EPA Launches Hotline For Residents to Request Apartment Cleanup

By Ronald Drenger

The Environmental Protection Agency on June 3 launched the telephone hotline for Downtown residents to call to request a free government cleanup or indoor air test inside their apartments. The hotline, 877-796-5471, will be staffed Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m, and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., for about three months.

Residents can also request the cleanup through the EPA’s website.

"I encourage residents of Lower Manhattan to take advantage of our cleaning and testing program," said Jane Kenny, EPA’s regional administrator for the New York region. "The program will provide Downtown residents with a measure of confidence that their homes have been properly cleaned."

The EPA had announced last month that it would lead an effort by government agencies to clean apartments below Canal Street. EPA officials said scientific data indicated that indoor dust and air posed little health risk for residents but that they wanted to alleviate lingering worries (read "EPA To Clean Downtown Apartments"). The cleanup program is being funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Cleanups appointments won’t actually be set up until July. The EPA will use information gathered from telephone requests to determine the best approach to scheduling the work.

When residents call to register for a cleanup or an indoor air test, they will be asked for information such as how many rooms are in their home, how dusty the apartment was after Sept. 11, if and how it was cleaned, and if air tests were done, the EPA said.

Callers will be given a confirmation number and a privacy code, which they can later use to track, either on the Web or through the hotline, the status of their request and to check air test results.

The agency is encouraging tenant associations to coordinate residents’ requests and says it will try to coordinate cleanups of different apartments within the same building.

The hotline will have English-, Spanish- and Chinese-speaking operators.

It remains unclear how many cleanups will be requested, as residents continue to face familiar questions: What kind of cleanup is necessary? How clean is clean? If you have already cleaned, should you call in professional workers for a job that could take two or three days, just to be safe?

"It’s difficult to give advice. This program is partly to assuage people’s concerns, and only individuals know what level of concern they have," said Mary Mears, an EPA spokeswoman. "But we don’t believe that there’s a high risk to anybody unless they’re living in extreme conditions."

The EPA said it would organize community meetings to inform residents about cleanup procedures.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler said he would work with the Lower Manhattan Tenants Coalition (LMTC) to urge all residents to request cleanups. He welcomed the EPA program but said that entire buildings, rather than individual apartments, should be cleaned, to avoid possible "recontamination" from apartments that are skipped.

"Residents should assume it’s not safe unless they’ve had their apartments thoroughly tested," said Sudhir Jain, head of the LMTC. "A professional cleanup is a minor inconvenience relative to personal health and safety."

Nadler and other community leaders said the cleanups must be monitored and that the EPA should test for pollutants besides asbestos, such as fiberglass, lead, mercury and benzene, and should clean commercial spaces, schools and community centers.

To press their concerns, a group of Downtown activists went to Washington on May 22, urging legislators to expand testing and cleanup efforts.

The EPA said the cleanup program could be expanded if it is deemed necessary. And while ventilation systems are not included in the program, the EPA and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection are reviewing procedures used by building owners to clean heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, Mears said.