Hearings Focus on 9/11 Health Worries By Ronald Drenger The environmental and health impacts of the World Trade Center attack came under intense scrutiny last month in a slew of hearings and reports, with elected officials, civic groups and residents raising questions about lingering hazards downtown and criticizing the government’s response to the disaster. Health issues were the subject of at least four hearings, held by senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman; Congressman Jerrold Nadler and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ombudsman, Robert Martin, who is investigating the agency’s handling of public health concerns in the wake of 9/11; a City Council committee; and the Board of Education and P.S. 89 parents.   (Another public hearing, focusing on the debris barges at Pier 25 and the government’s handling of WTC environmental issues, will be held by two City Council committees on March 8. Call Councilman Alan Gerson’s office, 788-7722, if you want to testify.) In addition, civic groups issued environmental reports, scientists released studies, the city’s Department of Health held meetings with downtown residents, and air monitors whirred all over Lower Manhattan. But questions remained. Tenant groups, environmental organizations and elected officials zeroed in on what they called inadequate testing and cleaning inside buildings, asserting that deposits of World Trade Center dust posed a serious risk to public health. "The most worrisome air pollution problem facing Lower Manhattan now involves indoor pollution threats in some residences and offices that were engulfed with thick layers of contaminated dust and whose buildings were not properly cleaned," Eric Goldstein, New York urban program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said at the Feb. 11 Clinton-Lieberman hearing, and reiterated at the Feb. 23 Nadler hearing. Echoing the charges of other witnesses, Goldstein said city agencies failed to provide proper cleanup protocols or to inspect   contaminated buildings prior to reoccupancy, and no agency took responsibility for building interiors. At the senators’ hearing, residents in the audience jeered when Joseph Miele, commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said the city had required landlords to test for hazardous materials, or have qualified professionals handle cleanups. Nadler criticized the EPA for failing to protect public health by, among other things, "not exercising its full authority" to test and clean indoor spaces where people live and work. He called for building-by-building testing and professional asbestos abatement, paid for by the federal government. The EPA’s administrator for New York, Jane Kenny, told the senators that her agency was "committed to helping residents and workers address issues of indoor air quality." And the DEP’s Miele said that residents unsure whether their buildings were properly cleaned should call 718-DEP-HELP or his office, at 718-595-6565. But representatives of government agencies declined to appear at Nadler’s hearing, which lasted over 10 hours. In a Feb. 12 letter to Senator Clinton, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said the agency will create a task force on indoor air quality, but late last month an EPA spokeswoman said that details had yet to be worked out. The vast majority of outdoor tests indicate that the air in Lower Manhattan is now safe. But Martin and Nadler charged that the EPA downplayed the hazards after the disaster. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, which analyzed air collected from the roof of 201 Varick Street, about a mile from Ground Zero, last month described dust clouds with unprecedented concentrations of very fine particles that blew through Lower Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed. At times in October, their levels were worse than the Kuwaiti oil fires and areas in Beijing near coal-fired power plants, said Thomas Cahill, the team’s lead researcher. While Cahill said that the EPA could have done more aggressive testing and analysis early on after Sept. 11, he said he didn’t believe the outdoor air today is hazardous. But many who live near Pier 25 and some parents of children who go to school near the site continued to worry about the debris removal operation. Most experts said that respiratory and other health problems suffered since Sept. 11 were short-term symptoms caused by irritating cement dust and other particles, not signs of lasting health damage. But they said only long-term studies will reveal whether previously healthy people will suffer lingering problems.The EPA’s administrator for New York, Jane Kenny, told the senators that her agency was "committed to helping residents and workers address issues of indoor air quality." And the DEP’s Miele said that residents unsure whether their buildings were properly cleaned should call 718-DEP-HELP or his office, at 718-595-6565. But representatives of government agencies declined to appear at Nadler’s hearing, which lasted over 10 hours. In a Feb. 12 letter to Senator Clinton, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said the agency will create a task force on indoor air quality, but late last month an EPA spokeswoman said that details had yet to be worked out. The vast majority of outdoor tests indicate that the air in Lower Manhattan is now safe. But Martin and Nadler charged that the EPA downplayed the hazards after the disaster. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, which analyzed air collected from the roof of 201 Varick Street, about a mile from Ground Zero, last month described dust clouds with unprecedented concentrations of very fine particles that blew through Lower Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed. At times in October, their levels were worse than the Kuwaiti oil fires and areas in Beijing near coal-fired power plants, said Thomas Cahill, the team’s lead researcher. While Cahill said that the EPA could have done more aggressive testing and analysis early on after Sept. 11, he said he didn’t believe the outdoor air today is hazardous. But many who live near Pier 25 and some parents of children who go to school near the site continued to worry about the debris removal operation. Most experts said that respiratory and other health problems suffered since Sept. 11 were short-term symptoms caused by irritating cement dust and other particles, not signs of lasting health damage. But they said only long-term studies will reveal whether previously healthy people will suffer lingering problems.