In New York, taking a breath of fear

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In New York, taking a breath of fear

Illnesses bring new doubts about toxins near ground zero

Excavation work continues at ground zero.

By Haughney

THE WASHINGTON POST

NEW YORK, Jan. 8 - There was something about the air. For a while after

Sept. 11, Tabb and his wife tried to stick it out in their apartment

just north of the World Trade Center, tried to ignore his twice-nightly

asthma attacks and her pounding headaches.

EVENTUALLY, THEY moved in with Tabb's stepfather. But Tabb still goes home

to pick up his mail, and within 20 minutes the metallic taste returns to his

mouth, and the wheezing.

" All of a sudden, boom, I've got a nosebleed, the asthma, a

headache, " he said.

Recently Tabb received evidence that the air in his apartment may be

as dangerous as he suspects. Independent tests - results of which are

disputed by the city - found that dust taken from an air vent in his

apartment building's hallway contained 555 times the suggested acceptable

level for asbestos. Samples from a bathroom vent show dangerous levels of

fiberglass.

" No one knows what was burning down there " at ground zero, he said.

" I am concerned that in five years or 10 years, I'm going to be part of a

cancer cluster. "

Nearly four months after the World Trade Center attacks, the fires

there are largely extinguished. But fears of the toxic brew left behind in

lower Manhattan's air remain - as do concerns that the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency and other government agencies did not warn residents

sufficiently or soon enough of the dangers.

Many of those who live or work downtown report strikingly similar

symptoms: nosebleeds, sore throats, bronchial infections and an endless

racking cough.

" People's airways are narrowing down, " said Dr. Levin,

medical director of the nationally renowned Mount Sinai I.J. Selikoff Center

for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. " We have cases of new onset

reactive airway disease for people who were in excellent physical condition

prior to September 11th. "

About one-fourth of the city's firefighters have complained of severe

coughing after working at ground zero, and more than a thousand have filed

notices of claims against the city. Last week four Port Authority police

officers were reassigned from the site after they tested positive for

elevated mercury levels in their blood.

Dozens of students at nearby Stuyvesant High School have complained

of rashes, nosebleeds, headaches and respiratory infections. Three teachers

have left because of respiratory problems.

" I'm really concerned, " said Marilena Christadoulou, head of the

school's Parents' Association. " It's a concern that comes from the whole

unprecedented and unknown nature of what is down at ground zero. "

The EPA, which has conducted thousands of tests of Lower Manhattan's

air since Sept. 11, has repeatedly assured residents that the air is safe to

breathe. Doctors note that some symptoms could be caused or enhanced by

stress - and many will undoubtedly dissipate as the last smoldering fires go

out and the air grows clearer. But Levin and others fear the unpredictable

effects of the combination of many dangerous substances released into the

downtown air could lead to significant long-term health problems.

" Nobody knows, " said Regina Santella, a professor at the Mailman

School of Public Health at Columbia University and director of the National

Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center. " We know what the

monitoring data tells us and we know the symptoms of what people have. It's

just hard to reconcile the two pieces of information. "

EPA'S ROLE QUESTIONED

In the weeks after the World Trade Center towers fell, tens of

thousands of New Yorkers tried to decide whether it was safe to move back

into apartments and businesses near the site of the attacks. The EPA played

a leading role in calming those fears.

" I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is

safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink, " EPA Administrator

Todd Whitman said a week after the attacks. " The good news for the

residents of New York is that the air, while smoky, is not dangerous, " an

EPA spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times at about the same time. And at

the end of September, another spokeswoman, citing recent tests for asbestos,

told the New York Daily News: " There was not a significant risk, even in the

early days. "

The agency released selected test results that seemed to buttress

those assertions.

But the EPA also found more troubling results, and it did not release

that data until after the nonprofit New York Environmental Law and Justice

Project filed a Freedom of Information Act request. These tests found

elevated levels of dioxin, PCBs, lead and chromium, all toxic substances, in

the air, soil and water around the site.

In a Sept. 26 EPA test, for example, three of 10 samples showed

elevated readings for lead. Exposure to lead can damage the kidneys and

central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to children. An Oct. 11

EPA test found benzene, a colorless liquid that evaporates quickly but can

cause leukemia in long-term exposure, measured 58 times above the federal

Occupational Safety and Health Administration's limit.

Those results were not released until late October.

EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow said the late release was an oversight,

caused by the chaos of those first weeks. She added that the agency had

performed 3,561 tests for asbestos in New York, and only 29 of those

recorded higher levels than the federal standard.

But Kupferman, the environmental law project's executive

director, is not convinced.

" They've created this false climate that things are safe, " he said.

" They're trying to insinuate that since September 11th, the problem is gone

and it's going to get better. "

Alerted to concerns about Tabb's building, he said, the project hired

an independent industrial hygienist to conduct tests of surfaces there on

Dec. 3, using methods published by the American Society for Testing and

Materials. The tests found the presence of settled asbestos dust 555 times

above the suggested acceptable level.

" I am glad to reassure the people of New York ... that their air is safe to

breathe and their water is safe to drink. "

- CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN

EPA administrator, speaking a week after the attacks Asked about

those results, spokesman Geoff of the city's Department of

Environmental Protection said the department does not recognize this type,

and that its own tests at the building, done on Dec. 12, had come back

negative.

Scientists with HP Environmental Inc. of Reston, Va., warn that the

asbestos dust in Lower Manhattan is so finely pulverized that the EPA's more

conventional tests may not pick it up. The company tested the air forthe

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey following the 1993 World Trade

Center bombing, andit returned after Sept. 11 to test for dangerous levels

of asbestos. Their first tests on Sept. 21 and 22 found that the air was

safe.

But follow-up tests, aimed at detecting finer particulate matter,

recorded much higher levels of contamination. Now they suspect that asbestos

is embedded in the walls and carpeting of nearby buildings, according to the

study team's leader, Hugh Granger.

EPA officials offer conflicting advice at this point. They say the

apartments and office towers around ground zero are safe - but they advise

landlords to seek professional asbestos cleaners. And they've advised all

workers on the site to wear respirators.

" There is nothing we have found that is at a significant level, " said

Bellow of the EPA, " that would say you should not come here to live or

work. "

Some environmental experts say that the EPA, at the very least,

failed to promptly communicate test results to the public. The agency was

too quick, they said, to interpret a few test results as a clean bill of

health.

" The public did not receive the information it needed in a prompt fashion. "

- ERIC GOLDSTEIN

Natural Resources Defense Council " The public did not receive the

information it needed in a prompt fashion, " said Goldstein of the

Natural Resources Defense Council, who is working on an environmental

assessment of the World Trade Center area. Asked about the EPA's early

assurances that the air was safe, he said: " A week after this event it would

have been very hard to make conclusive statements about air quality in

either direction. "

Freed, a City Council member until her term ended Dec. 31, is

still worried. She lives a few blocks from the World Trade Center site and

has suffered from bronchitis and nosebleeds.

" They should be measuring us. They should be monitoring us, " she

said. " There's like a disconnect between what's actually happening here and

what they're saying. "

PROBLEMS AT A NEARBY SCHOOL

Stuyvesant High School, one of the city's most prestigious public

schools, reopened to students on Oct. 9. Five blocks north of the World

Trade Center site, it is next to the pier where rubble from ground zero is

loaded onto barges to be taken to the Staten Island landfill.

From the start students and teachers complained of eye and

respiratory problems. When the Department of Health announced that students

could report their illnesses for a study, teenagers waited in line for more

than an hour outside the nurse's office.

Sophomore Georgia Faust said her eyes became infected, " watering so

much it would feel like you're peeling onions. " Several students needed

inhalers to rid themselves of sinus infections.

The city's Board of Education insists the site is safe, and that its

air quality is monitored each day. And special floor mats have been

installed at the entryways to prevent students from tracking in dust.

" There's something in the air and that's dust, " said spokeswoman

Catie Marshall. " But it's not the kind of thing that's going to have a

long-term effect. "

When Brooklyn firefighter Palmer Doyle arrived at the World Trade

Center after the second tower collapsed, there was one respirator for 47

firefighters. He worked almost a month of 12-hour shifts wearing a flimsy

paper mask. Later in October, his hoarseness, bronchitis and a hacking cough

kept him off the job work for 16 days.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association estimates that about one-third of

its 9,000 members suffer from the " World Trade Center cough. "

" Guys are a little scared. They're nervous, " he said. " We know what

environment we worked in and it wasn't healthy. "

The Uniformed Firefighters Association estimates that about one-third

of its 9,000 members suffer from the " World Trade Center cough. " Tom Manley

has it too; he's a union chief who spent countless hours at ground zero

consoling relatives and digging for victims. He carries an inhaler and cough

medicine. " You wake up in the morning with a heavy cough, which I've never

had before, " he said. " You can't breathe. "

Prezant, a doctor who has spent 15 years with the New York Fire

Department, says he is more concerned about chemicals than dust: " There is

treatment for particulate matter exposure, " he said. " There is no treatment

for PCBs. "

APARTMENT ILLS

Tribeca and Battery Park City are two of this city's newest

residential neighborhoods, the former constructed out of old industrial

lofts, the latter on landfill. Thousands of young families flocked here. Now

the area's proximity to ground zero has many talking about getting out. Who

wants their children exposed to the air and dust?

Tabb and his wife say their symptoms disappear within 48 hours

of leaving their Tribeca apartment. But the landlord refuses to tear up

their lease. Tabb's insurance company won't pay to clean his apartment of

dust and asbestos until his landlord cleans up the building's ventilation

system. Management started a cleanup last month,but not an asbestos

abatement.

The Tabbs had planned to start a family. The city Health Department

recently stated that the air is safe for pregnant women. But the Tabbs aren'

t buying that.

" We're going to have kids, " he said, " and I don't know what's going

to happen. "

© 2002 The Washington Post Company