EPA Rapped for NYC Cleaning Program

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EPA Rapped for NYC Cleaning Program

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

Posted May 18 2002, 2:49 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- From Latin American day laborers to Southern Baptist volunteers,

hundreds of people cleaned potentially hazardous dust from buildings around

the World Trade Center site without standard safety gear.

The cleanup continued for months after Sept. 11 as public agencies issued

confusing and often reassuring assessments of risks posed by the dust,

according to public documents and dozens of interviews.

Asbestos, glass particles and caustic powder settled unevenly in scores of

apartment and office buildings when the twin towers collapsed and sent dust

clouds rolling through lower Manhattan, public and private tests show.

But while some public officials said it should be assumed the dust contained

asbestos and required professional cleaning, others said it could be safely

removed with wet rags, mops and vacuum cleaners.

In the weeks and months that followed, air-filtering respirators were used

sporadically or not at all by many volunteers, immigrant laborers and

residents who cleaned up the dust.

More than 400 laborers have reported dizziness, coughing and other maladies

months after stopping work, according to a medical team's study of their

health problems, the most extensive such survey to date. Some scientists say

the workers also face an elevated, if still relatively low, risk of

asbestos-related cancer in coming decades.

Any such illness, they say, would have been entirely preventable.

" It's a public health outrage they were allowed to be exposed in this way, "

said Dr. Levin, medical director of the Irving J. Selikoff Center

for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of

Medicine.

Local and federal rules require elaborate safety procedures and respirators

for workers cleaning up material that's more than 1 percent asbestos. As

much as 35 percent of the dust may have contained that much, but labor

groups charge that enforcement of the rules was lax, and federal officials

acknowledge that it was a low priority.

Now, after months of saying that indoor cleaning was landlords' and

residents' responsibility, federal and local agencies have reversed course.

The Environmental Protection Agency and city Environmental Protection

Department announced May 8 they will spend federal funds to professionally

clean the apartment of any resident who requests it.

On Friday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that about $12 million in

federal money has been allotted to track respiratory and other health

problems among 8,000 rescue workers and others who helped clear debris at

the trade center site.

* __

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center,

was about halfway through a multimillion-dollar asbestos-removal project

when the twin towers were attacked. Both towers had asbestos fireproofing on

heating pipes, interior spaces and the support columns behind their

distinctive metal cladding, Port Authority spokesman on said.

Public agencies have tested thousands of dust samples taken in lower

Manhattan since Sept. 11.

Up to 35 percent of the samples tested by the EPA had enough asbestos fibers

to require professional cleaning and the use of respirators. Tests conducted

for the city found those levels of asbestos in only 6 percent of the

samples.

As recently as last month, private and public tests still detected asbestos

in some lower Manhattan buildings.

Tests by a New York University team also found minimal levels of chromium,

dioxin, lead, nickel and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

The U.S. Geological Survey found that the dust could be caustic when mixed

with water, apparently because of a substance in concrete. And tests

conducted for the city health department found fiberglass, a possible

carcinogen, in nearly half of the samples.

* __

Labor groups, environmentalists and downtown residents say that federal and

local agencies downplayed potential risks posed by the dust, leaving

residents confused.

On Sept. 13, the EPA issued a statement that said: " Sampling of bulk

materials and dust found generally low levels of asbestos ... the general

public should be very reassured by initial sampling. "

But EPA officials say they also warned residents and cleaning companies that

they should presume the dust had asbestos levels high enough to require

professional contractors with respirators to clean up heavy deposits.

" We knew that there was asbestos in the dust and the recommendation was to

use professional abatement contractors, " agency spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow

said.

" I never heard EPA say that, " said Leighton, assistant commissioner

of the New York City Department of Health. " It was not the assumption we're

working under. "

Instead, the city health department said as early as Sept. 17 that residents

could clean their own apartments using wet rags, mops and high-efficiency

vacuum cleaners.

Leighton said that recommendation applied only to buildings where landlords

had not detected enough asbestos to require professional cleaning.

But that qualification wasn't mentioned on many health department press

releases and fliers posted on downtown buildings. And the distinction was

lost on many residents, who cleaned heavy dust deposits in buildings that

hadn't been tested, said Madelyn Wils, chairwoman of lower Manhattan's

community board.

" At the time when people were starting to get back into their homes, it was

unclear, " she said. " There was no leadership from the city, state or federal

government on this. "

Artist Manter said she is recovering from pneumonia she developed

after cleaning inches of dust from her apartment two blocks from ground

zero.

" Cancer, of course, is a huge concern, " she said. " You feel like you're not

being told the truth. "

* __

Around Thanksgiving, more than 1,000 Southern Baptist volunteers cleaned

apartments around Battery Park City through a program that sends volunteers

to disaster areas.

The city Office of Emergency Management coordinated their efforts and the

health department provided volunteers with high-efficiency vacuum cleaners

and the assurance that the dust was largely safe, Baptist and health

department officials said.

Many volunteers labored in paper masks considered inadequate for work with

asbestos. Some had respirators that tightly sealed over the nose and mouth

and purified air using a high-efficiency filter, but they were used

sporadically or not at all, volunteers and Baptist officials said.

" I wore mine the first hour or so, but then it got too hot and kind of hard

to talk, " said Kimbell, a 51-year-old retired police officer from

Ruston, La. " Most folks that were in there didn't wear 'em. "

Meanwhile, day laborers -- as many as 5,000 by some estimates -- cleaned

dust from downtown apartments for as long as 10 weeks running, said Dr.

Markowitz, director of the Queens College Center for the Biology of

Natural Systems.

Most workers said employers did not provide respirators, said Markowitz, who

operated a mobile exam room for workers near ground zero. Some workers said

they brought their own respirators but were prevented from using them, he

said.

" The employers would tell them not to use the respirators because it would

alarm the other workers, " Markowitz said.

One Polish-born worker said respirators were used inconsistently in

buildings around ground zero.

" Some people wear it, some people not, nobody checking, " said the worker, a

certified asbestos handler who asked to remain anonymous for fear of

angering potential employers. " You should be wearing it in every room.

Nobody tells us how much asbestos inside. "

* __

Despite such reports, federal and city agencies issued only one citation for

improper cleaning. Respirators, and other safety gear and procedures, are

required under federal regulations governing work with asbestos-containing

material; asbestos abatement can cost three to four times more than a

standard cleaning job.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is charged

with ensuring worker safety, selected 34 buildings around the trade center

site in January for random inspection after receiving complaints about

dangerous work conditions.

The first inspections did not occur until up to 10 weeks after many day

laborers stopped working -- and as late as last month about a half-dozen

buildings had yet to be inspected.

OSHA gave employers advance notice of the inspections, which officials said

is standard practice. No asbestos violations were found.

Under city regulations, New York's Department of Environmental Protection is

required to ensure that asbestos workers, their clothing and equipment are

decontaminated so asbestos fibers do not escape from work sites.

Union officials repeatedly told the department that non-union laborers

weren't using proper gear or procedures, said Sal Speziale, president of

Laborers Local 78, which represents 3,200 hazardous-materials workers.

Speziale claims that inspectors did little to crack down on violations.

" It seemed like they didn't do nothing to rectify the situation, " he said.

Thirty-seven asbestos projects were registered with the department in lower

Manhattan after Sept. 11, and it received more than 170 asbestos-related

complaints. Sturcken, the department's chief of staff, said

inspectors found only one violation -- a failure to properly register a

project that was otherwise safely carried out.

" If there's a complaint about asbestos, we'll look into it, " Sturcken said.

" If we don't catch them, we don't catch them. That's unfortunate. "

* __

Between Jan. 14 and Feb. 25, the Queens College medical team examined 410

immigrant workers from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Its findings are expected in June.

Nearly all were suffering from two groups of symptoms: a combination of

upper airway irritation, coughing, sore throat, chest discomfort and nasal

congestion; and a cluster consisting of headaches, insomnia, poor appetite

and dizziness, Markowitz said.

Perhaps one or two of every thousand workers who cleaned buildings without

proper protection could develop mesothelioma, a rare cancer affecting the

sac lining of the chest or abdomen, said Levin, of the Mount Sinai School of

Medicine.

Levin said he based his estimate on construction workers like plumbers and

electricians, whose mesothelioma rates have generally run below 1 in 1,000.

Cancers linked to asbestos almost certainly would not appear for decades.

That workers had symptoms weeks after they stopped working indicates health

problems beyond simple irritation from inhaling the dust, Markowitz said.

High concentrations of pulverized glass or fiberglass certainly could have

harmed workers' respiratory systems, Markowitz said. Alkaline dust

dissolving in the water and mucus of the airways also could have been

caustic enough to cause damage, he said.

" I'm at a loss, really, to explain why people had those symptoms, " Markowitz

said.

" I say the dust was toxic because we have human proof. "

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press