According to New York Times (1) the health of approximately 40,000 responders and recovery workers may be at risk due to dust, ash and other toxic materials at ground zero. Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Christine Todd Whitman has been under fire, due to allegations that she mislead New Yorkers about the quality of air and the risk was marginalized.
Mind you, the criticism of the EPA’s handling of the pertinent issues involving occupational exposure is warranted. “The toxic cloud that formed after the towers fell may have since evaporated, but its effects still linger. Over the past five years, thousands of rescue and recovery workers who worked at the site of the World Trade Center have been discovered to suffer from grave and debilitating respiratory illness (1). ” Mount Sinai Medical Center’s World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program is a comprehensive medical evaluation program to provide free and confidential medical exams, referrals for medical care, and occupational health education for 8,500 workers and volunteers who provided rescue, recovery, debris removal, and sifting and restoration of vital support services at the WTC and Staten Island Landfill sites. The Program is directed by The Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with medical examinations and related services performed by a consortium of occupational medicine providers (2). Moreover, the stunning findings of the New York Office of the Medical Examiner of Felicia Dunn-Jones, attorney, who was caught in the dust cloud-died of sarcoidosis, a disease that causes inflammation and scarring in the lungs, on Feb. 10, 2002. Furthermore, independent medical studies have made a siginficant correlation of the diagnosis to New York City firefighters, due to the exposure of the dust cloud.
What is disturbing about the allegations of Whitman’s leadership during the 9/11 crisis: is her contrasting record. While she served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey, her contributions should not be unnoticed. Under her leadership, the number of days New Jersey violated the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped from 45 in 1988 to 4 in 2000 (3) Moreover, the New Jersey coastline experienced less closings during her leadership compared with her predecessors. In addition, her tenure at the EPA was quite eventful, prior to the events that lead to 9/11.
The issue is whether Whitman and the EPA did enough to warn workers about the danger of the air. Two days after the terrorist attacks, Whitman said that officials (OSHA, New York City Dept of Health, NY State Dept of Health, FEMA) had checked the air quality at the World Trade Center site and found that asbestos, lead and volatile organic compounds were below “any level of concern for the general public health.” The EPA and the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) issued a statement Sept. 14 declaring the air “safe.” Consequently, if the issue is simply the science behind the decision to declare the air “safe”-it appears to me that, testimonies from other agencies like OSHA, should have been pursued more vigorously compared with the angst for Whitman. Whitman appeared twice in New York City after the September 11 attacks to inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health.(5) On September 18 the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, “Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.”(6) Later, a 2003 report by the EPA’s inspector general determined that such assurances were misleading, since when the statements were made the EPA “did not have sufficient data and analyses” to justify them.(4) Further, the report found that the White House had “convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones” by having the National Security Council control EPA communications after the September 11 attacks.(5)(6)
Whitman who had experienced several conflicts with the Bush administration stepped on June 27, 2003.
As a result, it appears to me that the heated exchanges at Whitman from various Congressman, may have been unwarranted, simply based on her record alone. And perhaps, their anger should have been thwarted toward the executive branch. Particularly Cheney and Bush. Based on her record, it simply seems unlikely [if Whitman had the opportunity to take ultimate control of EPA’s resources] the outcome for many of the responders and others affected, may have been different.
References
1. DePalma, Anthony (September, 2006) Officials Slow to Hear Claims of 9/11 Illnesses. New York Times, Published September 6, 2006.
2. Mount Sinai Medical Center. (2002). The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program
July, 2002.
3. The White House. [Online]. Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Christie Todd Whitman. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/whitman-bio.html on June 26, 2007.
4.Compilation of Exhibits for 110th Congress’s examination of political interference with climate science. See Exhibit F(March 19,2007). Exhibit F is a memo EPA staff released to Whitman concerned that the edits made to the 4-page state of global climate change would “no longer represent the scientific consensus on climate change”.
5.EPA Response to September 11, “Whitman Details Ongoing Agency Efforts to Monitor Disaster Sites, Contribute to Cleanup Efforts” (September 18,2001). Official statement published on the EPA’s website.
6. EPA Report No. 2003-P-00012, page 7. August 21, 2003. http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2003/WTC_report_20030821.pdf. A report in July 2003 from the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response gave extensive documentation supporting many of the inspector general’s conclusions and carrying some of them still further. Comments on the EPA Office of Inspector General’s 1/27/03 interim report titled: “EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Towers Collapse.” A Documentary Basis for Litigation. Prepared by Cate Jenkins, Ph.D. July 4, 2003. http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/PDF/Jenkins-7-4-03-documentary-d2.pdf.
