GAO report criticizes EPA cleanup of World Trade Center dust

[Guest guest]

GAO report criticizes EPA cleanup of World Trade Center dust

Newsday - Long Island,NY*

By DAVID B. CARUSO | Associated Press Writer

September 5, 2007

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-

health0905sep05,0,4573880.story

NEW YORK - A federal program that offered lower Manhattan residents

a chance to have their homes tested for toxic World Trade Center

dust should have been expanded to include office buildings and other

parts of the city, congressional examiners said Wednesday.

A report by the Government Accountability Office criticized the

Environmental Protection Agency for several aspects of the test and

clean program, which has been lightly used.

GAO evaluators said the testing should have been extended to people

living in Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan further away from the

World Trade Center site.

They said the EPA was wrong to have left the job of testing

workplaces to other federal agencies.

The GAO also repeated its earlier claim that the EPA discouraged

people from taking part in the program, the second of its type, by

saying that a first round of testing after Sept. 11, 2001, had

produced few positive tests for unhealthy levels of asbestos.

" Some eligible residents of lower Manhattan may have concluded that

they were not at risk from indoor contamination and therefore

elected not to participate in the second program, " the report said.

The report was prepared at the request of three New York Democrats _

Sen. Hillary Clinton, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and U.S. Rep. Carolyn

Maloney.

The EPA, in a lengthy written rebuttal, called much of the report

misleading. The EPA's regional administrator for New York, Alan

Steinberg, said the GAO had ignored complaints about the report's

accuracy.

EPA officials said they have no authority to order air quality tests

in workplaces but had nevertheless done some such testing at the

invitation of building owners.

The decision not to widen the testing area was appropriate, they

said, based on evidence indicating that little dust settled outside

lower Manhattan after the World Trade Center towers collapsed.

The EPA also said repeated testing had produced little evidence that

harmful levels of toxic dust were present outside of a few heavily

contaminated ground zero buildings.

" It appears that cleaning efforts by residents, building owners and

operators, EPA and NYC, where applied, have been successful in

reducing levels of contamination, " the agency said.

In its first round of cleaning, the EPA tested 4,167 apartments and

144 entire buildings for asbestos. In the second round, it has

enrolled the owners of 272 apartments and 25 entire buildings.

Clinton said the GAO report " confirms the Bush administration's

incompetence and indifference to the health threat posed by indoor

contamination from the toxic cloud that filled the air " after the

Sept. 11 attacks.

" We need a new cleanup program from the EPA and a renewed commitment

to be better prepared for future disasters, " she said.