It's public be damned at the EPA - August 26, 2003

[Guest guest]

>

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/112247p-101268c.html

>

> It's public be damned at the EPA

 

> For nearly two years, officials at the federal

> Environmental Protection

> Agency have denied that they failed to properly

> inform New Yorkers of

> the dangers of toxic releases from the collapse of

> the World Trade Center.

>

> But last week, an investigation released by the

> EPA's own inspector

> general made a stunning revelation: The trail of

> public health

> misinformation began inside the White House.

>

> The news that White House staff ordered the EPA to

> minimize potential

> health dangers near Ground Zero was bad enough. But

> the details in the

> 165-page report about how the EPA lied to the public

> - and even

> subverted its own safety standards in the process -

> are chilling.

>

> The original draft of a Sept. 13, 2001, EPA press

> release, for example,

> stated, " Even at low levels, EPA considers asbestos

> hazardous in this

> situation ... "

>

> Staff members at the White House Council on

> Environmental Quality turned

> those words upside down.

>

> " Short-term, low-level exposure [to asbestos] of the

> type that might

> have been produced by the collapse of theWorld Trade

> Center buildings is

> unlikely to cause significant health effects, " the

> revised report stated.

>

> EPA officials took the position early on that people

> living in the World

> Trade Center area should have large amounts of dust

> removed from their

> apartments by professional asbestos cleaners.

>

> But White House staff removed any references to

> professional cleaning

> from the EPA's releases.

>

> The White House changes were the work of James

> Connaughton, chairman of

> the Council on Environmental Quality.

>

> Connaughton, who had been on the job for three

> months, was an industry

> lawyer who represented major asbestos and toxic

> polluters before his

> appointment by President Bush.

>

> " We were making decisions about where the

> information should be

> released, " Connaughton told USA Today. " What the

> best way to communicate

> the information was, so that people could respond

> responsibly and so

> that people had a good relative sense of potential

> risk. "

>

> According to the scathing new report, the EPA passed

> off a misleading

> minimum asbestos safety standard of 70 fibers per

> square millimeter -

> though its own policy for years has stated there is

> no known safe level

> of asbestos.

>

> " EPA's communications during the WTC crisis - that

> the general public

> did not need to be concerned about short-term

> exposure to WTC asbestos -

> were inconsistent with the agency's prior position

> that all asbestos

> exposure is hazardous to human health, " the report

> said.

>

> The misinformation didn't just involve asbestos.

>

> Former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced

> on Sept. 18, 2001,

> that the air in lower Manhattan was " safe " to

> breathe. But her agency

> " did not have sufficient data and analyses to make

> the statement " at the

> time, the report said.

>

> On that date, the EPA had not yet received the

> results of its first

> tests for toxics like cadmium, chromium, dioxin or

> PCBs.

>

> *Unanswered question*

>

> Only weeks later, this column reported that some of

> the EPA's own tests

> showed dangerous levels of both asbestos and other

> toxic chemicals in

> and around Ground Zero.

>

> The EPA and city health officials responded at the

> time by blasting the

> Daily News' report as " irresponsible. "

>

> " The answer to whether the outdoor air around WTC

> was 'safe' to breathe

> may not be settled for years to come, " the inspector

> general's

> investigation concluded.

>

> EPA Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko sharply

> criticized the

> report's conclusions as " out of touch with the

> reality. "

>

> But it's now clear that the EPA and the White House

> risked the safety of

> thousands of people living and working in lower

> Manhattan, whose only

> mistake was looking to the government for reliable,

> honest information.

>

> *Originally published on August 26, 2003*

>

>

>