Posted on 06/22/2007 3:00:34 AM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON, June 20 — Federal environmental officials misled Lower Manhattan residents about the extent of contamination in their condominiums and apartments after the collapse of the World Trade Center, according to a preliminary report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.
According to the report, made public during a Senate subcommittee hearing, the Environmental Protection Agency did not accurately report the results of a residential cleanup program in 2002 and 2003. More than 4,000 apartments in Lower Manhattan were professionally decontaminated in that program, and the agency reported that only a “very small” number of air samples taken in those residences showed unsafe levels of asbestos.
But the agency failed to explain that 80 percent of the air samples were taken after the apartments had already been cleaned.
“That was misleading,” said John B. Stephenson, director of the natural resources and environment division of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. He spoke after testifying at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is reviewing the government’s response to environmental and health issues at ground zero.
The report concluded that the misleading information had left residents with an erroneous impression about risk. As a result, only 295 residents and apartment building owners asked to take part in a new residential cleanup program before enrollment ended in March. That number represented just a small portion of the 20,000 apartments eligible to participate.
“Residents are understandably reluctant to participate in what they consider to be a waste of time,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who led the subcommittee hearing. Senator Clinton, who has been sharply critical of the federal response to 9/11-related health issues, said the data in the report offered “a very different picture...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
When you are doing asbestos clean-ups, you take a few samples during the work, but you take a lot of samples when the work is complete to verify that it is safe to reoccupy the space.
The workers are protected during the work by their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), so the levels during the work are not that important. The samples taken during this time are really to make sure they are using the right PPE.
I am not saying the government did everything right, here. But the fact that 80% of the samples were taken after the clean-ups were complete is appropriate and exactly as it should have been done.
And some public servant threw all that data into an Osterizer and blipped out an irrelevant number to the public. Or else some dummy newsperson grabbed the wrong figure off of a gummint website. It would be interesting to see just where the slip happened between the cup and the lip.
Folks were told repeatedly that it was safe to return to the area. Consequently, guys working on the pile didn’t wear their protective gear.
Whatever you think this is, keep in mind that it’s first and foremost something that Her Heinous wants out there so she can prattle on about so-called First Responders and how she was instrumental in bringing cleanup money to NYC that the Bush administration would not release, and so on and so forth.
Then why did the insurance companies show up with their check books and telling folks who had their cars covered in dust that the cars were “totaled” and couldn’t be re-sold?
The beaurocracy lies. So get rid of the beaurocracy. Oh? Still want to elect Democrats and Rinos? Go suck a lemon...
What happened to the air quality monitoring departments of both NYC and New York State? The environmental monitoring dept.?
Or is this all for the sake of lawsuits and the biggest pockets are with the fedgov...
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Expandable DNA repeats and human disease another FReebie from Nature on genetic biochemistry
Sweet Spark May Hold Clue to How Things Break
N. C. Eddingsaas and K. S. Suslick/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
LIGHT WORK The Wint-O-Green Life Saver Effect, known as triboluminescence.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unposted link as they see fit.
But the agency failed to explain that 80 percent of the air samples were taken after the apartments had already been cleaned...but it was close enough for gov't work.
Thanks for the ping!
If the percentages were turned around, she'd be bitching about insufficient post-cleanup sampling to verify it.
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