Sierra Club Pollution & Deception 9-11 Report 2005

Explore, enjoy and protect the planet

Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero REVISITED: WHY IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN Monday, September 17, 2001: The New York Stock Exchange reopens and workers return to a still- polluted Lower Manhattan financial district.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 I.

Why We Must Prevent the Failures of 9/11 from Being Repeated: New Information on the Human Health Impacts and Potential Future Hazards from 9/11 Pollution . . . . . . 6 New Confirmation that Human Health Impacts from 9/11 Pollution Are Persisting . 7 New Information on the Potential Future Health Hazards from 9/11 Pollution . . . . . 9

II.

Why All Americans Should Demand Strong Policies to Protect the Public Against Health Risks in National Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 People from Many States Came to Help New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Security Concerns and Potential Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

III.

Why It Is Reasonable to Worry that the Federal Administration Will Not Meet Its Duty to Assess Fully the Severity and Extent of Contamination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Need for Public Debate on “Optimization” Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Need for Investigation of EPA Testing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

IV.

Why It Will Be Harder to Learn the Truth About Health Risks from Future Terrorist Attacks and National Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

V.

Why OSHA May Fail Again to Protect Rescue and Recovery Workers – and When It Tries to Protect Workers, Its Hands Could Be Tied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

VI.

Why It Is Reasonable to Predict that EPA Will Fail to Conduct a Proper Cleanup of Contamination from a Terrorist Attack or National Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

VII.

Why Americans Should Assume that the Federal Administration Will Praise, then Abandon, the Patriotic Rescue/Recovery Workers, Area Employees and Residents Who Help to Rebuild an Area Devastated by a Terrorist Attack or Disaster . . . . . . . . . 34 Medical Screening and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Medical Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

VIII.

Why Americans Should Assume that No One Will Be Held Accountable for Failures of Our Government to Protect the Public Against Pollution from an Attack or Disaster 40

Appendix A: The Ground Zero Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

INTRODUCTION In August 2004, the Sierra Club issued a report entitled, Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero, which documented that many hundreds of people in New York City had become ill because of exposure to pollution from the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The report found that if our federal government had responded to the disaster with proper vigilance for people’s health, many toxic exposures could have been avoided. It also expressed concern that such missteps could be repeated in a future disaster. In this report, the Sierra Club revisits these issues to determine whether or not Americans should feel assured that our federal government will take sufficient steps to protect health and safety in future disasters. The answer is no. Americans cannot count on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of Homeland Security, EPA or OSHA to protect public health in the aftermath of a terrorist attack or national disaster. Based on the federal administration’s new emergency management policies – and its continued failure to provide a proper cleanup and health management response to the 9/11 attack – Americans should assume that in any future national disaster, if political pressure is applied to resume human activity in the affected area: S

EPA will fail to determine how harmful the contamination is and how far it spreads; also, under its new relationship with the Department of Homeland Security, it may use weakened toxic cleanup goals under a new federal “optimization” policy;

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Under the new National Response Plan, messages to the public about health and safety will be filtered by centralized “PR” staff who answer to an administration that has repeatedly disregarded scientific data if it conflicts with a political agenda;

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OSHA will not enforce safety laws to protect rescue and recovery workers – and under the new National Response Plan, OSHA will not have “the last word” in debates on worker safety;

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The federal government will fail to conduct a proper cleanup of the contamination;

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The federal Administration will praise, then abandon, the rescue/recovery workers and the people who return to rebuild the area but then suffer health effects; and,

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No one will be held accountable for our government’s failure to protect the public from the aftermath of a terrorist attack or national disaster.

This is not what Americans deserve from their government. At times, our nation may have to make hard choices, but concealing from the public critically important information about health risks is not the way to manage the situation. Americans deserve – and should be able to expect – the straight story about what risks they face. They also have a right to expect strong government action to protect rescue and recovery workers and to ensure safety for the people who return and restore the affected area. Anything less is a betrayal of the public’s trust in national leadership. 1

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Summary of Findings S

People clearly needed better protection from the pollution caused by the 9/11 attack. Early studies raised concerns about persistent health effects from the exposures. Now, newly released data confirm that not only rescue/recovery workers but also residents, small business owners and area employees have 9/11-related respiratory health effects – symptoms that did not disappear even after a year or longer.

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The Department of Homeland Security is proposing to use “optimization”– a policy approach that will consider “societal values and needs,” such as economic impacts – to determine toxic cleanup levels for national emergencies, and EPA apparently will not have final authority over standards or guidelines; this is of concern given the adverse health consequences of the haste to reopen Wall Street after the 9/11 attack.

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EPA’s new Homeland Security Strategy document lacks a clear policy declaration that it will issue assurances of safety only after assessing the pollution hazards as a whole rather than basing its assurances merely on individual chemicals, as occurred in the World Trade Center disaster; also, it fails to adopt a “better safe than sorry” approach to reduce human exposures while awaiting complete information on pollution.

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The Department of Homeland Security’s new National Response Plan denies OSHA final say over the protection of rescue and recovery workers, giving authority for dispute resolution to a “Joint Field Office Coordination Group.”

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New Yorkers still await a proper response to the World Trade Center attack, including a proper cleanup of the contamination that permeated homes and workplaces, and a proper program for medical monitoring and care for the people exposed to 9/11 pollution.

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New studies of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and benzene – pollutants that were in the Ground Zero air – indicate the need to monitor public health not only for cancer but also for immune system impacts and effects on offspring. Also, new data on asthma impacts in western Brooklyn indicate the need to investigate 9/11 impacts there.

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Rather than investigate the failures of the Workers’ Compensation System to aid people who became ill from 9/11 pollution exposure, and solve the problems, the federal government is simply turning its back on the unmet needs.

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Congress has failed to investigate and obtain disclosure of the identities of persons in the White House who suppressed 9/11 health warnings that EPA otherwise would have issued, and there has still been no comprehensive investigation of the methods EPA used to test the air emissions and dust, which were the subjects of significant controversy.

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All Americans should be concerned about what happened at Ground Zero. Many other states besides New York are home to residents who were made ill by exposure to 9/11 pollution. Although health effects statistics are not available, 9/11 clinical programs have screened 846 rescue and recovery workers from other states, including 363 from New Jersey, 88 from Massachusetts, 79 from California, 77 from Ohio, 66 from Illinois, and 30 from Florida. Over half of the 2,680 injured people who applied to the short-lived federal victim compensation fund reported asthma or respiratory symptoms, and 339 of them lived in other states. These states included: New Jersey 182 applicants Virginia 53 applicants Pennsylvania 24 applicants Florida 22 applicants Also, a future disaster releasing toxic contaminants could happen in any state. Louisiana and Mississippi are facing unknown levels of contamination as a result of the Katrina hurricane. Several reports have noted, in addition, that America’s chemical facilities remain particularly vulnerable nationwide.

The unmistakable conclusion that must be drawn is that America remains at risk not only from terrorist attacks and natural disasters, but also from our own federal government’s unwillingness to put public health and safety first in its response to such national emergencies. Recommendations Congress should hold hearings to: S

Investigate the Department of Homeland Security’s new “optimization” policy initiative and challenge its role in establishing toxic cleanup goals and making cleanup decisions;

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Demand a clarification of EPA’s new relationship to the Department of Homeland Security, especially with regard to environmental cleanup in the aftermath of a disaster, and investigate whether or not public health warnings may be compromised as a result;

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Demand a reversal of OSHA’s decision not to carry out enforcement of safety and health laws for rescue and recovery workers in national disasters, and challenge the federal Administration’s decision to take final authority for worker safety out of OSHA’s hands;

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Investigate the failure of New York State’s Workers’ Compensation System to assist the workers made ill by 9/11 pollution; and,

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Demand that the federal administration disclose the identities of the persons in the White House who suppressed warnings of health risks from the 9/11 terrorist attack. 3

The federal administration should: S

Revise its National Response Plan, EPA Homeland Security Strategy document and National Incident Management Plan to establish a policy that public health assurances are issued only after assessing the pollution hazards as a whole, rather than basing assurances merely on individual chemicals, and incorporate a “better safe than sorry” approach to reduce human exposures while awaiting complete information on pollution;

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Restore the primacy of EPA in developing cleanup goals for pollution released in national emergencies;

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Revise its National Response Plan, OSHA National Emergency Management Plan, and National Incident Management Plan documents to ensure that OSHA has the final word in health and safety protections for rescue and recovery workers in a national emergency;

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Disclose the identities of the persons in the White House who suppressed warnings of health risks from the terrorist attack;

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Develop a program to identify the volunteers from states other than New York who worked in the Ground Zero area for medical screening; follow up on the health impacts of the injured people who applied to the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund; and establish a health screening project in Brooklyn to follow up on the results of the new asthma study and identify people made ill from the attacks;

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Address the gaps in medical care funding that remain for recovery workers because of the limitations of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund and the failures of the Workers’ Compensation System, and establish a program to assist, as needed, those residents, small business owners, students and area employees who are ill from 9/11 pollution exposure;

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Provide proper long-term funding -- at least 20 years but preferably 30 -- for medical monitoring, and include monitoring for immune system effects and effects on offspring; and

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Adopt the recommendations of the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition to make EPA’s proposed testing and cleanup plan for World Trade Center contamination of homes and workplaces into an effective and credible program that will identify and clean up any remaining hazards.

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Background In 2004, the Sierra Club issued a report showing how the federal government failed to inform the public of the hazards of the World Trade Center pollution, fulfill its legal duties to enforce worker safety rules, and conduct a proper environmental cleanup. The report made the following findings: S

Our federal government should have considered the pollution dangerous unless rigorous testing proved the conditions to be safe. It did not. Instead, EPA and OSHA – under the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s direction – behaved as though they had no understanding of pollution and its impacts, and as though they did not know their own statutory duties.

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Then, when confronted with information revealing harm – such as the fact that the 9/11 dust was highly caustic or that office workers in a building several blocks from Ground Zero were still suffering health effects months after the attack – the federal government simply did not disclose this information to the public.

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Also, the Bush administration’s new disaster planning documents appeared to institutionalize OSHA’s failure to enforce health and safety standards for response workers and establish centralized political control of hazard communications without strong policies to protect the public against false assurances.

These failures have prolonged the harms of the September 11 attack for New York City residents and those people from other states who generously came to help. The 2004 report recommended several steps that the federal government should take to mitigate the harm caused by its failure to issue proper health risk warnings, clean up the remaining World Trade Center contamination in homes and workplaces, and promote stronger standards for protecting public health and safety in future disasters. It urged that the Bush administration must restore trust in its agencies. Yet, today, the problems identified in the report remain unresolved, and new national disaster policies may make the situation even worse.

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I.

Why We Must Prevent the Failures of 9/11 from Being Repeated: New Information on the Human Health Impacts and Potential Future Hazards from 9/11 Pollution

People clearly needed better protection from the pollution caused by the September 11, 2001 attack in New York City. The City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s World Trade Center Health Registry reports that nearly 27,000 people have reported experiencing sinus problems or nose irritation after the attack, and over 21,000 reported a persistent cough. The agency reports that it does not know for how long these symptoms lasted,1 and our government has not made the effort to find out. The federal government has failed to identify, quantify and track: S S S S S S S S S S

the children who are still suffering health effects; the elderly people who are still suffering health effects; the people with asthma or other respiratory diseases who still suffer health effects; the people with immune system deficiencies whose conditions worsened; the otherwise healthy residents and college students who still suffer health effects; the small business owners who still suffer health effects; the building cleaners and custodians who still suffer health effects; the office workers, food service workers, small business employees and other area employees who still suffer health effects; the transport workers, communications workers, carpenters, or electricians, plumbers, sanitation workers, reporters and film technicians who still suffer health effects; the social service Ground Zero volunteers who still suffer health effects.

As a result, we still do not know the total number of people who are sick from 9/11 pollution. We know that many thousands of people do suffer health impacts, but we do not know the total number. We do not know because our federal government has not bothered to find out. These people are not supposed to exist. Our federal government leaders, in their rush to reopen the New York Stock Exchange and other Wall Street businesses – and perhaps in an ideological reluctance to acknowledge that pollution can make people sick – urged everyone to come back to Lower Manhattan. Barricades were removed. Our federal government declared the air safe. It did not limit its welcome to healthy adults. Everyone, including young children, could return. Neither the federal nor the local government made any reasonable effort to evaluate the safety of homes and workplaces before issuing this broad invitation. Families with children were encouraged to return to their homes. Schools were reopened. Employees generally had no choice at all in the matter. No government agency said that people with respiratory conditions should consult their doctors before they returned, or that workers should be excused from returning until the workplace was properly cleaned. After all, according to EPA, Lower Manhattan was safe. 1

NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, “The W TCHR Quarterly Enrollment Update: Data Through Friday, September 10, 2004,” World Trade Center Health Registry Data Snapshot (Fig. 8). A 2002 study found that 332 firefighters and one EM S worker had W TC cough severe enough to require four or more consecutive weeks of medical leave; 87 percent also had gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Prezant, D.J., et al., “Cough and Bronchial Responsiveness in Firefighters at the W orld Trade Center Site,” New Eng. J Med. 347(11):806-15 (2002).

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Even the people who worked directly on the pile at Ground Zero should not be sick. The federal government insists that they provided the workers with protective gear. It blames workers for failing to use it, while failing to acknowledge the mixed messages about safety that EPA sent and OSHA’s failure to enforce safety standards. OSHA insists that its non-enforcement, “cooperative agreement” approach to worker health and safety at Ground Zero – which actually allowed rampant violation of the requirements of protective gear that should have been in place – was a great success story. So no one should be sick. But they are. And our federal government has neglected even to count them. In 2004, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) evaluated federal actions taken to study the health effects of the 9/11 pollution – and found that no comprehensive, coordinated effort occurred. The GAO identified six government programs with varying purposes and limitations, but reported that an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 people were exposed or at risk of exposure to 9/11 pollution, and “the full health impact of the attack is unknown.”2 At a September 2004 Congressional hearing, when Representative Carolyn Mahoney asked the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, how many people are still sick, he responded, “I’m not sure anyone could give you an exact figure.”3 We do, however, know more than we did a year ago.

New Confirmation that Human Health Impacts from 9/11 Pollution Are Persisting It has taken three years or longer for studies to emerge confirming what workers and residents already know – that health effects from Ground Zero have persisted for a year or longer. While early studies had revealed cause for concern,4 the newly released data indicate that not only thousands of workers but also thousands of residents experienced 9/11-related respiratory health effects that persisted for a year or longer, and may still persist. S

A study of over a thousand rescue and recovery workers found that 78 percent reported persistent WTC-related symptoms. An average of about eight months and a range of seven weeks to well over a year (63 weeks) had elapsed since they had stopped working

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GAO, September 11: Health Effects in the Aftermath of the World Trade Center Attack (Testimony to the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, House Comm. on Government Reform)(GAO-04-1068T)(Sept. 8, 2004)(hereafter, GAO Report on WTC Health Effects), pp. 16 and 23. 3

Statement of Dr. John Howard, Director, National Inst. For Occup’l Safety and Health, in, Devlin Barrett, “Sept. 11-related Cancers May Not Appear for Decades, Doctors Tell Congress,” Associated Press (Sept. 8, 2004). 4

A screening of 250 rescue and recovery workers had found that nine months after the attack, 45% still had at least one pulmonary symptom and 52% had an ear, nose or throat symptom. R. Herbert and S. Levin, World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program: Report of Initial Findings to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the CDC (2003). Eleven months after the attack, 358 firefighters and five EMS workers remained on medical leave or light duty assignment because of respiratory illness that occurred after W TC exposure. CDC, “Injuries and Illnesses Among New York City Fire Department Rescue W orkers After Responding to the W orld Trade Center Attacks,” Morbid & Mortal Wkly Rpt 51(special issue):1-5 (Sept. 11, 2002).

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at Ground Zero or the site had been cleaned up.5 The Centers for Disease Control noted, “[T]he persistence of symptoms for greater than one year after the 9/11 event is a new finding and requires further study.”6 S

Over 1,000 residents – 43.7 percent of the 2,362 residents included in a recently published survey – reported that at least one new-onset upper respiratory symptom still persisted a year after the attack. The study concluded that residents of the affected area reported “significantly more upper respiratory symptoms than residents of the control area.”7

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As of March 2004, about 380 firefighters were still unable to serve as firefighters because of respiratory illnesses that they had developed after WTC exposure.8

Assurances at the time that respiratory symptoms would be temporary9 and that residents were not at risk of long-term health effects10 apparently were based more on what the federal government wanted to be true than on scientific knowledge. New research has confirmed the existence of “World Trade Center Cough” as a specific medical condition. A special CT scan analysis of 20 patients with the symptoms commonly associated with World Trade Center Cough – patients who did not have asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or another more easily diagnosed respiratory ailment – found that they suffer from a respiratory ailment characterized by ‘small airway disease.” Such “air trapping,” a manifestation of 5

The study examined a subset of 1,138 of the 11,768 rescue and recovery workers and volunteers screened by the Mount Sinai Medical School by the end 2002, and found that 851 reported persistent symptoms. CDC, “Physical Health Status of World Trade Center Rescue and Recovery W orkers and Volunteers – New York City, July, 2002-August 2004,” Morbid & Mortal Wkly Rpt 53(35):807-12 (Sept. 10, 2004). 6

CDC, “Physical Health Status of W orld Trade Center Rescue and Recovery W orkers,” supra, p. 812 (Editorial Note). In a study of 62 of the nearly 3,000 NYC transport workers exposed to the 9/11 pollution, 10 to 25 percent reported persistent eye and nose or throat irritation, and/or respiratory symptoms 7 ½ months after the attack. Loren Tapp, et al., “Physical and Mental Health Symptoms Among NYC Transit W orkers Seven and One-half Months After the W TC Attacks,” Am J Ind’l Med. 47:475-83 (2005). 7

Shao Lin, et al., “Upper Respiratory Symptoms and Other Health Effects Among Residents Living Near the W orld Trade Center Site After September 11, 2001,” Am J Epid. 162(6) (Sept. 15, 2005). The study was begun eight months after the attack, and surveyed 49 residential buildings with approximately 9,200 households living within 1.5 kilometers of Ground Zero. The number of qualified respondents was 2,362. 8

GAO Report on WTC Health Effects, p. 6. In a representative sample of 179 Fire Department rescue workers, 23 percent of the highly exposed subjects and 11 percent of the moderately exposed rescue workers still suffered from persistent bronchial hyperreactivity a year after the attack. A year after the attack 16 percent had reactive airways dysfunction syndrome. G. Banauch, et al., “Bronchial Hyperactivity and Other Inhalation Lung Injuries in Rescue Recovery W orkers After the W orld Trade center Collapse,” Crit Care Med. 33:S102-06 (2005). 9

“[T]he particulate matter from the plume can be irritating to your eyes, nose and throat. It can cause more serious reactions in sensitive populations, such as people with respiratory problems or asthma, according to health officials, but does not cause any irreversible health effects.” Statement of Kathleen Callahan, Acting Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region 1, before the New York State Assembly (Nov. 26, 2001). 10

An EPA press release issued in March 2002 asserted, “tests conducted since September 11 th have indicated that there is no evidence of significant long-term health risks to residents and office workers from the air quality in Lower Manhattan.” EPA Region 2, Press Release, “Federal, State and City Agencies Announce Actions for Lower Manhattan Air Quality” (Mar. 25, 2002).

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obstructed lung airways, results in shortness of breath, dry cough or wheezing.11 The authors developed a visual scale for the black spots that the scans revealed in the airways. (The black spots indicate that air is trapped in the lungs, making it difficult for the patient to breathe freely.) Reportedly, they noted that while smokers would probably fall somewhere between 0 and 4 on that scale, the World Trade Center rescue workers averaged 10.55. The lead author observed that the most likely culprit behind this type of airway disease was the pulverized alkaline cement released by the collapse of the towers.12 No comprehensive research on mortality related to 9/11 pollution health impacts has yet been released, although some concerns have been raised about individual cases. A retired Emergency Medical Technician with the Fire Department of New York, Tim Keller, passed away on June 23, 2005, reportedly from extreme pulmonary distress. A member of the Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics Local 2507, he had suffered since September 11th from debilitating respiratory problems, yet was denied workers’ compensation benefits and died almost penniless. Colleagues speaking to a writer for The Chief, a newspaper for City employees, stated their belief that Mr. Keller’s death was caused by the exposures that he suffered at Ground Zero.13 This is a matter that should be the subject of investigation.

New Information on Potential Future Health Impacts from 9/11: Need to Consider Immune System Threats, Potential Impacts on Offspring, and Geographical Scope We are still learning more about the chemical soup to which people were exposed from Ground Zero. The fires from Ground Zero produced a mix of toxic gasses and ultra-fine “particulates” (a technical term for airborne dust) never seen before.14 A study released in November 2004 of induced sputum from New York City firefighters who worked at Ground Zero, collected 10 months after the attack, made two important findings: S

The particles in the sputum of the New York City firefighters contained titanium, zinc, mercury, gold, tin and nickel, while those from a control group of firefighters from TelAviv contained mostly particles of silica, stainless steel and clays. Thus, the particles

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The researchers’ use of an “end -expiratory,” high resolution CT revealed abnormalities in the lung airways that a standard CT did not reveal. David Mendelson, et al., Abstract, “Air Trapping Detected on EndExpiratory High Resolution CT in Symptomatic W orld Trade Center (AC) Rescue and Recovery Workers” (presented at the Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, Nov. 30, 2004) ); Radiological Society of North America, Press Release, “CT Helps Find Cause of Puzzling Cough in W TC Rescue W orkers” (Nov. 30, 2004) (<www2.rsna.org/pr/target.cfm?ID=214>). 12

Anna Gosline, “CT Scans Explain Mysterious 9/11 Cough,” NewScientist.com News Service (Nov. 2004) (<www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996741>). 13

Ginger Adams Otis, “‘Lungs W ere Destroyed’: Cite 9/11 Exposure for EM T’s Death,” The Chief (July 8, 2005); Ridgely Ochs, “Ailments, Struggles of 9/11 EMT W ho Died Not Unique,” Newsday (Sept. 4, 2005). 14

Dr. Thomas Cahill, professor emeritus of physics and engineering at the University of California at Davis, reported that his air samples showed “unprecedented ambient levels” of fine particulate matter, sulfur, acidic aerosols, heavy metals and other toxic compounds. His samples were taken on the roof of a 12-story building at 201 Varick Street (W est Village), a mile north-northwest of Ground Zero. The results were higher than he had measured at the Kuwaiti oil field fires during the 1991 Gulf W ar. Thomas Cahill, et al., “Analysis of Aerosols from the W orld Trade Center Collapse Site, New York, Oct. 2 to Oct. 30, 2001,” Aerosol Sci. & Tech. 38:165-183 (2004), p. 182.

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that the Ground Zero firefighter inhaled were more toxic, and the toxicity was more complex. Also, S

Many particles that the New York firefighters inhaled were much larger, ranging from 1 to 50 microns in size rather than only the more typical 1 to 10 microns seen in the control group. The fact that they had inhaled larger particles in addition to small ones is of concern in part because the larger ones were more caustic.15

The researchers observed, “We believe the differences . . . demonstrate a unique exposure following the WTC Collapse.”16 The effects of exposure to a mixture of chemicals may be simply additive, or it may be synergistic (the combined effect being greater than merely adding the effects of the individual pollutants) or antagonistic (the combined effect being less than the effects of the individual pollutants). Between 1991 and 1993, EPA’s own Office of Research and Development conducted a small study of the health impacts of mixtures of chemicals typically present at Superfund sites. A report on the results of the study, published many years later, indicated that additive effects were most common, but that both synergistic and antagonistic impacts could occur.17 Mere consideration of individual chemicals, in isolation from the multiple exposures that occurred, can lead to conclusions that exposures to 9/11 pollution will not cause certain health effects. A recent study, for example, estimates that the risk of cancer from outdoor exposure to airborne asbestos released by the World Trade Center attack would be less than one case over the lifetime of the residential population of Lower Manhattan (57,514 residents) using one calculation, and 12 excess cancers using EPA’s traditional risk assessment model.18 This could be somewhat encouraging news

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See Lung Chi Chen and George Thurston, “W orld Trade Center Cough,” The Lancet Supplement 360: s37-s38 (Dec. 2002). 16

Elizabeth Fireman, et al., “Induced Sputum Assessment in New York City Firefighters Exposed to W orld Trade Center Dust,” Envt’l Health Persp. 112(15):1564-69 (Nov. 2004). Indications of inflammation also were higher, and increased with cumulative W TC exposure (measured in number of days worked at Ground Zero). 17

Robert Dyer, EPA Office of Research and Development, “Chemical Mixtures and Health Effects at Superfund Sites,” Int’l J Hygiene & Envt’l Health 205:149-53 (2002). The solvents included toluene, chlorobenzene, trichloroethylene, and mixed xylenes. The PAH mixture included benzo[a]pyrene, benzo{b]fluoranthene, dibenz[a,b]anthracene, 5-methylchrysene and cyclopenta[cd]pyrene. Relatively recent studies have documented significant additive or synergistic effects from very low doses of exposure to “estrogenic” chemicals that mimic hormones in the human body. These studies found that certain endocrine-disrupting compounds could produce an effect in combination even though the individual chemicals were below their “no-observed-effects concentrations.” Elisabeth Silva, et al., “Something from “Nothing” – Eight W eak Estrogenic Chemicals Combined at Concentrations below NOECs Produce Significant Mixture Effects, Envt’l Sci Technol. 36(8):1751-56 (2002); Nissanka Rajapakse, et al., “Combining Xenoestrogens at Levels Below Individual No-Observed-Effect Concentrations Dramatically Enhances Steroid Hormone Action,” Envt’l Health Persp. 110(9):917-21(2002); J. Payne, et al., “Mixtures of Four Organochlorines Enhance Human Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation,” Envt’l Health Persp. 109(4):391-97 (2001). 18

Robert Nolan, et al., “Risk Assessment for Asbestos-related Cancer from the 9/11 Attack on the W orld Trade Center,” J Occup’l & Envt’l Med. 47:(8):817-25 (Aug. 2005). Similarly, an evaluation of asbestos exposure for truck drivers working at the W TC site, based on ambient air and personal monitors, found that exposures were very low and short-term. The researchers predicted that the drivers were not at an increased risk for asbestos-related disease. Patrick Breysse, et al., “Asbestos Exposures to Truck Drivers During W orld Trade Center Cleanup

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for many residents and area employees. The study is based on estimates of exposure and is limited in part because, as the authors note, EPA’s air monitoring for asbestos generated by the terrorist attack “was not based on health benchmarks or on acquiring data for a risk assessment.” More importantly, the study did not take into account the potential impacts of multiple chemical exposure. While no new health risk studies have emerged on the potential combined impact of the multiple chemical exposures that people experienced from the World Trade Center attack, studies of individual pollutants indicate important areas of concern. Also, a study of one type of health impact indicates the need to expand the geographical scope of 9/11-related health screenings and cleanup. Impacts on the Newborns. A 2003 study of 187 pregnant women who were either in or near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 had found that 8.2 percent were born with a birth weight below the tenth percentile for gestational age, compared to 3.8 percent in a control group. It was suggested that the impact might be caused by exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).19 PAHs are a group of chemicals commonly formed by incomplete combustion of oil, plastics, and many other substances. The 9/11 attack released an estimated 200,000 to 2 million pounds of PAHs within half a kilometer of Ground Zero,20 and at least 8,000 to 80,000 pounds of it probably became easily inhalable by becoming attached to tiny dust particles.21 Some PAHs may reasonably be expected to cause cancer.22 New evidence supports further concern regarding the exposure of pregnant women to PAHs from the World Trade Center disaster. A 2004 study had found that male mice exposed to higher levels of PAH air pollution passed on genetic mutations at a rate 52 percent higher than that for male mice exposed to rural levels.23 Now, a new study of non-smoking mothers and their newborns has found that babies exposed to PAHs while in the womb are susceptible to “pro-carcinogenic” DNA damage from PAHs – that is, damage that makes one more susceptible to cancer. Using a biomarker for procarcinogenic genetic damage, it found that 57.5 percent of mothers exposed to the World Trade Center dust cloud had detectible levels of the biomarker, and 60.6 percent of the newborns also were affected.24 There is reason to be concerned, therefore, that exposure to PAHs may pose a risk to

Operations,” J Occup’l & Envt’l Hygiene 2(8):400-05 (Aug. 2005). 19

G. S. Berkowitz, et al., “The W orld Trade Center Disaster and Intrauterine Growth Restriction” (letter) JAMA (290(5):595-96 (2003). 20

Lioy (2002); Health and Environmental Consequences, p. 17.

21

Calculated estimate by David Newman, NYCOSH Industrial Hygienist, presented at Sierra Club forum on Ground Zero environmental issues, Dec. 17, 2003. 22

U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry (“ATSDR”), “ToxFAQs for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)” (Sept. 1996), pp. 2-3. 23

Christopher Sommers, et al., “Reduction of Particulate Air Pollution Lowers the Risk of Heritable Mutations in Mice,” Science 304:1008-1010 (M ay 14, 2004); “Research Links Air Pollution to Genetic M utations,” USA Today (Sept. 13, 2004). 24

Frederica Perera, et al., “DNA Damage from Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Measured by Benzo[a]pyrene-DNA Adducts in Mothers and Newborns from Northern Manhattan, the W orld Trade Center Area, Poland, and China,” Cancer Epid Biomarkers & Prev. 14:709-14 (M ar. 2005). See also Frederica Perera, et al., “Biomarkers in Maternal and Newborn Blood Indicate Heightened Fetal Susceptibility to Procarcinogenic DNA Damage,” Envt’l Health Persp. 112(10): 1133-36 (July 2004).

11

offspring whether the father becomes exposed before conception or whether the mother becomes exposed during pregnancy.25 Potential Impact on the Immune System. While most concerns raised about exposure to asbestos have focused on cancer, it may also have an impact on the immune system. New research from the Center for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Montana has documented a link between asbestos and the production of “antinuclear antibodies” that attack tissues, organs and cells. The researchers found that these antinuclear antibodies occurred a surprising 28.6 percent more frequently in a group of 50 residents from Libby, Montana – a town heavily contaminated by asbestos – than in a control group in Missoula, Montana. Because the study was small, the researchers have urged that a larger study is needed, but they noted that the study results support the hypothesis that asbestos exposure is “associated with autoimmune responses.”26 For workers at or near Ground Zero, another immune system issue may be of concern. EPA found levels of benzene at “the pile” that were significantly higher than OSHA’s workplace health limit several times in October 2001.27 Results from some air samples taken directly at Ground Zero were “dramatically higher (up to 4000 times) than those taken in the surrounding streets.”28 Some high levels of benzene occurred as late as January and February 2002, when fires flared up during removal operations.29 Now, a new study has linked exposure to low levels of benzene with lowered white blood cell counts. Benzene has long been known as a human carcinogen. Although the OSHA worker safety standard for benzene is set at one part per million (ppm) averaged over eight hours, this study found decreased white blood cell and platelet counts even with exposure below one ppm. Also, it found that benzene exposure reduces the number of progenitor cells, including stem cells, that are precursors to blood cells, and that people with certain genetic traits were more susceptible to these effects.30 The

25

Transgenerational impacts of pollution in some cases may extend over several generations. A new study in rats of two pesticides that cause male infertility found that exposure of a pregnant rat caused fertility reductions not only in the first generation but also in the second generation. M. D. Anway, et al., “Epigenic Transgenerational Actions of Endocrine Disruptors and M ale Fertility,” Science 308:1466-69 (2005). 26

Jean C. Pfau, et al., “Assessment of Autoimmune Responses Associated with Asbestos Exposure in Libby, Mondana, USA,” Envt’l Health Persp. 113(1):25-30 (2005). 27

Juan Gonzalez, “A Toxic Nightmare at Disaster Site: Air, W ater Soil Contaminated,” New York Daily News (Oct. 26, 2001); “EPA Daily Summary, October 14,” and “EPA Daily Summary, October 15.” In an attempt to persuade the Daily News publisher that hazards were minimal, former EPA Administrator Whitman argued that the elevated levels of benzene were not a significant risk to the workers because “EPA has more consistently found low levels of contaminants in the ‘breathing zone’ - five to seven feet above the debris pile.” Memorandum from Christie W hitman, EPA Administrator to Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Chairman & Co-Publisher, Daily News and Edward Kosner, Editor in Chief, Daily News, re Oct. 26, 2001 Front Page News Story (undated), p. 2. Her memorandum did not acknowledge the fact that workers were removing materials from the pile by hand. 28

“EPA Response to September 11, EPA Monitoring Site: W TC - South Tower Benzene Air Monitoring Data” (< http://oaspub.epa.gov/nyr/benzene_air_monitoring?p_addr_id=9 >). 29

EPA Office of Inspector General, EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes and Areas for Improvement (Aug. 21, 2003)(hereafter, IG Report), p. 47. 30

Qing Lan, et al., “Hematotoxicity in Workers Exposed to Low Levels of Benzene,” Science 306(5702):1774-76 (Dec. 3, 2004); University of California at Berkeley, Press Release, “New Study Links Occupational Exposure to Low Levels of Benzene with Decreased W hite Blood Cell Counts” (Dec. 2, 2004).

12

significance of this study for Ground Zero workers – who in some cases received higher exposures but possibly for shorter periods than the subjects of this benzene study – has not been evaluated. Need for Health Monitoring of Brooklyn Residents. City Council member David Yassky and Brooklyn resident Jenna Orkin have for years raised concerns about World Trade Center dust deposition in the borough of Brooklyn.31 A newly released study reveals that asthma-related health impacts occurred in Western Brooklyn after the September 11 attack. A survey of Medicaid Managed Care enrollees having persistent asthma found that residence in both Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn (Brooklyn zip code regions directly across the East River from Lower Manhattan) were associated with self-reported worsened asthma, and that residents of Western Brooklyn had an elevated odds ratio for emergency department/inpatient hospitalizations with diagnoses of asthma between September 11 and December 31, 2001.32 While the survey response was small, the results suggest that residents of Western Brooklyn were subject to respiratory irritants from Ground Zero. More investigative research should be conducted to evaluate the extent of that impact.

II.

Why All Americans Should Demand Strong Policies to Protect the Public Against Health Risks in National Disasters People from Many States Came to Help New York

All Americans should be concerned about what happened at Ground Zero, not only because “we’re all in this together,” but also because the effects of the government’s failures in the aftermath of Ground Zero have had an impact on people throughout the country who really believed in that moral value -- the generous people who volunteered to help in the disaster. No concerted program exists to identify and track the health of the many volunteers and workers who came to New York from throughout the nation to help at Ground Zero. Still, some information is available. -

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine worked with the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics to ensure the provision of 9/11 health services in other states. While health effects statistics are not available, they have screened 846 response workers from other states, including 363 from New Jersey, 88 from Massachusetts, 79 from California, 77 from Ohio, 66 from Illinois, and 30 from Florida.33 The Workforce Medical Clinic in Redwood, California, for example, is monitoring health problems suffered by members of a search and rescue team who worked for 13 days on “the pile,” laboring for approximately 20 hours each day. The leader of that 67-

31

See Testimony of Brooklyn resident Jenna Orkin to the W TC Expert Technical Review Panel (Mar. 31,

2004). 32

Victoria W agner, et al., “Asthma in Medicaid Managed Care Enrollees Residing in New York City: Results from a Post-W orld Trade Center Disaster Survey,” J Urban Health 82(1):76-89 (2005), p. 84 (Table 3). 33

E-mail communications from the Mount Sinai W TC Medical Monitoring Program in response to request for data (Sept. 2, 2005).

13

member team reports that about 70 percent of them became ill from the work. Some still suffer from World Trade Center cough and other symptoms.34 -

The final report issued on the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund further highlights the problem. While most of the 2,680 people who applied to the Fund for physical injuries were from New York, several were from other states, including: New Jersey 182 applicants Virginia 53 applicants Pennsylvania 24 applicants Florida 22 applicants Maryland 22 applicants (most or all may have been Pentagon-related) Connecticut 12 applicants Other states 24 applicants35

Clearly, long-term health impacts from a national disaster cannot simply be viewed as a local problem. Americans from all over the country respond. It is a national issue.

Security Concerns and Potential Targets All Americans should be further concerned about our government’s failed response to Ground Zero pollution because a future disaster releasing toxic contaminants could happen in any state. Louisiana and Mississippi currently face unknown levels of contamination as a result of the Katrina hurricane. Any emergency involving the destruction of a large building is likely to cause a release of hazardous substances.36 Industrial chemical facilities, chemical rail cars and nuclear power plants nationwide present inherent hazards that could put public health in jeopardy from a terrorist attack or a disastrous accident.37 The potential risk from terrorist use of a nuclear device also cannot be ignored.38

34

Malaika Fraley, “Ailments Still Plague 9/11 Search and Rescue Team: Local Clinic to Test Those with Health Problems as Part of Study,” San Mateo County Times (Sept. 11, 2004). 35

Kenneth R. Feinberg, Esq., Special Master, et al., Final Report of the Special Master for the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, Vol. I (Nov. 17, 2004)(hereafter, Feinberg Report on September 11 Victim Compensation Fund), p. 102, Table 5a. Some of these injuries probably occurred as a result of the attack on the Pentagon, but most were W orld Trade Center injuries. th

36

In New York City, for example, 84 percent of tall office buildings and 64 percent of short office buildings harbor asbestos. EPA, Guidelines for Catastrophic Emergency Situations Involving Asbestos (EPA 340/192-010)(Feb. 1992), p. 24. 37

The Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant’s proximity to dense population areas, including New York City, makes it a serious risk. In a study commissioned by Riverkeeper, Inc., the Union of Concerned Scientists found that an attack resulting in a large radiological release could cause as many as 44,000 near-term deaths from acute radiation syndrome or 518,000 long-term deaths from cancer among people within 50 miles of the plant. Edwin Lyman, Ph.D., Chernobyl on the Hudson? The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant (Sept. 2004) ( <www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_terrorism/page.cfm?pageID=1508>). 38

See, John Mintz, “U.S. Called Unprepared for Nuclear Terrorism,” Washington Post (May 3, 2005); John Mintz and Susan Schmidt, “‘Dirty Bomb’ W as Major New Year’s W orry,” Washington Post (Jan. 7, 2004); Jeremy Olshan, “City Scrambling to Handle Nuke Strike,” New York Post (Sept. 21, 2004).

14

For one major category of risk – chemical plant safety – no federal security system is in place despite warnings of hazards. The Department of Justice states that the risk of terrorists attempting to cause an industrial chemical release is “both real and credible.39 In the late 1990s, criminals at least twice tried to cause releases from chemical facilities in our country – at a large propane storage facility and a gas refinery.40 A General Accounting Office report in 2003 declared that voluntary efforts to ensure chemical facility security were inadequate, and the Philadelphia Tribune and CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” identified poor security at more than 60 plants in the Pittsburgh area, Chicago, Baltimore, and Houston, finding open rail lines, unlocked gates and broken fences.41 Carolyn Merritt, chair of the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, observes that when a 48,000pound chlorine gas release occurred at a chlorine repackaging plant near St. Louis in 2003, “neither the community nor the plant had emergency sirens or automated alert systems, and firefighters had to go door to door to alert residents to evacuate.”42 A 2004 report by the U. S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) highlighted 12 companies with facilities that could endanger millions of people.43 In August 2005, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board urged BP Global to investigate safety at its five refineries in our country after an explosion and fire at its Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and caused 170 injuries.44 EPA rules under the Clean Air Act require chemical facilities that manage certain hazardous chemicals in larger amounts to have a “risk management plan” describing its accident prevention measures and emergency response program.45 The rule does not, however, specifically require such plans to address the threat of terrorism. Although one could interpret this section of the law to give EPA authority to adopt rules on security from terrorism, the agency is waiting instead for action by Congress46 – which has not yet come.47 Without uniform, enforceable standards and oversight, it cannot be said that a security program is in place to protect the public.

39

GAO, “Homeland Security: Voluntary Initiatives Are Under Way at Chemical Facilities, but the Extent of Security Preparedness Is Unknown (GAO-03-439)(Mar. 2003)(hereafter, GAO Chemical Facilities Report ), pp. 6 and 9. 40

Linda-Jo Schierow, Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress: Chemical Facility Security (updated July 29, 2005), p. 4. 41

Carl Prine, “Chemical Sites Still Vulnerable,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Nov. 16, 2003) (available at <www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/news/s_165532.html>). 42

Carolyn Merritt, chair and CEO of the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Opinion Editorial, “Despite Progress, Chemical Spills Persist,” Christian Science Monitor (Jan. 6, 2005). 43

USPIRG, The Dangerous Dozen: A Look at How 12 Chemical Companies Jeopardize Millions of Americans (June 2004). 44

Anne Belli, “BP M ust Fix Its Safety Culture, Board Says: Saying Lapses Pose ‘Imminent’ Danger, Feds Issue an Urgent Call for an Outside Inquiry,” Houston Chronicle (Aug. 18, 2005). 45

Clean Air Act, 112(r). The statute imposes a “general duty” on owners and operators of facilities to prevent or minimize accidental releases and to provide prompt emergency response action if a release occurs. 46

GAO Chemical Facilities Report, p. 4.

47

In New York, both City and State law require companies storing large amounts of hazardous chemicals to develop a risk-management plan that City law states must at least consider using less toxic substances, but the city reportedly has never penalized a facility for filing a weak plan or for failing to adopt the use of safer alternative substances. See Philip W einberg and Joel Shufro, Opinion Editorial, “Cut the Use of Toxics in the City,” New York Daily News (Sept. 30, 2003) (<www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/121877p-109602c.html>).

15

On June 15, 2005, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff finally acknowledged publicly the need for federal standards to protect chemical plants from terrorism.48 Any such legislative efforts should focus, as recommended in the USPIRG report, both on strengthening physical security and reducing chemical inventories or substituting safer chemicals (which would reduce the impact of a terrorist assault if security fails.) Even if significant progress in security measures occurs, the opportunities to create environmental disasters will remain numerous. For this reason, all Americans should be concerned about our federal government’s improper assurances of safety after the 9/11 attack, its failure to change those assurances even when information on health effects from Ground Zero pollution began to emerge, its resistance to calls for a proper cleanup of contamination, and its abandonment of the patriotic citizens who responded to the disaster caused by the terrorist attack. Such colossal governmental failures must not be repeated in a future terrorist attack or national disaster.

III.

Why It Is Reasonable to Worry that the Federal Administration Will Not Meet Its Duty to Assess Fully the Severity and Extent of Contamination.

Most terrorist attacks are designed to have an impact on areas frequented by large numbers of people. Such areas also have important economic or political significance. The conflict between protecting the public and restoring or regaining access to areas hit by terrorist attacks raises important issues that must be aired publicly. EPA’s new Homeland Security Strategy, released in October 2004, states as a “Homeland Security Objective,” that the agency will “use best available environmental information from internal and external sources to ensure informed decision-making and appropriate response.”49 This would be a significant improvement over EPA’s performance at Ground Zero, documented in the 2004 Sierra Club report, when it ignored its own vast knowledge about the chemicals released from combustion and demolition, issued assurances of safety based on inadequate testing, and failed to carry out its responsibilities under federal environmental law. Unfortunately, the public has no assurance that this will occur, because the kinds of political pressures that were placed on EPA after the World Trade Center attack may become part of a new goal-setting process for cleanup after future emergency incidents. In this context, the public needs to know more about a new Department of Homeland Security proposal to use an “optimization” process to make decisions about responses to toxic hazards from terrorist attacks and other national emergencies. Need for Public Debate on “Optimization” Policy. The reasoning behind the “optimization” policy initiative first surfaced publicly in a 2003 Inside EPA report about plans to develop cleanup goals 48

Eric Lipton, “Administration to Seek Antiterror Rules for Chemical Plants,” New York Times (June 15, 2005). The effectiveness of any legislation may be at risk given the House leadership’s decision to leave chemical security issues under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee, where chairman Joe Barton of Texas is seen as a long-time ally of chemical industries, rather than in the Homeland Security Committee. See Manu Raju, “Chemical Security Review by Homeland Department May Undercut EPA Assessment,” Inside EPA (Jan. 6, 2005). 49

EPA, Homeland Security Strategy (Oct. 2004), p. xi-xiv.

16

for chemical and radiological contamination in the event of a terrorist attack or national emergency that would be weaker than the cleanup standards that already exist under the Superfund Law.50 The Administration did draft proposed new radiological cleanup guidelines that, as disclosed by media sources in late 2004, would allow radiation levels posing cancer risks much higher than is allowed at commercial nuclear reactors or even at nuclear waste dumps.51 The Committee to Bridge the Gap, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club and over 50 other organizations sent a strong letter of concern to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge objecting to the proposal.52 Ironically, a radiation specialist for the Department of Homeland Security asserted that goals for cleanup after terrorist attacks should be weaker when the attack occurs in a prominent location where the need to resume using the site would be higher.53 This, of course, provoked criticism that such attacks would most likely also threaten larger populations.54 As it turns out, this research scientist was voicing what appears to be the theme behind a new policy initiative at the Department of Homeland Security. A few years ago, the Radiation Advisory Committee of EPA’s Science Advisory Board offered to analyze and provide comments on this initiative, an offer that has not yet been accepted by EPA. The background statement for the Committee’s proposal states: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed the use of ‘optimization’ as the endpoint for final cleanup actions during recovery from a radiological or nuclear emergency. In this context, ‘optimization’ implies a process whereby societal values and needs are integrated with science-based risks and benefits to develop action options that can be evaluated for their acceptability to the public . . . . In lieu of the threshold approach, a process termed ‘optimization’ was proposed that considers

50

As noted in Sierra Club’s 2004 report, Inside EPA had reported that the W hite House Office of Science and Technology Policy had established a “high-level ‘steering group’ of federal agencies” to develop new chemical cleanup standards. “Administration to Draft Emergency Toxic Cleanup Standard Different than Superfund,” Inside EPA (Oct. 30, 2003). The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a political appointee, reports directly to the W hite House Chief of Staff. See James Glantz, “At the Center of the Storm Over Bush and Science,” New York Times (M ar. 30, 2004). 51

W hile the federal limit for maximum radiation exposure to the public at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site is 15 millirems per year, 40 C.F.R. § 197, one benchmark under consideration would allow exposures of 100 millirems and higher . See, H. Josef Hebert, “Planned Cleanup for Dirty Bombs Called Lax,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Dec. 2, 2004). For the draft proposed guidelines, see Department of Homeland Security, “Protective Action Guides and Operational Guidelines for Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) and Improvised Nuclear Devise (IND) Incidents, Interim Final – For Official Use Only,” in The Inside EPA Environmental NewsStand (Nov. 2003)(<www.environmentalnewsstand.com/secure/data_extra/dir_03/epa2003_2404.pdf>) (hereafter, DHS Draft Interim Final Protective Action Guides). 52

See Letter from Daniel Hirsch, Committee to Bridge the Gap, et al., to Secretary Tom Ridge, Department of Homeland Security (Dec. 2, 2004). 53

Statement of Brooke Buddemeier, a radiation specialist for the Department of Homeland Security, as quoted in Matthew W ald, “U.S. Plans to Offer Guidance for a Dirty-bomb Aftermath,” New York Times (Sept. 27, 2004)(as corrected by the newspaper, Sept. 29, 2004). 54

Matthew W ald, “Pending U.S. Advice on ‘Dirty Bomb’ Exposure Is Under Fire,” New York Times (Dec.

8, 2004).

17

all data inputs in the context of societal objectives and needs, and results in multiple response options.55 In other words, decisions about how much risk to tolerate will be conducted on a case-by-case basis, rather than being based on across-the-board public health standards. The Department of Homeland Security’s draft “interim final” guidance document on response to radiological emergencies, disclosed in Inside EPA, insists that, “Optimization (broadly defined) is a concept that is common to many State, Federal and International risk management programs that address radionuclides and chemicals, although it is not always identified as such”56 The Radiation Advisory Committee’s background statement, however, clearly states: DHS’s proposed approach represents a significant change in radiation protection guidance. The Radiation Advisory Committee (RAC) therefore proposes to develop a commentary to advise the EPA on the conceptual framework of a formal method of optimization as the endpoint for final clean-up actions during recovery from such emergencies.57 (Emphasis added) In other words, while “optimization” is a well-known statistical methodology used in a variety of circumstances to weigh different databases and determine optimal allocation of limited resources, the scientists felt that this was a new and different use of the term that required careful review and analysis. The Department of Homeland Security’s draft document on radiological guidelines states that the “protective action guides” for responding to a radiological dispersal device or improvised nuclear device incident “are not intended to define ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ levels of exposure or contamination, but rather they represent the approximate levels at which the associated protective actions are justified.” Nevertheless, they do constitute “advice by the Department of Homeland Security to State and local decision-makers,”58 and presumably would be used in major disaster responses orchestrated by the federal government. It is not clear what “societal objectives and needs” would be included in this new approach, but the Department of Homeland Security plans to include the “potential severity of economic impact.”59 An abstract presented at a July 2005 meeting of the Health Physics Society by researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory proposed a model pursuant to the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed “optimization” process that included the ability to estimate the direct and indirect business 55

EPA Radiation Advisory Committee, Science Advisory Board, “Agency Request – Project # 05-25: Optimization of Radiological Emergency Cleanup Decisions” (expected fiscal year activity is to begin: 2005)(project in queue for planning phase)(, click on Advisory Projects). 56

DHS Draft Interim Final Protective Action Guides, p. 10.

57

It further stated, “The issue of cleanup actions during the recovery phase of an emergency is not unique to the radiation protection discipline, but the use of ‘an optimization framework’, rather than a numeric threshold cleanup standard is a new and critical feature.” EPA Radiation Advisory Committee, supra. 58

DHS Draft Interim Final Protective Action Guides, p. 1.

59

DHS Draft Interim Final Protective Action Guides, p. 10.

18

disruption impacts from the loss of use of land and property due to a radiological incident.60 Other political or social considerations could potentially enter into the analysis as well. It also is not clear how far this policy would extend. The Committee’s document suggests that the optimization process “could be directly applicable to other contaminants.” The 2003 Inside EPA article similarly suggested that there was an intention to promulgate new emergency standards for other chemicals. Nothing in the Department of Homeland Security’s draft document suggests that the policy would only be used with regard to radiation. It does appear that EPA would not have the last word on environmental safety if this policy is implemented. The decision-making process about whether or not to allow or encourage the public to re-enter an area, as described by the Radiation Advisory Committee’s background statement, would be made by a decision-making team headed by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Governor of the state in which the incident occurred.61 This would be consistent with new national disaster response policy documents, described further below. Several important questions about the full implications of this new “optimization” initiative deserve thorough investigation and disclosure: S

Will this new policy differentiate between a critical need to reenter an area and the need to disclose and enforce protection against health risks? In other words, will an area be declared “safe” simply because there is a need to gain access to it or a desire to reoccupy it?62

S

Will this new policy result in weaker cleanup guidelines overall, as the recent activity on a special radiological pollution guideline for terrorist attacks and emergencies appears to indicate?

S

Will this policy instead result in a lack of either guidelines or standards, so that decisions about tolerable levels of safety for children and adults will vary depending on such factors as the economic or political significance of the area in which they live, work or attend school? As the Sierra Club’s 2004 report noted, there was heavy pressure from the White House to re-open the New York Stock Exchange quickly after the 9/11 attack, and this appears to have been a motivating factor in the efforts made to reassure the public that the area was safe despite lack of test data to prove the assertion.

60

B.M. Biwer, et al (Argonne National Laboratory), “RISK-RDD, a Radiological Incident Risk Management Tool” (abstract for presentation, 50 th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society held in Spokane, W ashington, July 10-14, 2005) (). 61

Id.

62

The DHS draft document states, “In some cases, examining risk management options may help refine a risk analysis.” DHS Draft Interim Final Protective Action Guides, p. 16.

19

S

Would implementation of this “optimization” policy mean that children and adults will no longer have any right to a particular level of environmental safety if their community becomes the target of a terrorist attack?

S

Does the Department of Homeland Security plan to adopt this new policy in the form of regulations, so that the public has the right to comment on it before it takes effect?

Such questions about the overall principle of the Department of Homeland Security’s new “optimization” initiative must be examined in an open, public forum. The public needs to know exactly what its federal government has in mind. Americans must not make the mistake of acquiescing to weak or improper “emergency measures” that we don’t really want to live with on a long-term basis. The federal government’s improper response to a one-day attack on two tall buildings in Manhattan has had harmful consequences that people are still bearing today. The “war on terrorism,” moreover, may be with us for many decades. There may well be times when our nation has to make hard choices, but concealing from the public critically important information about what they are facing is not the way to manage the situation. Need for Investigation of EPA Testing Methods. The public also needs more information on what happened last time -- how EPA approached its assessment of pollution hazards at Ground Zero, and how it would approach such an assessment in a future disaster. A more comprehensive, independent investigation is needed of the controversies surrounding the methods that EPA used to measure air pollution from Ground Zero. These controversies include EPA’s use of an older method for measuring the presence of asbestos that is reportedly less effective at identifying very thin asbestos fibers as well as short fibers;63 its failure to measure ultra-fine particles as a state-of-the-art university research team

63

Most of the asbestos in W TC dust was chrysotile asbestos, which typically has many thin (less than 0.25 micrometers) fibers that the older analysis method called Polarized Light Microscopy (“PLM ”) cannot detect. Also, the force of the collapse pulverized asbestos-based insulation released fibers mostly less than five micrometers in length, which the PLM method generally cannot detect. B. Lippy , C.I.H., “Safety and Health of Heavy Equipment Operators at Ground Zero,” Am J Ind’l Med 42:539-542, 541(2002), p. 541. An analysis of 11 samples collected in buildings near Ground Zero revealed that 95% of the asbestos fibers were below the width that the PLM method could detect. R. H. Granger, et al., “Preliminary Health Hazard Assessment: W orld Trade Center” (submitted to American Ind’l Hygiene Ass’n)(Oct. 2, 2001). Newer electron microscope methods, -- Transmission Electron Microscopy (“TEM”) and Scanning Electron M icroscopy (“SEM”) -- are far superior in detecting thin and short asbestos fibers. B. Lippy, J. Boggs, and C. Lambesis, “Controversy: The Small Fiber,” Asbestos Issues (Mar. 1989).

20

did;64 and its many findings of “non-detect” for measurements of chemicals that critics argue are ubiquitous in the environment, raising concerns about the sensitivity of its equipment.65

IV.

Why It Will Be Harder to Learn the Truth About Health Risks from Future Terrorist Attacks and National Disasters

In August 2003, the Inspector General for the EPA released a report documenting the fact that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) had blocked health risk information that EPA sought to release to the public following the September 11, 2001 attack. While EPA protested that it had provided more careful statements in other communications, the Inspector General stated that “although EPA’s subsequent communications sometimes added information or clarification to the message presented in the press releases, the Agency’s overall message of reassurance about long-term health impacts did not change.”66 The Inspector General observed bluntly, “it appeared that EPA’s best professional advice was overruled when relaying information to the public in the weeks immediately following the disaster.”67 Politics, it appears, had trumped science in the communication of risks to the public in a national emergency. Picking up where the EPA Inspector General’s report left off, the Sierra Club’s 2004 report documented that the federal government – EPA and other key federal agencies – failed at least a dozen times to provide proper warnings even after it gained information about the caustic nature of the dust and even after evidence emerged that people were getting sick from the exposures. This government inaction in the face of new information on health risks was unconscionable. Even if the federal administration felt that the new data might be flawed, it should have cautioned the public to use better safety measures while it evaluated the new information. It did not.

64

Dr. Thomas Cahill, of the University of California at Davis, used a rotating monitoring unit that collected air samples in sizes ranging from 10 micrometers down to .09 micrometers in diameter. The heat of the W TC fire had indicated the likely presence of such ultra-fine particles. Testimony of Dr. Thomas Cahill, in EPA National Ombudsman, First Investigative Hearing on W TC Hazardous W aste Contamination, hosted by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Transcript (Feb. 21, 2002), p. 24. See also, Thomas Cahill, et al., “Analysis of Aerosols from the W orld Trade Center Collapse Site, New York Oct. 2 - Oct. 30, 2001,” Aerosol Sci. & Tech. 38:165-183 (2004), p. 182. EPA’s own 1996 guidance document explained that high temperature combustion forms ultrafine particles. EPA, Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (EPA/600/P-95/001af)(Apr. 1996), Vol. I, p. 6-187 to 6-188. Yet, EPA tested only for particles 2.5 microns or more in diameter, for which a federal standard exists, with less sensitive equipment, even though it knew that more sensitive technology was available; such technology was discussed in the 1996 guideline and had been further developed since then. Id., pp. 6-187 and 6-191 to 6-192. 65

See, Testimony of Paul Bartlett, M.A., A.B.D., Research Associate, Center for Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, to the EPA National Ombudsman, First Investigative Hearing on W TC Hazardous W aste Contamination, supra, pp. 640-43. Dr. Bartlett expressed surprise at EPA’s inability to detect the presence of PCBs in air samples, since the chemical is so ubiquitous, and observed that EPA was using “straight GC-MS, which is gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, while everybody else is using GCED, electron-capture detection method,” which he stated was both cheaper and far more sensitive. He testified that he only became aware of EPA’s limited sampling method for toxic organic chemicals after evaluating documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request filed by Joel Kupferman of the New York Environmental Law & Justice Project. 66

IG Report, App. R, p. 133.

67

Id., App. R, p. 132.

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The centralized filtering of information after the 9/11 attack made it difficult to learn the truth about safety. That information control system, however, was not perfectly controlled. As noted in Sierra Club’s 2004 report, OSHA responded by letter to a query about proper management of World Trade Center dust from a union’s attorney. In that letter, OSHA stated since asbestos-containing materials were used in building the World Trade Center towers, “the settled dust from their collapse must be presumed to contain asbestos,” and any demolition or salvage activity at the site should follow federal asbestos protocols for construction activity.68 This warning was in sharp contrast to the lax messages provided by the federal administration overall regarding World Trade Center dust. If this official’s warning had been placed in a draft press release rather than an obscure interpretive letter responding to an individual query, one wonders how the White House CEQ might have changed OSHA’s text. While the Inspector General had urged EPA to ensure that future assurances about public health and safety are adequately supported by data and analysis and “are appropriately qualified,”69 the heavy oversight of EPA by the White House CEQ makes any EPA efforts almost irrelevant. Also, EPA has a new relationship with the Department of Homeland Security. EPA’s Homeland Security Strategy document, released in October 2004, states, The Department of Homeland Security was established in early 2003 to lead a unified national effort to secure America. The 2004 Strategy reflects DHS’s new leadership role in coordinating homeland security activities across the government. As the new Department’s roles and responsibilities continue to evolve, it will likely further influence EPA’s homeland security strategic planning process.70 The new role of the Department of Homeland Security affects the operations of EPA in a national disaster in ways that are not yet fully understood. The question is, to what extent will EPA experts’ concerns and warnings be allowed to reach the public in a national emergency? EPA’s “Homeland Security Objectives” states, “EPA will effectively disseminate timely, quality information to all levels of government, industry, and the public, allowing them to make informed decisions about human health and the environment.”71 The first tactic listed under this objective calls for a structure that “clearly defines roles for public communication.” The second tactic, ostensibly designed to improve EPA’s ability “to communicate effectively with the public regarding incidents and threats,” states only that EPA will develop tools to facilitate public communication, create environmental outreach materials on health impacts and exposure risks, and make various changes to its data and web-based information systems, including a “repository of exposure data used to communicate with the public.”72 Such statements do not answer the question. 68

Henshaw, John, Assistant Secretary for OSHA, U.S. Dept. of Labor, “Standard Interpretation Letter,” Jan. 31, 2002; see also, IG Report, p. 34. 69

IG Report, pp. ii and 19.

70

EPA, Homeland Security Strategy (Oct. 2004)(hereafter, EPA Homeland Security Strategy), p. x.

71

EPA Homeland Security Strategy, p. 34.

72

Id., p. 36.

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Two key elements that could provide assurance that the missteps of Ground Zero will not happen again are missing from this document. S

It contains no instruction to issue assurances of safety only after a careful assessment of all the pollution hazards rather than merely measurements of individual chemicals, as occurred in World Trade Center disaster.

S

It contains no guidance regarding a “better safe than sorry” approach of reducing human exposures to contaminants while complete information on the nature of the pollution is pending. (Criminals should not be given the benefit of the doubt when they cause an uncontrolled release of multiple chemical toxicants.)

This is not a substantive improvement over EPA’s 2002 Strategic Plan for Homeland Security, which stated only that EPA would “improve the ability to communicate effectively with the public regarding incidents and threats” and ensure that lines of authority and communication roles are well-understood.73 The Sierra Club 2004 report had urged the Bush administration to “work with Ground Zero-affected communities, labor unions and environmental health advocacy groups to develop effective national policies and practices that promote truthfulness in the communication of health hazards and effective response actions.” Clearly, it has not done so. Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security’s national emergency planning documents – its National Incident Management System and its new National Response Plan – also fail to provide assurance that the missteps of Ground Zero will not happen again in the event of another national disaster. Stating that a “joint information center” will “ensure that timely, accurate, easy-to-understand, and consistent information is disseminated to the public”74 is not enough. Many hundreds of people are sick in New York City today at least in part because of a top-down management approach to incident communications from somewhere within the White House itself. Simply using a precautionary approach (“better safe than sorry” warnings in the absence of full information) could have prevented much of the toxic exposure that people experienced in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack.75 Unfortunately, neither the National Incident Management System nor the National Response Plan contain precautionary language. Without an explicit statement of precautionary policy and description of how such a policy must be implemented, the National Incident Management System’s call for “integrated communications” as “necessary to maintain communications connectivity and discipline and enable common situational awareness and interaction,”76 and the

73

See, EPA, Strategic Plan for Homeland Security (Sept. 2002), p. 35.

74

Department of Homeland Security, National Incident Management System (M ar. 1, 2004)(hereafter, DHS National Incident Management System), p. 29. 75

The “Precautionary Principle,” which the United States endorsed when it signed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, holds that when the risk of serious or irreversible damage is present, lack of full scientific certainty must not be used as a reason to postpone cost-effective measures to prevent harm. See Am J Pub Health 91(3):20-21 (Mar. 2001). 76

DHS National Incident Management System, p. 11.

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National Response Plan’s statement that “the Federal team must operate and speak with a unified voice and consistent message”77 could bode more ill than good. The National Response Plan does contain the beginnings of a more appropriate public health policy. It states: Public information must be correct and consistent with scientific and medical recommendations. . . . The immediate involvement of agency subject-matter experts is critical to ensure effective, accurate, and timely incident communications with the public. . . . Scientific, technical and medical experts should be identified and available for briefings and interviews throughout the incident. These experts are critical to ensuring that a message is clearly transmitted into common terms and is received by the audience with credibility.78 This emphasis on consultation with experts is important. Still, the current administration has a repeated track record of ignoring any science that does not fit with its political objectives, even when public health and safety is at risk. Under the current federal administration, politics has “trumped” science again and again. The Union of Concerned Scientists issued an in-depth report in 2004, documenting an “unprecedented pattern of behavior” in the current administration to distort or undermine science. The report cited examples of the suppression and distortion of research findings on climate change, mercury emissions from power plants, reproductive health, and airborne bacteria from hog “factory farms.” Also, while the National Response Plan’s statement that medical experts would be available for briefings and interviews should be reassuring, the fact that the Union of Concerned Scientists documented industry influence on appointments to scientific panels79 gives reason for concern. In the case of the World Trade Center attack, a strong political and economic objective to reopen the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street was evident.80 Indeed, the administration urged people

77

DHS National Response Plan, Public Affairs Support Annex, p. 2.

78

Id., Public Affairs Support Annex, p. 8.

79

Union of Concerned Scientists, Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science (March 2004). 80

Former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke reports that on the evening of September 11 th, the President told members of his staff, including Clarke, that he wanted the stock market, banks and other businesses to reopen by the next day, relenting after he was informed of the physical damage but declaring that everything should shift to restoring economic activity as soon as rescue operations were done. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (2004), p. 24. Reporter Ron Suskind similarly states that Paul O’Neill, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, was told on September 12, 2001, by the undersecretary for domestic finance, “The President wants to open the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow – that’s the word I’m getting. . . . I think he made his wishes known to several people on the senior staff.” Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 183. O’Neill, according to Suskind’s account, convinced the President to wait through the weekend, until Monday, September 17, arguing

24

back into the contaminated area on September 17, 2001 – within six days of the attack – despite the lack of a proper cleanup and the visible smoke emanating from Ground Zero.81 That pressure clearly affected the nature of federal declarations about safety. The EPA Inspector General stated, “We were told that a desire to reopen Wall Street and national security concerns were the reasons for changing the press releases.”82 In this light, the repeated emphasis on “reassurance” in the Plan is, unfortunately, not reassuring. S

Under the “response” tactics, the National Response Plan lists “Dissemination of information to the public on reassurance that authorities are implementing response and recovery actions to ensure the health, safety, and security of the public.”

S

Under the “recovery” tactics, the Plan lists, “Providing public information on incident response and progress in restoring normalcy. Emphasis is placed on mitigating or reducing social and emotional anxiety and concern.”83

While mitigating or reducing anxiety has important value, New Yorkers learned in the case of the World Trade Center disaster that such reassurances were false, and many people are sick now because of those reassurances. Telling people they should not be concerned, when in fact they should be concerned for themselves and for their families, is not true reassurance. OSHA’s National Emergency Management Plan, unfortunately, is no better. Indeed, it appears to be more concerned with entertaining the media than ensuring that false assurances do not undermine worker safety. The Plan specifically instructs OSHA’s Office of Communications that after 48 hours following the commencement of a national emergency, the office should: Develop and issue human-interest stories for local media on individuals and circumstances involved in the crisis. By this time the media and the public are interested in more depth and frequently are anxious for human-interest details.84 While the Plan also urges the Office to correct any rumors or misinformation that it identifies in media coverage,85 this is not sufficient instruction to prevent the recurrence of the kinds of problems that affected Ground Zero workers. The EPA Administrator, after all, ad similar instructed its staff to monitor the media for misinformation about the World Trade Center disaster so that correct information

that Stock Exchange computers were under water and phone and electrical systems were impaired. Id., pp. 183-85. 81

“Lower Manhattan Goes Back on the Job Today: Stock Exchange, Many Businesses W ill Reopen,” New York Daily News (Sept. 17, 2001). 82

Lisa Myers, “W hat W as Known About Post-9/11 Air,” NBC News (Sept. 5, 2003).

83

DHS National Response Plan, Public Affairs Support Annex, pp. 6-7.

84

OSHA, National Emergency Management Plan (NEMP) (HSO 01-00-001)(Effective Date: Dec. 18, 2003)(hereafter, OSHA National Emergency Management Plan), App. F, p. F-10. 85

OSHA National Emergency Management Plan, App. F, p. F-9.

25

could be disseminated quickly,86 yet that agency’s efforts appear to have focused on refuting critics, while misleadingly broad assurances went uncorrected. OSHA’s plan – like the overall National Response Plan – contains no strong message about counteracting any broad, misleading assurances that might cause workers to take less precautions, or issuing assurances of safety only after a careful assessment of all the pollution hazards rather than merely measurements of individual chemicals, despite what clearly happened at Ground Zero.

V.

Why OSHA May Fail Again to Protect Rescue and Recovery Workers – and When It Tries to Protect Workers, Its Hands Could Be Tied

The federal government had a responsibility to enforce worker safety and health laws to protect its first responders, and to ensure a proper cleanup of the hazardous “spill” that occurred in lower Manhattan because of the terrorist attack. The Sierra Club’s 2004 report found that it did neither, and this report finds that OSHA has been deprived of the authority to make final decisions about worker safety in national emergencies. Congress granted OSHA the authority to enforce the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act and “primary responsibility for worker safety and health during regionally and nationally significant incidents” when those incidents are declared “emergencies” under federal law and the Federal Response Plan is activated.87 The agency’s Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (also known as “HAZWOPER”) applies in any “[e]mergency response operations for releases of, or substantial threats of releases of, hazardous substances.”88 These rules take into account situations like Ground Zero – where all of the pollutants have not yet been identified, but responders cannot wait for the analysis before they take action. Personal protective equipment must be provided not only for all “known or suspected” hazards, but also “as minimum protection” when insufficient information is available.89 Enforcement of HAZWOPER at and near Ground Zero could have reduced chemical exposures dramatically. Disturbingly, OSHA declared on September 14, 2001 only that it was “pitching in,” and “providing advice and technical assistance” at the disaster site.90 The staff people from OSHA worked very hard at Ground Zero, helping to prevent many injuries, but the agency’s official position was that its role was only advisory. The Sierra Club’s 2004 report found that many Ground Zero workers did not have proper protection, including a respirator (filtered mask). While this problem was particularly 86

EPA, “Briefing to Governor W hitman – Conference Call Summary: September 15, 2001 - 12:00 PM” (CT911)(document provided in response to Sierra Club Freedom of Information Act Request), p. 3. 87

See 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act) and OSHA National Emergency Management Plan, p. D-3. 88

29 CFR § 1910.120(a)(1). The Ground Zero operation clearly was an emergency response operation in its early stages; the fact that the hazardous substance function of the Federal Response Plan (“ESF#10) was invoked and a safety and health program developed also indicates that it was deemed an uncontrolled hazardous waste site. 89

29 CFR § 1910.120(c)(5)(i) and (iii).

90

OSHA, Press Release, “OSHA Pitching In to Assist with W orker Safety Measures, Asbestos Tests” (Sept. 14, 2001).

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widespread in the early weeks after the attack, cleanup or recovery workers were not likely to be provided a respirator even months afterward if he or she was not working directly “on the pile.” Also, federal assurances of safety gave workers conflicting messages about the need to use safety equipment, which is difficult and exhausting to wear, and compliance with the use of such safety gear was sporadic. Sierra Club’s report found that OSHA continued this refusal to enforce the law long after the emergency had passed, and long after it became apparent that serious health and safety problems were occurring. The Sierra Club’s 2004 report explained why OSHA’s claim that it had no authority to enforce safety in national emergencies was incorrect. Indeed, in a national disaster that presents significant risks to response workers, OSHA should be more vigilant, not less. The Sierra Club 2004 report expressed concern that the Department of Homeland Security’s 2004 National Incident Management System document and OSHA’s 2003 National Emergency Management Plan appear to make non-enforcement at national disaster sites into a permanent policy by establishing that a “safety officer” will oversee worker health and safety. OSHA’s plan explicitly states that “OSHA should not, as a rule, be the Safety Officer.”91 This “safety officer” does not have OSHA enforcement powers; he or she can only take the extraordinary action of invoking “emergency authority to stop and/or prevent unsafe acts during incident operations.”92 In fact, the Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Plan creates a new structure that much more explicitly turns this “cooperativeness” into subservience. The Plan states that while OSHA and other public agencies have oversight authority in disaster response, “they are expected to work cooperatively and proactively with Federal, State, local and private-sector responders prior to and during response operations to ensure the adequate protection of all workers.”93 Then it goes further, making it clear that for OSHA, this cooperation actually means deferring occupational safety disputes to another entity. The National Response Plan states that OSHA’s role is to provide “advice and support.” If any dispute arises related to worker training or safety, the National Response Plan makes OSHA subservient to the Joint Field Office (JFO) Safety Coordinator, the Incident Command Post (ICP) Safety Officer, and ultimately the JFO Coordination Group. It states: In the case of a dispute that cannot be resolved, DOL/OSHA summarizes the disputed areas for presentation to the JFO Safety Coordinator/ICP Safety Officer and, if necessary, the JFO

91

OSHA National Emergency Management Plan, p. D-9.

92

DHS National Incident Management System, p. 17. See OSHA National Emergency Management Plan, p. B-7. See, “In National Emergencies, OSHA to Provide Assistance, Not Enforcement,” Occup’l Hazards (Apr. 8, 2004)(< http://occupationalhazards.com/articles/11624 >). Recently, an OSHA official assured attendees at a National Response Team seminar that HAZW OPER standards apply to terrorist incident response, but reportedly also stated that at a disaster site, OSHA must blend into the incident command system. Reported statements of Andy Levinson, Health and Safety Specialist, OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance, “OSHA, NIOSH Stress Respirator Use and Selection at NRT Technical Seminar,” BNA Occup’l Safety & Health Rprtr (July 21, 2005). 93

Department of Homeland Security, National Response Plan (Dec. 4, 2004) (hereafter, DHS National Response Plan), W orker Safety and Health Support Annex (W SH), pp. 1-2. The document states that actions essential to limit health and safety risks for responders “include full integration of deployed health and safety assets and expertise; risk assessments based upon timely and accurate data; and situational awareness that considers responder and recovery worker safety.” DHS National Response Plan, p. 53. It fails to mention enforcement.

27

Coordination Group for resolution. . . . DOL/OSHA resolves technical, procedural, and risk assessment conflicts, if necessary through formal recourse to the JFO Safety Coordinator/ICP Safety Officer or JFO Coordination Group, before they adversely affect the consistency and accuracy of the advice and information provided to responders, response organizations, and the JFO Coordination Group.94 This essentially takes OSHA’s authority away. Indeed, despite the document’s acknowledgment that private-sector employers are involved in response operations, the word “enforcement” never appears in the section of the National Response Plan that describes OSHA’s role.95 It is not at all clear why OSHA should not always be the final word on the “consistency and accuracy” of advice and information on worker safety. Certainly if any truly appropriate rationale does exist (which is highly unlikely), it should be disclosed, subjected to public debate, and if adopted, very carefully circumscribed and limited. Also, while federal, state and local governments are responsible for the health and safety of their own workers, Congress granted OSHA direct enforcement authority over private sector employers, and it should not be required to subsume this authority to any other governmental body or appointee. Even if OSHA does conduct enforcement in a national emergency, the experience of Ground Zero provide strong evidence that its standards for identifying risks are far too weak. S

The CDC reported in May 2002 regarding occupational exposures to air emissions at the site, “most exposures, including asbestos, did not exceed NIOSH recommended exposure limits (RELs) or OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs).”96

S

Given how many Ground Zero workers became sick as a result of exposures during this period, something is clearly wrong with the standards.

The new study noted above, linking benzene exposure to immune system effects, showed health impacts at a level below OSHA’s standard. An author of the study stated, “These results clearly indicate that the current OSHA permissible exposure limit is not sufficiently protective of worker health.”97 Also, use of standards that are based on an 8-hour workday may not be appropriate under emergency

94

Id., p. 4.

95

Id., W orker Safety and Health Support Annex (W SH). See pp. 1 and 3-4.

96

A total of 1,174 air samples were collected from September 18 through October 4, including 804 samples for asbestos, and some bulk samples of dust and debris. CDC, “Occupational Exposures to Air Contaminants at the W TC Disaster Site – New York, Sept.-Oct., 2001,” Morbid. & Mortal. Wkly 51(21):453-56 (M ay 31, 2002). See also, Statement of Patricia K. Clark, Regional Administrator, OSHA, before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations (Oct. 28, 2003)(testing of air, bulk dust and “personal sampling” generally found levels below OSHA’s “Permissible Exposure Levels”). 97

Andrew Revkin, “Study Shows the Chemical Benzene Reduces Cell Count in Workers,” New York Times (Dec. 2, 2004).

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conditions, when workers may put in much longer hours. Long work hours was a significant problem at Ground Zero, as the Sierra Club’s 2004 report noted. Some workers did not leave the area for days, sleeping in nearby makeshift shelters. While long hours should always be avoided in exposure situations, Ground Zero is not the first disaster site at which the problem has arisen.98 All efforts should be made to keep workers’ exposures short, but when this does not occur in a disaster, assurances of safety should not be based on standards that assume only an eight-hour workday. Finally, as stated above, assurances of safety based on tests of individual chemicals are inherently unreliable under conditions of exposure to multiple chemicals.

VI.

Why It Is Reasonable to Predict that EPA Will Fail to Conduct a Proper Cleanup of Contamination from a Terrorist Attack or National Disaster

Some of the World Trade Center dust very likely still remains in homes and buildings and may still present a health hazard, especially to children. Young children play on carpets and bounce on upholstered furniture. These “soft surfaces” cannot be made free of toxic-contaminated dust without professional environmental abatement, and often it is recommended that such materials be disposed because complete cleaning is impossible. Children’s toys roll into less frequently cleaned areas, such as under radiators and behind appliances. They may inhale the dust that is disturbed by such activities, or accidentally ingest dust that gets on their fingers. Since much of the World Trade Center dust was contaminated by lead, toddlers who ingest the dust are at risk of brain-damaging lead poisoning. Also, less frequently accessed areas such as elevator shafts, ceiling plenums and ventilation systems can “store” WTC dust and become sources of future unexpected exposures. Micki Siegel de Hernandez, Health and Safety Program Director for the Communications Workers of America, District One, has warned that these areas present special risks to communications and repair workers who must access such locations repeatedly during a typical work day.99 The Department of Homeland Security’s new National Response Plan lists among response actions to an incident, “control, containment, and removal of environmental contamination. . . .”100 This still has not been completed at Ground Zero. The federal government never conducted testing to determine how far the contamination spread, or how many buildings were affected. Private tests revealed contamination in buildings several blocks away from the towers, yet the federal government never responded to this information with a proper investigation of the problem. Many homes were contaminated by World Trade Center dust. A report released by the Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force in November 2001 cited indoor asbestos dust in an apartment in a less heavily exposed building at a level 47 times the typical urban indoor level, and at 64 times the 98

See, e.g., Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility and Alaska Community Action on Toxics, “Sound Truth and Exxon Myths: The 15 Year Dark Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and Beyond” (2004) (<www.akaactin.org/fact_sheets/Exxon_Valdez_Oil_Spill_Recommendations_Fact_sheet.htm>). 99

See, “W TC Community-Labor Coalition Presentation to the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel, Presented by Catherine McVay Hughes, Community Liaison and M icki Siegel de Hernandez, Labor Liaison” (May 24, 2005). 100

DHS National Response Plan, p. 54.

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typical urban level in an apartment in a heavily exposed building.101 Yet, EPA’s inadequate 2002 residential cleanup program left many thousands of homes without a proper cleanup. While the agency acknowledges that its original “cleanup zone” below Canal Street in Manhattan contained an estimated 22,000 housing units,102 it actually cleaned only about 3,425 apartments in that $60 million program.103 According to Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the project left some 16,000 to 18,000 apartments south of Canal and Pike Streets without a cleanup, and completely ignored apartments above Canal Street and in Brooklyn that fell within the smoke plume.104 EPA’s program ignored non-residential buildings completely. It took no action at all to address some 1,550 commercial buildings used each day by tens of thousands of workers.105 No legal or scientific analysis was ever provided to justify this narrowed focus. While some well-managed buildings were able to shut down their ventilation systems and reduce contamination from the dust cloud, many buildings had loose or open windows or vents, and received a layer of dust. In one office about seven blocks from Ground Zero, for example, six of nine dust samples contained greater than one percent asbestos.106 Today, EPA continues to attempt to mislead the public about the potential for indoor 9/11 contamination. In 2003, a White House Council on Environmental Quality letter to Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joseph Lieberman(D-CT) claimed that “of the more than 4100 residential units in Lower Manhattan examined as part of EPA’s indoor air quality and cleaning program only about 1 percent were found to have asbestos at levels exceeding the health-based standard for long-term risk.”107 The Sierra Club’s 2004 report explained that this assertion is misleading because: S

EPA only tested 726 of the 4,100 apartments for asbestos in air before cleaning. The correct percentage of apartments identified as asbestos-contaminated was over five times higher than the White House Council’s letter stated.108

101

Eric Chatfield and John Kominsky, Summary Report: Characterization of Particulate Found in Apartments After Destruction of World Trade Center (prepared for the Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force (Oct. 12, 2001), p. 32, Table 18, and p. 34, Table 20. 102

EPA Response Memorandum, Attachment, p. 8, in IG Report, App. Q, pp. 127.

103

IG Report, p. 48. EPA tested or cleaned 4,100 apartments in total. Letter from James Connaughton, W hite House Council on Environmental Quality, to Senators Clinton and Lieberman, (Oct. 27, 2003). 104

Francesca Lyman, “Anger Builds Over EPA’s 9-11 Report,” MSNBC (Sept. 11, 2003); Juan Gonzalez, “Time to Come Clean on Mess Downtown,” New York Daily News (Aug. 28, 2003). 105

Juan Gonzalez, “Time to Come Clean on Mess Downtown,” supra; see EPA Response Memorandum, App., p. 8, in IG Report, App. Q, p. 127. 106

Advanced Environmental Corp., “Asbestos Bulk Sample Results – Dust from W orld Trade Center Disaster, 132 Nassau Street, New York, NY” (Sept. 17, 2001). An environmental abatement firm cleaned the office. 107

Letter from James Connaughton, Chairperson, Council on Environmental Quality, to United States Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman (Oct. 27, 2003). 108

Under EPA’s program, residents could either have a cleanup without pre-testing, or have their home tested and get a cleanup only if the test revealed asbestos. Of the 757 apartments that requested pre-testing, fibers could not be counted in 31of them because too much dust was captured, clogging the filters – so only 726 dwellings were pre-tested. (3,405 units opted for cleaning, with no air tests beforehand.) See, “EPA Response to September 11: Frequently Asked Questions” (Aug. 2003)(<www.epa.gov/wtc/questions/index.html>); “EPA Response to

30

S

EPA only tested the air, not the loose asbestos in the settled dust.109 The Inspector General also criticized EPA for using an ad hoc, weak method for disturbing dust rather than the standard “aggressive” method, in most apartments. While EPA claimed that it “did not find a measurable difference” between the methods,110 in fact the standard method identified asbestos about three times more often in pre-cleaning tests and six times more often post-cleaning tests than the ad hoc approach.111

S

Also, the asbestos detection limit that EPA used is not a “health-based standard for long-term risk”; it is only a technical definition for “asbestos-containing material.”112 The Inspector General for EPA criticized the agency for using that technical standard as a health-related benchmark “when environmental professionals clearly acknowledge that this standard is not protective of public health.”113

Despite the Sierra Club’s disclosure of the true facts behind EPA’s statement, EPA repeated this misleading assertion in a 2005 press release.114 Residents, area employees and small business owners continue to wait, now, while a body called the EPA World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel (the third such body to be created since the attack) deliberates over the type of testing and cleanup that it will recommend should be conducted. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) agreed to establish this newest Panel in 2003, and it was launched in 2004,115 but only under heavy pressure from Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman. They had opposed the nomination of Governor Michael Leavitt as the new EPA Administrator until the CEQ agreed to re-visit the issue of 9/11-related indoor

September 11: W TC Residential Testing Results” (<www.epa.gov/wtc/factsheets/clean_test_results.htm>). 109

W hile EPA collected dust wipe samples in some apartments, it did not test those samples for asbestos. See Letter from Pat Evangelista, EPA W TC Coordinator, to Jo [“Rosemary”-sic] Polett (Jan. 8, 2004), plus attachments; Elizabeth O’Brien, “Dangerous Lead W as Found in Some Apartments,” Downtown Express (Apr. 15, 2003). In 263 apartments, EPA tested dust samples for dioxin, aluminum, antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese, mercury, nickel, potassium, selenium, silver, sodium, thallium, vanadium and zinc. 110

Memorandum from Marianne Horinko, EPA Acting Administrator, to Nikki Tinsley, EPA Inspector General re EPA’s Response to Inspector General’s (Draft) Evaluation Report, IG Report, App. Q, p. 128. 111

See EPA Region 2, World Trade Center Residential Dust Cleanup Program (Draft Final Report, Mar. 2004), App. B, p. 5; EPA, “Sampling to Estimate Current Levels of Asbestos in Apartments in the EPA Clean-up Area Near the W orld Trade Center Site” (submitted to EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel)(Mar. 2004), Table 1, p. 6. 112

The one percent-by-weight threshold under the Clean Air Act’s National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (“NESHAP”) program defines asbestos-containing material, which must then be handled according to regulatory standards to prevent escape of asbestos into the air. The NESHAP program, established pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7412, is codified at 40 C.F.R. §§ 61.140-61.157. 113

IG Report, App. R, p. 133.

114

EPA Research & Development, Press Release, “U.S. EPA to Sample for WTC Dust in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn” (May 10, 2005). 115

EPA Region 2, Press Release, “W orld Trade center Expert technical Review Panel Formed by EPA : Panel to Begin Assessments in March” (Mar. 1, 2004).

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contamination. Upon the formation of the EPA WTC Expert Technical Advisory Panel to advise EPA on the need for further testing and cleanup of 9/11 pollution, Senator Hillary Clinton observed: We know that World Trade Center dust contained asbestos and other harmful substances, and that it contaminated indoor areas in New York City. New Yorkers deserve a firmer assurance that they are safe in their homes . . . .116 Unfortunately, this is exactly what EPA’s proposed indoor testing plan does not provide. A broad coalition of community, labor, tenant, environmental, disaster relief and faith organizations have sought to participate in EPA’s process of developing a proper testing and cleanup plan. The liaison to the EPA Panel from this World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition, Catherine McVay Hughes, is co-author of a book on childhood lead poisoning and founder of an informational website on asthma as well as a parent of two children who lives just one block east of Ground Zero. Serving as Labor Liaison is Micki Siegel de Hernandez, Health and Safety Program Director for the Communications Workers of America, District One. Advising the coalition on technical matters is industrial hygienist David Newman from the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, who also serves as a member of the Panel. The Coalition also received temporary funding from EPA to hire a team of technical consultants, led by Dr. David Carpenter of the State University of New York at Albany, to provide a technical critique of the first version of the proposed testing and cleanup plan.117 With organizational coordination from 9/11 Environmental Action, a community organization of residents and parents, and media and outreach assistance from the Sierra Club, the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition has participated actively in meetings of the Expert Technical Review Panel for a year and a half.118 Still, EPA’s plan remains disturbingly and dangerously inadequate. The agency has shown a shocking resistance to test the locations most likely to harbor World Trade Center dust, and an irresponsible insistence on sampling methods that can only hide toxic “hot spots” and avoid cleanup. Initially, EPA did not even want to test carpets and soft furniture for lead-contaminated WTC dust.119 Then it did not want to base any cleanup on toxic dust if it was found under the bed rather than in the middle of the floor.120 Today, EPA still does not want to base a cleanup decision on contamination of

116

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Press Release, “Clinton Joins Announcement of EPA W orld Trade center Expert Review Panel” (Mar. 1, 2004). 117

See “W TC Community-Labor Coalition Comments on EPA’s Proposed Sampling Program to Determine Extent of W orld Trade Center Impacts to the Indoor Environment” (Jan. 18, 2005)(report of Expert Advisory Group attached)(available at <www.911ea.org>). 118

Copies of testimony and other documents related to the Panel’s deliberation can be found on the website of 9/11 Environmental Action, < www.911ea.org >. 119

EPA, Draft Proposed Sampling Program to Determine the Extent of WTC Impact to the Indoor Environment (Oct. 21, 2004), Section I, Subdiv. E; see Testimony of Suzanne Y. Mattei, NYC Executive of Sierra Club Before the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel (Nov. 15, 2004). 120

EPA, Draft Final WTC Sampling Plan (M ay 10, 2005); See, “W TC Community-Labor Coalition Presentation to the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel” (M ay 24, 2005), supra.

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a building’s heating and ventilation (HVAC) system, and it insists on mixing dust samples from various locations before testing them, so that the result will not only dilute the toxic concentrations but also conceal the locations from where they are taken.121 Kimberly Flynn, Co-Coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action, commented, "Now we have a new sampling plan, but it's set up to underestimate remaining contamination, so it will undermine the possibility of any cleanup. EPA needs to work with us in good faith to fix this plan and do the job right."122 In the meantime, Congressional Representative Jerrold Nadler and residents have raised strong concerns about the potential for WTC dust to be released when buildings near Ground Zero are demolished. Esther Regelson, a resident of Lower Manhattan, explained her situation to the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel: I am a resident of Lower Manhattan, one block south of the contaminated [former] Deutsche Bank [building] slated for demolition. I live a half a block from 4 Albany Street, now almost completely demolished, but also contaminated by the events of 9-11. Two blocks around the corner another row of buildings on Thames Street, also breached and contaminated by debris from 9-11, will soon be destroyed. The list goes on. I hope you can understand why I am so concerned about the possibility of my home becoming recontaminated with debris as these dangerous buildings that loom outside my window are torn down.123 A particularly large building, located at 130 Liberty Street directly across a narrow road from Ground Zero (the former Deutsche Bank building to which Esther Regelson referred), is far too contaminated to be cleaned up. Concerned by high levels of contamination revealed in data obtained by the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project and advised by NYCOSH, Congressman Nadler, 9/11 Environmental Action and other residents urged EPA to assert jurisdiction over the demolition as a contaminated site.124 EPA has declined to take jurisdiction,125 although it has warned the developer that

121

See EPA, Draft Final WTC Sampling Plan (revised)(June 30, 2005)(available online at: <www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/bacdocs.html>); see Testimony of Suzanne Y. Mattei, NYC Executive of Sierra Club Before the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel (July 12, 2005)(regarding averaging of building samples) and “WTC Community-Labor Coalition Presentation to the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel by Catherine McVay Hughes and M icki Siegel de Hernandez” (July 12, 2005)(regarding averaging of HVAC samples). 122

W TC Community-Labor Coalition, Press Release, "Congressional Representatives, Residents and W orkers Say EPA Must Strengthen Testing Program for 9/11 Contamination" (May 11, 2005). 123

Testimony of resident Esther Regelson to the EPA W TC Expert Technical Review Panel (July 12,

2005). 124

Letter from Congressional Rep. Jerrold Nadler to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt (Aug. 18, 2004); see David Dunlap, “9/11 Contamination Is High at Bank Tower, Study Says,” New York Times (Sept. 15, 2004). 125

Letter from Jane Kenny, EPA Region 2 Administrator, to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (Oct. 20, 2004).

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several key measures must be taken to protect health and safety.126 Other buildings pose risks as well, including several untested buildings on Broadway, about a block from Ground Zero. Community Liaison Catherine McVay Hughes has raised the strong concern that these buildings are scheduled to be razed for expansion of the Fulton Street subway station, yet no information has been provided to the community on any testing in these buildings. With assistance from Senator Hillary Clinton127 and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition continues to urge EPA to strengthen its testing and cleanup plan. In the meantime, as EPA and its Panel continue to deliberate – four years after the attack – thousands upon thousands of indoor spaces in the affected areas still have not been properly tested or professionally cleaned.

VII.

Why Americans Should Assume that the Federal Administration Will Praise, then Abandon, the Patriotic Rescue/Recovery Workers, Area Employees and Residents Who Help to Rebuild an Area Devastated by a Terrorist Attack or Disaster.

Rescue workers make great “photo opportunities” for politicians. National and local elected officials usually leap at the chance to be photographed with an arm around a heroic rescue worker. The real proof of respect, however, comes when that rescue worker needs help to manage health impacts caused by the very heroic act for which he or she is praised. The scale of public exposure to WTC pollution has created an urgent need for medical monitoring and care. As explained above, medical screening has already revealed a disturbing trend of long-lasting ailments among not only rescue and recovery workers but also residents. The long-term or delayed health effects of exposure are unknown, but could include cancer, reproductive impacts, immune system effects, and possibly other genetic impacts. The Sierra Club’s 2004 report urged the Bush administration to fund long-term medical monitoring and care as needed for the Ground Zero community. At a 2004 Congressional hearing, Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn) stated, “Those who labored and lived near Ground Zero fought to survive against a subtle, prolonged assault on their bodies and minds. Many are still fighting.”128 Disturbingly, a year later, the administration shows even less commitment to help the Ground Zero patriots. Medical Screening and Monitoring. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists recommends that during the recovery phase of a terrorist attack, health officials should “monitor worker health and safety” and ‘conduct community surveillance to document short, mid-term and long-term

126

Letter from Pat Evangelista, W TC Coordinator, NYC Response and Recovery Operations, EPA Region 2, to Amy Peterson, Project Manager, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (Jan. 31, 2005), plus attached EPA Comments on Gilbane Draft Deconstruction Plan, 130 Liberty Street, Phase I Deconstruction (Dec. 10, 2004). 127

Letter from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson regarding Draft Final World Trade Center Sampling Plan (June 29, 2005). 128

Devlin Barrett, “Sept. 11-related Cancers May Not Appear for Decades, Doctors Tell Congress,” Associated Press (Sept. 8, 2004).

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health effects using standard epidemiological methods.”129 Neither of these actions occurred in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack. The federal government provided some funding for a few years of medical screening, but only for certain groups of people, and it has failed to make the long-term commitment needed to protect even them. Federal agencies provided funding to the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine for screening of firefighters and other rescue/recovery workers.130 But the programs end in mid-2009, less than eight years after the disaster,131 even though cancers, reproductive problems and certain other health effects may take from 20 to 30 years to appear.132 Also, no federal funding has been provided for either screening or long-term monitoring of: S

Exposed residents – not even children or people with respiratory, heart or immune system conditions;

S

Exposed small business owners or area employees; or

S

Exposed recovery workers who labored at or very near Ground Zero for less than 4 hours within the first four days of the attack, less than 24 hours in September or less than 80 hours between September 11 and December 31, 2001.133

129

Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, “Position Statement: Public Health Capacity to Respond to Contamination from Terrorism” (2003)(available at <www.cste.org/PS/2003pdfs/2003finalpdf/03-ENV01Revised.pdf>), p. 4. 130

Federal funding was first provided in 2002 and 2003 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Mount Sinai-coordinated local screening program includes the Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center, the New York Univ. School of Medicine, the City Univ. of New York’s Queens College, and the Univ. of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Robert W ood Johnson Medical School. Mount Sinai also worked with the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics to establish medical screening in other states. CDC, “Assessing 9/11 Health Effects” (Testimony of John Howard, M.D., M.P.H., Director, before Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations Committee on Government Reform)(Sept. 8, 2004), p. 4. The federal Department of Health and Human Services also established a screening program for federal responders. W hile the City of New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene established a FEMA-funded health registry, it has fallen under heavy criticism. Johns Hopkins also received federal funding to operate a health registry through 2003. The health registries are not medical screening programs – they do not include a medical evaluation. GAO Report on WTC Health Effects, pp. 6 and 21. 131

NIOSH awarded the funds in mid-2004. Funding for the FDNY program runs through June 2009, and funding for Mount Sinai’s program runs through July 2009. A small screening program for state employees managed by the N.Y.S. Department of Health ended in Fiscal Year 2003. GAO Report on WTC Health Effects, pp. 16 and 22. 132

Testimony of Stephen M. Levin, M.D., Medical Director, Mount Sinai-Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, to the Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations (Sept. 8, 2004), p.4. 133

The 24-hour requirement applied to September 11-14, 2001. See medical screening program eligibility requirements in Drs. Robin Herbert & Stephen Levin, “W orld Trade Center W orker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program: Report of Initial Findings to NIOSH/CDC” (Jan. 24, 2003), p. 2, updated by personal interview of Diane Stein, Outreach Coordinator, W TC W orker and Volunteer M edical Screening Program, July 28, 2004.

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This giant gap in medical screening and monitoring leaves Americans in the dark about the health impacts from the World Trade Center attack and leaves many thousands of residents, small business owners and workers without a proper “early warning system” for 9/11-related diseases. Medical Care. While the federal government actively urged business owners, residents and workers to return to lower Manhattan within just a week after the attack even though cleanup was incomplete and the fires still burned at Ground Zero, it has failed to shoulder responsibility for the health impacts of that initiative. The federal government has provided medical care funding only to a very tiny portion of the people in need. This is problem because many people who already are ill from 9/11 pollution exposure have no health insurance. Of the first 350 people seen in Mount Sinai’s treatment program, 40 percent had no insurance at all.134 A study coordinated by Dr. Steven Markowitz at Queens College of immigrant workers who cleaned buildings near Ground Zero found that “virtually none” of them had health insurance.135 Residents, small business owners, and area employees have been left out of federal programs for medical care. S

No federal funding has been provided to cover medical costs for uninsured residents, small business owners; or area employees who suffer health impacts currently, and

S

No federal funding has been set aside to help cover the medical costs for such people if serious illnesses arise in the future.

Many individuals who are uninsured or without a prescription plan are paying for respiratory medicine and other health costs out of their own pockets. For people who suffered other financial losses as a result of the economic impact of the attack, this can be a particularly difficult burden.136 Those who suffer serious illness in the future – because they believed the federal government’s assurances of safety and returned to help “bring back” Lower Manhattan – may face a desperate plight if they are uninsured at that time. 134

Testimony of Robin Herbert, M.D., Medical Co-Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, before the House Committee on Government Relations, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations (Oct. 28, 2003), p. 6; Greg Sargent, “Zero for Heroes,” New York Magazine (Oct. 27, 2003). She noted further that even patients with some insurance might not be able to obtain needed medication if they have no prescription coverage or cannot afford the co-payments. 135

Ekaterina Malievskaya, Nora Rosenberg and Steven Markowitz, “Assessing the Health of Immigrant W orkers Near Ground Zero: Preliminary Results of the W orld Trade Center Day Laborer Medical Monitoring Project,” Am. J. Ind. Med. 42:548-49, 549 (Dec. 2002), p. 549. 136

The State of New York and City of New York did make an effort to ensure that people eligible for Medicaid would be able to apply. The City Human Resources Administration had lost access to its computer system and Medicaid eligibility records after the attack, and needed to put a system in place to ensure that eligible people did not go without needed Medicaid coverage. A temporary, more streamlined version of Medicaid, called the Disaster Relief Medicaid program, gave four months of overall health benefits to uninsured low-income people after the attacks. See, Children’s Defense Fund, Disaster Relief Medicaid: Lessons Learned (Sept. 2002); The Commonwealth Fund, New York’s Disaster Relief Medicaid: What Happened When It Ended? (July 2004).

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The American Red Cross has just awarded limited funding for a 9/11 Community Health Initiative at the Bellevue Hospital Center, which will provide some medical treatment, at least in the short term, for low-income residents and workers in Lower Manhattan, the Lower East Side and Chinatown affected by 9/11 pollution.137 Created in response to advocacy by the Beyond Ground Zero Network and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and others, this is the first 9/11 medical program to offer treatment to residents. It is currently funded for just one year, at a level that may serve approximately 1,000 people, but it does serve as a first step.138 Much more comprehensive assistance is needed. The federal government has provided only very limited federal funding for medical care to workers; it is far too inadequate for the task needed. Rescue/recovery workers who qualified for the federal September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, a temporary program designed primarily to help the families of those killed by the attacks and shield the air carriers from liability,139 received compensation for medical costs, but that program was very restricted. S

Workers who did not arrive at Ground Zero within 96 hours (4 days) of the attack did not qualify for assistance even though the site was hazardous and in flames for months.140

S

The Fund did not cover workers who cleaned up contaminated dust in buildings and streets, or made repairs in contaminated areas unless they worked within a specific zone defined by where the debris fell, not where the dust traveled.141

S

The Fund only covered medical care related to physical conditions that had already been identified.142

As a result of these restrictions, many workers with adverse health effects could not obtain assistance from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and even workers who did meet the qualifications will not have coverage for any new illness that appears years from now.

137

Stanley Mark, Program Director, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Statement to Support Health Care and Medical Research for Residents of Lower Eastside and Chinatown” (submitted to W orld Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel)(April 12, 2004, p. 2; Beyond Ground Zero, Media Advisory, “Providing Care for 9/11's Forgotten Victims” (July 14, 2005). 138

Personal communication from Karah Newman, spokesperson for the Beyond Ground Zero Network, to the author, August 31, 2005. 139

The Fund was created by the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, Pub. L. No. 10742, 405(b)(2), 115 Stat. 230, 239-40, codified at 49 U.S.C. § 40101(2001). Rules were published in 67 Fed. Reg. 11233 (2002) and codified at 28 C.F.R. § 104.2 (Mar. 13, 2002). The law was passed just 12 days after the attack. Congressional Research Service, Homeland Security: 9/11 Victim Relief Funds (updated Mar. 27, 2003), p. 1. 140

28 C.F.R. § 104.2(b); 66 Fed. Reg. 66276 (Dec. 21, 2001).

141

Feinberg Report on September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, p. 19 and fn 58, p. 87.

142

67 Fed. Reg. 11233 (2002). The deadline for applying to this program was December 22, 2003.

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Congress did allocate to the State of New York $25 million to reimburse costs of claims of workers associated with uninsured employers and another $25 million for claims of volunteer rescue workers. Some of this should have covered medical treatment. Congress also allocated $125 million to help process workers’ compensation claims related to 9/11 injuries – these were funds for processing claims, not for treatment.143 This subsidized Worker’s Compensation Program should have covered the medical needs of Ground Zero workers and volunteers who did not meet the narrow requirements of the Victim Compensation Fund. Unfortunately, most of the money did not help ailing workers. A GAO report found that of the total $175 million allocated by Congress, the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board had used only about $49 million.144 The State provided no reasonable explanation for this, given the statistics on worker illness being reported by the Mount Sinai medical screening program. Indeed, the GAO reported that it could not even obtain basic data on approval and denial rates of claims from the State Workers’ Compensation Board “because, according to Board officials, the Board’s core mission is to process individual claims and not track outcomes of claims decisions.”145 Clearly, an investigation is needed. While the State Workers’ Compensation Board has been unwilling or unable to provide useful data to analyze the situation, it is apparent that workers have faced several barriers in obtaining medical coverage through the Workers’ Compensation System. S

Workers who cleaned their own workspace of dust are not eligible for Workers’ Compensation if such cleanup activity is not a specific requirement of the job;

S

Reportedly, employers are challenging a disproportionately high number of workers’ 9/11-related claims. Joel Shufro, Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), reported to Congress, “[T]here is evidence that insurance companies are contesting claims of 9/11 victims, according to some sources, at a rate ten times greater than that of the normal population of injured workers.”146 In this context, it is significant that Kenneth Feinberg, the special master for the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, reported that he found little or no attempted fraud among applicants.147

143

GAO, September 11: Federal Assistance for New York Workers’ Compensation Costs (Testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee on Government Reform)(GAO-04-1013T)(Sept. 8, 2004)(hereafter GAO Report on Workers’ Compensation), p. 1; Testimony of Dr. Robin Herbert to the House Committee, p. 6. 144

GAO Report on Workers’ Compensation.

145

Id., p. 2.

146

Testimony of Joel A. Shufro, Executive Director, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, to the House Subcommittee on W orkforce Protections, Committee on Education and the W orkforce (May 26, 2005), p. 3. New York Times reporter Anthony DePalma received anecdotal reports from attorneys that employers had challenged a majority of the claims. Anthony DePalma, “Many W ho Served on 9/11 Are Still Pressing Fight for Workers’ Compensation,” New York Times (May 13, 2004). 147

Feinberg Report on September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, p. 69; Associated Press, “1 in 3 W TC Injury Claims Rejected,” New York Newsday (Apr. 30, 2004). He reported that most rejected claimants were simply unsure of their eligibility and had filed to preserve any rights..

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S

Members of Congress report that many claims have been denied outright, some on the ground that the person cannot prove that he or she was present at Ground Zero, and many others because the person has difficulty proving that the illness was caused by the 9/11 exposure.148

Many of the people who have been denied Workers’ Compensation do not have health insurance, either because their job does not provide it,149 or because they lost their job because of illness or disasterrelated economic displacement, or otherwise have not been able to find employment. Many workers, also, have suffered the hardship of delays in treatment and compensation as a result of their claims being contested, even if their claims eventually were granted.150 Unfortunately, rather than investigating the problem and forcing a solution, the federal administration is planning simply to take the money away. The President’s FY2006 budget includes a rescission of $120 million of the Workers’ Compensation funds that had been made available to the State of New York after the attack, a move that was approved by the House Appropriations Committee and now awaits a vote as part of the budget process.151 A letter written by Representative Carolyn Maloney and signed by 20 members of Congress, stated: The Administration is arguing that these funds are not needed, but nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, no actuarial review of the projected cost of current and anticipated future 9/11 related workers’ compensation claims has ever been done. Additionally, even if these funds are not used for the direct payment of workers’ compensation claims, the health needs of 9/11 responders continues to be great and the federal response continues to be incomplete.152 Certainly, rescinding the funds does nothing to hold Governor George Pataki’s administration responsible for the scandal or solve the problem of innocent workers who are suffering from 9/11related illnesses but cannot obtain workers’ compensation.

148

See, “9/11 Responders Participating in June 16, 2005 Effort in W ashington to Save $125 Million in ½2 Aid” (compiled by the Office of Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney)(June 16, 2005). Proposed legislation has been introduced by Assembly Members Jonathan Bing and Scott Stringer to shift the burden of proof on causation of illness to the employer if the worker has served 40 hours at Ground Zero and had a medical examination beforehand that did not show evidence of the illness. Office of Scott Stringer, Press Release, “Stringer & Bing to Introduce W orkers’ Compensation Bill Reducing Hurdles for 9/11 Responders” (Aug. 24, 2005). 149

Of the 2,680 injury claims submitted to the federal compensation fund, 45 percent of the applicants reported incomes below $25,000 per year. Feinberg Report on September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, p. 56. 150

Testimony of Dr. Robin Herbert to the House Committee, supra, p. 6.

151

Michael McAuliff and Corky Siemaszko, “Plea to W : Don’t Stiff W TC W orkers,” New York Daily News (June 17, 2005). 152

Letter from Representative Carolyn M aloney, et al., to Hon. Jerry Lewis, Chair, House Committee on Appropriations and Hon. David Obey, Ranking Member, House Committee no Appropriations (May 31, 2005), p. 1.

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Concerned private individuals have donated money to help at least to alleviate this problem. As a result, the American Red Cross recently was able to allocate more than $16 million from its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund to help cover medical treatment and social services for rescue and recovery workers. The grants will help cover many urgent expenses, including additional diagnostic tests and medications currently not covered by the federal government, as well as programs to help the workers apply for Workers’ Compensation and disability benefits. The American Red Cross plans to make additional grants between now and 2007. Dr. Robin Herbert, Co-Director of Mount Sinai’s World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program, called the Red Cross grant a “lifeline.”153 Unfortunately, these grants are only temporary, and certainly no substitute for the federal commitment that the Ground Zero community needs and should receive. Despite the major gaps in 9/11 health care services, the federal government has provided no further funding for the immediate medical treatment needs of Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers, and no funding at all for immediate medical treatment needs of residents, small business owners, and area employees. Also, no federal money has been set aside for medical treatment of illnesses that may arise in the future as a result of human exposure to 9/11 pollution.

VIII. Why Americans Should Assume that No One Will Be Held Accountable for Failures of Our Government to Protect the Public Against Pollution from an Attack or Disaster Despite the documentation of government failures contained in the EPA Inspector General’s August 2003 report and the Sierra Club’s 2004 report, the Bush administration still has not been forced to disclose the identities of the leading officials involved in suppressing warnings against the hazards of the Ground Zero pollution, and no federal official has been censured for this breach of the government’s duty to its citizens. Both Representative Jerrold Nadler and Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman have called upon the administration to provide a through accounting of the White House role in altering EPA’s press statements and failing to provide proper public health warnings.154 As Senator Clinton put it in her speech on the Senate floor on September 5, 2003:

153

In addition to the FDNY and M ount Sinai, the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics expects that clinics in Irvine, California; W ashington, D.C.; Tampa, Florida, Chicago, Illinois; W altham, Mass.; Baltimore, Maryland; Albany, Rochester and Syracuse, New York; and Cincinnati and Lorraine, Ohio will provide health care to rescue and recovery workers under this funding program. Other grantees include the Bellevue Hospital Center, Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center at Stony Brook Univ., and Queens College (Research Foundation of the City Univ. of New York), and the Univ. of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – Robert W ood Johnson Medical School. See American Red Cross, Press Release, “Thousands of First Responders to Receive Medical and Social W ork Services for Health Problems Related to September 11" (June 20, 2005). 154

John Herzfeld, “Lawmakers Pressing Administration on EPA’s W orld Trade Center Response,” Daily Envt Rprtr (Aug. 27, 2003); Letter from Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Lieberman to President George W . Bush (Aug. 26, 2003); Margaret Ramirez, “Clinton W ants Answers on Air,” Newsday (Aug. 27, 2003). See W innie Hu, “Clinton to Block E.P.A. Nominee to Pressure Bush on Air Quality,” New York Times (Sept. 7, 2003).

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We asked . . . with the hope of obtaining a full and frank explanation of the sequence described in the report and [to] be assured that the EPA does indeed have the authority and the liberty to communicate accurately with the public on what it knows. I know the White House did not cooperate with the inspector general report but I hope they would want to get to the bottom of this and learn the lessons that we should no only about the past but going forward. However, I cannot say that I will be surprised if we continue to hear from the administration some of the same excuses that they have been making in response to the IG’s report.155 A 2003 request to House Majority leader Tom Delay for an investigation of this matter was rebuffed.156 Senate Democrats in 2003 called for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.157 This call, too, was rebuffed. As of today, the public still does not know the answer to this important question. The silence remains deafening. A Congressional hearing should not even be necessary; President Bush should instruct those who know which official in the federal government engineered the cover-up of WTC pollution hazards to provide the information immediately. The public clearly has a right to know. It also has a right to know that its federal government repudiates that conduct and is committed to ensure that such conduct will not occur in the next national emergency.

155

Statement of Hillary Clinton on the floor of the Senate, September 5, 2003 (morning session).

156

House of Representatives, Press Release (Sept. 17, 2003); Elaine S. Povich, “Democrats Seek EPA Probe,” supra. 157

Letter to Senator James Inhofe from Senators Clinton, Lieberman, Jeffords and Graham (Sept. 4, 2003).

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Appendix A THE GROUND ZERO COMMUNITY The members of the “Ground Zero community” who were exposed to the pollution from the World Trade Center is far more wide-ranged than many realize. They include but are not limited to: –

Firefighters and police officers rushed to the site to evacuate the building and fight the fire, then returned day after day to control the fires and serve as rescue/recovery workers.

–

Emergency medical services workers and nurses tended the injured. EMS workers cared for human remains onsite. Many joined the bucket brigade after their work shifts.

–

Transport Workers Union members barged bulldozers and cranes to the site; cut through debris; bused workers; transported human remains; and volunteered at Ground Zero.

–

Members of the Ironworkers Union and other construction unions came to the WTC site as skilled volunteers to help with the rescue and recovery effort.

–

Telecommunications workers and equipment installers labored to restore services from a building across the street from Ground Zero and throughout dusty lower Manhattan.

–

Carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other skilled workers restored services and infrastructure throughout the dust-laden streets and buildings of lower Manhattan.

–

City sanitation workers managed debris and cleaned streets. Private workers cleaned buildings and sidewalks. Truck drivers were exposed during loading/unloading of debris.

–

Area residents cleaned up contaminated dust that infiltrated their homes and lived in the polluted area. These included children and people with respiratory and heart conditions.

–

Small business owners and street vendors returned to dusty work spaces and – like area residents, not knowing the hazards – often cleaned up the WTC dust themselves.

–

Area employees were required to return to work while Ground Zero still burned. Many of them cleaned up the WTC dust in their own work station area.

–

School children and college students returned to school while the fires still smoldered.

–

Members of news crews and many reporters were exposed heavily to smoke and dust.

–

Traffic enforcement agents worked in polluted streets; some also helped rescue efforts.

–

Volunteers – including chiropractors, nurses, cooks and others – did what they could to ease the burden of Ground Zero workers; others voluntarily cleaned people’s homes. 42