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Air
Pollution Health Risk
EPA
Watchdog Rips White House on NYC Air
By JOHN HEILPRIN,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - At the
White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no
health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center
collapse, according to an internal inquiry.
President Bush's senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White
House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.
The White House
"convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by
having the National Security Council control EPA communications in the
wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a report issued late
Thursday by EPA Inspector General Nikki L. Tinsley.
"When EPA made a Sept. 18
announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, the agency did not have
sufficient data and analyses to make the statement," the report says,
adding that the EPA had yet to adequately monitor air quality for
contaminants such as PCBs, soot and dioxin.
In all, the EPA issued
five press releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end
of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June
2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11
levels — well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to
surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.
The day after the
attacks, former EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher's chief of staff
e-mailed senior EPA officials to say that "all statements to the media
should be cleared" first by the National Security Council, which is Bush's
main forum for discussing national security and foreign policy matters
with his senior aides and Cabinet, the inspector general's report says.
Approval from the NSC,
the report says, was arranged through the White House Council on
Environmental Quality, which "influenced, through the collaboration
process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its
early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements
and delete cautionary ones."
For example, the
inspector general found, EPA was convinced to omit guidance for cleaning
indoor spaces and tips on potential health effects from airborne dust
containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete.
James Connaughton,
chairman of the environmental council, which coordinates federal
environmental efforts, said the White House directed the EPA to add and
delete information based on how it should be released publicly. He said
the EPA did "an incredible job" with the World Trade Center cleanup.
"The White House was
involved in making sure that we were getting the most accurate information
that was real, on a wide range of activities. That included the NSC — this
was a major terrorist incident," Connaughton said.
"In the back and forth
during that very intense period of time," he added, "we were making
decisions about where the information should be released, what the best
way to communicate the information was, so that people could respond
responsibly and so that people had a good relative sense of potential
risk."
Andy Darrell, New York
regional director of Environmental Defense, an advocacy group, said the
report is indicative of a pattern of White House interference in EPA
affairs. "For EPA to do its job well, it needs to be allowed to make
decisions based on the science and the facts," he said.
Marianne L. Horinko,
EPA's acting administrator, said the White House's role was mainly to help
the EPA sift through an enormous amount of information.
"We put out the best
information we had, based on just the best data that we had available at
the time," said Horinko, who headed the agency's Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response, which oversaw the World Trade Center environmental
monitoring and cleanup.
"And it was using our
best professional judgment; it was not as a result of pressure from the
White House," she said. "The White House's role was basically to say,
'Look, we've got data coming in from everywhere. What benchmarks are we
going to use, how are we going to communicate this data? We can't have
this Tower of Babel
on the data.'"
The EPA inspector general
recommended that EPA adopt new procedures so its public statements on
health risks and environmental quality are supported by data and analysis.
Other recommendations include developing better procedures for indoor air
cleanups and asbestos handling in large-scale disasters.
On the Net:
EPA Inspector General: http://www.epa.gov/oigearth
National Security
Council: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc
Council on Environmental
Quality: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ceq |
