In a series of public statements issued after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assured the people of New York that the air around ground zero was safe to breathe. Unfortunately, the agency lacked authoritative information on which to base these claims, and internal agency data conflicting with this reassuring public posture were ignored. The EPA's press releases and public statements after 9/11 were vetted by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, suggesting that the White House placed politics over science when communicating about ground zero's air quality. Tragically, the impact of this public deception continues to be felt by thousands of rescue workers now plagued by chronic and crippling lung ailments.
The EPA wasted little time in assuring New York residents and rescue workers that the area surrounding ground zero was safe. On September 13, 2001, just two days after the attacks, the agency issued a press release in which it explained "sampling of bulk materials and dust found generally low levels of asbestos. The levels of lead, asbestos and volatile organic compounds in air samples taken Tuesday in Brooklyn, downwind from the World Trade Center site, were not detectable or not of concern."¹ A September 18, 2001 press release was even more confident, quoting then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman: "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, DC that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink."²
The EPA's proclamation of safe air was premature and, as it turned out, wrong. The collapse of the World Trade Center released nearly 2,000 tons of asbestos³ and hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete in the form of dust. A 2003 report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the EPA later charged that the EPA lacked the information needed to determine the air quality surrounding Ground Zero in the days following the September 11 attacks.4
Read more:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/ground-zero-air-pollution.html
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