The activists who have been fighting the Environmental Protection Agency ever since Christine Todd Whitman told Downtown residents and workers after 9/11 that the air in their neighborhood was safe to breathe and they should come home and breathe it — despite a lack of evidence — finally had their day in court. But the victory, the first in a long line of setbacks, was bittersweet.
Last week, Judge Deborah A. Batts said Whitman, who was head of the E.P.A. at the time, used “conscience shocking” judgment when she assured people the air in Lower Manhattan was safe. The judge stripped the former New Jersey governor of her immunity in a class action lawsuit brought against her and the E.P.A. on behalf of Downtown residents and students who claim they were harmed by toxins from the dust. Batts, in ruling against the agency, singled Whitman out for a series of misleading statements she continued to make in the weeks after the attacks.
“No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to Lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws,” Batts wrote. “Whitman’s deliberate and misleading statements made to the press… shocks the conscience.”
Her ruling lays the groundwork for residents to sue both the E.P.A. and Whitman to force the agency to test Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey homes and offices, clean any remaining dust and debris, and fund a medical monitoring program. Last week the coalition of residents, workers and elected officials celebrated a rare victory in a struggle that has been marred by repeated setbacks in the years since the incineration of the Trade Towers wreaked havoc on their neighborhood. Even in victory, the group was weary and apprehensive that anything positive might come of the recent decision.
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http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_144/federaljudgeshocked.html