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[http://www.nycosh.org/linktopics/WTC-catastrophe.html]
World Trade Center catastrophe
safety and health links
The number
of links on this topic is too great for display on a single page.
We have arranged all the links on a series of pages, including
this one, another with material from February-July,
December-January,
and a fourth with material from September-November
2001. In addition, some more recent links will be found
on the NYCOSH home page.
Where possible, these links are grouped by subject,
such as Compensation or Asbestos, with non-specific links categorized
as News or Occupational Safety and Health Resources. Within
each subject, the newest listings are at the top.
NYCOSH cannot
guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information in
the external links below.
For links concerning biological
weapons (including anthrax) and biosafety, click
here.
Occupational and environmental
safety and health hazards have an effect on everyone, going far
beyond the concerns resulting from the World Trade Center catastrophe
or bioterrorism. For more information on the identification,
control and elimination of workplace and workplace-related hazards,
and to learn more about the struggle to ensure that every workplace
is safe and healthful, please explore the our extensive website
and its 2000 links to other Internet resources on the subject.
To visit our site map, please click
here.
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ASBESTOS LINKS
- Fire Dept. Not Coming
Clean on Asbestos Risk? —
The Staten Island fire company hit hardest on Sept. 11 may be
riding a contaminated truck. Contrary to Fire Department findings,
asbestos was detected in the Rescue Co. 5 truck in testing done
after Sept. 11, a report obtained by the Advance has revealed.
The front and rear cabins of the specialized rig -- which returned
from the World Trade Center without the 11 firefighters who rode
it to Manhattan immediately after the terrorist attacks -- carried
asbestos in a compartment near an air-conditioner pipe, and in
a right-seat radio section, according to a March 7 study by the
LEW Corporation, an environmental company based in Livingston,
N.J.
 (Staten Island Advance, August
27)
- Asbestos: Alarmingly High
Levels — Bobby
Stanlewicz’s exposure to disease-causing chemicals didn’t
end when he left Ground Zero. The 35-year-old firefighter—who
is suffering from respiratory disease—has learned that he’s
spent the past year working in a contaminated truck. (Newsweek, August 12)
For links to more
news articles concerning the health effects of exposure to asbestos,
click here.
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
BREAKING NEWS
- EPA's 9/11 Cleanup Needs
a Fresh Look —
More than a year later, the debate continues over the long-term
dangers of toxic chemicals released after the World Trade Center
attacks. Last week, the federal Environmental Protection Agency
announced that only three of 255 homes tested so far in lower
Manhattan have shown dangerous levels of asbestos contamination.
Those results are from a new EPA program launched during the
summer to either test, or clean and test, any apartment below
Canal St. at the request of people who live in the area. EPA
officials estimate that up to 20,000 apartments may eventually
be tested or cleaned, and they warn it is too early to draw conclusions
from so small a sample. Agency brass, however, were clearly pleased
about the early results. But on the very day the EPA released
the positive news, an independent panel of environmental scientists
raised serious questions about the standards the agency is using
for its indoor cleanup program. (Daily News, October 29)
- NYCOSH and Union Coalition
Press EPA for Expanded Manhattan Cleanup — When
EPA reversed itself and announced that it would take responsibility
for cleaning up Lower Manhattan residences that had been contaminated
with fall-out from the World Trade Center, many unions and safety
and health activists were critical of the plan's failure to cover
workplaces and its lack of protections for the workers who would
perform the cleanup. Many unions expressed dissatisfaction with
the EPA plan, prompting NYCOSH to call a meeting of the unions
whose members would be affected by the cleanup. At an organizing
meeting in June, which was attended by representatives of a dozen
unions and NYCOSH, the group raised many criticisms of the EPA
plan, and agreed to focus on pressing EPA to extend the scope
of the cleanup to include workplaces (the EPA plan is restricted
to residences) and to require that the cleanup be conducted in
a manner that would protect the cleanup workers and bystanders
from the hazardous materials being cleaned up. (NYCOSH Update on Safety
and Health, October 28)
- EPA Lower Manhattan Cleanup
Is Sharply Criticized
— This week the EPA made public its first progress report
on its long-delayed program to test and clean residences in Lower
Manhattan that may be contaminated with toxic fallout from the
collapsed World Trade Center. The announcement was met with sharp
criticism from environmental and occupational health activists,
residents, and the member of Congress who represents Lower Manhattan.
(NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health, October 28)
- EPA Releases Asbestos
Results — Three
of 255 apartments fouled by potentially toxic dust from the collapse
of the Twin Towers showed elevated levels of asbestos in testing
since August, federal officials said yesterday. (Newsday, October 23)
- EPA Downtown Data Doesn't
Tell the Whole Story
— Dismissing newly released indoor environmental test results
downtown by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as "incomplete,
unsubstantiated, and illusionary," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
today called on the EPA to begin to deal straight with the residents
of New York.
(Office of Jerrold Nadler press release, October 22)
- Under the Plume: September
11 Produced a New Kind of Pollution, and No One Knows What to
Do About It —
A year later, scientists and physicians in New York City are
still trying to figure out just what tens of thousands of New
Yorkers inhaled that fateful day. Nonetheless, since the first
weeks after the attacks, Christie Whitman, head of the Environmental
Protection Agency, has been telling the nation that there is
nothing to worry about. (The American Prospect, October
21)
- Assessing the Scope of
WTC Ailments: Experts study how lung ills may worsen — A year after the World Trade
Center's collapse, doctors have just begun to get a grasp of
the scope - and persistence - of respiratory disorders left in
the disaster's wake. Many have even begun to wonder whether more
serious illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer, await. In
addition to asthma, a new condition called World Trade Center
cough and another relatively new medical disorder known as reactive
airways dysfunction syndrome - RADS - are the ailments most commonly
treated in firefighters, police officers and others who responded
to or lived near the site. RADS is a type of occupational asthma,
a wheezing condition that occurs usually after exposure to high
concentrations of environmental irritants. It can evolve into
full-blown episodes of asthma, studies have shown. (Newsday, October 1)
- A Big Victim Is Still
Empty After a Year —
Only the magnitude of disaster a few yards away could
have eclipsed the painful story of the former Federal Office
Building at 90 Church Street. This imposing one-million-square-foot
Art Deco structure was handsomely renovated in the late 1990's
by Boston Properties, which holds the master lease. Until Sept.
11, it housed nearly 3,000 employees of the United States Postal
Service, the New York City Housing Authority and the Legal Aid
Society. Today, it is empty and sealed off. No one knows when
it will reopen. Though it looks undamaged to passers-by, the
building was permeated by contaminants, including lead, mercury
and asbestos, from the collapse of 7 World Trade Center and the
twin towers. (New York Times, September
11)
- Health Woes Follow 9/11
Cleanup Crew —
DAYTON, Ohio - Hardly anyone was sneezing or coughing.
To doctors Tim Manuel and Randy Marriott, medical directors of
the Ohio Task Force One unit at the World Trade Center rubble
last September, that silence was ominous. "It told me the
dust all around us was probably very fine particles that were
going deep into the lungs," said Marriott, a Miami Valley
Hospital emergency physician who also teaches with Manuel at
Wright State University's School of Medicine. (Dayton Daily News, September
10)
- Lessons from September
11th: Health Concerns from Ground Zero Illustrate Need for Nationwide
Health Tracking —
The heroic actions of firefighters and other emergency workers
in the aftermath of September 11th won the nation's admiration
and respect. But the destruction of the World Trade Center exposed
those workers and local residents to contaminants that could
have a lasting impact on their health. Many people in the region
fear their health has been, or will be, impacted as a result
of this catastrophe. (Physicians for Social Responsibility
factsheet, September 10)
- Lung Ailments May Force
500 Firefighters Off Job
— As many as 500 New York City firefighters may have to
retire early as a result of "respiratory disability,"
chronic breathing problems caused by their exposure to dense
clouds of dust, smoke and fumes at the World Trade Center, health
officials said yesterday. (New York Times, September
10)
- Dusting off Manhattan:
A year after 9/11, worries about toxic dust plague residents — A year since the twin towers
collapsed, spewing a million tons of dust and ash over the city
and triggering long-smoldering fires, New Yorkers say they're
finally breathing cleaner air. Even so, as schools reopen and
the city continues testing and cleaning thousands of apartments
for lingering dust, residents are voicing unsettling health concerns
about the fallout from the city's worst environmental disaster.
(MSNBC, September 9)
- The Air Down There: A
year after the attacks, concerns linger over the long-term health
effects on residents and rescue workers who breathed in contaminated
air One Year Later
—When the World Trade Center exploded in a cloud of dust
and fire last year, LaVerna Bradley, 71, watched in horror from
her apartment on Madison Street, just ten blocks away. But within
minutes, she—along with her husband, Arthur, who suffers
from Parkinson's disease and has difficulty walking—were
unable to see much of anything. A cloud of thick, gray dust blew
through their open windows before Arthur was able to close them.
LaVerna, who was bedridden after having minor surgery the day
before, was too weak to get up or prevent the contaminated dust
from overtaking the apartment. A fine powder quickly coated everything
in their home, including the kitchen counter, the velvet sofa,
and the bed the couple had bought when they got married in 1984.
(Newsweek Web Exclusive, September 6)
- A Year of Dust, Ash and
Anguish — Enter
125 Cedar Street and time rushes backward. The apartments sit
largely barren, still coated in dust and ash, with no sign of
the vibrant life the residents enjoyed for a quarter century
at the feet of the twin towers. (New York Times, September
6)
- A Toxic Legacy Lingers
as Cleanup Efforts Fall Short: High Levels of Pollutants Remain
in Buildings Near the Trade Center Site — Almost a year after the World Trade Center's
collapse shrouded New York in inches of ash and debris, residents
are still finding dust containing surprisingly high levels of
asbestos, lead and mercury in their homes, offices and schools.
A toxic cocktail containing many times the legal maximum levels
of cancer-causing agents lingers everywhere. It is embedded in
school carpets, settled in office air vents and stuck in the
crevices of firetrucks—even after extensive cleanups. (Los Angeles Times,
September 4)
- Fire Heroes' Trucks Still
Tainted by WTC Dust
— Firefighters are rushing to emergencies around the
city in trucks still carrying remnants of toxic World Trade Center
dust and debris nearly a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, The
Post has learned. Of the 122 firetrucks involved in rescue and
recovery efforts at Ground Zero, 93 have yet to be totally cleared
of asbestos, Fiberglas, lead and other contaminants, FDNY officials
have confirmed and lab reports show. But those trucks went back
into use months ago. (New York Post, August 25)
- Health Assessment Finds
World Trade Center Clean-up Workers Suffering from Acute Respiratory
Problems — Many
workers who cleared debris from the site of the World Trade Center
attack of September 11 reported acute respiratory symptoms, according
to a health assessment conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health . The investigators believe the respiratory
problems may be associated with exposure to dust and airborne
contaminants at "Ground Zero." Since the investigators
only looked at short-term health effects, they said more research
is needed to determine if there is any long-term health risk
to the workers. The assessment was conducted in collaboration
with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the findings
were presented on August 22 at a meeting for members of Teamsters
Local 282 in Lake Success, N.Y. (Johns Hopkins press release,
August 23)
- Do Lower Manhattan Cleanup
Right —
Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency will
finally begin cleaning hundreds of apartments in lower Manhattan.
It's a shame that the agency isn't going to do it right.
The EPA's aim, of course, is to rid these apartments of
the asbestos and other toxic materials thrown into the air by
the collapse of the twin towers and the fires that burned for
four months afterward. When the EPA announced in June that
it would do this, it was reversing the position it held ever
since Sept. 11. For eight long months, the EPA insisted no cleanup
was necessary. Then, when at last it agreed that, okay, maybe
one was, it said the cleanup was "to reduce the safety concerns
of residents." As if the release of hundreds of tons of
asbestos, fiberglass, lead, highly alkaline concrete dust and
many other toxic substances wasn't a real public health hazard,
just the concern of some worrywarts. (New York Daily News, August
23)
- Little Scrutiny for Brooklyn
- Where Attack's Toxic Smoke Drifted — They call it World Trade Center Cough -
the hacking, wheezing, horrible cough that heaves the chests
of many who inhaled Ground Zero air after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. Scientists and health officials have studied the cough
and scoured some neighborhoods of New York City for victims of
inhaled Trade Center debris. But there is a critical flaw, experts
say, in all the research, Environmental Protection Agency cleanup
programs and federal services related to exposure to World Trade
Center debris: The efforts are concentrated on Manhattan, but,
except for the area immediately around Ground Zero, the plume
did not spread around the borough. It went directly to Brooklyn. (Newsday, August 23)
- Mayor Promising Better
Response to Catastrophes
— Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg promised August 19 to make
major changes in how the New York Police and Fire Departments
handle future catastrophes, including improvements in technology
and basic emergency procedures. At the plan's core is an ambitious
goal: a profound change in the culture of the Police and Fire
Departments, two agencies with a long history of rivalry. Among
the most significant technological changes is a proposal to outfit
high-rise buildings throughout the city with special equipment
to boost the radio signals rescuers use. In procedural changes,
fire chiefs will now routinely ride in police helicopters to
gauge a cataclysm from the air. And the police will stage their
responses from a safe distance, preventing too many officers
from rushing in too soon. These and other proposals were included
in an independent consultant's two reports, whose final versions
[FDNY,
NYPD]
were released yesterday, about the agencies' responses to the
Sept. 11 attacks. (New York Times, August 20)
- EPA Extends Testing Deadline
— After much
criticism of a federal plan to cleanup apartments in lower Manhattan,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will extend the deadline
for residents to request testing and cleanup , officials said
August 16. (Newsday, August 17)
- WTC Trucks Had Wrong Dust
Filters — A
private contractor hired to clean up asbestos-tainted dust near
Ground Zero in the days after Sept. 11 failed to use required
filters on its vacuum trucks, a federal report shows. Feds discovered
the lapse three weeks later and ordered the contractor, Earth
Technology Inc., to go back and sweep the streets again, according
to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency inspector
general obtained by the Daily News. Earth Technology's contract
with the EPA required the use of so-called high efficiency particulate
air filters, which are capable of trapping particles so tiny
they can't be seen by the human eye. They keep the particles,
which ordinary vacuums wouldn't catch, from escaping the vacuum
trucks and seeping back into the air. (Daily News, August 15)
- WTC Residential Dust Cleanup
Program: Carpets, Upholstered Furniture and Other Fabric Surfaces
Fact Sheet (EPA, August 14)
- EPA Outlines Residential
Cleanup Plans for Lower Manhattan — Almost one year after the World Trade Center
collapse coated much of lower Manhattan in asbestos-laced dust
and debris, federal environmental officials yesterday detailed
plans to clean and test up to 38,000 residences. Environmental
Protection Agency officials said they agreed to the unprecedented
indoor cleanup for any downtown resident who wants it mostly
to calm lingering fears. The EPA and other government agencies
have downplayed any health risk from the dust, saying tests have
shown the asbestos did not reach hazardous levels. But critics
have complained that the EPA has taken too long to initiate the
cleanup and that residents and others have already been exposed
to the asbestos for 11 months. They attacked the plan yesterday
as inadequate. (Associated Press, August
7)
-
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
COMPENSATION
LINKS
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click
here.
GOVERNMENT
RESOURCES LINKS (FOR OFFICIAL
INFORMATION ON A SINGLE SUBJECT, SUCH AS ASBESTOS OR COMPENSATION,
SEE THE SUBJECT)
- WTC Residential Dust Cleanup
Program: Carpets, Upholstered Furniture and Other Fabric Surfaces
Fact Sheet (EPA, August 14)
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
NEWS FEATURES
- Under the Plume: September
11 Produced a New Kind of Pollution, and No One Knows What to
Do About It —
A year later, scientists and physicians in New York City are
still trying to figure out just what tens of thousands of New
Yorkers inhaled that fateful day. Nonetheless, since the first
weeks after the attacks, Christie Whitman, head of the Environmental
Protection Agency, has been telling the nation that there is
nothing to worry about. (The American Prospect, October
21)
- Fallout: The Hidden Environmental
Consequences of 9/11
— On Sept. 17, 2001, less than one week after
the World Trade Center collapse, tens of thousands of office
workers returned to their jobs near Ground Zero after receiving
the go-ahead from federal and local safety officials. Federal
and city government wanted New York and the rest of the nation,
which had been virtually paralyzed in the days after the September
11 terrorist attacks, to return to normal as quickly as possible.
President George W. Bush, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and
other leaders needed to show the world that the United States
would not be intimidated by terrorism. There was another more
pressing imperative at work, however: The longer that Wall Street
and the nation's chief financial markets remained closed, the
greater the likelihood of a stock meltdown and perhaps long-lasting
damage to investors and the U.S. economy. To achieve a rapid
return to normalcy the government needed to persuade a jittery
public that it was safe for civilians to reoccupy the scores
of commercial skyscrapers and residential buildings in Lower
Manhattan. With uncontrolled fires still raging in the debris
of the towers, with thousands of bodies still buried in the rubble,
and with the trauma of the terrorist attacks still fresh in their
minds, many New Yorkers were understandably reluctant to return
so quickly. Nonetheless, Wall Street and much of Lower Manhattan
reopened for business on September 17. (Excerpt from Fallout
by Juan Gonzalez)
- Evaluation of Physical
and Mental Health Symptoms Following the World Trade Center (WTC)
Disaster: Borough of Manhattan Community College and York College
— Interim report
of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) evaluation of the workers at the Borough of Manhattan
Community College (BMCC) and York College. Includes comparison
of rates of eye, ear, nose, throat and skin irritation, respiratory
symptoms and gastrointestinal symptoms as well as symptoms of
depression and post traumatic stress disorder between workers
at BMCC and York
Colleges. The evaluation of BMCC and York is part of a larger
evaluation we are doing of workers employed near the World Trade
Center (WTC) site. (National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health, August 30.)
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
OCCUPATIONAL
SAFETY AND HEALTH RESOURCES LINKS
- 9/11 Environmental Action
— On
television screens the world over, people watched the Twin Towers
disintegrate into a fine dust which spread for miles. As the
fires burned unabated, New York City residents began to realize
that they and the many volunteers who had come to their aid had
been exposed to an unprecedented mix of asbestos, fiberglass,
lead, mercury, cadmium, dioxins, and hundreds of toxic substances
that continue to endanger lives. School parents, residents, safety
experts, environmentalists, labor unions, and religious and charitable
organizations began to organize to protect themselves and each
other, as it became all too obvious that government institutions
were misleading or ignoring New Yorkers. To call attention to
these health risks, many people testified at public hearings,
participated in conferences, and staged demonstrations. We came
to understand the geographical extent and the economic and political
context of the environmental problems caused by this terrorist
attack.
- World Trade Center Worker
and Volunteer Medical Screening Program — A project of the Mount Sinai-Irving
J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine
to screen workers and volunteers who performed rescue and recovery
work, including the restoration of essential services at the
World Trade Center or at the Staten Island Landfill in the wake
of September 11.
- World Trade Center Peer
Review — Since
September 11, 2001, the outdoor environment around the World
Trade Center (WTC) site and nearby areas have been extensively
monitored by a group of federal, state and local agencies. Now
that outdoor recovery efforts have come to an end, health and
environmental agencies are focusing on the indoor environment.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is offering to clean
and test or just test any residence south of Canal, Allen and
Pike Streets in lower Manhattan. EPA is also conducting a confirmatory
“pilot” cleaning program in an uncleaned/unoccupied
building at 110 Liberty to evaluate the
effectiveness of various cleaning methods and is conducting a
study of homes North of 59th Street to determine pollution levels
in New York City prior to 9/11. As part of these efforts, a Contaminants
of Potential Concern (COPC) Committee of the World Trade Center
Indoor Air Taskforce Working Group, has developed a document
with a list of pollutants that could be of concern in the indoor
environment in lower Manhattan. This list also includes health-based
benchmarks or clearance levels for these contaminants. This working
group includes members from EPA, New York City Department of
Health, Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry, New York
State Department of Health and Occupational Safety and Health
Administration. To insure that the document is based on the best
scientific information and judgments, the U.S. EPA has requested
that the non-profit research organization, Toxicology Excellence
for Risk Assessment (TERA), conduct an independent scientific
peer review.
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
TRAUMA LINKS
- Program to Cover Psychiatric
Help for 9/11 Families
— The American Red Cross and the September 11th Fund said
yesterday that they would underwrite the expense of extended
mental health treatment for people directly affected by the terrorist
attacks last year. The effort may be the most ambitious ever
undertaken by charitable organizations to address the emotional
needs of disaster victims. An estimated 150,000 families fall
into the eligibility categories designated by the charities,
which include family members of people killed in the World Trade
Center and Pentagon attacks; people injured on Sept. 11; rescue
and recovery workers and their families; residents displaced
from their homes; those evacuated from the trade center and other
buildings near Ground Zero; and children in schools below Canal
Street and their families. (New York Times, August 21)
For links material published
before August 1, 2002, click here.
For reference material
on job-related psychological hazards and health, click
here.
Occupational and environmental
safety and health hazards have an effect on everyone, going far
beyond the concerns resulting from the World Trade Center catastrophe
or bioterrorism. For more information on the identification,
control and elimination of workplace and workplace-related hazards,
and to learn more about the struggle to ensure that every workplace
is safe and healthful, please explore the our extensive website
and its 2000 links to other Internet resources on the subject.
To visit our site map, please click
here.
This page was last
updated on November 4, 2002.
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