Socialist Action /February 2002
EPA Ignores Dust Pollution from World
Trade Center
By ROLAND SHEPPARD
The implosion of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers sent clouds of carcinogenic
dust across New York City. These towers were built in the late 1970s, and
asbestos was one of many different carcinogenic materials that are contained
in the buildings.
Everyone familiar with construction and the carcinogens contained in
high-rise structures immediately knew that there was a grave risk for all
who were "downwind" from the burning and dustification of the
building.
Despite the obvious, Environmental Protective Agency (EPA) Administrator
Christie Whitman said a week after the attacks: "I am glad to reassure
the people of New York ... that their air is safe to breathe and their water
is safe to drink,"
The Jan. 11, 2002, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle reprinted a Washington
Post article titled, "Residents near ground zero worry about toxic
debris." The author, Christine Haughney, reported that "those
who live or work downtown report strikingly similar symptoms: nosebleeds,
sore throats, bronchial infections and an endless hacking cough. ... About
one-fourth of the city's firefighters have complained of severe coughing
after working at ground zero, and more than a thousand have filed notices
of claims against the city.
"Last week, four Port Authority police officers were reassigned
from the site after they tested positive for elevated mercury levels in
their blood. ... Dozens of students at nearby Stuyvesant High School have
complained of rashes, nosebleeds, headaches and respiratory infections.
Three teachers have left because of respiratory problems."
The article continues: "For a while after Sept. 11, George Tabb
and his wife tried to stick it out in their apartment north of the World
Trade Center, tried to ignore his twice-nightly asthma attacks and her headaches.
Eventually, they moved in with Tabb's stepfather....
"But Tabb still goes home to pick up his mail, and within 20 minutes
the metallic taste returns to his mouth, and the wheezing. 'All of a sudden,
boom, I've got a nosebleed, the asthma, a headache,' he said.
"Recently, Tabb received evidence that the air in his apartment
may be as dangerous as he suspects. Independent tests-results of which are
disputed by the city-found that dust taken from an air vent in his apartment
building's hallway contained 555 times [!] the suggested acceptable level
for asbestos. Samples from a bathroom vent show dangerous levels of fiberglass.
'No one knows what was burning down there' at ground zero, he said. 'I am
concerned that in five years or 10 years, I'm going to be part of a cancer
cluster.'"
Yet the EPA has refused to warn people of the hazards or even admit the
potential of hazards to life itself. The EPA has repeatedly told residents
the air is safe to breathe.
The article goes on to explain: "But the EPA also found more troubling
results, which it did not release until after the nonprofit New York Environmental
Law and Justice Project filed a Freedom of Information Act request. These
tests found elevated levels of dioxin, PCBs, lead and chromium, all toxic
substances, in the air, soil and water around the site.
In a Sept. 26 EPA test, for example, three of 10 samples near the attack
site showed elevated readings for lead. An Oct. 11 EPA test in the ground
zero area found benzene, a colorless liquid that evaporates quickly but
can cause leukemia in long-term exposure, measured 58 times above the federal
Occupational Safety and Health Administration's limit.
Those results weren't released until late October. These materials, under
Proposition 65 in California, are "known to the State of California
to cause cancer," but obviously not to the EPA!
In referring to the EPA's statements, the article quotes Joel Kupferman,
the executive director of the Environmental Law and Justice Project: "'They've
[EPA] created this false climate that things are safe,' he said.
"Alerted to concerns about Tabb's building, he said, 'the project
hired an independent industrial hygienist to conduct tests of surfaces there
on Dec. 3, using methods published by the American Society for Testing and
Materials. The tests found the presence of settled asbestos 555 times above
the suggested acceptable level.' ... Scientists with HP Environmental Inc.
of Reston, Va., warn that the asbestos dust in Lower Manhattan is so finely
pulverized that the EPA's more conventional tests may not pick it up."
Cancer from these known carcinogenic dusts released by the WTC towers
implosion takes 20 to 30 years to develop. From my understanding of the
risks from carcinogenic materials that I and other house painters have been
exposed to during the course of work (according to the International Association
for Research on Cancer), exposures 555 times the legally permissible level
may well create a catastrophe hundreds of times more destructive to human
lives than the initial implosion!
The sad fact is that if the Environmental Protective Agency had lived
up to its name, future deaths from cancer and other preventable diseases
could have been prevented. But the EPA was more concerned with protecting
the financial environment of the employers in the area (Wall Street) and
of the companies that produce buildings made of carcinogens.
Socialist Action /February 2002 |