land.

Knowing what they know now, the EPA might approach the Parker property differently, said Courtney Zamora, site manager for Volpe, one of the contractors working in Libby.

Many of the disagreements between the Parkers and the contractors are about restoring the property, the Parkers said.

But in Libby, where the cleanup on each property is a little bit different, the agency is doing everything it can to work with residents, Zamora said.

Mistakes happen.

During one interior cleanup, the house froze up. Even the fish tank turned into an ice cube, Zamora said. In other cases, property owners change their mind about a cleanup, and the EPA comes back in to accommodate.

"If we make a mistake, we correct it," she said.

The EPA and its contractors are striving to fulfill the promises made in 1999.

"That's been one of the toughest battles," she said. "We came in and we said we are cleaning up everything."

Not everyone is satisfied.

Gordon and Cathie Sullivan's Libby home is valued at about $60,000. The cleanup cost $140,000.

Gordon Sullivan, the former leader of the Libby Technical Assistance Group, isn't convinced the EPA and its contractors are doing enough. He views every contaminated property in Libby as an individual Superfund.

He also doesn't believe leaving behind tainted vermiculite in walls or other contained areas is safe. Those properties will disintegrate or be remodeled, and people will once again be exposed, he said.

It costs an average $25,000 to get rid of asbestos contamination in a home and $5,000 to simply clean out a flowerbed. The entire Libby cleanup project could cost $200 million, according to the EPA.

Big, loud, blue boxes rattle in front of homes being cleaned. They move from house to house, where insulation and other products tainted by asbestos are sucked through a hose and deposited inside.

During a cleaning, homeowners typically move into a motel or make their own arrangements. Each receives a stipend for as long as the cleanup takes, which can range from a few days to a few weeks.

Sullivan said in most cases, contaminated homes should simply be demolished. He believes tearing down properties and replacing them would save money, although he acknowledges if homes in Libby are torn down, it will ignite a firestorm.

There is much uncertainty among federal agencies concerning just what are safe levels of exposure to the insulation. The insulation likely lurks in millions of homes across the country.

Mel Parker reminisces about the site the perfect spot for a plant nursery. Lerah Parker tries to be upbeat about moving home, but she's still angry.

"We don't have our business. We don't have our home. We don't have an income, and it's been too long," she says.

In 1993 the couple bought the site, including some buildings from Grace. Six years later they learned of the asbestos contamination from newspaper reports.

They receive $1,900 a month allowance from the EPA.

The Parkers purchased another home and continue to fight for the restoration of their property.

"We are grateful to the EPA for cleaning up our property," Lerah Parker said. "Looking back on Libby, there are so many things we question. We were the guinea pigs."

In January the agency will issue a report that offers what amounts to a final say on Libby cleanup. That report could mean the EPA and its contractors revisit many of the sites already cleaned up.

The complicated reclamation of Libby is far from complete.

Just four months ago, on the fourth anniversary of 9-11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a message to New Yorkers: Trust us.

At the time, the agency was locked in a debate with dozens of people who live and work in Lower Manhattan over a proposal to test for toxic dust from the World Trade Center disaster. It was struggling to live down the perception it had failed in its mission to protect New Yorkers (see "Dusted," September 613). And so, back then, the official word was progresshow the EPA was listening to its critics, for example, and doing what it takes to make downtown safe.

Now, the agency is sending a different message to New Yorkers: Screw you.

On November 29, the EPA announced its final plan to test for and clean up lingering Trade Center dusta $7 million effort limited to residences below Canal Street. With this plan, the agency took a sudden turn, scaling back an earlier version, tossing advice from its expert panel, and nixing nearly every promise to the downtown community. Now, the plan no longer extends to Houston Street and over to Brooklyn. It no longer includes workplaces, nor alternative sampling methods. About the only thing it does is to test for such toxins as asbestos, lead, and fiberglass.

Now, as Suzanne Mattei of the New York City Sierra Club says, "We have a weak plan designed to find as little as possible and do as little as possible."

At the EPA panel's final hear-ing last Tuesday, dozens of residents, office workers, and activists showed up in protest. They vowed not to participate in the plan and scolded the agency for failing to do its job. One woman living near ground zero presented the EPA with a piece of coal; another offered a blackened air filter from her home. A first responder who had sifted through the rubble for days ticked off his 9-11related illnesses and produced 12 prescription vials, pounding each on the table.

"This is from exposure to that dust," he said, adding, "we New Yorkers deserve better."

Right after the terrorist attacks, the EPA told New Yorkers conditions were safe when in fact they were not. Four years later, thousands of people have gotten sick, and thousands more remember how the dust blanketed their neighborhoods. Critics charge the EPA has downplayed risks and conveyed false assurances.

Says Robert Gulack, whose downtown office at the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to be tested for 9-11related contamination, "This is absolutely consistent with a pattern, so I'm not at all surprised."

As far back as the winter of 2002, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents Lower Manhattan, was documenting how the EPA had misled the public in a critical white paper. A freedom of information request from the New York Environmental Law and Justice project yielded 800 pages of EPA sampling results revealing that asbestos and other toxins exceeded the threshold for safety.

Around the same time, Nadler convinced the EPA ombudsman to hold two hearings into the agency's actions. EPA officials responded by saying they weren't responsible for indoor air quality; they later dismantled the watchdog's office.

Then in August 2003, the EPA inspector general issued a scathing 165-page report disclosing some disconcerting factsthat the White House had pressured the EPA to sanitize its warnings around ground zero, for instance. It took the agency to task for a 2002 cleanup program that had failed to meet "minimum criteria for protecting human health." The report said this first effort had improperly limited its geographic scope, had excluded workplaces, and had used faulty methods. In short, as one congressional aide explains, the 2002 program "was meant to support the EPA's contention that there was nothing for people to worry about."

Now New Yorkers are left with a similarly ineffectual program, one that ignores Chinatown and Brooklyn, and ignores the workplaces the same flaws laid out by the inspector general.

And as if true to form, the EPA has shut down the only venue left calling attention to the toxic dust: its expert panel. Created under pressure from Senator Hillary Clinton, the panel has grown increasingly critical of the agency over the past 20 months. Last week, not one panelist supported the final plan.

Member Dave Newman, of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, says the panel amounts to a political liability because "it provided a for- um for discussion of issues the EPA would prefer not to discuss."

Bigger voices than his agree. At a December 9 press event, Senator Clinton offered her toughest words yet, calling the EPA's actions "negligence." She added, "It continues a pattern of behavior by this administration that is inexcusable."

Nadler puts it more bluntly:

"It's cover up contamination. Ignore it. And by the time people's illnesses become evident, this administration will be long gone."

EPA officials, not surprisingly, dismiss talk of a cover-up. Timothy Oppelt, of the agency's Office of Research and Development, which convened the expert panel and created the plan, has heard all the suggestions that "there is some kind of cover-up and conspiracy and it's orchestrated by the highest levels of federal government." He says the agency's actions come from "the work of career folks," like him.

In June, he recounts, when officials released the comprehensive sampling plan, they warned they could only implement it by developing a so-called signature, or marker of Trade Center dust. But in October, an independent review panel rejected the proposed signature, consisting of slag wool, mostly, an insulation used in the towers. Hence the final plan, which limits the cleanup to downtown neighborhoods. And since the panel was nearing the end of its two-year time limit, the agency disbanded it.

"We had no choice but to fall back to this second option," Oppelt says.

Critics see room for compromise, but don't expect it. Last summer, Clinton's office arranged a negotiation session between the EPA, panelists, and critics. A day before a September meeting, EPA officials called Clinton's office and explained that, according to agency lawyers, they could only discuss contamination proven to have come from the Trade Center. Most items on the agenda, in other words, were off the table.

On November 22, Clinton and Nadler wrote to Stephen Johnson, the EPA commissioner, renewing the call for compromise. One week later, the EPA released its final plan.

"For the life of me," Clinton has said, "I don't understand why the EPA will not do the right and smart thing in helping us reach that kind of resolution."

Oppelt says he and his EPA colleagues "were ready to meet with Senator Clinton and talk," but then the proposed signature unraveled. He has agreed to push for more work on developing the slag wool marker, which he calls "a very critical piece." If the agency has a "defensible" signature, he suggests, it might be able to expand its current plan. But for now, he says, "we're moving forward."

So are critics. Last week, Clinton and Nadler asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to examine the EPA's "failure to establish an effective, science-based testing and cleanup plan." At the very least, they hope a GAO investigation keeps the issue from being swept under the rug.

Yet despite those documented cases, a growing chorus of environmental groups and elected officials are fuming over the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) decision to exclude the borough in effective scientific testing and cleanup of indoor contamination as a result of September 11.

"We are not asking EPA to extend a badly designed testing program to Brooklyn," said Suzanne Mattei, Sierra Club's New York City Executive.

"EPA's current plan is designed to find as little pollution as possible and to clean up as little as possible. We urge EPA to fix the plan, and also expand its boundaries."

A survey that the Sierra Club conducted to ascertain the level of 9/11 contamination in Brooklyn homes neighborhoods and presented to the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel found that in total, 84 of 130 residents surveyed -0- or 65 pe4rcent reported witnessing World Trade Center dust in their local Brooklyn neighborhood, and that 56 out of 130 residents - 43 percent identified either an odor or visible dust inside their Brooklyn home or workplace.

"We were surprised to find how clearly people recalled that day," said Mattei. "We learned that many people in neighborhoods on the western shore of Brooklyn and further inland not only witnessed World Trade Center dust on the street but also saw or smelled the contamination in their homes."

Breathing in the powdered remnants of building materials and office equipment destroyed along with almost 3,000 lives, has long been a concern for many who fear possible long-toxic effects.

While pointing out that the Sierra Club survey was not a scientific statistical study, Mattei nevertheless maintained that it does provide significant information that argues in favor of more comprehensive environmental testing.

"Brooklyn resident should be concerned that EPA's testing plan is so weak and that it completely excludes them," she said.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez said that despite compelling evidence, the EPA has repeatedly failed to recognize the magnitude of the environmental and health impacts of 9/11 on City residents.

"It is appalling that the agency would consider terminating the panel's work when so many of our neighborhoods, which desperately need remediation services and health screenings, have yet to even be touched."

Last month the EPA announced that it was scaling back its 9/11 pollution indoor dust testing to exclude Brooklyn and of parts of Manhattan above Canal Street.

Rep. Major Owens was even harsher in his criticism of the federal government, declaring that "Bush political appointees at EPA should be prosecuted for dereliction of duty."

"By excluding Brooklyn, EPA's politicos are saying in essence that scientific evidence of 9/11 pollution in Brooklyn doesn't matter because the health of Brooklyn residents doesn't count," he said. "Who gave these political appointees at EPA the right to redline an entire borough and say that 9/11 toxins there doesn't matter? This is flat out un-American."

Councilmember David Yassky said that voters in his councilmanic district are concerned about possible contamination.

"We all watched the cloud of debris cross the river and descend on our neighborhoods in Brooklyn," Yassky said. "My constituents are worried with good reason that their own health and the health of their families and neighbors have been in jeopardy since the tragedy. They are worried that the government isn't doing anything about it."

In response to the EPA's decision to cut Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan out of its indoor testing program, both Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Senator Hillary Clinton have called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the EPA's post-September 11 cleanup efforts.

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=&id=4627

The organization learned that many people in neighborhoods along the western shore of Brooklyn and further inland not only witnessed World Trade Center dust on the street but also saw or smelled contamination in their homes, and that dust deposition also occurred as far away as Coney Island. Concerned residents from other Brooklyn neighborhoods filled out surveys as well.

The Sierra Club undertook this survey effort in part because this past November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was scaling back its testing program to exclude Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan above Canal Street.

In total, 84 of 130 residents surveyed - or 65 percent - reported witnessing World Trade Center dust in their local Brooklyn neighborhoods;

56 of the 130 residents - 43 percent - identified either an odor or visible dust inside their Brooklyn homes or workplaces.

Dust contamination from the towers' destruction was very visible along certain western shore neighborhoods of Brooklyn. These included Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and, to a smaller extent, Red Hook.

Neighborhoods further inland from the shore also were affected. Park Slope saw a surprising amount of visible contamination. Even as far east as Coney Island, people reported seeing dust.

Other than the publication of aerial photographs of the dust cloud that spread over Brooklyn, and sporadic newspaper accounts describing dust or burnt paper from the towers landing in Brooklyn neighborhoods, little was known about actual deposition of World Trade Center dust in the borough until nearly two years after the attack

That was when the Inspector General for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a small survey that it had conducted of New York City residents - including Brooklyn residents - related to the World Trade Center collapse. The Inspector General asked whether or not the respondents knew if their homes been contaminated with dust and/or debris due to the collapse of the towers.

The answers from Brooklyn in this little-known survey were striking. The Inspector General received 204 responses from 20 zip code areas of Brooklyn. Of the 204 residents of Brooklyn who responded, 23.5 percent reported that their residence had been contaminated with visible dust and/or debris as a result of the collapse. The highest-response neighborhoods were Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Windsor Terrace.

The Sierra Club received 130 survey responses. According to the survey, the percentage of people who saw dust and debris in their neighborhood was 67 percent in Brooklyn Heights, 100 percent in Cobble Hill, 77 percent in Carroll Gardens, 31 percent in Red Hook, 86 percent in Park Slope and 50 percent in Coney Island.

One resident of Brooklyn Heights reported, "Gray-white ash coated my balcony, [and there was] ash and a burning smell all over the neighborhood." A Cobble Hill resident stated that there was "white dust all over. It looked like snow. The smell was deep, heavy smoke, like tar and toxic fumes." A Carroll Gardens resident described "dust on cars and sidewalks. Light, gray ash like from a fire."

In Red Hook, a resident witnessed "ash and dust that looked like concrete dust, [and] debris like paper and what looked like plastic." Further into Brooklyn, a Park Slope resident stated that "ash covered [my] back yard, front yard, plants and furniture."

The Sierra Club received 38 communications from other Brooklyn neighborhoods as well, as well as some from passers-by who did not live in the neighborhoods, but were visiting. These more sporadic responses give some indication of where further investigation might be needed. In DUMBO, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Fort Greene, people reported a smell of smoke and fumes, but did not report seeing large amounts of dust.

People from Sunset Park also reported indoor dust infiltration.

De acuerdo con David Vliz, de la organizacin nacional ambientalista Sierra Club, la queja de los que testificaron ante el WTC Expert Technical Review Panel se debe a que la Agencia de Proteccin Ambiental (EPA) decidi que el de ayer fuera el ltimo encuentro con el panel de expertos, el cual llevaba dos aos reunindose con el pblico con el fin de hacer un plan conjunto para solucionar el problema de contaminacin tras los atentados del WTC.

"La gente est muy enojada porque quieren que se lleve a cabo otro plan que investigue dnde est la contaminacin, pero la agencia del gobierno est diciendo que sta es la ltima reunin y que ellos van a sacar un plan final de limpieza y anlisis de contaminacin, el cual a nosotros no nos parece bueno porque no abarca todas las reas afectadas", dijo Vliz.

"Ya han pasado cuatro aos y hay gente que est enferma, todava estamos peleando para que el gobierno revise nuestras casas y los sitios donde trabajamos para saber si hay contaminacin", agreg.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_136/panelscientiststee.html

Despite resounding criticism, the Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead with a testing and cleanup plan for Lower Manhattan that its own panelists describe as scientifically flawed, designed to find nothing and a wasted effort.

Abandoning a 21-month effort to devise a reliable method to test and clean apartments and workplaces in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn for remaining World Trade Center dust, E.P.A. decided last month to instead test only apartments in Manhattan south of Canal St. and to check no workplaces at all. Any apartments cleaned in the 2002 and 2003 E.P.A. cleanup effort will not be tested or cleaned in the new program. The agency will begin recruiting residents for the $7 million testing program early next year.

The E.P.A. also disbanded the Expert Technical Review Panel, which was established in March 2004 to advise the agency on formulating its new program. At the panel’s final meeting on Dec. 13 at the U.S. Customs House, panel members, residents, rescue workers and environmental advocates expressed dismay at the agency’s decision, harking back to the months after Sept. 11 when the agency, under the stewardship of Christine Todd Whitman, misled the public about air quality Downtown.

The panel was created in 2004 at the behest of Senator Hillary Clinton after the E.P.A. Inspector General’s report found serious flaws with the original cleanup. Critics worry that dust lingering in apartments, workplaces and building HVAC systems might continue to contaminate indoor spaces in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, leading to potential health risks to residents and workers.

"I was so naively optimistic to think we might actually get anything" from the E.P.A. testing program, said a teary-eyed Catherine McVay Hughes, the community liaison to the expert panel and chairperson of the Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee, shortly before the meeting. "I thought something good might come out of this."

E.P.A. backed away from the testing plan they released in June after a peer review panel found the plan flawed. Peer reviewers voiced doubts that slag wool, an insulating material found in the Trade Center, would be an effective material to use for identifying a signature to isolate W.T.C. dust from typical, urban dust. Rather than revise the testing methods, E.P.A. scrapped its entire plan and opted for a scaled back alternative that resembles the lambasted 2002-2003 cleanup effort.

Panelists leveled fierce attacks against the agency, accusing the E.P.A. of ignoring its advice and abandoning science in favor of expediency. "I really feel like I’ve wasted my time in these past two years on this panel," said Jeanne Stellman, deputy head of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.

"We’re back to square one with a proposed approach that we’ve consistently rejected," said Morton Lippmann, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University. "The results will be completely un-interpretable. I can’t say anything positive in even bothering to discuss this plan… E.P.A. appears to want to simply spend money and walk away."

Lippmann suggested the E.P.A. return the $7 million to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is funding the program, "to find some useful work for it, if they can."

"The problem with the current plan is not just the absence of science, but the extraordinary likelihood of failure," said Steven Markowitz, director of the Center of Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College. "What we’re left with is policy based on no science."

Panelists voiced doubts that anyone would participate in the testing program and refused to endorse it. "I can’t in good conscience tell my neighbors to participate in this," said Marc Wilkenfeld, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University.

At times, panelists all but held back the audience from unleashing their wrath on the agency. Audience members, often heckling E.P.A., held signs reading: "What about Chinatown?", "Cleanup! Not Cover Up!" and "E.P.A. to Workers: Drop Dead!"

Once the public was given the floor, the criticism lobbed against E.P.A. was fierce and unyielding. "The exclusion of Chinatown is racist," blasted Jeanie Chin, co-founder of the Civic Center Residents Coalition. "Shame on you and shame on your sham science."

"The E.P.A.’s credibility is once again shattered," said Craig Hall, a Battery Park City resident and president of the World Trade Center Residents Coalition. "Stop the charade and give New York City scientifically sound testing."

"I remember the fires that burned and yet the E.P.A. says my neighborhood has no World Trade Center dust," said Maria Muentes, a case manager for University Settlement whose five-year-old daughter suffers from asthma. Muentes implored the agency to "commit to a meaningful plan."

E. Timothy Oppelt, interim panel chairperson and the only E.P.A. employee on the panel, balked at claims that E.P.A.’s decision was politically motivated.

"You may disagree with the choice that we’ve made, but it bothers me that [you would say] this is some sort of cover-up or scam. That’s nonsense, we’re career people." Oppelt, a 30-year E.P.A. veteran, will retire from the agency at the end of the year.

Panelists said E.P.A. gave up too easily and could have made adjustments to the plan to satisfy the peer review’s criticisms. "To keep characterizing the review so negatively is wrong," said Greg Meeker, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

A signature would help health officials know for certain the extent to which the dust plume that followed the collapse of the Trade Towers contaminated New York.

E.P.A. eventually ceded on one point and agreed to reconsider testing for a signature in the dust. "Maybe we got it wrong with the notion of throwing away the signature," said Oppelt.

Oppelt refused, however, to entertain requests to test workplaces, HVAC systems, previously cleaned apartments or a larger swath of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Last week, Senator Clinton and U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler called for a Government Accountability Office investigation of E.P.A.

"We are disappointed, we are frustrated and we are outraged," said Clinton at a Dec. 9 press conference. "New Yorkers deserve to know whether we have any remaining health risks… This is negligent, this is reckless disregard of people’s health."

When asked about the G.A.O. investigation, Oppelt told Downtown Express, "We’re happy to

Ronda@DowntownExpress.com

EPA Panel Chair. "There's No Point in Looking for Things That are Not There"

The scaled-back indoor testing and clean-up plan released on November 29 by the Environmental Protection Agency to address possible remaining contamination from 9/11 has been met with frustration and derision by community leaders and elected officials, who say its limited scope and methodology are worthless. Lower Manhattan residents who sign up to participate early next year will have their apartments tested for four contaminants - asbestos, manmade vitreous fiber, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and lead. If high levels of these contaminants are found, the apartment will be cleaned free of charge.

Among the criticisms of the plan, as stated by Senator Hillary Clinton, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and community leaders on December 9, arc that the program will not test for other contaminants known to have spewed from the collapsing towers. The plan does not include the testing of apartments in Brooklyn or north of Canal Street, as originally considered. Nor does it include the testing of workplaces. These and other recommendations had been proposed by the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, a group convened by the EPA in March of 2004 to help develop an environmental testing program for Lower Manhattan.

But along with the release of what critics say is a seriously flawed testing plan, the EPA has announced the termination of panel, with the last meeting, open to the public, to be held December 13 at the U.S. Customs House at Bowling Green.

Senator Clinton said the EPAs actions ignore "many of the concerns of residents and workers who experienced the fallout from the collapse of the World Trade Center first hand, as well as the advice of the independent experts who served on the panel."

Representative Nadler voiced even harsher criticism. "This is EPA's shameless effort to find nothing, to spend nothing, to do nothing," he said.

Both elected officials say that it's not too late for a compromise. "EPA has the opportunity to change course," Senator Clinton said. As tough encouragement, the two elected officials are calling for an investigation by the U. S. General Accountability Office into the EPA's efforts to establish an effective testing and clean-up plan.

The review panel's interim chairman, Timothy Oppelt, told the Broadsheet, however, not to expect any revisions. "We just feel that we have gone as far as we can go, based on the science and the information that we have," he said.

"The contaminants that we're looking for are contaminants that are ubiquitous," he continued. "The community wanted us to look for dioxin, but this was found in one tenth of one percent of samples. There's no point in looking for things that aren't there. We've identified a program that's scientifically based and we will focus our attention on areas likely to have the highest probability of having remaining dust.

EPA invites Lower Manhattan employees concerned about their possible health hazards in their workspaces to file a complaint with with the Dept. of Labor's Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). "We've had presentations from those agencies at our meetings," Mr. Oppelt said. "But people don't like this recourse."

Industrial hygienist Dave Newman, a member of the panel, said because the plan relies on improper methodology, it will under-report any 9/11 contamination left in Lower Manhattan. The result, he said, will be "wrong assurances of safety."

When asked if he was concerned that efforts to convince the EPA to revise the plan would further hold up the testing, Paul Stein, a union representative for thousands of Lower Manhattan workers, said, "a delayed testing program is still better than an invalid testing program."

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS RESPONSIBILITIES HANDED TO THE BPC CERT

LMDC Gives 48,000 to the Local Community Emergency Response Team to Expand

With all eyes on next year's deconstruction of the building at 130 Liberty Street, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has set into motion a multi-step safety program. Scaffolding rising on all four sides of the 40-story building will reach the top floor by the end of the year. Floor-by-floor decontamination and deconstruction will commence in early 2006, and the building is expected to be gone by the spring of 2007.

Two separate safety teams are monitoring the deconstruction: one under the auspices of the contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, and an independent team hired through the contractor URS. According to LMDC director of construction Lou Mendes, an engineer inspects the site daily, and there are random safety inspections. Regular emergency drills for workers utilize a handheld radio system so that neighboring residents and workers are not alarmed.

Negative air pressure is used to prevent dust escaping from the sealed environment. If the containment fab ric is torn or if the air pressure system fails, work will stop immediately and the area will be resealed. If contaminants do escape, 12 air monitors (four at street level, four on the scaffold, and four on nearby buildings) are in place to alert officials and record data.

In the event of an emergency, workers will call 911 and first responders - officers from the NYPD and the FDNY-will take control of the situation. "Though neighbors have pressed for an audible alert such as a siren, the Office of Emergency Management is adamant: a siren will not sound because it would cause panic. "If it's a small event, the fire department and police will go door to door. For a bigger event, we'll use the media" said an FDNY spokesperson. "In the majority of examples, we would not recom mend evacuation. We would recommend sheltering in place."

An expansion of the Battery Park City CERT is expected to enhance community preparedness as this major project goes forward. Using a $47,896 grant from the LMDC, the BPC Community Emergency Response Team will offer information and emergency training to residents and workers in the area around 130 Liberty Street.

The Battery Park City CERT, founded by Brigadier General Sidney Baumgarten in 2002 and now with close to 200 trained volunteers, will offer its next 27-hour training session in late January. Gen. Baumgarten plans to purchase 40 new radios for the group. Once the next group of CERT volunteers completes training, a major community drill will be conducted that involves the 130 Liberty Street neighborhood.

http://www.silive.com/editorials/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1134570648262700.xml&coll=1

In the days following the attack, dust from the site blew across Manhattan, even reaching other boroughs. New Yorkers, including Staten Islanders, who complained of health effects, were largely pooh-poohed by then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman who assured New Yorkers that the air was safe to breathe.

Ms. Whitman's cheery assessment has proven to be wrong, as health experts have reported since almost the first month after the attack.

Yesterday, the EPA held the final meeting of its technical panel, and announced it will be testing any dust that remains in private homes and commercial space, but only on a voluntary basis. Tests will be conducted for asbestos, lead and other substances that could pose health risks unless they are cleaned up, said EPA official Timothy Oppelt, who has chaired the technical panel. Mr. Oppelt sought to quell any criticism of the agency's $7 million effort by claiming that the plan "incorporates the best science available."

Many New Yorkers beg to differ with Mr. Oppelt. They have been joined by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the trade center site, in deriding the plan.

"The plan excludes entire neighborhoods known to have been impacted by the dust cloud, the fires that burned for months and the barge waste transfer operations," said Catherine McVay-Hughes, the downtown community liaison to the panel.

Ms. Clinton agreed, adding that the EPA's testing plan does not expand the area tested earlier, or test workplaces or sites the agency has already cleaned.

We must say that the EPA official's response to those charges sounded somewhat sophomoric.

"We put a lot of hard work into this and believe that it's a plan that goes as far as the agency can go with its legal responsibilities and mandates and goes as far as the current scientific information will allow it to go," he said.

Ms. Clinton and Mr. Nadler announced they will be requesting that the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, probe the EPA's action three years ago, and the current plan.

© 2006 Staten Island Advance

Members of the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel accused the Environmental Protection Agency of junking the testing criteria that the agency asked them to provide.

"We went through 21 months of collegial and technical discussion, the essence of which is ignored in the final product," said panel member David Newman, an industrial hygienist.

The EPA's $7 million program, which is scheduled to start next year despite the controversy, will pay for cleaning homes and commercial spaces - but not offices - south of Canal St. that are found to have excessive levels of asbestos, fiberglass, hydrocarbons and lead. Participation is voluntary.

The EPA chose the plan after a proposal it drafted with the panel's help was rejected by a second group of experts.

The axed proposal called for tests in lower Manhattan and nearby parts of Brooklyn to identify a signature element in the dust - slag wool insulation from the World Trade Center.

Clinton said that EPA had let the panel's work bog down in "inertia," ignored the panel's input, and reverted to "the failed test-and-clean program" of 2002-2003. She noted that on Nov. 22, she had written EPA seeking a compromise plan but was answered by the announcement of the final plan a week later. "I believe we could have had a deal," she said. "The current plan is woefully short of what is needed."

In late November, EPA released a final cleanup plan and said that its World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel would hold its last meeting Dec. 13. Critics immediately attacked the final plan for failing to extend the geographic range of the testing and cleanup efforts, leaving out workplaces and businesses, having no provision for retesting of previously cleaned spaces, and giving up on a scientific effort to identify a "WTC signature," a unique chemical composition of the dust that would allow researchers to distinguish it from other pollution.

Citing a 2003 EPA inspector general report that charged the White House with interfering in the agency's response to the disaster, Clinton asserted that the Bush administration continues to show a "pattern of behavior" that she called "reckless" and "negligent." In a prepared statement, Clinton said that members of the expert panel had "worked in good faith" for 20 months to provide input for an EPA plan "that would properly address the serious health issues involved with indoor air contamination." But they have been faced with "stonewalling and delays," she said.

EPA Cited OSHA Jurisdiction

Clinton, in response to a question, called it "ridiculous" for EPA to cite Occupational Safety and Health Administration jurisdiction as a reason not to include workplaces in the plan or to claim that a more extensive program would cost too much. "This is just another example of the wrong-headed priorities of the Bush administration," she said, pointing to the costs of tax cuts and the Iraq war.

Clinton and Nadler said they will ask to GAO to study some of the same questions put before the expert panel, not to look into the reasons for EPA's actions in putting out the final report.

Micki Siegel de Hernandez, who is health and safety director of Communications Workers of America District 1 and served as the expert panel's labor liaison, charged EPA with reneging on "an agreement, based on panel recommendations, to test for contamination in businesses and workplaces."

Of particular concern, she said, are thousands of workers "who spend their days in basements, boiler rooms, mechanical equipment rooms, in crawl spaces and above dropped ceilings to perform their work." She said that those areas of residential and commercial buildings "are the least likely to have been cleaned since 9/11 and are most likely to harbor remaining contamination."

She added, "This plan is designed to find as little as possible and to clean up as little as possible, thus providing false assurances of safety and a political cover for the Bush administration."

David M. Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and a member of the expert panel, said that EPA had "terminated the panel process before we could complete our work." The plan released in late November, he said, "has not been discussed or approved by the panel--it is EPA's plan, not the panel's plan."

NEW YORK -- The federal Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it will go forward with a plan to test some lower Manhattan apartments for World Trade Center dust, despite criticism from residents and its own expert panel that the program does not go far enough.

The contentious final meeting of the EPA's technical review panel, more than four years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, provided evidence that distrust still remains from the early days when then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman assured New Yorkers that the air was safe to breathe.

"It took all I had to come here this morning because I really don't feel that this is a useful exercise now," said panel member Jeanne Stillman, a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "I really feel like I've wasted my time in the last two years on this panel."

The EPA released its plan Nov. 29 for testing any dust that remains in private homes and commercial space from the collapse of the trade center. The $7 million effort covers Manhattan south of Canal Street and west of Pike and Allen streets, testing samples for asbestos, lead and other substances that could pose health risks.

The EPA official who has chaired the technical panel, Timothy Oppelt, said the plan "incorporates the best science available today."

But during a meeting at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, other panel members, downtown residents and labor advocates derided the plan for its narrow geographic focus, its testing methodology and the fact that it is voluntary.

"The plan excludes entire neighborhoods known to have been impacted by the dust cloud, the fires that burned for months and the barge waste transfer operations," said Catherine McVay-Hughes, the downtown community liaison to the panel.

Several rescue and recovery workers who said they are suffering from trade center-related health problems also spoke, although the panel's mandate to test the interiors of buildings near ground zero did not include the concerns of first responders.

"I lost 31 percent of my lung capacity," said Jonathan Sferazo, an ironworker who spent four weeks cutting through debris at the trade center site. "You people lied. Look in my eyes. You lied."

Oppelt said the EPA would start recruiting people to participate in the testing program early in the new year.

"We put a lot of hard work into this and believe that it's a plan that goes as far as the agency can go with its legal responsibilities and mandates and goes as far as the current scientific information will allow it to go," he said after the meeting.

Oppelt said he would discuss with other EPA officials one issue raised by critics: whether it is possible to identify a World Trade Center signature dust that differs from the dust found in any other urban area.

A peer review panel concluded that the EPA had not identified a way to find signature dust, but Oppelt said the question could be revisited.

However, he rejected other concerns raised by critics, such as the fact that landlords cannot be forced to have their buildings tested.

"It will continue to be a voluntary program," he said.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the trade center site, said last week they would ask the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to probe concerns similar to those raised at Tuesday's meeting.

Many people who live and work in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn believe asthma, bronchitis and other ailments are linked to the toxic plume of smoke that covered the area after the Twin Towers collapsed. They believe the remnants of that smoke are still coating their carpets and ventilation systems.

They hoped their concerns would be addressed by the panel of scientists and doctors the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel convened nearly two years ago by the EPA to advise on a testing and cleanup plan. The panel suggested a comprehensive plan targeting not only residences, but also workplaces and areas such as Chinatown, the Lower East Side and parts of Brooklyn. But when the EPA released their final plan last month, the program included only residences below Canal Street that volunteered for testing.

"I don't think anything we say will be taken into consideration by the EPA," said Micki Siegal de Hernandez, the labor liaison on the panel yesterday at its last public hearing. The final plan, she said, was crafted by the EPA behind closed doors.

The EPA is a "bunch of brainiacs and bookworms who just look at numbers but don't look at peoples pain," said John Feal, a construction worker who lost half a foot in an accident while working in "the pit" at Ground Zero. "The people [downtown] and in Brooklyn pay taxes and deserve to know their tax money is going to protect their health."

The EPA could not identify a "signature" set of contaminants clearly linked to WTC dust to "differentiate it from contaminants from 200 years of living in New York." So it decided to "concentrate its resources" $7 million in remaining 9/11 FEMA money to the area "clearly contaminated," said E. Timothy Oppelt, the panels interim chair and EPAs director of the National Homeland Security Research Center.

"We think this is a scientifically responsible program, notwithstanding comments from some members of the panel," he said.

Many of the panelists thought a signature could still be determined. "Perhaps we gave up on the signature too soon and the EPA got it wrong," Oppelt conceded.

Text Box: Pols get involved

City Councilman Alan Gerson, D-Manhattan, urged the EPA to amend its plan yesterday and said City Council has scheduled a hearing on it for Jan. 11.

Despite being rejected by residents, denounced by members of Congress and disowned by the panel of experts that was supposed to shape it, the plan by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to test and clean a limited number of Manhattan apartments for World Trade Center dust will go forward early next year.

At a raucous final meeting of the expert panel yesterday, during which dozens of residents angrily condemned the agency for failing to adequately protect them, officials acknowledged that they had decided to go ahead with the scaled-down plan, which was first revealed last month.

The cleanup will be limited to apartments in downtown Manhattan below Canal Street, and will exclude the parts of Brooklyn and all the commercial spaces in both boroughs that were covered under an earlier version of the plan.

But there are doubts about the cleanup's chances of success. Tenants'

groups are discouraging members from taking part in the new effort, and officials say they do not think a public outreach program will overcome the distrust of residents.

Some of the sharpest criticisms of the plan during the four-hour meeting in Lower Manhattan came from members of the expert panel itself.

"This is a very, very big mistake," said one member, Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld, of Columbia University Health Sciences. "I can't in good conscience tell my neighbors to take any part in this."

For nearly two years, the panel of experts has discussed ways of determining the geographic extent of indoor contamination from the Sept.

11 attack, and how to clean up apartments and offices that are found to still contain hazardous material.

But last month, the agency abruptly changed course.

An independent peer review panel rejected the agency's proposal to use slag wool, a type of insulating material found at the trade center, as a clue to determine how far the dust had spread from ground zero.

Without the slag wool marker, the agency argued, geographic sampling would be impossible. And with the expert panel nearing the end of its two-year authorization, the agency substituted a limited plan that looked for contaminants only in the part of downtown included in an earlier federal cleanup that ended in 2003.

Under the new $7 million plan, apartment owners who volunteer will have their units tested for contaminants. If any are found above a level established by the government, the apartments will be cleaned.

Residents will have about two months to sign up for the program before testing begins. Contaminated apartments will be cleaned as soon as they are identified.

Craig Hall, president of the World Trade Center Residents Coalition, an organization of renters and co-op owners formed after 9/11, urged residents not to participate and said he doubted that many would.

Mr. Hall said that by eliminating workplaces all together, restricting the areas with apartments that will be tested and setting contaminant thresholds so high that few apartments will ever be cleaned, the agency is falling far short of its goals.

"They are sending a message that they really want to walk away from this process," said Mr. Hall, of Battery Park City.

E. Timothy Oppelt, interim chairman of the panel, said the rejection of the slag wool marker put severe limitations on the agency.

The primary hazards from the collapse of the trade center - asbestos, lead, fiberglass and hydrocarbons - are widespread in an urban area like New York, and Mr. Oppelt said that without a clearly identified signature marker like slag wool, there was no way to tell where they originated.

At the urging of the other members of the panel, Mr. Oppelt, who is retiring next month as a director in the agency's office of research and development, conceded that it might have abandoned work on a trade center marker too soon. He said the agency would consider continuing investigations while the testing and cleaning program went ahead.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

"There was never any outreach to Brooklyn. There was nothing," Suzanne Mattei, head of the city's Sierra Club, says about the EPA strategy for cleaning up contaminated dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

She and dozens of other New Yorkers spoke out at the final meeting of the EPA panel charged with developing that plan. Many criticized its decision to continue testing only some areas of Lower Manhattan, not north of Canal Street or into Brooklyn.

"It darkened the sky over Brooklyn Heights," said Mattei. "My husband was home that morning. We live on Henry Street in Brooklyn and he had to immediately run and close his windows because he saw the dust filling the air outside of our apartment."

The Sierra Club issued a report Tuesday called "Don't Ignore Brooklyn"

in which 130 Brooklynites were questioned about their contact with World Trade Center debris. The findings show 84 people saw dust in their neighborhood, and 56 of them had the dust or an odor in their home.

The neighborhoods most affected were Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook.

"I had a total abatement at my own expense, which was $5,000 for a two-room apartment," said Brooklyn Heights resident Jenna Orkin. "They were there for three days, four guys working full time, and at the end of it they performed air tests which revealed still, after this abatement, there was 10 times more asbestos as the EPA claimed it was finding it Lower Manhattan."

Critics also charge the plan is flawed because it never came up with what markers it would use to identify Trade Center dust. In addition, because it's voluntary, landlords, for example, can't be forced to allow testing.

The EPA's testing methods and results even came under fire from members of its own panel.

"I don't think you're going to be able to with this plan to meet your own standard of the need to address and attribute World Trade Center dust," said panelist David Newman.

But the EPA says it stands by its methods.

"What bothers me is people are portraying this as an orchestrated cover-up or scam, and this is really nonsense," said the EPAs Timothy Oppelt.

The agency says it's doing what's necessary to safeguard people's health.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/55009

NEW YORK, NY, December 13, 2005 Advisors to the federal Environmental Protection Agency say the EPA's latest plan to test for World Trade Center dust and contaminants is inadequate. And, at their final meeting today, many members of the expert panel say the EPA ignored their advice, wasted their time, and betrayed the public trust.

REPORTER: Doctor Mark Wilkenfeld, of Columbia University, says the EPA's final plan is flawed because it does not require landlords to comply, it excludes offices, and it covers only the area below Canal Street.

WILKENFELD: I don't think we can recommend that anyone participate, given the way it is, so it's kinda useless.

REPORTER: The panel's leader, an EPA. staff member, says the final plan incorporats much of the panelists' advice, and says the discussion might continue, even though the group has been formally disbanded.

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The Sierra Club survey, titled "Don't Ignore Brooklyn: Residents Report 9/11 Pollution Penetration in Brooklyn Neighborhoods and Homes," claims most Brooklynites saw dust in the streets.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_135/letterstotheeditor.html

We knew we could count on the Downtown Express to smell a scam. The final Environmental Protection Agency "test and clean" program is a disaster for Lower Manhattan residents, workers and small business owners (news article, Dec. 2 – 8, "E.P.A. changes plan – Clinton, Downtowners fume"). E.P.A.’s testing is rigged to systematically underestimate indoor contamination and will result in a plethora of inaccurate data and deceptive findings that will inevitably be spun as another false all-clear for Downtown neighborhoods.

We applaud Ronda Kaysen and your editorial (Dec. 2 – 8, "E.P.A.’s new testing plan: Another in a long line of failures") for defending the truth, and the health of the people who live and work Downtown, especially the kids who are growing up here. Your reference to Brownie-style disaster (mis)management puts our struggle in the big picture and points the finger straight to the top. Lower Manhattan and other affected neighborhoods deserve an honest program based on sound science. On Dec. 13th, at the final meeting of the W.T.C. expert panel it will unilaterally shut down, E.P.A. needs to hear that message loud and clear.

WASHINGTON -- New York lawmakers clamoring for greater testing of toxic ground zero dust said Friday they will seek a second inquiry to see if the government is sweeping the problem under the rug.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the World Trade Center site, will ask the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to probe their concerns.

Clinton and Nadler maintain the Environmental Protection Agency should conduct much more extensive testing work. The EPA's inspector general found fault with the first round of such testing, prompting a technical review and a second round of testing announced last month.

The lawmakers said Friday that a second investigation is needed to determine if the EPA is repeating mistakes made the first time.

Clinton said the EPA's new testing plan "is incredibly frustrating and disappointing" because it does not expand the area first tested, or test in workplaces or sites the agency has already cleaned.

"The EPA is essentially throwing up its hands and washing them of this problem at the same time," said Clinton.

Nadler said larger testing would give New Yorkers clear answers about what health risks, if any, are posed by lingering dust from the towers that collapsed more than four years ago.

"But even beyond that, the taxpayers in our country need to know whether the Environmental Protection Agency they pay for is doing its best to protect them, if it's doing anything to protect them," he said.

EPA spokesman Michael Brown said the agency's new plan is "wholly and soundly scientifically based and scientifically defensible."

The lawmakers' fight began over the agency's assertion within days of the attacks that the dust from 1.8 million tons of World Trade Center debris posed no public health threat.

The inspector general's report concluded those assurances were issued after the agency was pressured by White House officials.

The EPA announced a plan in late November for a new $7 million testing program, ending the work of a review panel created to examine the issue.

The new effort covers Manhattan south of Canal Street and west of Pike and Allen streets, testing samples for asbestos, lead and other substances that could pose health risks.

Clinton harshly criticized the EPA for abandoning efforts to create a World Trade Center dust "signature" _ a scientific definition of the toxic dust that would distinguish it from everyday grime found in the nooks and crannies of New York City.

EPA officials said they did craft a program to test for a Sept. 11 dust signature, but that it did not hold up to scrutiny by scientific peers. Rather than spend another year refining the dust signature effort, they decided to go forward with the testing program that they think will work.

http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_343120442.html

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the World Trade Center site, will ask the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to probe their concerns.

Clinton and Nadler maintain the Environmental Protection Agency should conduct much more extensive testing work. The EPA's inspector general found fault with the first round of such testing, prompting a technical review and a second round of testing announced last month.

The lawmakers said Friday that a second investigation is needed to determine if the EPA is repeating mistakes made the first time.

Clinton said the EPA's new testing plan "is incredibly frustrating and disappointing'' because it does not expand the area first tested, or test in workplaces or sites the agency has already cleaned.

"The EPA is essentially throwing up its hands and washing them of this problem at the same time,'' said Clinton.

MMV Infinity Broadcasting Corp.

http://www.tribecatrib.com/newsdec05/epa.htm

The federal Environmental Protection Agency last month announced a revised, and probably final, plan for testing and cleaning Downtown residences in an effort to remove any lingering World Trade Center dust.

Under the $7 million program, Manhattan residents living south of Canal Street can request to have their apartments tested by the EPA. If benchmark levels of four contaminants-lead, asbestos, man-made vitreous fiber, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons-are found, the agency will do a free cleaning.

The plan is a scaled-back version of one announced earlier this year that would also have included parts of Brooklyn and commercial spaces.

"EPA seeks to provide assurances to people living and working in Lower Manhattan who have remaining concerns about the presence of dust from the World Trade Center collapse," said Timothy Oppelt, interim chairman of the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel. The panel was formed in March 2004 to devise a plan to identify and clean up remaining contaminants.

Oppelt said that workers who are worried about contaminants in commercial spaces must contact the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. "We just don't have authority when it comes to worker environments," he said.

The announcement marks the end of the panel's work. Last spring, it recommended that the EPA sample residential and commercial spaces along the Brooklyn waterfront and below Canal Street to look for so-called "signature dust" from the trade center's collapse. That plan was rejected.

The panel will hold its final meeting on Dec. 13, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the U.S. Customs House.

In 2003 and 2004, the EPA cleaned more than 4,000 apartments, but critics charged that the effort was insufficient.

Catherine McVay Hughes, the Downtown resident on the panel, called the new sampling method inadequate. She said that in addition to looking at WTC dust, the panel was charged with assessing unmet health needs of residents and workers, and that has not been done. "The panel process was shut down without completing its charge," she said.

The plan also has come under fire from Sen. Hillary Clinton, who called the disbanding of the panel "unacceptable." She said the new plan failed to address the shortcomings of earlier EPA efforts.

But Wendi Thomi, EPA community involvement coordinator, said money was a factor in limiting the testing area. "The sky is not the limit," she said. "We have to work within budgetary constraints."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/special/story/372466p-316706c.html

The billions of dollars that blew into the city after 9/11 included a $129.7 million giveaway of free air conditioners, air purifiers, air filters and fancy vacuum cleaners, an ongoing Daily News investigation has found.

Thanks to the loosely written rules that haunted much of the federal government's $21.4 billion disaster recovery effort, FEMA's clean-air program exploded into a massive scandal that has never been fully explored - until now.

A News investigative series this week has revealed how 9/11 cash went to big businesses that weren't at risk of closing, mob-connected construction companies, and pork-barrel projects with little connection to Ground Zero.

Today, The News reveals how and why the air equipment program, operated by the state on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, opened the door to scammers across the city and beyond.

Among The News' findings:

All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/special/story/372440p-316762c.html

Most of the FEMA millions used to help city residents buy clean air equipment to deal with the noxious residue of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was spent in neighborhoods far from Ground Zero, a Daily News computer analysis shows.

Satellite photos indicate that the horrific plume flew across the East River to downtown Brooklyn, thinning and rising as it continued on a southeasterly course toward Manhattan Beach, Breezy Point in Queens, then out to sea.

But people far from that route - in the Bronx, upper Manhattan, Queens, and on Staten Island - gobbled up big portions of the clean air goodies, supposedly to cleanse their homes of World Trade Center soot.

In Washington Heights, more than 6% of households in four zip codes had claims approved by FEMA and the state Department of Labor, which administered the program.

Within that uptown area - where the plume obviously never neared - 4,652 homes were approved to collect $5.3 million in equipment.

The FEMA data, obtained by The News under the federal Freedom of Information Act, doesn't show whether people picked up their government checks after they were approved, though other records suggest that nearly all did.

Using the FEMA data, The News was able to combine zip codes with census data and identify neighborhoods where the highest percentage of households were approved to get free air conditioners, air purifiers, air filters and vacuum cleaners.

Residents of lower Manhattan, for example, collected 14% of the $131 million FEMA says was paid out in the air program.

But the rest of the results documented how participation did not follow the flight of the unhealthy ash from Ground Zero.

No dust floated over central Queens, but residents there scored thousands of government-financed appliances.

In Flushing, Elmhurst, Hillcrest, and Rego Park, 5,211 households were approved to receive $6.3 million.

In Brooklyn, the spending pattern suggests the plume somehow went around the northern neighborhoods of Park Slope, Cobble Hill and downtown on its way south to Borough Park, Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Coney Island.

Only 1% to 3% of households in those northern Brooklyn neighborhoods were approved for reimbursements, but residents farther south were much more likely to bring home federally financed electronics.

In Borough Park, 18% of households were given approval. In one zip code alone - 11219 - 4,711 homes were okayed to collect $6.3 million.

The percentages of households in neighboring zip codes that claimed to be drowning in dirty Ground Zero particles were staggering: 16% in New Utrecht; 13% in Sunset Park; 12% in Bath Beach, and 11% in Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Ocean Parkway.

And in a zip code comprised mostly of Starrett City, some 8 miles from Ground Zero - and again well off the plume's path - one-in-10 households were cleared to receive a FEMA-backed check, representing 614 residents for grants totalling $633,495.

Before officials limited the program, in June 2002, to the city's five boroughs, checks totaling $206,736 were approved for 188 residents outside city limits, upstate and on Long Island. The non-city zip code with the most recipients was in Glen Oaks, L.I., where 53 people were cleared to get $52,461. Close behind was the Orange County town of Monroe, where 26 were approved for $36,634, and the Rockland County town of Monsey, where 27 applications were approved for $31,819.

There are other oddities in FEMA records that suggest fraud by applicants, absurdly poor recordkeeping or applicants who had listed work addresses.

In 10020, made up exclusively of Rockefeller Plaza, six people were approved for $7,199 worth of air devices. The Census Bureau says there's only one residence in the entire zip code.

Zip codes where the 2000 Census found no dwelling units also show up as receiving free equipment. A lower Manhattan zip code that the Postal Service lists as devoted exclusively to American Express' offices at the World Financial Center had 22 residents approved to receive $17,463. FEMA also reported four approved claims totaling $4,400 within a special zip code that, according to the Postal Service, receives only "contest mail."

Even stranger, FEMA records show that 21 clean air claims totaling $22,795 were approved in a special zip code assigned to state government offices at the Trade Center.

Finally, FEMA records show that within the zip code comprised exclusively of the Trade Center - which had no residences before the attacks - 1,759 people were approved to receive $1.9 million under the program.

State Labor Department spokesman Robert Lillpopp did not return calls seeking comment on The News' zip-code analysis.

County by County

Breakdown of FEMA's Clean Air Device Program

County Approved claims Amount approved

Brooklyn 48,503 $59.2M

Manhattan 41,790 $40.9M

Queens 18,789 $22M

Bronx 6,265 $6.9M

Staten Island 1,793 $1.9M

Nassau 82 $80,350

Suffolk 3 $2,192

Rockland 40 $48,995

Orange 31 $39,885

Westchester 30 $34,082

Putnam 2 $1,232

'They told me I had a right to take it' - FEMA filer

Russian immigrants from Goldfeld, 81, and his 78-year-old wife Zoya Vorshavshaya, received a $1,599 grant to purchase an air conditioner, air purifier and two vacuum cleaners under the FEMA clean air device program.

Goldfeld and his wife installed a Friedrich air conditioning wall unit, with four-way air flow control, in the bedroom of their small apartment on Surf Ave. in Coney Island - far away from any known environmental effects of 9/11.

"It's not very good," Goldfeld, who was an engineer in Russia, said of the $548.74 cooling machine.

Vorshavshaya, who was a doctor in Moscow, said they never use the air purifier, which cost $541.20. "It's no good," she explained.

Both asserted they hadn't taken advantage of the FEMA program because, in their opinions, they lived close enough to be exposed to the unhealthy 9/11 residue.

"It was terrible, the air," said Vorshavshaya.

In December 2003, nearly a year after the program ended, she was diagnosed with lung cancer that required surgery.

Now she wonders whether 9/11 was to blame. "I never smoked. I never drank."

"The air was not so clean," added her husband. "The air worsened very much."

He said word of the FEMA grant program circulated in Russian newspapers and TV shows, and was the talk of his 19-story building, which is run by a social service agency for seniors.

"They told me that I had a right to take it. I have the right to be included in the program," said Goldfeld.

The couple's application was approved in May 2003.

A letter accompanying the check warned them not to spend the money on swimming pools, stereos, VCRs and "bills you owed before the disaster."

Goldfeld said receiving the free cash was "like getting presents, but necessary presents." In addition to the air conditioner and air purifier, the couple purchased two vacuums for $313.85.

The couple received another letter in June 2003, informing them that they needed to return the $1,599 because they had failed to send in their receipts.

Goldfeld said he wrote back, explaining that they'd spent $1,403.79 and enclosed a check for the unspent $195.21.

In January 2004, the couple got a third letter telling them they still owed $104. Goldfeld said he wrote back explaining that he'd reimbursed the agency what he owed and enclosed a copy of his check.

He ended his letter by writing, "Sincerely, thank you for your generosity."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/372435p-316759c.html

New Yorkers by the tens of thousands received free air conditioners, air purifiers and other clean-air devices in such an illogical pattern that the toxic plume from the smoldering World Trade Center would have had to travel like a wild tornado, arbitrarily touching down here and there throughout the city.

The size and scope of abuse in the FEMA-funded program dwarfs any fraud and misuse allegations that have surfaced in disaster aid programs for hurricanes in Florida, wildfires in California and floods in Detroit, according to a four-month Daily News investigation of the federal government's $21.4 billion program to help New York recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The dreadfully flawed program ultimately allowed every New Yorker, if they so desired, to obtain free air conditioners, air purifiers, air filters and vacuum cleaners - up to a total value of $1,750.

Many who lived far from Ground Zero - and also nowhere near the path of the disaster's contaminated airborne residue - took full advantage of the program - from Coney Island to Forest Hills, from Washington Heights to Flushing, according to a News computer analysis of FEMA data.

The program was designed to replace clean air equipment that had been ruined by 9/11 airborne residue and to enable those most affected by a debris trail to clean up their homes.

Instead, air conditioners and the other devices were awarded to people living in buildings with central air, in buildings where the windows did not open and in locales where scientific evidence shows there was no environmental impact.

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre defended the program, saying it clearly helped those affected by the Trade Center dust, even though many filed bogus claims.

"It showed people will take advantage of a situation if they are put in a position that they can," he said. "We try to do business on good faith. I can't speak to people who made dishonest claims just because their borough was eligible."

When FEMA expanded its reimbursement program and began doling out money first - to those who said they couldn't afford to wait for reimbursement - inspectors discovered recipients who'd handed in store receipts, then returned their unopened goods for refunds.

If they could only get a store credit, many exchanged their clean-air tools for giant TVs and other luxury items.

While many city residents have never heard of the program's existence, despite sporadic published reports about its problems, most who did hear of it in 2002 didn't give a second thought to applying for the disaster aid.

As to be expected, large numbers of residents in lower Manhattan collected federal checks for the equipment, which came with purpose of helping residents deal with Ground Zero dust in their homes.

In Manhattan's 10 most southern zip codes, 36% of all households were approved for the equipment, meaning that a total of 20,254 people were authorized to receive $19 million worth of clean-air devices, according to a News computer analysis of program data supplied by FEMA.

Figures obtained by The News as part of its investigation reveal that participation in the clean-air program was much higher than previously reported.

According to data supplied by the state Department of Labor, which administered the giveaway along with FEMA:

Overall, the program consumed $129.7million in federal 9/11 disaster recovery funds. FEMA data puts the total at $131 million. The program had been expected to cost $15 million.

The program served 118,591 New Yorkers; it had been expected to serve 5,000.

By category, New Yorkers received 83,655 air conditioners at a cost of $37.7million.

Some $43 million in taxpayer funds went to pay for 119,872 air purifiers.

Another $30.7 million went for 164,794 vacuum cleaners, both High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) and wet/dry varieties.

And $18.3 million more was dedicated to 96,609 air filters.

APPLICATIONS SPIKED

Like the problems documented by The News in many other 9/11 disaster recovery aid programs, the air device giveaway had loose operating rules that helped promote abuse.

Local politicians complained that too few people were aware of the program, so deadlines were extended and public service announcements appeared in ethnic community newspapers to tout the program.

Then, clean air device companies began pushing the free-equipment program aggressively, using advertising and assisting applicants with their paperwork.

The application rate spiked as the first deadline, Sept. 30, 2002, approached. The program was extended to Nov. 30, 2002, which caused a huge increase in applications. The program was e