Comment

Comment by Kerry Hay on September 18, 2013 at 1:41am

The EPA LIED ABOUT NEW YORK'S AIR QUALITY AFTER 9/11. disinfo.com

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11, humongous plumes of concrete dust, asbestos, lead, and other material hovered over Manhattan. Fires at the site burned for over two months, releasing even more junk, like dioxins, PCBs, and volatile organic compounds. Yet the Environment Protection Agency painted a rosy picture of air quality. On September 13, 2001, an EPA press release cheerily said that the result of their testing were "very reassuring" and "uniformly acceptable." Administrator Christine Todd Whitman was quoted, "EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City."

The next day, the EPA's missive soothed frazzled nerves, "EPA continues to believe that there is no significant health risk to the general public in the coming days." On the 18th of that month, Whitman declared, "I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe..."

The White House had pressured the agency into making its calming claims and had ordered the removal of some precautionary statements, despite the health risks to the public. Additionally, the EPA press releases had to be cleared by the National Security Council before being disseminated.

A leaked memo by Cate Jenkins, PhD, a scientist in the EPA's Office of Solid Waste, exposes additional layers of deceit. She shows that on 9/11 and afterward, tests by the EPA, Con Edison, and others did indeed show that asbestos levels were leaps and bounds above 0.1 percent (the level which EPA considers problematic, requiring action). A level of 4.49 percent was found two blocks from Ground Zero the day after the attacks. On 9/16 and 9/17, at a location sixteen blocks away, tests found a level of 3 percent. One block north, almost two weeks after the attacks, tests measured a whopping 5 percent. All the talk of "reassuring." "acceptable," and "safe" levels was hogwash, and the agency knew it.

Jenkins also reveals, "EPA dismissed levels of toxins such as dioxins as being 'very low' or 'below the detection limit' despite the fact that levels of dioxin measured in the air many blocks away from Ground Zero were the highest ever detected in outdoor air."

In 1998, when one floor of a federal building in Manhattan was contaminated with asbestos from insulation, the EPA tested 4,000 to 5,000 samples on that floor alone. How many samples did it test in all of Manhattan after 9/11? Around 250.

http://www.kerryhay.spiderweb.com.au