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Air Today . . . Gone Tomorrow Article
Scientists Urge Closer
Look at Residual Trade Center Toxins
By David M. Levitt, Bloomberg News,
January 19, 2005
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A panel of toxicologists and industrial hygienists urged the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to expand testing of lower Manhattan to include mercury,
dioxin and other contaminants that may remain from the terrorist destruction of the World
Trade Center in 2001.
The panelists, which includes scientists from the City University of New York, Duke
University and a former assistant U.S. surgeon general, said the agency should dig behind
cabinets and into building ventilation systems for dangerous particles that could become
airborne. They also urged the agency to de- emphasize its search for a chemical
``signature'' that would affirm that found pollutants were in fact from the trade center.
"You can't sample for everything, but dioxin and mercury are very dangerous
chemicals, and probably pose along with lead some of the most serious long-term health
consequences,'' David Carpenter, a University of Albany, New York, toxicologist who headed
up the panel, said in an interview. These substances "are not being proposed for
sampling,'' he said.
His comments come a day after the EPA's deadline for public comment on its plan to sample
interior spaces in lower Manhattan for remaining trade center contaminants. Residents have
reported elevated levels of asthma and other ailments since the Sept. 11 attacks that they
say can be directly attributed to exposure to such substances.
Carpenter said he was ``very skeptical'' that a distinct signature of trade center
pollution could be found ``or if it were, that there would be only one. The collapse of
the buildings and the fires that followed each released very different kinds of
contaminants.'' He said he feared that the search for such a signature would delay a
cleanup.
EPA Testing Plan
Carpenter and the other scientists examined the EPA plan on behalf of the WTC
Community-Labor Coalition, a group of trade center-area residents, environmental and labor
activists who have been monitoring the agency's response to the lingering health effects
of the disaster.
Michael Brown, an EPA spokesman, said the coalition's report is one of about 20 comments
received. He said the agency, which put together its own panel of experts to oversee the
sampling plan, would review the comments, and hold a meeting toward the end of February to
let the community know what changes, if any, it intends to make in its program.
"We only today began considering these comments,'' he said. "We will consider
and analyze them.''
The agency's 30-page plan says that testing of apartments done in 2002 found very little
dioxin, at levels "not significantly different from'' typical urban environments.
In addition to seeking testing for dioxin, mercury and small particles of asbestos, the
community panel also wants testing to be expanded across the East River to northern
Brooklyn, where plumes of smoke and dust from the collapses blew.
They also urged the agency to select buildings to be tested at random, rather than
depending on landlords and tenants to volunteer their spaces. This ``will likely
considerably underestimate the extent of contamination,'' Carpenter said.
--Editor Bostick
Story illustration For details about the Environmental Protection Agency's study of
pollution in Lower Manhattan and the Technical Expert Review Panel, see
http://www.epa.gov/wtc
To contact the reporter on this story: David M. Levitt in New York at (1) (212) 893-4765
or dlevitt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward DeMarco at (1) (202) 624-1935 or
edemarco1@bloomberg.net FAIR USE NOTICE
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