NYC Residents' Published Letters on post 9/11 WTC Environmental Contamination Issues
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Don’t run mores streets through the W.T.C., TALKING POINT, by David Stanke, Downtown Express, Volume 16 • Issue 42 | March 19 - 25, 2004
http//www.downtownexpress.com/de_45/talkingpoint.html
The city’s report contains some good suggestions and concerns, but their foremost
objective is to create something that does not exist anywhere else in the city: a
transportation hub jammed beneath a traditional N.Y.C. street grid. The result of these
suggestions would be a less desirable transportation hub; congested, slow moving
sidewalks; and wasted space consumed by streets with few cars. I urge City Planning to use
the experience from elsewhere in the city to create a vision of a pedestrian urban center
for Downtown.
http//www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/opinion/L04ZERO.html?ex=1071514292&ei=1&en=b1cb4e2a948d3c39
The Editor
When Breathing Is Believing
At Stuyvesant High School, after the E.P.A.'s failure to monitor indoor air, daily environmental testing performed by the Department of Education demonstrated both contamination caused by the initial dust cloud (asbestos and lead) and recontamination throughout the school year from the fleet of diesel trucks carrying debris from ground zero to the waste transfer station adjacent to the school's ventilation intakes.
As we subsequently learned from E.P.A. officials, the placement of this toxic dump next to schools and in a residential neighborhood was in direct violation of E.P.A. regulations.
As to any long-term health consequences for the children, the jury is still out. An informal survey of parents conducted by the Stuyvesant Parents' Association found several hundred children with new or exacerbated respiratory symptoms several months after Sept. 11.
MARILENA CHRISTODOULOU
New York, Nov. 30, 2003
The writer was president, Stuyvesant High School Parents' Association, 2000-2002.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
Letter to the Editor, by Barbara Zeluck, The Nation, December 1, 2003
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031201&s=letter
New York City
Congratulations on David Corn's "Bush's Other Lies"! But Corn overlooks at least one lie--Bush wasn't caught mouthing it, but his fingerprint is unmistakable: the EPA's lie that the air at the site of the World Trade Center attack was safe to breathe. "Because of Bush's lies, thousands will suffer cancers, emphysema, heart attack, stroke, birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, eye/ear/nose/throat disease and much more.... The short-term deaths of 3,000 people will be dwarfed over the long term by the lethal fallout," says Harvey Wasserman in the September 4 Counterpunch. Or in the words of Juan Gonzalez in the August 26 New York Daily News, "An investigation released by the EPA's own inspector general made a stunning revelation: The trail of public health misinformation began inside the White House."
BARBARA ZELUCK
Copyright 2003 The Nation
E.P.A. tests, Letter to the Editor, Downtown Express, Volume 16, Issue 25, November 18 - 24, 2003
http//www.downtownexpress.com/de_30/letterstotheeditor.html
To The EditorElizabeth O’Brien is to be commended for her valuable reporting of the government’s poor response to the environmental health impacts of the World Trade Center catastrophe ("E.P.A. releases some lead results," news article, Nov. 4–10). However, some of the facts in her report on the results of Environmental Protection Agency’s wipe tests for lead and other non-asbestos contaminants in Lower Manhattan need to be further emphasized, and others corrected.
First, a correction the use of the words "scoured" and "scrubbed" are grossly inaccurate to describe the methods used by E.P.A. cleaning crews. Aside from HEPA vacuuming, the most stringent cleaning consisted of wet wiping surfaces with disposable "Swiffers" by workers whose styles ranged from lackadaisical to somewhat energetic. (In at least one quadrant, the cleaners used dirty, dark-colored terry cloth rags.) That was the extent of the cleaning — no scouring.
As the reporter indicates, the E.P.A. itself set up the current situation, where it cannot "extrapolate" from the test data in order to tell us anything about the extent of lead, or other, contamination in Lower Manhattan as a whole. Its insistence on testing only 250 of the approximately 30,000 apartments in Lower Manhattan was, from the beginning, clearly doomed to not yield comprehensive information and to be an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. E.P.A. responded to activists’ criticisms by saying that if the extremely limited testing showed that high levels of contaminants were present, much more extensive testing would then be done. Well, we shall see.
What is clear at this point is that elevated lead results in such a high percentage (13.5) of samples tested indicates that a great number of the thousands of apartments that were neither cleaned nor tested are likely to contain unacceptable levels of lead and/or other contaminants.
No overreaction at
Stuy, by Paul Edwards, Downtown Express, Volume 16, Issue
20, October14-20, 2003
To The Editor:
Charles Komanoff latches onto a minor technical controversy over post-9/11 air sampling at
Stuyvesant High School to justify his assertion that indoor environmental quality in
Downtown schools rapidly returned to normal (Talking Point, “Overreacting to
Whitman’s deceit on air quality,” Oct. 7 – 13, 2003). Unfortunately, Mr.
Komanoff misses the forest for the trees.
Yes, the manufacturer of the equipment used
by the Department of Education to measure fine particulate matter (a respiratory health
hazard) at Stuyvesant confirms that levels recorded could have been anywhere from 100
percent to 300 percent of particulate levels recorded elsewhere by the Environmental
Protection Agency using different instruments. However, any lapse in accuracy, according
to the equipment manufacturer, was likely caused by the presence of combustion byproducts
from ground zero fires — a health concern for our children either way.
Yes, the weather cleaned outdoor air in
most places after ground zero fires were extinguished. However, the siting of the waste
transfer station only yards from Stuyvesant increased the potential for contamination at
the school. Thus, on the 2 occasions that E.P.A. measured outdoor levels of isocyanates
and tetrachloroethane at Stuyvesant it found levels exceeding health-based benchmarks.
Outdoor contaminants that find their way
indoors can remain for extended periods of time. Although asbestos was removed from
Stuyvesant before it reopened on October 9, 2001, additional asbestos was found in the
school almost a year later. In spring of 2002, levels of lead dust significantly above
E.P.A. benchmarks were found in classrooms and throughout the mechanical ventilation
system. The school was closed all summer for an extensive lead removal project.
Stuyvesant parents did not
“overreact.” We are proud that our Parents’ Association was able to work
with D.O.E. to conduct comprehensive indoor testing and to implement appropriate cleanups
when test results indicated preventable health risks to the school community.
Paul L. Edwards
Stuyvesant parent
Overreacting to Whitmanıs deceit on air quality, By Charles Komanoff, Downtown Express, Volume 16, Issue 19, October 07 - 13, 2003
TALKING POINT
A wave of conflicting feelings broke over me when I heard that the Environmental Protection Agencyıs inspector general had blasted ex-agency chief Christie Whitman for her infamous "all clear" proclamation about Downtown air quality after 9/11.
Sure, I was glad to see Whitman get her knuckles rapped. Anyone near the World Trade Center site in the days immediately after the towers collapsed knew the air was dangerous, and it was outrageous for Whitman to deny it.
But a few months later, I found myself on the other side of the air debate, insisting it was safe to re-open my sonıs elementary school seven blocks north in Independence Plaza, one of four Downtown schools shuttered by concerns over lingering pollution.
What changed my mind between September and December 2001? For one thing, the fires in the rubble had subsided. The burning smell finally lifted from Duane St., where I live, around Thanksgiving, and a few weeks later the fires were declared over.
The gloom persisted, though, with Downtown residents sleepwalking through empty, silent streets day after day. I desperately wanted my block alive again. And so did the local shops and businesses that, without foot traffic, were barely hanging on. I began to reflect that our air quality wasn't exactly pristine before 9/11, and to ask myself how exigent we now needed to be about it before we could all take our lives off hold.
But what really turned me around was discovering that air monitors installed by the Board of Education in October were over-measuring pollutants in and around Downtown schools. Yes, you read that right. The boardıs equipment was registering triple the actual mass of dust particles, leading many parents to conclude that the schools were unsafe when, in fact, air quality throughout most of Downtown was again well within the established band of safety.
Even now, against solid evidence, some officials are questioning whether the air in and around these schools is safe ‹ needlessly worrying parents.
The first hint of the systematic error in the school tests came at Stuyvesant High School, four blocks from ground zero, which was hastily re-opened on Oct. 10, 2001. During one three-day period, Oct. 22-24, most particulate readings on the Board of Edıs outdoor monitors exceeded the threshold of 40 for sensitive groups including children. Indeed, many readings exceeded the 65 standard for the general population, and several even surpassed 100.
These readings sent Stuyvesant parents into an uproar, especially since fatigue and other adverse symptoms were also being reported by students and staff. Yet simultaneous readings on the E.P.A. monitor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, directly across West St., were many times lower, mostly between 20 and 25. What was going on?
Many parents, remembering Whitmanıs big lie, disregarded the E.P.A. monitor. While that was understandable, given Whitmanıs politically motivated deceit, it was a mistake. E.P.A.'s "gravimetric" monitor directly weighed particles sampled in the air, whereas the Board of Edıs cheaper, portable devices, called Dust-Track, used an indirect "photometric" light-scattering technique that counted the particles.
The difference in techniques wouldnıt have mattered if the Dust-Track meters had been properly calibrated to infer the weight of the particles from their numbers. But they werenıt. As the consultant hired by the P.S. 234 and P.S. 150 P.T.A.ıs reported later, the Dust-Track meters were unwittingly calibrated at the factory using a standard material, Arizona Road Dust, which is much denser than the particles found in urban air. This programming error produced spuriously high readings.
Only a handful of experts were on to this glitch. One was Dr. George Thurston, the New York University epidemiologist whose research has helped link power plant emissions and automotive smog to excess deaths. Thurston dismissed Whitmanıs blanket assurances about ground zero, of course, but he had confidence in E.P.A. monitors, which had been used for decades to derive the health standards. He also thought the Stuyvesant maladies might have resulted from excess carbon dioxide caused by a ten-fold reduction in ventilation - intended, ironically, to reduce intake of outside air.
But Thurstonıs level-headed analysis was drowned out by fear-mongering headlines such as "School Dust Stirs Health Concerns" in the Daily News. Stuyvesant stayed open, but P.S. 234, P.S. 150 and P.S. 89 opened in February, 2002 and I.S. 89 in late January. This was six to eight weeks after they had been professionally cleaned and carefully checked out for particulates, asbestos and other toxics by contractors overseen by each schools' P.T.A..
There is a lesson here. Christie Whitmanıs big lie destroyed at a stroke the credibility of her agency, and opened the door to hysterical and exaggerated fear among the public The result more than a thousand kids exiled into faraway makeshift schools for a month or two longer than necessary, compounding the emotional stress they endured during and after the attacks. Public officials squandered some of their energy on air quality in schools upwind of ground zero instead of focusing more on other post-9/11 problems.
That was twenty months ago. Time is a great healer, and I again get to watch my kids run wild on the P.S. 150 plaza. But every so often I see in my mindıs eye those empty Downtown streets, and remember the gloom and fear of those long weeks. Thanks a lot, Ms. Whitman.
Charles Komanoff, a resident of Tribeca, has written widely on environmental matters including air pollution.
Doubts About Ground Zero Are Still in the Air, By Thomas S. Goodkind, NY Newsday Op Ed, September 10, 2003
Thomas S. Goodkind is a controller of a Manhattan-based real-estate firm and sits on Community Board One's youth and education committee. He and his family live in Battery Park City, a block from Ground Zero
Last week, my older child called me at work, out of breath.
"Daddy, I couldn't really breathe for about an hour."
"Why, what happened?"
"I was walking past the old Deutsche Bank Building next to the Trade Center site, and I suddenly couldn't breathe. It was really weird."
After 9/11, I believed the Environmental Protection Agency when it proclaimed that the air downtown was safe. But it apparently was misrepresenting the quality of the air for the purpose of keeping businesses open.
Now, two years later, I find my family and neighbors experiencing respiratory problems. Every member of my family is regularly complaining about their breathing.
Preliminary studies organized by the New York State Department of Health and New York University agree. They show that some residents who have lived within a mile radius of Ground Zero since 9/11 have persistent new-onset respiratory symptoms. In methacholine challenge tests, affected residents were discovered to have "twitchy lungs," meaning that their lungs reacted more quickly than normal to potential asthma triggers.
During the days immediately after 9/11, the Battery Park City Authority provided residents with a Web site, the "BPC Emergency Message Board." Noticing the disparity between what our eyes and lungs felt and what the EPA was saying, I thought people downtown had to take matters into their own hands. In late September 2001, I began posting my observations about which way the wind was blowing so that residents could avoid the awful smoke from the persistent fires at the site. Here's a sample
"Friday - Noon, October 19, 2001
"Woke up this morning in Soho (20 blocks north of Ground Zero) and felt as if I had smoked a few cigars the night before.
"Date November 8, 2001
"Smoke Dense clouds 8 stories high."
And my neighbors responded, too
"10-29-2001 1221 p.m. I get a strange taste in my mouth when I walk outside on a particularly dusty day. The smoke itself does not seem to give me this weird taste (it gave me other things like sinus trouble, nose bleeds, sore throat, etc.)."
"11-06-2001 1245 a.m. I've been using the reports to plan where I exit the subway when I head home from work."
Due to the persistent fires, one of my neighbors, who had previous health problems, lapsed into a coma for six months after thinking he had safely returned to Battery Park City.
No, the air was not safe, but we were never told that.
Another example of government policies that placed business safety before people's health literally crystallized across the street from my home. They were 3-foot-high slabs of impenetrable concrete running for blocks.
"Daddy, what are those?" questioned my 6-year-old upon their appearance last year.
I told her, "They're Jersey barriers for the people who go to work in the World Financial Center."
"Are those the people who come in the boats from New Jersey?"
"Some do."
"But why are they there?"
I answered that "they are there to protect the businesses at the World Financial Center from terrorists."
"Oh, where are the terrorists?"
"They're not sure."
Pausing, she said, "Well, why don't we have any?" I didn't have an answer for her.
Two years later, life hasn't returned to normal. We all have our share of 9/11 tics. When aircraft go by, people will stop what they're doing, point to the sky and exclaim, "That was a close one." And I've seen a parent in such shock at the low altitude of a jet that she dropped her 2-year-old on the playground and said, "Wow, they are sure flying low today!" No one, including the slightly bruised child, seemed to think her reaction was anything but routine.
And then there are the nightmares that everyone down here seems to have. My wife has desperate dreams of not being able to help our children and others. They are running through the dark city, being shot at by terrorists hiding behind cars. They end up seemingly safe but then are surrounded by terrorists with guns. And there are her dreams of long, endless stairways leading to nowhere with thousands of transparent people crying for help.
Those dreams may fade with time. But what about the effects of breathing potentially harmful air? It is not unreasonable now to request that testing and, if needed, treatment be offered for downtown city residents affected by 9/11. It is also not unreasonable to requestthat those officials who knew of the dangers and still had residents return home be held responsible.
After the attack of 9/11, I walked from my downtown office through the ankle-deep debris, pushing past the military checkpoints to get into my home. I grabbed all I could and stuffed it into a large bag, knowing my family would have to live on it for some time. Now, on this second anniversary, it's good to be home, but I cannot help feeling betrayed.
And if it's true that the White House pressed the EPA to misrepresent the safety of the air to people who were at their most vulnerable, waiting with their children for guidance, I can't help feeling deceived.
Copyright İ 2003, Newsday, Inc.