EPA Will Retest Air near Ground Zero

January 19, 2007 - An Associated Press article notes that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will once again begin collecting names of Lower Manhattan residents who want their offices and apartments tested or retested for toxic dust left over from the September 11th tragedy.

According to the AP article, the EPA will register commercial and residential spaces in lower Manhattan until March 30. After the registration period closes, the actual testing will begin.

The re-testing effort will cost $7 million and has been dubbed the “final” air testing program to be performed as a result of the occurrences of 9/11.  Some government officials, however, think the testing will not go far enough in ensuring public health.

The article notes that the EPA will “specifically test the air and dust in buildings near the World Trade Center site for four contaminants linked to the towers’ debris: asbestos, lead, man-made fibers and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chemicals formed during fires.”
Previous testing of about 4,000 units in the area was done in both 2002 and 2003.  Two of the leading critics of the EPA’s testing program, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, maintain that the agency hasn’t done enough testing, especially in sections of Manhattan north of Canal Street and also in Brooklyn.

“The lawmakers’ fight with the administration over 9/11 health issues began after the EPA asserted within days of the terrorist attack that the dust from 1.8 million tons of World Trade Center debris posed no public health threat,” notes the AP article.

However, in the five years since the attacks, doctors have found thousands of ground zero workers suffering from a variety of lung and gastrointestinal disorders.  A few have already died of mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer which usually takes decades to develop.