But we do need to realize that there has been an awful lot of 'spinning' from government officials on the environmental and health issues and, in a few cases, much worse than spinning (I'll give some examples involving EPA but others were much worse). I think it is an important case example to help combat such practices (although I have to add that I think it was largely done from instinctive bureaucratic reaction rather than personal gain).
First example: there are now thousands of rescue workers who have serious lung problems. The last figure I saw in the NYT for the firemen alone was 3,000. Hundreds of them have had to be suspended from regular work. As you may know it was recently revealed that there were some very early USGS tests that showed that the air at ground zero had the ph of liquid lye (perhaps from the lime in the cement dust?). Current thinking is that much of the lung damage was from chemical burns due to this lime. This important information, known in the first couple of days (it was from the first tests) was withheld from the rescue workers and the public until a couple of months ago. On the contrary, I recall that went the EPA Administrator went with Bush to Ground Zero she spoke to the press about how no special measures were required (and that the only problems were that a few rescue workers weren't using respirators!).
My second example is a minor but illustrative one, and please do not take it personally if I draw on a part of your own reply: EPA political appointees say they didn't test sooner because the 'priority was on finding victims'. But the fact is that the rescue workers were desperate for testing and repeatedly asked for it. It is very hard to do rescue work in the current respirators and most of the time terrible trade-offs need to be made in the hope of finding more people. Surely the truth is closer to some combination of very very understandable unpreparedness and a little bit of less forgivable politics in not stepping on the toes of Guliani's NYC D. of Env. Prot. and his Health Commissioner (who's role should be seriously questioned)? The issue here is not to point fingers at EPA but rather not to avoid facing shortcomings and politically driven mistakes (and I agree with the points you made about difficulties in enforcing rules in the beginning of the recovery stage).
One minor point: I agree with you we are certainly facing no Chernobyl in terms of health effects. But "small" is a relative term and maybe should not be used in disasters. Believe me, if you are one of those affected it suddenly doesn't seem too small.
Again, thanks for your reply. Paul A
At 08:33 PM 5/30/02 -0400, you wrote:
>I work for EPA Region 2, which is the Region which covers New York. We
>started testing of the outside a few days after 9-11. The reason for not
>testing sooner was that the priority on the first few days was with trying to
>find survivors, so things like protective equipment, health and safety plans,
>etc. wher not in place for about two weeks. There were also so many
>different entities doing the removal work that enforcement of personal
>protective equipment was spotty. The EPA employees working on other tasks
>reported to the Managers at the site whenever they saw a worker not using thw
>equipment (respirators, goggles, gloves, hard hats, etc) but they had no
>authority to stop work or to make workers wear it. After a couple of weeks,
>things slowed down enough to implement worker protection.
>
>The results showed a spike of contaminants in the first few days, with levels
>going quickly down. The bigest contaminan found was asbestos, but in very
>low levels. One thing about the testing of air, dust, etc. in this situation
>is that there are no standards to compare the results to. What that means is
>that if you get a result, you really have no way of knowing whether the level
>is dangerous or not.
>
>EPA did not test indoor air quality, nor indoor dust, debris, etc. in the
>beginning, deferring to the State and City, which did nothing. We are now
>developing a study to test indoor contamination and try to understand if
>there is a danger to the public. My gut feeling (I am not an epidemiologist
>or health risk assesor, I am an environmental engineer) is that the health
>effects from this disaster will be small. FWIW.
>
>Sergio
>New Jersey