Calls Continuing for Environmental Action

Even as the city marked a half-year since the World Trade Center tragedy, environmental controversies left in the aftermath continued to brew.

Following a slew of recent hearings in which the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was called remiss in its actions following the disaster, the agency announced on March 25 that the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) would begin cleaning Lower Manhattan rooftops and building facades.

In no time, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a persistent critic of the agency, called the EPA’s response "inadequate" because it ignores building interiors. "I cannot understand why the Administration is letting the plight of the residents fall on deaf ears," he said in a statement.

Jane Kenney, the EPA’s regional administrator, said her agency could not yet commit to doing more.
"We’re working together, all the agencies, to explore what kind of additional recommendations need to be provided to occupied buildings," she said. Asked whether EPA might mandate, rather than just recommend, any cleanup measures by owners, Kenney replied, "We’re not there yet."

The DEP, the agency charged with implementing the cleanup, does not seem to be helping the EPA’s case.

"You’ll have to talk to [Office of Emergency Management spokesman] Frank McCarton," said a DEP spokeswoman when asked about the proposed cleanup. "OEM is taking the lead on this. We don’t have information."

McCarton did not return calls.

Anger Over the Barge

Last month, City Councilman Alan Gerson demanded stricter environmental controls over the 24-hour debris removal operation at Pier 25. Gerson said he would propose legislation requiring trucks and other machinery to use low-sulfur fuels at the site and limiting the operation to late afternoons and early evenings, to avoid disturbing students at nearby Stuyvesant High School and residents of Independence Plaza. His legislation would also prohibit the use of Pier 25 for the eventual transfer of materials for rebuilding the site without approval by the mayor, the City Council, and Community Board 1. But Gerson stopped short of calling for removing the barge.

On March 20, in a rally staged mostly by Stuyvesant parents at the foot of the Tribeca Bridge, protesters demanded that the barge site be moved. Some Stuyvesant parents and students worry that the barge operation is contaminating the air in and around the school.

Gerson said he was confident that the Council would pass his legislation, but hopes that the mayor will act first and that "the Office of Emergency Management will act unilaterally and [with] urgency."

Gerson chairs the Council’s Select Committee on Lower Manhattan Redevelopment. The committee held a hearing March 8 on the Downtown environment, at which government officials said they expected debris removal to be complete by early June, and declined calls for new action on the Pier 25 operation, indoor testing and cleanup. They said that the wash-down and tarping of trucks has "minimized" airborne dust. Containerizing the debris was not possible, one official said, because commercially available containers can’t handle the irregular sizes and shapes of World Trade Center debris.

"If I lived there [near the pier], I would be very concerned," said Richard Sheirer, head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and coordinator of the recovery and cleanup. "But I would also understand that we’re trying to address a situation that is unprecedented."