story9389.xml

story9389.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-07-25

hi -
i hear you're collecting material for archives at cuny relating to
911. below is testimony i presented to a congressional panel in
washington on the travails of stuyvesant high school where my son had
been a student. since the testimony was for a citizens' forum on the
epa ombudsman whom christy todd whitman had effectively fired when he
criticized her conflict of interest in lower manhattan, the emphasis is
on that office. however the testimony gives an overview of the
experience of stuyvesant and residents downtown.


Testimony of Jenna Orkin, Ground Zero Parent
Ombudsman Panel, January 14, 2003
Stuyvesant High School, Toxic Site

I am the mother of a 17-year-old boy who was a student at Stuyvesant
High School four blocks north of Ground Zero on September 11. The
experience of Stuyvesant may serve as a microcosm for that of Lower
Manhattan as a whole.

In a statement that will undoubtedly resonate for years to come, on
September 13, Christy Todd Whitman declared the air downtown to be safe.
Thus on October 9, four weeks after the WTC attack and after government
agencies assured us the building had had a thorough cleanup, Stuyvesant
reopened to cries of, "Get back to normal!" and, "Show the terrorists!"
Wall Street was up and running again so all was right with the world.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, the week that Stuyvesant returned to its
building was the week that Dr. Thomas Cahill of U.C. Davis conducted
studies a mile north of Ground Zero which revealed levels of very- and
ultra-fine particulates that were higher than at the Kuwaiti oil fields.

For the next eight months, Stuyvesant got a double whammy of toxic
waste: Not only did they have the WTC site to the south, they also had
it on their north doorstep where the waste transfer barge stayed while
being loaded with the debris that was to be carted away to Staten
Island. This placement was in violation of state and federal laws, but
in the so-called "emergency" that prevailed for the eight months of the
cleanup (and what sort of emergency was it, exactly, after the first few
weeks when it was clear no one else would have survived? A real estate
emergency? An economic emergency?) environmental laws were thrown to the
four toxin-laden winds. The barge operation was host to diesel cranes
and idling diesel trucks that worked 'round the clock seven days a week.
Only now are the carcinogenic and toxic properties of diesel being more
fully recognized.

How was Stuyvesant equipped to handle this onslaught? The school's
filtration system was about 10% effective until the end of January when,
at the insistence of the 6000 member Parents' Association, it was
upgraded to 40% effectiveness. Although we had been told the school's
cleanup had included the ventilation system, we later learned that in
fact the ventilation system had not been cleaned.

For half the days until February, Particulate Matter 2.5 - dust that is
small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and not come out again -
was above EPA regulatory levels. Often it was higher at Stuyvesant than
at Ground Zero. Because of its relatively large surface area to volume
ratio, P.M. 2.5 also adsorbed onto its surface whatever toxic chemicals
were in the debris.

Isocyanates and tetrachloroethane also exceeded EPA limits when they
were measured but, after the troubling results, they weren't measured
again. High levels of lead were found in the gym where the lead could be
inhaled deeply and in the cafeteria where it could settle on students'
food. In response to these findings a representative from the Board of
Education which, due to EPA's being missing in action, was in charge of
cleaning up the schools wrote, "While lead can cause several adverse
health effects, these are usually from prolonged exposure to the dust
from the metal or when children consume lead-based
paint." Apparently he didn't realize that lead sprinkled on pizza will
be consumed.

The synergistic effect of all these contaminants is only imperfectly
understood. However Dr. Steven Levin of Mt. Sinai has pointed out that
if you're an asbestos worker and a smoker, for instance, the effect is
not simply twice as bad as being one or the other: it's eighty or ninety
times as bad. To our knowledge, other synergies have not been so
thoroughly studied.

In spite of the fact that FEMA had allocated 20 million dollars to clean
the Ground Zero schools, the Board of Education refused to clean the
ventilation system of Stuyvesant or even to do wipe tests. Finally
parents, using the pro bono services of attorney Richard Ben-Veniste of
Watergate fame, threatened to sue. The BOE capitulated and performed the
wipe tests but held onto the results for six weeks. We threatened to sue
again. They released the results which showed thirty times the level of
lead which one might expect to find on the floor. (There are no
standards for lead in ventilation systems.) After more threats of
lawsuits the BOE agreed to clean the ventilation system over the summer.

During that cleanup they removed the auditorium carpet explaining they
were doing so for 'aesthetic reasons.' A group of parents known as
Concerned Stuyvesant Community had two segments of the carpet tested for
asbestos using an EPA test known as ultrasonication. One of the samples
came back with a reading of 2.4 million structures per sq cm. Several
experts whom we have consulted believe this represents 250 times normal
background levels. But all agree it is a level which calls for
remediation. The carpet was replaced, the BOE still citing 'aesthetic
reasons.'

However the BOE, which had since renamed itself the Department of
Education, refused to perform ultrasonication or another approved test,
American Standard Testing and Methodology microvac, on the auditorium
seats. They claimed that these two tests were controversial. Instead
they performed a test of their own devising which involved beating the
seats with sticks and testing the air. This test has not been subject to
peer review much less received the imprimatur of a body such as EPA or
ASTM. Nor was it performed under anyone's oversight. We don't know what
air volume or flow was used, where the monitors were placed nor how hard
the seats were beaten. It is ironic that the DOE rejected two
established tests on the grounds that they're insufficiently understood,
opting instead to perform a test which isn't understood at all. Not
surprisingly, however, the seats came up with a clean bill of health.

In an analogous situation in Brookfield, Connecticut where asbestos was
also found, the school system was closed down until a level of 5000
structures of asbestos per sq. cm. (a relatively low level) was
achieved. In at least one school the auditorium seats were replaced and
ceiling tiles wet-wiped and hepa-vacuumed. This took place in EPA Region
2. We would like the same treatment in EPA Region 1.

However, of the 20 million dollars which the DOE received from FEMA to
clean the Ground Zero schools, at last count they had used only ten.
While we wish they had used all twenty, we do not even know what they
did with the ten million dollars they spent. Perhaps it is some of that
money that was used to lure students at the High School for Leadership
and Public Service back to school when they complained last year how
upsetting it was to watch body parts being carried past their door. The
school handed out fifty dollars worth of gift certificates to bookstores
and Modell's Sporting Goods to students who achieved a certain level of
attendance; one hundred dollars worth for perfect attendance.

Resident Remove Tons Of Toxic Debris From Apartments

Meanwhile Lower Manhattan residents were no better off. In the days
immediately following 9/11, the EPA bequeathed responsibility for indoor
air to city agencies. Rising to the challenge the NYC Department of
Health recommended that to clean up the dust in their apartments, people
use a wet rag. Ever willing to lend a helping hand, the Red Cross gave
out buckets to assist in what was being portrayed as nothing more than a
piece of heavy-duty housecleaning. Where the dust was really bad, the
DOH recommended that residents wear long pants.

Armed with this advice, residents such as Michael Cook threw out
furniture and over 150 twenty gallon bags of contaminated debris. Not
surprisingly, many residents soon suffered rashes and respiratory
symptoms such as chronic and/or the newly coined "chemical" bronchitis.
Those who could afford to moved out of New York. Others moved to hotels
temporarily.

A third group manifested a burgeoning distrust of government agencies by
hiring independent contractors to test their apartments. Some of these
tests revealed high levels of cadmium, lead and mercury in the
ventilation system. One woman, Nina Lavin, who had shut off her
ventilation system on September 11 in anticipation of environmental
havoc, nonetheless had twelve times normal background levels of asbestos
across the room from the window. She is now in limbo, living in a hotel.

Illness Spreads

At Stuyvesant also, a Health Hazard Evaluation performed by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that 60% of the staff
had had respiratory and other symptoms which they attributed to their
exposure to the air at school. No such study was conducted among
students. However parents reported that their children had been
diagnosed with new-onset asthma that could last the rest of their lives;
chronic sinusitis entailing heavy doses of steroids and antibiotics and
chemical bronchitis. One girl had her first asthmatic episode in seven
years - an attack that landed her in the Emergency Ward - after swimming
in the Stuyvesant pool which had not been cleaned.

The Deputy Chancellor of Schools complained that parents' reports of
illnesses were "anecdotal." This is true. In the absence of a scientific
study, all we had to go on was anecdotal reports. He also said, "we
believe the events of September 11 and its emotional aftermath have
contributed to a number of these incidents." In other words, the
illnesses were at least partly psychosomatic. The Deputy Chancellor did
not elaborate on whom he meant by "we."

Ombudsman Arrives

After several months of attending hearings and talking to scientists, by
February, 2002, I had amassed enough evidence to convince my ex-husband
that our son should not be in the Stuyvesant building. Crucial among the
pieces of evidence I'd acquired was a letter from the EPA Ombudsman,
Robert Martin, saying that the Stuyvesant building was not fit for
habitation. This letter was unique in its status as an advisory from a
governmental authority and critical in tipping the balance in my
exhusband's thinking.

Ombudsman Martin and his Chief Investigator Hugh Kaufman also held two
hearings which provided a turning point in the struggle of Lower
Manhattan. While the State Assembly and City Council had held several
hearings each, these ultimately resulted in little discernible change.
They seemed designed to do exactly what the term said: to hear. A roster
of officials heard, shook their heads in wonder and pity but in the end,
were unable to do anything.

In some ways those hearings may even have done more harm than good. For
the arrangements of the local hearings were always the same: Agency
representatives spoke for the first three hours while the news media
were in attendance. Invariably they presented a rosy picture of how hard
they were working and the pleasing results. At noon, the media rushed
out to edit their stories regardless of the fact that they'd only heard
half.

In the afternoon we, the hangers-on, the dregs of the hearing, got to
say our piece to a room vacated by all but the most zealous advocates of
our cause. By that time even most of the panel had fled leaving a token
member who would nod sympathetically in between taking calls on his
cellphone.

The Ombudsman hearings were the opposite of this sorry picture. The
first witness was Dr. Cahill of U.C. Davis who revealed for the first
time the news about ultrafine particulates a mile from Ground Zero.
Other representatives of our side of the story followed him,
interspersed with Agency reps. Ombudsman Martin and Chief Investigator
Kaufman asked knowledgeable questions, having done a great deal of
legwork and homework. Agency reps didn't get off lightly.

Nor did we. The hearings went on until 11 p.m. But there is no place we
would rather have been. With the Ombudsman hearings we felt a change of
direction; in every sense of the phrase, a breath of fresh air.

EPA Agrees To Clean Apartments

As a result of pressure from the Ombudsman and his Chief Investigator as
well as Congressman Nadler and other elected officials, on May 8, 2002
the EPA announced it would clean apartments in Lower Manhattan south of
Canal Street or test them for asbestos. Not workplaces or schools; just
apartments because, they said, they had to start somewhere. When asked
if they would consider expanding their cleanup above the arbitrary
boundary of Canal Street or into Brooklyn where NASA photographs show
the plume went on September 11 itself when 95% of the airborne debris
from the disaster fell, the EPA said they were looking into it. With
this they opened a hotline and waited for the phone to ring.

Over the next seven and a half months it rang about six thousand times,
for approximately one out of five residences. The problem was EPA's
outreach. They sent out only one flier that we know of and many
residents didn't receive it. In addition, EPA's ads never mentioned
cancer or the other ills that might ensue from living in contaminated
apartments. Indeed, EPA said they did not expect serious long-term
effects from the toxic substances that remained in people's apartments.
Instead, they maintained that the cleanup was merely to 'assuage
residents' concerns.' And since the EPA was telling them they had no
reason to be concerned, most people didn't bother to call. Besides,
about a quarter of the residents in Lower Manhattan are new to the area,
having been lured by liberty bonds worth up to $14,000 and have no idea
they could have moved into a toxic zone.

Cleanup Plan Is A Farce

The cleanup itself was also flawed although most people did not realize
that. Common areas and ventilation systems were largely ignored. This
meant that apartments which were cleaned might be recontaminated as soon
as residents turned on the air conditioning or even opened the door. And
because cleanup was voluntary, apartments could also be recontaminated
by neighboring apartments that opted not to get cleaned. Finally,
because small businesses were not included in the plan, they could
recontaminate apartments that shared their buildings. Contrary to what
certain government agencies have said, dust does not stay put.

Although the cleanup plan did not include workplaces, EPA did perform a
pilot test of a small business cleanup at a restaurant at 112 Liberty
Street. The contractors removed half the ceiling and left the
contaminated other half. They did not lock the restaurant when they left
so that during the night it was robbed. They lost the owner's keys.
Perhaps by not receiving an EPA cleanup, small businesses in fact got
the better deal.

While the response to the cleanup was lackadaisical, an even smaller
number of people opted for the testing only option. Of those, about two
percent were found to have apartments contaminated with asbestos.
Extrapolating from this, City Councilman Alan Gerson has pointed out
there may well be six hundred apartments downtown that are contaminated
with asbestos, most of which have not been tested, let alone cleaned.
And this does not take into account the hundreds of other contaminants
that were released from the collapse of the towers and subsequent fires.
EPA's testing plan omitted them all.

The testing only option was troubling for other reasons as well. In its
hunt for asbestos the EPA was performing only air tests. However, at the
Toxicological Excellence in Risk Assessment conference in October
several scientists agreed that testing of hard and porous surfaces
should be investigated and used more extensively.

And there were problems with the way the air tests were conducted. In
its counting of asbestos fibers, EPA omitted fibers smaller than five
microns on the theory that they would be handled by the body's immune
system. However, scientists do not agree that this is so. At the Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry conference which also took
place in October there was discussion about the likelihood that length
of fiber might not be so important as an aspect ratio of greater than 3:1.

The Ombudsman Resigns

In the mean time the Ombudsman had been relocated to the Inspector
General's office and Robert Martin resigned in protest. We have read
that the IG is now in charge of the World Trade Center case. This is
news to us. We have not seen or spoken to her nor to anyone from her
office. By contrast former Ombudsman Martin and Chief Investigator
Kaufman continue to take an active interest in us and we hear from them
regularly. They send us articles and give advice when we ask for it.

On December 28, following a media spree in which the EPA released
studies which supposedly supported the Good News that the air downtown
was less toxic than everyone feared, the EPA hotline closed. The EPA had
never said what levels of contamination they found after all the looking
they did at data from above Canal Street or in Brooklyn but whatever
those data were apparently did not call for cleaning.

I question these results because I live in downtown Brooklyn and out of
curiosity I had ultrasonication performed on my carpet. The reading came
back 79,333 structures of asbestos per sq cm, a level of concern. I had
an asbestos abatement which involved four contractors working twenty
hours on a two-room apartment. The phase-contrast microscopy test that
was subsequently performed showed that my apartment passed its Ahera
test but still contained asbestos which might pose a one in three
hundred cancer risk. This is much higher than the results EPA has
reported for Lower Manhattan.

This year the travails of Lower Manhattan continue. We hear of new-onset
asthma in Chinatown as well as a case in a girl who has homeroom in the
Stuyvesant auditorium; a girl developing pressure in her spinal fluid
requiring a spinal tap, possibly, her doctors say, the first of many; a
high number of flus and a particularly virulent stomach virus; the
return of respiratory symptoms which had diminished over the summer; a
teacher with pneumonia.

When Christy Todd Whitman declared the air in Lower Manhattan to be safe
to breathe she set in motion a chain of events that many of us believe
will prove the undoing of thousands. Already Ground Zero workers are
suing the city for their exposure to toxic substances during the
recovery operation. Many rescue dogs are sick and at least one, "Bear,"
has died. We fear that their fate is a harbinger of that of residents,
workers, our children and ourselves.

Need For Ombudsman

The foxes are in charge of the chicken coop. Having made initial
mistakes they are in the position of having to defend those mistakes by
compounding them. Clearly, there are not enough checks and balances in
place. Not enough watchdogs to guard against the foxes nor enough
penalties to make those in charge think twice about lying and
compounding the lie. The penalties for compounding lies should increase
exponentially over time to prevent the paramount ethic at work from
being, "Cover your tracks at all costs."

To correct this abysmal situation, the Ombudsman must be restored and
given full independence. His office provided checks and balances. As a
watchdog he was the people's best friend. It is surely suspicious that
as soon as his investigation of the WTC case got going, he was moved to
the IG's office, "for his own good." If the move was truly in response
to his request for greater independence, why did EPA not honor his
request to leave him where he was? The office of the Ombudsman must be
reopened for business and on the Ombudsman's terms.