It's official: post 9-11 air contamination in NY

[rman]

Democracy Now
Thursday, August 24th, 2006
Memo: NY City Hall Divided Over Handling of Post-9/11 Contamination
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/207231

...internal memo from a top official in the Health Department who was in charge of environmental hazards and who was coordinating the city's response to 9/11 on health issues, and also the deputy -- the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, who was actually doing all the testing for asbestos throughout the city; both of them were very concerned about the air quality in Lower Manhattan and, in fact, were overruled by City Hall, by Mayor -- the Giuliani administration, their boss, who wanted to open up more areas around ground zero, because he was under pressure, according to the assistant commissioner, from the business community and building owners to allow more opening of areas around ground zero.

<snip>

But even more importantly, some of the data of the city's testing, which again has never gotten much attention and in fact the city withheld and is still withholding from public release some of those main tests, showed that in the five days after 9/11, before hundreds of thousands of people were given the all-clear to come back to work, that the city took 38 air tests in Lower Manhattan for asbestos and of those 38 tests, 27 of them, more than 70% of the tests that the city took, showed unsafe levels of asbestos in the air. And yet the city not only took months to post those results, but then when they did on their website, have still not posted the worst results that they got in the first few days. So there's real questions about actual withholding and burying of damaging air safety reports.
And yet the public was told everything is okay, it's okay to go back to work in that area.

<more>

[Mnemosyne]

1. KnR n/t

[MountainLaurel]

2. They should be made to pay

For the medical treatment of all those who returned to work and live in Lower Manhattan and are now ill and dying from the hazards they were exposed to there.

[Alacrat]

3. Anyone with any sense knew this,

When you have that much particulate in the air, coming from burning and crumbling buildings, it was a given. FDNY has many firefighters who had or still have severe respiratory problems resulting from the exposure to all of the stuff in the air post 9/11. Many firefighters careers have ended because of these problems, and many will probably die as a result of this stuff. Asbestos is probably the most hazardous, but I would imagine silica, which will cause severe respiratory problems, was also very high. The number of people who were exposed to, and have or will have problems from this will be enormous. They could be adding more names to the list of dead from 9/11 for years to come. Very sad..

[rman]

7. The tragedy within the tragedy,

is all those rescue workers...

First some 300 police and firefighters who died in the first collapse, then the triage folks and others who worked their butts off in that foul air. Many of them got very ill. In particular i'm thinking of Indira Sign, whose triage work is only one aspect of her significance to 9-11.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=344x4

[Kickoutthejams23]

10. It's sad but hardly surprising. I'm sure those working there

realized that it wasn't a clean environment. Kinda obvious.

[rman]

12. Yes but without measurements there's no knowing just how unclean,

just how much of a health hazard it was.
Had these people known there were unsafe amounts of asbestos in the air, they surely would have taken precautions.

[Selatius]

4. This is why Corporatism won in America. We gave into "pressure" from them.

We gave them our country. We get what we see in return for this transaction. Oh well.

[mod mom]

5. "were overruled by City Hall, by Mayor -- the Giuliani administration"

Rudy...putting his loyalty to the rethuglicon party over his concern for the welfare of the people of his "beloved" city.

[AndyA]

11. I hope people remember this, and speak out about it, to curb any

future political ambitions of Rudy's. He's the typical politician - dirty, dirty, dirty. We need to clean up the filth in our country, and we might as well start at the top and let it trickle down, right?

See, I did learn something from the Repukes. :)

[MissWaverly]

13. St. Rudy, cry another tear for 9-11 to score GOP Bucks

What a hypocrite.

[mom cat]

6. He's toast!

:bounce:

[DemonFighterLives]

8. Ghouliani strikes again

I could have told them that it was contaminated. I can't believe our own EPA who is supposed to serve the country would stoop to this level of corruption.
:nuke: :grr:

[Bretttido]

9. Sounds like the same reaction the Chinese government would take...