[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CONTINUATION OF 9/11 HEALTH EFFECTS: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS FOR
RESIDENTS AND RESPONDERS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 23, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
TOM LANTOS, California TOM DAVIS, Virginia
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
Columbia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BILL SALI, Idaho
JIM COOPER, Tennessee ------ ------
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
David Marin, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania,
PETER WELCH, Vermont JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Michael McCarthy, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 23, 2007................................... 1
Statement of:
Chan, Kwai-Cheong, former Assistant Inspector General for
Program Evaluation, Environmental Protection Agency; David
M. Newman, industrial hygienist, New York Committee for
Occupational Safety and Health; Patrick Roohan, director,
Bureau of Program Quality, Information and Evaluation, New
York State Department of Health; Dr. Anthony Szema,
assistant professor of medicine, Suny-Stony Brook School of
Medicine; Suzanne Y. Mattei, executive director, Sierra
Club of New York City; and Peter Gudaitis, executive
director, New York Disaster Interfaith Services............ 31
Chan, Kwai-Cheong........................................ 31
Gudaitis, Peter.......................................... 37
Mattei, Suzanne Y........................................ 85
Newman, David M.......................................... 49
Roohan, Patrick.......................................... 61
Szema, Dr. Anthony....................................... 79
Graham, Yvonne, deputy Brooklyn Borough president............ 20
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Chan, Kwai-Cheong, former Assistant Inspector General for
Program Evaluation, Environmental Protection Agency,
prepared statement of...................................... 33
Fossella, Hon. Vito, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, prepared statement of................... 110
Graham, Yvonne, deputy Brooklyn Borough president, prepared
statement of............................................... 23
Gudaitis, Peter, executive director, New York Disaster
Interfaith Services, prepared statement of................. 40
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 8
Mattei, Suzanne Y., executive director, Sierra Club of New
York City, prepared statement of........................... 88
Nadler, Hon. Jerrold, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, prepared statement of................... 15
Newman, David M., industrial hygienist, New York Committee
for Occupational Safety and Health, prepared statement of.. 52
Roohan, Patrick, director, Bureau of Program Quality,
Information and Evaluation, New York State Department of
Health, prepared statement of.............................. 63
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 107
Szema, Dr. Anthony, assistant professor of medicine, Suny-
Stony Brook School of Medicine, prepared statement of...... 82
CONTINUATION OF 9/11 HEALTH EFFECTS: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS FOR
RESIDENTS AND RESPONDERS
----------
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management,
Organization, and Procurement,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Brooklyn, NY.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY, Hon.
Edolphus Towns (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Towns, Murphy, Maloney, and
Platts.
Also present: Representatives Weiner and Nadler.
Staff present: Michael McCarthy, staff director; Rick
Blake, professional staff member; Cecelia Morton, clerk; and
John Cuaderes, minority senior investigator and policy advisor.
Mr. Towns. The subcommittee will come to order. Before
starting our proceedings today, I just want to say two words
about one of our colleagues who passed away. Juanita Millender-
McDonald passed away yesterday, who happened to be my next door
neighbor in the Rayburn Building in Washington, DC.
Her office is right next to my office. We served together
for many years. And she, of course, chaired the House
Administration Committee and has done a fantastic job in that
regard.
So we will miss Congresswoman McDonald. And I would just
like for you to just pause for a moment of silence.
[Pause.]
Mr. Towns. Thank you.
We are in the borough presidents--of course, Marty
Markowitz has made it possible for us to come in. And I was
sort of looking for him to ask him to bring greetings today,
but I do not see the borough president. Oh, he is on his way
upstairs? OK.
Well, we will just pause a moment to ask him to bring
greetings, of course. And if he can't bring greetings, we will
have to ask the deputy borough president to bring greetings
because we want to thank you for allowing us to come in and
hold the congressional hearing.
While we are waiting on him, let me just sort of introduce
the members on the panel here in terms of our Congressmembers.
First, we have the ranking--actually, the former chairman of
this subcommittee before, as you know, the House did a little
switch. And he was the Chair. Of course, I was ranking at the
time he was chair. And he did a marvelous job. I enjoyed
working with him. And, of course, he hails from Pennsylvania,
Representative Platts from Pennsylvania, whom you will be
hearing from a little bit later on in his statement.
Then, of course, we have with us Congressman Nadler, who
also represents a portion of Brooklyn. So he is at home here,
of course. And then, of course, you have Carolyn Maloney from
Manhattan, who has been very involved in this issue as well.
So we will pause at this point to ask the borough president
of Brooklyn, the Honorable Marty Markowitz, to bring greetings
to us and to thank him for allowing us to come in to Borough
Hall, a place that I am very, very familiar with.
Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Mr. Markowitz. You sure are. And, remember, mi casa es su
casa.
Thank you very, very much. It is so good to see you. Jerry
Nadler, who serves Brooklyn with tremendous distinction;
Congressmember Platts, welcome to where New York State begins,
Brooklyn; Carolyn Maloney, who is an outstanding Member of the
Congress from our outer borough, Manhattan--and thank you all
for your personnel; I mean it, Carolyn--and Chairman Ed Towns.
It is a pleasure to call you Chair. And you should always be
chair for all the days to come. And I mean that.
Mr. Towns. Thank you.
Mr. Markowitz. Let me say good morning to the Subcommittee
on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Welcome to what
we call Brooklyn City Hall.
I want to thank everyone here for making yourselves
available to talk about the health concerns of Brooklynites,
especially as they relate to the devastating attacks on 9/11.
The single most important thing to any human being, as we all
know, is his or her health.
I'm sorry. Congressman Weiner, welcome. Welcome.
Congressman Weiner serves Brooklyn and Queens superbly. And the
only word I have to say about him, he's too thin. That's the
only thing. I have tried since I've known him to fatten him up.
Obviously I get fatter as I talk about it. Congressman Weiner,
thank you very much.
Mr. Weiner. Keep those Junior's cheesecakes coming.
Mr. Markowitz. Right past me to you. I know. And so it goes
without saying that as elected officials, our No. 1 priority is
doing everything in our power to ensure that our residents get
the treatment and care they need and deserve.
That is why I along with all of our residents am profoundly
grateful to our colleagues at the Federal level who have
introduced in both the House and the Senate the 9/11 Heroes
Health Improvement Act of 2007. This bill would provide $1.9
billion in Federal funding for medical and mental health
screening, testing, and treatment grants to health care
institutions that care for those affected by the 9/11 attacks.
We applaud Congressmen Towns, Nadler, Engel, Weiner,
Platts, and Maloney for taking action. We urge Congress to pass
this legislation quickly.
The heartbreak that Brooklynites experienced on 9/11, the
days and months afterwards, and even to this day, as you know,
is as searing and complete as that of any New Yorker or any
American. Three Brooklyn police officers perished in the rescue
efforts, and 82 of New York's bravest from Brooklyn firehouses
died on the scene.
According to the World Trade Center health registry, at
least 8,000 Brooklynites were in the downtown area during the
towers' collapse. Countless numbers of our residents breathe in
contaminated air from the smoke plume that drifted to Brooklyn
on that terrible day.
Finding out how our residents' health may have been
impacted and getting them the treatment that is denied them is
the right thing to do, as you know.
I thank you for holding this important hearing in Brooklyn.
Many Brooklynites are still waiting to be compensated and cared
for. No one knows better than all of us here in Brooklyn how
tough Brooklynites are and the tremendous attitude they bring
to every challenge. But the heartbreak of 9/11 will always
front our collective memories.
The least we can do is to get our residents the treatment
and care they need so that the health conditions that resulted
from the 9/11 tragedy are a thing of the past.
Thank you and good morning. And I know that our deputy
borough president, Yvonne Graham, will get into much greater
depth on this. Thank you very, very much for being here.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Mr. Markowitz. My pleasure.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much for allowing us to come in.
And thank you for your welcome.
Mr. Markowitz. Welcome home, by the way.
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you. And I also thank you for
calling me chairman.
Mr. Markowitz. I love that title.
Mr. Towns. Let me ask unanimous consent that these members
of the New York City delegation be allowed to participate in
today's hearings. That's Congressman Weiner and, of course,
Congressman Nadler and Congresswoman Maloney. Without hearing
any objection, it is so ordered.
I would also like to welcome those seated in the audience
who are either first responders or who belong to a trade union
and other organizations who represent these heroes. You are the
primary reason we are holding this hearing today.
I recognize that on the day of 9/11, that there was a dark
cloud in the sky moving in this direction, moving toward
Brooklyn. And there is no doubt in my mind that Brooklyn was
affected by that because it landed somewhere in our borough.
And, of course, since that time, we have had many residents to
come forward and say that they had respiratory problems and all
kinds of things occurred.
I think that we cannot afford the luxury of just ignoring
this, that we must listen to it. And, of course, I said that
this committee will address that issue and see what we can do
in terms of to be able to correct it.
We feel that not only is the city involved in it, but I
think that the Federal Government has an obligation and
responsibility as well to come up with a Federal fix because we
do not want to discourage people from volunteering. We do not
want to discourage people from helping each other. And the only
way we can do that is to make certain we are fair to them when
something like this happens.
So I want to thank my colleagues today for coming to be a
part of this hearing and to say I look forward to hearing from
the witnesses.
So at this point in time I would like to pause and ask
Representative Platts for his opening statement. And then we'll
just move right along to the other Members.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is great to be back
here in Brooklyn, I think my third visit here with you. And
while I enjoyed the title of chairman in the past, I am
delighted to now have the privilege of serving with you as
chair of this important subcommittee.
I also want to add my words of condolences to our
Congresswoman's family in her passing and that we keep her and
her family in our thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.
I want to comment my fellow colleagues that are here and
especially the New York delegation in total for your great
leadership on this very important issue and your continuing the
important oversight through this committee's work.
I believe this is the committee's sixth hearing on the
health problems caused by al-Qaeda's attack on New York City
5\1/2\ years ago. Members share a commitment to ensuring that
the Federal Government, the State of New York, this wonderful
city, and other public and private organizations are properly
organized and funded to identify, assess, and treat those
emergency personnel, workers, volunteers, and residents who are
physically or emotionally harmed by the collapse of the World
Trade Center and the subsequent cleanup.
The 2001 terrorist attacks caused destruction on an
unprecedented scale. When al-Qaeda struck the World Trade
Center buildings with fuel-laden jet aircraft amidst one of the
world's most densely populated cities, the resulting collapse
of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and other buildings was
unimaginable.
Thousands of firefighters, police officers, and others
raced immediately to provide assistance at the scene. Thousands
more arrived in subsequent days and weeks to fight persistent
fires and to remove rubble and begin the arduous task of
rebuilding.
Now it seems apparent that these brave individuals inhaled
a toxic mixture of concrete dust and smoke made up with the
byproducts of incinerated building materials. Every American
harmed physically and mentally by the 9/11 attacks in New York;
Washington, DC; and those with loved ones on flight 93 deserve
our assistance.
Today, we will hear from several people who are
representatives of a much larger number of victims of that day.
I look forward also to hearing from city officials and learning
about the government's current arrangements and future plans to
assist those in need.
The President has included $25 million in his current
budget for the coming fiscal year as what has been called a
placeholder in the Nation's spending plan. I'm eager to hear
assessment about how this seemingly modest amount will be
allocated and estimates on the scope of further assistance that
will be needed in the months and years to come.
It's also essential to learn from the 2001 attacks so that
our government is prepared for natural and manmade emergencies
in the future. I look forward to hearing what lasting changes
and arrangements have been made in light of the experiences
here in New York.
Finally, no doubt there will be some disagreements about
whether in hindsight every agency of government responded
adequately to the health issues caused by the unprecedented
attack on September 11th. Let us not, however, lose sight of
the forces and individuals which struck the blow which spurred
this and the preceding hearings.
We must correct dysfunctional or unresponsive
bureaucracies. We must allocate the necessary funds to aid
those harmed. And, most importantly, we must work together as a
nation to ensure that we are prepared to handle any emergencies
that we are likely to face as we continue to fight the war on
terror.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to be here
with you today and for your important and great leadership on
this issue.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your
being here and also the work that you have been doing, not only
now but even in the past.
The next person we call on, a very outstanding member of
the committee from Manhattan, Representative Carolyn Maloney.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I also
represent Queens. And I really want to thank you for holding
this very important hearing on 9/11 health effects.
This is the second hearing that Chairman Towns has called
on the health problems that our citizens confront. It is the
sixth in a series of hearings that have been held by this
committee in Congress. And I want to thank the chairman for his
outstanding leadership in calling us together with yet the
sixth hearing on this issue.
As many in this room know all too well, the collapse of the
World Trade towers released a giant dust plume containing
thousands of tons of pollutants, which exposed thousands of
first responders and residents to pulverized cement dust, glass
fibers, asbestos, lead, acid, and other toxins. But what many
across the country still do not understand is the impact that
dust cloud had on both responders and residents and, as today's
hearing will show, how that dust cloud traveled from ground
zero across the East River and into Brooklyn.
Like the environmental and health effects on those who live
near the 9/11 site, the environmental and health effects in
Brooklyn are far from understood.
One reason we know so little about the impacts in Brooklyn
is that we still have so much to learn about the impact of 9/11
on everyone affected because the current administration did not
want to ask questions, let alone find the answers. The truth of
the matter is that the New York delegation has had to fight
very, very hard to achieve medical monitoring and treatment for
the responders.
But we cannot forget the residents, area workers, school
children that were exposed and may continue to be exposed to
toxins in the homes, offices, and schools. And currently there
is really not any Federal funding available to monitor and
treat them. And we need to change that.
Worse, the administration has not even come up with a plan
to help the residents who lived through the dust cloud or the
responders who risked their lives in the aftermath of 9/11.
Time and again, we have asked the administration to come up
with a comprehensive long-term plan to medically monitor
everyone who is exposed to the deadly toxins. And everyone who
was exposed should be treated. And time and again they have not
acted.
Experts have testified to this committee that the health
effects of 9/11 are persistent and long-term and will be
prevalent, even 30 years from now in the future, when cancers
begin to occur.
To adequately address the 9/11 health crisis, we need a
long-term plan that takes into account everyone exposed to the
toxins: responders, rescue workers, cleanup workers, area
residents, school children, residents, including the residents
of Brooklyn.
And I know that the new majority in Congress will be
looking at these issues, as is evident from today's hearing,
and that they will work in a bipartisan way to address the
problem.
Along with many of my colleagues, I have introduced a
comprehensive Federal response called a James Zadroga plan, the
9/11 Health and Compensation Act to ensure that everyone
exposed is medically monitored and everyone who is sick is
treated.
The bill is named after New York police detective James
Zadroga, who was among the first to die from respiratory
illness related to his work at ground zero. It's drafted to
continue, expand, and improve the Federal Government's response
to the health effects of 9/11, providing for long-term medical
monitoring and treatment.
James Zadroga came down with something called pulmonary
fibrosis. And we are going to hear more and more about it. The
particulates are breathed in. The skin grows over it. And your
lung becomes like an iron lung. You can't breathe. And you die.
The only treatment so far is a lung transplant. And many of our
first responders have come down with this deadly disease.
With the work of the committee, we have been successful in
securing $90 million for a monitoring program at Mount Sinai.
Incredibly, the administration took $125 million out of the
budget for Workers' Compensation. We had to work very hard to
put that back into the budget for treatment and other concerns.
We recently got a $25 million line item, budget item, in
the President's budget for 25 million. He has promised and his
people have promised to increase that to what the need is for
treatment. We need to document that.
Health professionals are telling us that for this 2-year
term of Congress, it will cost roughly $256 million to treat
those who are sick. We have written and met with Mr. Obey to
put that in the budget. So we are working hard. We are making
progress but not enough.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0872.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0872.002
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much.
We are also delighted to have with us, of course,
Congressman Murphy, who is also a member of the committee from
Connecticut. So, Congressman Murphy?
Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, this is the second opportunity that I have
had to sit with you on a hearing on this subject in my first
term. I have been drawn to this issue, not just by your
leadership but also leadership of Congresswoman Maloney,
Congressman Nadler, and Congressman Weiner. This is an
important day to be here. And I am glad that I could join you
from Connecticut.
You know, we were all struck, those of us who watched the
events of September 11th unfold on television and on the news.
I was not a Member of Congress at the time, but we were all
obviously struck by the bravery of those first responders and
those people that rushed down to the site of the September 11th
tragedy. They didn't wait for any bureaucracy. They didn't fill
out any questionnaires. There was no red tape. They asked no
questions. They responded because their country was in need.
And it has struck me in the hearings that we have done that
our government has not acted with the same expediency that
those first responders acted. In fact, they have been met with
bureaucracy, with red tape, and questions after questions after
questions.
Those people that responded to the tragedy in New York came
largely from this metropolitan area, but we also know that they
came from Connecticut, from the Fifth District. They came from
New Jersey. They came from Representative Platts' area in
Pennsylvania.
I have had the great privilege over the course of the last
couple of months of getting to know some of those brave men and
women in the course of these hearings. And in my private life
in Connecticut, I also have struggled with a family member who
is dealing with the issue of pulmonary fibrosis. And for any
family that has gone through that ordeal, you wouldn't wish it
on your loved ones, on your friends, on anyone that you come in
contact with.
It is a terrible ordeal for a person, a family to go
through. And to think that there are so many of our neighbors
and our friends in the New York metropolitan area who responded
to that crisis, perhaps people in the greater metropolitan area
who may have been exposed to the debris and to the pollution
that emanated from that site that may be at risk for a disease
as terrible as that is one that should make us all shudder.
Mr. Towns, this is an important hearing today. I am so glad
to be able to come down and join you. I hope that this is yet
just another piece in the puzzle that begins to prompt this
administration, that begins to prompt our fellow Members of
Congress to put not just the money behind this effort but to
also put the expediency behind it that those brave men and
women came through as they descended upon the World Trade
Center site on that day and the days following.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Congressman Murphy.
The person who--immediately after the incident happened, he
started talking about the fact that the government has not
budgeted the kind of funds needed to give us all the facts. He
talked about the fact that there are environmental issues that
must be addressed. And he has been saying it over and over
again to anyone and everyone that will listen. Ladies and
gentlemen, Congressman Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much, Chairman Towns. I would
like to thank you for holding this very important field hearing
today in Brooklyn and for inviting me to hear testimony on the
impact of the September 11th attacks on the health of area
residents, workers, and students. I thank you for letting me
make these opening remarks.
Mr. Chairman, I represent the district where the World
Trade Center once stood, the site of the tragic events of
September 11, 2001, as well as, of course, representing large
areas of Brooklyn. Like you, I represent many constituents who
have suffered adverse health effects as a result of the
horrible environmental impacts of the collapse of the World
Trade Center towers.
I have spent the better part of the last 5 years in public
life cajoling the Federal Government to tell the truth to its
citizens about 9/11 air quality, insisting there must be a full
and proper cleanup of the 9/11 environmental toxins that to
this day are still poisoning New Yorkers and for those already
sick, be they first responders or area residents, workers, or
school children, demanding that the government provide long-
term comprehensive health care.
Unfortunately, every time I think we are making a bit of
progress on this issue, I find myself shocked at the Federal
Government's response. I know, Mr. Chairman, that you are as
utterly dismayed as I was to hear at your February 28th hearing
that the Department of Health and Human Services had absolutely
no intent of including area residents, workers, and school
children in the plan it is ostensibly developing to provide
health care to victims of the post-9/11 environmental
contamination.
HHS officials say that this outrageous and arbitrary
decision to limit the health response to first responders but
not to area residents, workers, and school children was based
on their belief that there does not exist sufficient data
indicating that residents, workers, and students have, in fact,
suffered negative health effects from 9/11. Of course, that is
not true. We have a growing body of data, both anecdotal and
otherwise, that I'm sure will be recounted here today.
This decision, of course, is nothing more than a
continuation of the Federal policy that has completely ignored
the needs of these non-responder exposed populations. I by no
means intend to imply that this administration has treated our
first responder heroes well. They certainly have not. But there
were other unnecessarily exposed populations as well because of
the continuing misdeeds of the Federal Government.
Let me be utterly clear. Given the Federal Government's
reckless negligence and ongoing malicious actions, all affected
residents, workers, and school children, no matter where they
live, must be given relief by the Federal Government. There
must be a comprehensive and scientifically sound indoor cleanup
program implemented. And these affected individuals must be
provided proper health care.
As is now common knowledge, then EPA Administrator
Christine Todd Whitman told New Yorkers shortly after September
11th that the air was safe to breathe. This statement, which
she repeated often and did not qualify, has since been shown by
the EPA's own Inspector General, among others, to have been
misleading, false, and politically motivated. But the
administration stood by it and still does.
And, as a result, countless first responders and, yes, also
residents, workers, and students are sick and some are dead as
a direct result of the foul deeds of EPA and the Federal
Government.
These statements, in effect, we were attacked first by the
terrorists and then by our own government. These statements
lulled Americans into a dangerous sense of false safety,
engaged government decisionmakers the cover to take extremely
perilous shortcuts.
Federal Judge Deborah Batts put it well in a case brought
against EPA by area residents, workers, and school children,
``No reasonable person would have thought that telling
thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower
Manhattan while knowing that such return could pose long-term
health risks and other dire consequences was conduct sanctioned
by our laws.'' She found, in fact, that the actions taken were
so bad that they shocked the conscience.
While most Americans understand that those caught in the
initial collapse of the towers and those first responders who
toiled away in the pile for months were subject to a heavy
acute dose of outdoor toxins, most people do not know that the
environmental disaster still continues to exist today indoors.
Like the debris, office furniture, steel beams, and human
remains that have been found recently in buildings throughout
lower Manhattan, dangerous contaminants such as lead, asbestos,
mercury today remain in indoor spaces, such as apartments,
workspaces, and schools in Manhattan, in Brooklyn, and possibly
farther afield.
Whereas nature cleans the outdoor air, it does not clean
the indoor air. Toxins remain in carpets and drapes and porous
wood surfaces and the HVAC systems of buildings.
In April 2002, 5 years ago, I released a white paper, which
is still available on my Web site, that meticulously details
how the EPA's unfounded and misleading statements followed by
the EPA's unlawful complete dereliction of responsibility
resulted in totally inadequate hazardous materials testing and
remediation inside residential, public, and commercial
buildings downtown and in Brooklyn, putting the public's health
at grave risk.
The EPA illegally delegated its responsibility for indoor
environmental quality and reoccupation of contaminated
buildings and areas to the city environmental officials, who
had no ability to handle such a situation, and endorsed the
city's illegal and dangerous advice to area residents and
workers to ``use a wet mop and a wet rag'' to clean their
contaminated spaces, all in the service of continuing to cover
up the original lies told by Ms. Whitman.
In May of that year, after months of dodges, finger
pointing, excuses, and a tremendous amount of pressure, EPA
offered finally an indoor cleanup program. It was very soon
clear to me and others that the plan was a sham.
Not only was there no scientific basis to the plan. EPA
actually asserted at the time that there was no need for a real
cleanup program as there were, in fact, no real post-9/11 air
quality problems indoors. The program they said was designed
merely to reassure the public. In other words, it was pure
public relations.
This initial cleanup plan was voluntary and included only
residences, not workspaces, or schools. They failed to treat
buildings as a whole, which allowed for recontamination of some
spaces and buildings that were not cleaned. It tested only for
asbestos, even though it was known that the dust contained
other harmful toxins, including heavy metals, glass, fibers,
mercury, and lead.
The program was arbitrarily geographically limited. Only
buildings in Manhattan south of Canal Street and west of Allen
and Pike Streets were eligible, even though physical inspection
identified dust in locations outside of this area.
Because of this, Brooklyn, for example, was and continues
to be completely ignored in all of the EPA's program. To this
day, EPA officials would like us to believe that there was a
30,000-foot-high wall or perhaps a Star Trek-type force field
magically stopping the plume and its toxins from going north of
Canal Street or across the East River to Brooklyn.
Despite EPA's repeated assurances to me at that time that
they would ``expand the program where necessary'' to places
like downtown and Brownstone and Brooklyn and Borough Park and
Williamsburg that had numerous accounts of interior
contamination, no such expansion ever occurred.
A year later, in August 2003, after much public outcry,
EPA's own Inspector General found that this original so-called
testing and cleanup plan was indeed improperly limited in scope
in terms of both what it was to look for and where it was to
look for it deeply flawed in methodology and ``failed to
utilize standard health-based benchmarks.''
The same report documented White House interference in EPA
press releases post-9/11, resulting in important cautionary
sentences being deleted. The report notably stated that the
delay in providing a proper government-organized cleanup may
have contributed to unnecessary additional exposures to
hazardous toxins.
The IG's ultimate conclusion, EPA must----
Mr. Towns. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Nadler. Yes.
Mr. Towns. Will the gentleman please summarize?
Mr. Nadler. OK. EPA must engage in a real comprehensive and
scientifically based testing and cleanup program to address 9/
11 contamination wherever it is found. Of course, to date, the
EPA has done no such thing. In the last 2 years, they have had
scientific panels set up to design proper cleanup programs and
dissolved when the EPA started hearing things they didn't want.
They are now proceeding with a new phony cleanup plan, just as
phony as the original one.
As you know, it has taken years of painstaking work on the
part of the New York congressional delegation to get what
little moneys we have for federally mandated 9/11 health
response. But even that is mostly for the first responders. And
there is plenty of data why we need all the funds.
Because the administration continues to fail to act, I have
introduced two key pieces of legislation that I believe will
help provide relief. The 9/11 Comprehensive Health Benefits Act
provides a sensible, easy to access, and cost-effective way to
give comprehensive medical treatment to all individuals. The 9/
11 Heroes Health Improvement Act will provide more than $1.9
billion in Federal funding for mental and medical health
screening testing, monitoring, and treatment grants. Senators
Clinton, Schumer, Kennedy, and Menendez have introduced
companion legislation in the Senate.
This bill would provide a necessary continued and expanded
funding mechanism for the institutions that Mayor Bloomberg has
called the World Trade Center Centers of Excellence.
The Federal Government is culpable for recklessly allowing
tens of thousands of people to be unnecessarily exposed to
dangerous environmental toxins. It must take responsibility for
two things. Most of the discussion has focused on the first.
And that is responding to the health needs of the 9/11 first
responders, and we must respond to that. But the second is to
undo that second coverup. There were two coverups. The first of
the impacts on 9/11 responders, that coverup was unraveled. And
we are now trying to respond to it.
The second coverup is still covered up. And that is the
fact that people in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Queens
are still being poisoned daily because the indoor spaces were
never properly tested and cleaned and the EPA Inspector
General's recommendations of August 2003 as to how to properly
inspect and clean up all of the areas that may be necessary to
clean up must be implemented so that people do not continue to
be poisoned and so that future cases of cancer, mesothelioma,
do not continue to be germinated by our deliberate negligence
and malfeasance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jerrold Nadler follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Now I yield 5 minutes to Congressman Weiner, who represents
Queens and Brooklyn. I yield 5 minutes.
Mr. Weiner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I won't take my full 5 minutes, and I want to express my
gratitude to you and Mr. Platts for obliging those of us from
the New York delegation who have so much to say about this. I
think you are building a record that someday will be reviewed
and will strike many as, frankly, intuitive that on an attack
of this magnitude, the Federal Government bears the
responsibility for taking care of those who instinctively, as
Representative Murphy said, responded as good citizens would.
I think there are two things that are going to emerge. But
first I want to say thank you to Carolyn Maloney and to Jerry
Nadler, who have, just like you, Mr. Chairman, been beating the
drum on this issue.
It has been, frankly, after months and months of many of us
not being quite sure what to think of the responsibility and
where it lies. The record that been established by Mr. Nadler
and Ms. Maloney makes it crystal clear.
The EPA bears the responsibility for saying to us clearly
and loudly shortly after September 11th that it was safe to
return to your homes, it was safe to return to ground zero. It
is my view that this is fundamentally and wholly a Federal
responsibility that has to be absorbed by the EPA, the
Department of Health and Human Services, and those of us in
Congress.
But lest this be viewed as a simply lower Manhattan or a
downtown Brooklyn problem, all of us have stories about where
we were on September 11th. I, like so many New Yorkers, was
here in New York because it was primary day. After traveling
around to Polls and trying to find as many citizens as I could,
I returned to my office.
And, as you know, Mr. Towns, my office at the time was in
the Lundy's Building in Sheepshead Bay, 1901 Emmons Avenue,
about as far south as you can go and almost as far as you can
go in Brooklyn away from ground zero. I had at the time a
doorway to my office that led to a little balcony right by the
Bell Parkway down by Sheepshead Bay in Manhattan Beach.
There were scraps of paper, not sediment, not invisible
soot, but scraps of paper from the explosion, from the collapse
of the buildings, and from that terrible day that were settling
on my terrace in Sheepshead Bay.
If you think that this was a problem that only affected
those were within a stone's throw of ground zero, you clearly
don't understand what many New Yorkers and many residents of
Brooklyn and Queens and all five boroughs in Jersey know
because they were there that day. If there were carcinogens, if
there were elements of asbestos, if there were disease-carrying
elements in the air, they were all over our area. And I think
this is another step in accepting responsibility for that.
And it could well mean that we are vigilance in this for a
generation. And it could well mean that this is going to be a
problem we are going to have to wrestle with a long-term
comprehensive health care plan. But one thing I think we all
agree upon is that this is a responsibility that those of us in
the Federal Government have to accept.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Congressman Weiner.
At this time we would like to call to the witness desk
Yvonne Graham, the Deputy Borough President of Brooklyn.
Ms. Graham. Thank you very much.
Mr. Towns. You know, just before you start, first of all,
let me just tell you a little bit about her. A native of
Jamaica, West Indies, Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham
has been a pioneer in the arena of public health for more than
two decades. As Brooklyn's deputy borough president, Ms. Graham
oversees health care policy and all human services for the
borough president.
Ms. Graham has many publications. She has received numerous
national and local awards. I am delighted that she is with us
today.
But before we start, it is the policy of this committee
that we swear witnesses in. So will you please stand and raise
your right hands?
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Towns. Let the record reflect that she has responded in
the affirmative.
You may be seated, and you may begin.
STATEMENT OF YVONNE GRAHAM, DEPUTY BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT
Ms. Graham. Good morning, Chairman Towns and distinguished
members of the Subcommittee on Government Management,
Organization, and Procurement. I want to thank you for
spearheading this important dialog on the health and
environmental impacts of 9/11, particularly as it relates to
Brooklyn residents and businesses. My name is Yvonne Graham,
deputy borough president, here to read the following testimony.
Both our president, Marty Markowitz, and I are extremely
grateful to our colleagues from the New York delegation,
Congressmen Towns, Nadler, Engel, and Weiner, for introducing
the 9/11 Heroes Health Improvement Act of 2007.
It is critically important that Brooklyn is included in
research, surveys, testing, and health services and that we
receive our fair share of funding so that health care resources
can reach the victims of 9/11.
We know that on September 11, 2001, the plumes of smoke
that resulted from the devastating attacks on the World Trade
Center drifted across the East River to downtown Brooklyn,
Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Red Oak.
These Brooklyn communities were impacted by the smoke as well
as the film of dust that later settled on our parks, streets,
homes, and businesses across the borough.
I was living in Fort Green at the time and experienced this
directly since for days after the attack, my window sills were
coated with dust.
We also know that debris from the site continued to burn
and release contaminants into the air for an additional 3
months. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Web site now
indicates that contaminants such as concrete, glass,
fiberglass, asbestos, and other toxic chemicals were present.
Despite the fact that Brooklyn was in the direct line of
the plume, our borough has been nearly excluded from testing
and completely excluded from cleanup services.
The test results for asbestos and white samples provided on
the EPA Web site only reflect lower Manhattan. Although it may
be too late to determine the level of contaminants that
blanketed Brooklyn communities, it is not too late to address
the short and long-term health effects that may have resulted.
Of the 38,937 New Yorkers who enrolled in the World Trade
Center health registry, which was created to track the health
of residents and those directly exposed to the World Trade
Center collapse, 8,202 cite Brooklyn as their home, more than
20 percent.
But respondents to this survey had to be living south of
Canal Street in Manhattan or have been directly involved with
the World Trade Center site or surrounding area to take the
survey. That means that those who live in the Brooklyn
neighborhoods that experienced the direct path of the smoke
plume but were not in the downtown area during the attack could
not take part in this important health analysis.
Nearly half of the register's individuals who were measured
in the survey have reported new or worsened sinus, breathing,
or respiratory problems. So it is safe to assume that exposure
to the initial plume of smoke and the debris smoke that
continued until December would also have negative health
impacts.
Although Brooklyn was in the direct path of the smoke
plume, we received a far smaller share of the $140 million that
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded to
health care organizations following the attacks.
Brooklyn received just over $5\1/2\ million compared to
Manhattan's $106 million. The Bronx received $9\1/2\ million of
funding, nearly double the allocation that Brooklyn received.
As elected officials, our No. 1 priority is ensuring the
health and well-being of our residents. Elected officials,
government agencies, health care providers, and community-based
organizations must work together to protect our residents'
health and come up with comprehensive health solutions to
existing challenges.
Despite the errors or failures of the past, our call to
action should be making sure that Brooklynites who continue to
suffer from health complications as a result of the attacks get
the health care and services they need and deserve.
In addition, securing long-term funding for research and
treatment so that all victims can be accommodated and
compensated is our mandate. Our colleagues in the House and
Senate are to be congratulated for your tireless efforts.
The phrase ``Never forget'' was ubiquitous after 9/11,
referring to those we lost. We honor their memory, of course,
but we must also never forget those who selflessly responded to
the tragedy and survived. It may only be through the continuing
momentum and action from our legislators that we will fulfill
our government's duty to first responders and others who have
already sacrificed so much.
We are grateful to Congressman Towns and the members of the
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and
Procurement for shining a light on this issue and for asking
how we can work together to respond to the health and
environmental impacts of the 9/11 disaster. Thank you all for
refusing to forget.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Graham follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Deputy Borough President
Graham, for your testimony. We thank you for it.
Let me begin with some questions. You know, I represent
Brooklyn. I'm not like Nadler and Weiner and Carolyn Maloney.
They represent other boroughs. But I only represent Brooklyn.
So my concern, of course, in this instance, the primary
concern would be Brooklyn. I'm concerned about people
everywhere in all places, but I must admit that my district is
the one that I am fighting for.
What can we do to create a comprehensive plan? Because I
would not want to have Queens and Staten Island and, of course,
Manhattan and the Bronx fighting us as we move forward, but we
need to have a plan, I think, that will help everybody. And
also we have some folks who came in as volunteers and, of
course, to help us. And now they have problems.
So I think it requires a Federal fix, but I don't want to
start a fight. So what can we do?
Ms. Graham. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I know that the
Office of Emergency Management has been doing a fantastic job
in terms of raising awareness about how to be prepared in the
event of future disasters.
I also know that the New York disaster interfaith services
have been working with our faith-based institutions to come up
with a plan of helping people to understand where to go and
what to do in the event of disasters.
But I think a comprehensive plan that includes all of our
government agencies, all of our schools and colleges and
community-based organizations as well as our health services
organizations is critical to coming up with a comprehensive
plan, particularly, as you know, that Brooklyn has a large
percentage of immigrants. And sometimes it's very difficult to
reach into immigrant communities.
So community-based organizations have a particularly
important role to play in this comprehensive plan, but it is
only through working together that we can truly come up with a
comprehensive plan to address the problems that we have now and
to prepare for the event of any future disasters.
Mr. Towns. Do you have any special suggestions or comments
above and beyond that you would like to make to this
subcommittee in terms of what we might be able to do that would
further put some light on it? And the other part of the
question would be, have you had anyone to come in to talk to
you or to say to you that ``I have a problem because of 9/11?''
Ms. Graham. We have not had anyone in particular who have
come in, but I think also that many people may not attribute
new or worsening symptoms to 9/11. I believe that one
particular recommendation is to ensure that all of our
physicians in our health care institutions receive special
training to ask people when they conduct an assessment about
symptoms that may have some kind of correlation to this
disaster so that they can get further testing and treatment.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
And that is the reason why I am so happy to see a physician
in the room, Dr. Frank Focus, in the room, who is a physician,
of course, and has done a lot of work in this area. And the
person that had a lot to do with this hearing being here today
is Rabbi Niederman, who down through the years has complained
about the fact that we are not paying enough attention to the
Williamsburg section and areas that we know that really were
hit.
So I want to thank them both for their support and coming
out and being with us today. I also want to thank you for all
the work that you have done in health care because when it
comes to health care, there is no doubt about it. You always
are in the forefront. And we really, really appreciate your
involvement on behalf of the folks of Brooklyn. Thank you so
much.
Now, I would like to yield to the ranking member,
Representative Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Madam Vice
President, thanks for your testimony and your service here in
Brooklyn.
One of the issues you mentioned is the dollar amount that
has been distributed thus far and how it was distributed in an
inequitable fashion as far as the different boroughs. As we
move forward and the clear need for additional assistance,
including from the Federal Government, one of the issues is
going to be not just how much but how to distribute it and to
avoid perhaps the inequities ideally that we saw in the past.
I think as a followup to the chairman's question, is there
a position on yourself or on behalf of the borough that you
suggest as a more appropriate manner for distributing whatever
dollar amount is going to be available to the various boroughs
for the recovery effort formula or perhaps the commission
established Federal, State, and local officials to try to get
to what I think you are after, which is everybody being treated
fairly and, as the chairman said, not pitting one borough and
its residents against another but that everybody is fairly
treated.
Ms. Graham. Absolutely. I think that, first, funding should
be commensurate with need. We also mentioned that over 20
percent of those who participated in the survey cited that they
lived in Brooklyn. That's No. 1.
And, No. 2, when we look at the proximity, you know,
downtown Brooklyn is only about a mile away from the World
Trade Center. And the Bronx is almost 12 miles away. And, yet,
Bronx received a far greater amount. And I'm not sure how they
came up with this formula, but clearly Brooklyn was under-
represented in funding.
Mr. Platts. Was there any direct contact from the borough
officials to HHS or EPA, any of the Federal agencies, about
that distribution?
Ms. Graham. We did not make any direct contact about the
distribution. What we did try to find out was when they came up
with the World Trade Center health registry to ensure that
Brooklynites who lived in downtown Brooklyn should participate
in it.
But clearly when the instructions came out, you had to be
in Manhattan at the time. Even if you lived in Brooklyn, you
had to be in Manhattan at the time to participate. But we did
try to reach out to make sure that more Brooklynites were
included.
Mr. Platts. And that is part of the misguided directions
from the Federal Government early on of that even if you
resided here, you should participate or should have been
included in that participation.
I again thank you for your leadership. I had the pleasure
last evening my first dinner at Junior's and then to walk the
neighborhood of Carroll Garden. I have cousins who live on
Carroll Street and got to visit with them. And just standing
and looking from their rooftop back of seeing----
Ms. Graham. Sure.
Mr. Platts. How direct a flow that plume would have been on
9/11 and how evident the need to make sure that not just those
who live here and went to the site but who live here are
assisted. And we certainly will continue and are honored to
work with your New York delegation on this issue.
So thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Graham. Thank you, too.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Platts.
Now I would like to yield to Congresswoman Maloney.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Deputy Borough
President, for your testimony and for your concern.
Many of my questions were answered by the chairman and the
ranking member. Just very briefly, can you think of anything
else that we should be doing to help the people of Brooklyn
that is not being done today?
Ms. Graham. As I mentioned before, Brooklyn has a large
number of immigrants. And my sense is that a great majority of
people from Brooklyn who volunteered at the World Trade Center
site were immigrants. Some of them might have been
undocumented. We don't know. But it is very difficult to tell
of those people how many of them do not have health care
coverage and insurance and may be experiencing symptoms that we
are not sure whether they are directly related to their
participation.
And so, again, we need to ensure that our health care
workers or health care providers are in tune with those new and
worsening symptoms and really look to see whether they may be
affected.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you very much.
Mr. Towns. Now I yield to Congressman Murphy of
Connecticut.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Ms.
Graham.
One of the things that greatly concerns me is that when we
have been visited by national tragedies, whether they be
September 11th or the disaster on the Gulf Coast, the
administration will sort of swoop in on the days following and
make very broad promises that this is a Federal issue the
Federal Government is going to come in and take care of, and
make all sorts of promises and commitments to make a community
whole.
And then in the months and years following, the rhetoric
coming from some of the administration officials starts to get
seeped with cost sharing, that this has to be now a Federal and
State or Federal and municipality dual commitment. And we
certainly heard that in our hearing in Washington, DC.
And my question to you is this and to the extent that you
have the information or can get it following this hearing. Do
we have an idea up until now of what kind of resources toward
this problem have had to have been committed by the borough or,
in addition to or in the alternative, if we don't have the
proper Federal funding going forward what kind of commitment
from the borough we should expect going forward in the absence
of a Federal commitment to identify the problem, identify the
victims of that pollution, and then treat them?
Do we have any handle on how much we have spent here at the
borough level and how much we may have to spend going forward
if we don't do the right thing at the Federal level?
Ms. Graham. We looked at the $140 million that was provided
by Health and Human Services. And that was when we recognized
that Brooklyn was seriously under-represented in terms of the
funding that is available.
Right now we want to thank the committee for keeping the
spotlight on this issue and so from this moment on, we will
make sure that we keep a handle on it so that Brooklyn gets its
fair share of funding.
Mr. Murphy. And part of the frustration is that no one
knows the extent of this problem.
Ms. Graham. Sure.
Mr. Murphy. And so the exposure for a municipal health
system or a regional health system is potentially
unquantifiable, which is one of the problems with having the
responsibility for it lie at a local level.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Towns. Let me further add on that point that our
hospitals have indicated that there has been an increase in
terms of people coming in and, of course, complaining about
respiratory problems and that the doctors and nurses in these
various medical facilities are saying that it has to be
associated with 9/11, which means that is additional cost as
well because these are people that would not be in the system
if it had not been for 9/11.
And so the outcry now is that we need to have a Federal fix
and we need to have a Federal fix for a lot of reasons because
that even volunteers, we don't want to discourage them. We want
them to continue to volunteer. If we walk away from them and
ignore them, ignore their complaints, and not do anything about
it, and hope that there was never another crisis, but if there
is one, then people will not respond. So that is the reason why
I think that we need to come up with a Federal fix.
On that note, I yield to Congressman Nadler. Congressman
Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. And thank you for your testimony,
Madam Deputy Borough President.
As I mentioned in my testimony, I have always maintained
that there were two coverups at work here, one of which was the
coverup of the impact, of the health impact, of 9/11 on the
first responders, one people who were caught in the plume, and
then people who worked at the site. And that coverup has been
unraveled, largely by the work done at Mount Sinai and some
other places and by the Daily News. It took 5 years, but people
finally acknowledged the problem there.
The second coverup, which is still under cover, is the
impact of the fact that we have never properly cleaned up
indoor spaces and that people are probably still being poisoned
and cancers incubated today, which we will find about 15 years
from now.
Now, the EPA announced a cleanup, what was characterized by
myself and then by the Inspector General as a phony cleanup
back in 2002 in lower Manhattan only and again recently again
only for lower Manhattan.
Has there been any discussion, to your knowledge, with EPA
about inspection of indoor spaces in Brooklyn or cleanup,
decontamination of indoor spaces, residents, schools,
workplaces in Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge, but I believe that there
is a need for additional funding for continued research and
surveys and testing so that we can come up with that
information because right now we can only assume.
Mr. Nadler. Now, we know, do we not, that much of Brooklyn
was in the path of the plume? And, as Congressman Weiner said,
things fell all over at Lundy's and Borough Park and in Park
Slope and Williamsburg, all over the place. And we know that
nature cleans up the outdoor air but that it doesn't clean up
the indoor air.
So it's safe to assume that there is a lot of indoor
pollution still existing in Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Absolutely. And we know that there are
contaminants. Mercury, for example, could be in the cracks, in
the floors, could be in the carpet, could be in the curtains
for many, many years.
Mr. Nadler. And the EPA has never spoken to you or to, to
your knowledge, to anybody in the city government about doing
inspections to find out the extent of contamination in
Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge. And you are also aware
that Brooklyn is not a city by itself, as it once was. And so
whatever discussions take place----
Mr. Nadler. City Hall also seems oblivious to the
contamination of Brooklyn, does it not?
Ms. Graham. Well----
Mr. Nadler. Well, let me put it this way. Has City Hall, to
your knowledge, ever asked EPA to undertake any kind of
examination in Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Nadler. Has City Hall ever offered the city of New York
to do such an examination in Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Nadler. Has City Hall ever asked anyone else to do such
an examination in Brooklyn?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Nadler. Let me ask you one further thing. The Inspector
General back in August 2003 in his report said that the only
proper way to find out the extent of the indoor contamination
was to select several hundred randomly selected indoor spaces,
apartments, workplaces, schools, whatever, in concentric
circles going out from the World Trade Center, concentric
circles without regard to borough boundaries or rivers or
anything else, and test several hundred such sites and that you
might find out that in one direction, the problem extended for
three blocks and in another direction for 3 miles.
Has anyone, to your knowledge, ever suggested, other than
the EPA Inspector General and other than me and some other
individuals, has anybody in the executive branch of government
ever suggested, doing such random testing and mapping of the
contamination?
Ms. Graham. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Nadler. Do you think it necessary?
Ms. Graham. Absolutely.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very
much for your testimony. We look forward to working with you in
the days and months ahead to make certain that Brooklyn gets
its fair share. Thank you very much, Deputy Borough President.
And now we will call our next panel. Mr. Cheong Chan,
former Assistant Inspector General for Program Evaluation,
please come forward, Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. David
Newman, industrial hygienist, New York Committee for
Occupational Safety and Health, please come forward. Mr.
Patrick Roohan, please come forward, director of Bureau of
Program Quality, Information and Evaluation, New York State
Department of Health. Anthony Szema, assistant professor of
medicine, Stony Brook College of Medicine; Suzanne Mattei,
executive director of Sierra Club of New York City, please come
forward. And Peter Gudaitis, executive director of New York
Disaster Interfaith Services, please come forward.
It is a longstanding tradition of this committee that we
swear our witnesses in. So would you please stand and raise
your right hands?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Towns. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the record
reflect they all indicated in the affirmative.
Let me begin with you, Ms. Mattei, and come right down the
line.
Ms. Mattei. All right. We have a PowerPoint.
Mr. Towns. A PowerPoint? OK.
Ms. Mattei. Good day. My name is----
Mr. Towns. Why don't we start with Mr. Chan, then, and come
down to you? You don't have a PowerPoint, right?
Mr. Chan. No, I don't.
Mr. Towns. We'll start with you, then. Save the PowerPoint.
Mr. Chan. OK.
STATEMENTS OF KWAI-CHEONG CHAN, FORMER ASSISTANT INSPECTOR
GENERAL FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY; DAVID M. NEWMAN, INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST, NEW YORK
COMMITTEE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH; PATRICK ROOHAN,
DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF PROGRAM QUALITY, INFORMATION AND
EVALUATION, NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; DR. ANTHONY
SZEMA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, SUNY-STONY BROOK SCHOOL
OF MEDICINE; SUZANNE Y. MATTEI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SIERRA CLUB
OF NEW YORK CITY; AND PETER GUDAITIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW
YORK DISASTER INTERFAITH SERVICES
STATEMENT OF KWAI-CHEONG CHAN
Mr. Chan. Good morning, Chairman Towns, Congressmen Platts,
Nadler, Murphy, Weiner, and Congresswoman Maloney. My name is
Kwai Chan. I am the former Assistant Inspector General for
Program Evaluation.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the work that we did in the Office of Inspector General
on the most important subject.
While many of the data and findings are taken from the two
reports that were done under my direction in EPA, the opinions,
findings, and conclusions expressed in my testimony are solely
that of my own and do not represent those of the OIG and the
EPA or any other government agencies. Allow me just to
summarize a few points I would like to make.
EPA's early statement following the collapse of the World
Trade Center tower reassured the public regarding the safety of
the air outside the ground zero area. However, when EPA
administrator announced on September 18, 2001 that the air was
``safe'' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and
analysis to make such a blanket statement.
While the statement did not have any qualifications in it,
in fact, when you look behind it, what they really meant was
that the statement only applies to asbestos and not other
pollutants; long-term health effects and not short-term; the
general public and not the ground zero workers; outdoor air and
not indoor air; and, finally, health adults and not sensitive
subpopulations, such as children and the elderly.
Furthermore, the White House Council on Environmental
Quality influenced the information that EPA communicate to the
public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA
to add reassurance statements and delete cautionary ones.
Regarding indoor air cleanup, evidence indicates that
government communication was not very effective in persuading
the public to take the recommended cleanup practices. So, as a
result, we recommend that the cleanup should be considered,
both indoor and outdoor together, and also building as a single
system. That means you clean up from the outside and go all the
way in as well as look at the HVAC.
We also recommend that the EPA should sample beyond lower
Manhattan, moving in concentric circles from ground zero and
out, and see the degree of deposits.
Given these communication and exposure concerns, my office
decided to conduct our own survey of New York City residents.
The survey also was designed to determine if contamination from
the dust and smoke spread into the homes of residents located
beyond lower Manhattan, the zone designated as eligible for the
EPA lead testing and cleanup programs.
Although the survey response has a much lower response rate
than what we expected, nevertheless, it is instructive to
present some of the data. Let me summarize.
Overall, the majority of respondents want more information
regarding outdoor and indoor air quality, wanted this
information in a more timely manner, and did not believe the
information they received from the government. For every
respondent who was satisfied, there were three to six
respondents who were dissatisfied with the government
information.
Further, data indicated that contamination from the
collapse of the World Trade Center towers spread into the homes
of respondents located beyond lower Manhattan.
About 9 out of every 10 respondents were concerned about
the short-term health effects associated with outdoor air. And
7 out of every 10 were concerned about long-term health
effects. For indoor air, more than 7 out of 10 were concerned
about short-term health effects and more than 5 out of 10 the
long-term effects.
In lower Manhattan, half of the respondents reported that
their residents had been contaminated with dust and/or debris
due to the collapse. In Brooklyn, about a quarter responded and
reported their residence had been contaminated. And for the
residents of Manhattan, over 10 percent reported contamination.
Only about 1 out of 10 respondents knew about EPA's
response to September 11th Web site. And about half of those
who knew the Web site visited it. And the reason we did that is
because the administrator asked us specifically to ask these
questions to see how effective they were in reaching out to the
public through the Web site.
The majority, 6 out of 10, respondents, however, were aware
of key World Trade Center-related information, such as EPA's
recommendation to have contaminated homes professionally
cleaned and EPA lead testing cleanup program in the eligible
area of Manhattan. Despite this awareness, relatively few
respondents with home contamination had their homes tested for
asbestos or had their homes professionally cleaned.
In closing, overriding lessons learned was that EPA needs
to be prepared to assert its opinion and judgment with data and
with some science on matters that impact on human health and
the environment.
Although many organizations were involved in addressing air
quality from the World Trade Center collapse, subsequent events
have demonstrated that ultimately the public, the Congress, and
others expect EPA to monitor and resolve environmental issues.
This is the case, even when EPA may not have the overall
responsibility to resolve these issues or the necessary
resources to address them.
This ends my statement. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chan follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Gudaitis.
Mr. Gudaitis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
STATEMENT OF PETER GUDAITIS
Mr. Gudaitis. Thank you for your invitation, Mr. Chairman,
and to your colleagues, particularly to Representative Maloney,
who has been such a tireless advocate for our work and that of
my staff.
My name is Peter Gudaitis. I am the executive director of
New York Disaster Interfaith Services [NYDIS]. NYDIS is a
501(c)(3) federation of approximately 30 faith-based human
service providers and philanthropies who work in partnership to
provide secular disaster readiness response and recovery
services in New York City.
As it pertains to 9/11, NYDIS has six full-time recovery
workers who manage a variety of advocacy and recovery programs
for human service caregivers, religious leaders, direct
victims, and residents, including specifically the New York
City 9/11 Unmet Needs Roundtable. Since 2002, the roundtable
has distributed approximately $6 million to over 2,500 direct
victims and injured recovery workers.
Our target clients are under-served and under-resourced
direct victims and health-impacted recovery workers and
residents. Assistance is provided by application of a qualified
caseworker on behalf of their client and must fund an emergency
need or secure a client's sustainable recovery.
The roundtable has been a collaboration of over 80 human
service providers and 18 donors over the past 6 years since it
was established by the faith community in 2002. The roundtable
has provided case management resources, peer review, and
referral services to caseworkers.
As of 2006, with the support of the American Red Cross
Liberty Fund and Episcopal Relief and Development, NYDIS has
also been the sole provider of case management coordination,
caseworker training, and the primary funder of case managers
for the New York City recovery community.
Currently the only remaining donors are the Lutheran
Disaster Response of New York, NYDIS, and Safe Horizon. Sadly,
all current roundtable funding of about $2.3 million a year,
terminates in December 2007.
9/11 resulted in a prolonged airborne dissemination of a
smoke plume throughout lower Manhattan that moved over
Brooklyn. And I can attest to this as a lower Manhattan
resident. At the time of 9/11, I lived across the street from
St. Paul's Chapel and lost my living room windows and lived in
New Jersey for 3 months, an exciting adventure.
As hundreds of thousands of Brooklynites and lower
Manhattan residents witnessed on 9/11, they also reported
physical, psychological, and economic impact immediately
following the attack but were told their injuries or losses
were not a direct result of the disaster as designated by the
government or aid agencies that concentrated their resources in
lower Manhattan.
It has been our experience that many Brooklyn residents
expressed anxiety about the effects of the dust plume, which I
expect my colleagues will discuss in their testimonies. Those
effects have since surfaced as serious health threats to the
residents and recovery workers, many of whom continue to
struggle as they attempt to recover from the emotional,
medical, and economic impacts.
In order to discuss the impact of 9/11 on people, we need
to answer three questions: where have we been, where are we
now, and where we will go from here.
In the early days of 9/11, during that 10-month period
following the cleanup, the attention of larger relief agencies
was focused on lower Manhattan workers and residents below
Canal Street.
From 2002 to 2004, 1,612 people were assisted by the
roundtable. Approximately 30 percent were from Brooklyn. Of
those, the vast majority of individuals receiving financial
assistance were dislocated workers in industries affected by 9/
11.
Since individuals affected outside of lower Manhattan and
south of Canal Street as a whole were not eligible for FEMA's
18 months' mortgage and rental assistance nor Red Cross
September 11 Fund moneys, the roundtable's assistance to
clients focused about 56 percent on rent, about 12 percent on
utilities, and then other basic human needs.
The ethnic demographics of the roundtable clients during
those years were 42 percent Hispanic; 21 African American; 21
Caucasian; 6 percent Arab, Persian; and 4 percent Asian.
Coinciding with the close of the United Services Group in
2004 and over the past 2 years, we have seen a 200 percent
increase in cases. For the residents that were impacted
psychologically and especially those who have not been eligible
for large amounts of aid due to geographic eligibility
restrictions, recovery has been more complicated. And there
continue to be needs that surface even today.
Currently NYDIS receives an average of 15 calls a month
from new impacted residents or clients who are seeking case
management assistance. In 2006, NYDIS saw an 80 percent
increase in clients over 2005 in terms of the number of
impacted individuals seeking assistance.
Currently 20 percent of that 2,900 are residents of
Brooklyn. Of these, about 88 percent were either recovery
workers or lower Manhattan workers. The other 11 percent or so
are impacted residents. Ethnically these residents are 32
percent Caucasian; 24 percent Hispanic; 16 percent African
American; 15 percent Arab, Persian; 6 percent Polish; and 4
percent Asian.
We are now facing a crisis in human services as hundreds of
new cases of 9/11-impacted people come forward. Clients are now
forced to wait as long as 2 or 3 months to seek case management
assistance or medical screening.
Currently an average of 60 percent of the 332 ill recovery
workers seen monthly at Mount Sinai seek case management
services. About 17 percent of those are Brooklyn residents.
Where do we go from here? Increasing numbers of health-
impacted people are coming forward for critically needed
services. In some cases, services will save clients from
hopelessness or dying with dignity. Medical treatment for ill
people, psychologically or physically, is critical. But these
services do not address the difficulties of 9/11 health
impacted clients without case management services.
At a minimum, 9/11 clients that we are assisting today
deserve the same level of services that was given to victims in
the first few years after 9/11. They deserve continuity of
services, coordinated assistant, and treatment, unmet needs
assistance, and timely access to care. And they deserve case
managers with manageable case loads.
Currently caseworkers have an average of 220 cases per
caseworker. During 9/11's height under the USG, there were 60
clients per caseworker.
Last, if we leave these health-impacted people without
support, it could impair our ability to mobilize people to keep
our residents safe following the next disasters. Our workers
and volunteers deserve better from us from the help they gave
in rebuilding our community.
The sad fact of the matter is Federal assistance was used
to hire the undocumented and Federal assistance was not given
to mandate protection. And we owe these people a debt of
gratitude and the ability to support them as they continue to
struggle to recover or die with dignity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gudaitis follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Newman.
Mr. Newman. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DAVID NEWMAN
Mr. Newman. Good morning, Chairman Towns, members of the
subcommittee, and Representatives Maloney and Nadler. My name
is David Newman. I am a Brooklyn resident. I am an industrial
hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety
and Health [NYCOSH].
I had the privilege of serving as a member of the EPA, as a
nongovernmental member of the EPA, World Trade Center expert
technical review panel and as a member of the exposure
assessment working group of the World Trade Center worker and
volunteer medical screening program. I currently serve on other
9/11-related advisory boards at the World Trade Center register
and at the Bellevue Hospital World Trade Center Environmental
Health Center.
The 9/11 attacks produced two primary sources of
environmental contamination, lower right. The 9/11 attacks
produced two primary sources of environmental contamination:
particulate matter from the dust cloud generated by the
collapse of the World Trade Center; and, second, the plume of
combustion byproducts from the fires that burned from three to
5 months. Here you see the dust cloud.
In addition, there were and still are several secondary
sources of contamination. That is, 9/11 exposure may be
ongoing. These secondary exposure sources include, next one,
particulates resuspended in contaminated indoor spaces and
particulates from ongoing demolitions of 9/11 contaminated high
risk buildings in lower Manhattan.
World Trade Center dust was dispersed throughout much of
lower Manhattan and adjacent parts of Brooklyn. It may also
have been disbursed over a larger geographic area.
Many of the hundreds of contaminants identified in outdoor
and indoor air dust and bulk samples are known to be toxic or
carcinogenic. These include asbestos, polychlorinated
biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, manmade vitreous
fibers, dioxins, violative organic compounds, crystalline
silica, pulverized glass shards, highly alkaline concrete dust,
and lead, mercury, and other heavy metals.
Here you see EPA, Office of Research and Development plume
modeling clearing showing and acknowledging the bloom at
varying concentrations over Brooklyn.
Despite exhaustive efforts outdoor sampling by Government
agencies was neither coordinated nor comprehensive, nor
targeted. In addition, sampling at and around ground zero began
late and was conducted only on a limited basis. Therefore, our
knowledge of the nature and scope of 9/11 contamination remains
limited.
There has been no comprehensive, systematic investigation
of indoor spaces even though particulates that infiltrate
indoor spaces persist over time unless they received targeted
environmental cleanup. Government activities to assess or
cleanup indoor contamination have been scientifically flawed.
Government efforts were also inappropriately limited in
scope. Geographic areas known to have been impacted such as
Chinatown and parts of Brooklyn were excluded from testing and
cleanup, as were all industrial and commercial spaces and
schools, and Government buildings. Here we see photographs from
EPA reports documenting from space visible dust on the shore of
Brooklyn. The black and the yellow dots in the lower right hand
corner. And, of course, we're concerned not solely about
visible dust but about invisible dust. The visible dust will
tend to fall out of the air at shorter distances than the more
microscopic and less visible particulates which could travel
longer distances, potentially.
As a result, the environmental data for lower Manhattan are
of limited scientific utility and the data for Brooklyn are
nonexistent. Thus, it is not possible even at this late date to
characterize the level, composition or geographic scope of
initial or residual 9/11 derived contamination. Nor is it
possible to characterize prior exposure or risk or current
exposure or risk. Nevertheless, there are credible data that
indicate the possibility that 9/11 derived toxic substances
were widely distributed: In some cases at levels of concern.
The satellite photos that you've seen clearly shown the
combustion plume over much of Brooklyn on 9/11 and on other
dates. My Flatbush neighborhood, as other people have
commented, were blanketed with charred documents from the World
Trade Center. Nevertheless, there are no data by which to
assess the presence or absence of contaminants.
A large and increasing number of people who were exposed to
9/11 contaminates, primarily rescue and recovery workers but
also area workers and residents, are now suffering serious and
persistent adverse health outcomes which are extensively
documented in the scientific literature. Although those working
on the pile generally experienced the most severe exposures and
the most severe health impacts, comparable respiratory impacts
among community residents, students and workers are also well
documented in the scientific literature.
Because 9/11 contaminates include numerous carcinogens
there is concern about late emerging cancers. Whether or when
these diseases will manifest is unknown, but it is prudent and
scientifically appropriate to anticipate the possibility.
Moreover, neither environmental nor occupational health
regulations were enforced at or around ground zero. This
failure to implement legally regulated protective measures,
legally required protective measures is likely to have
contributed to the high incidents of 9/11 related illness. The
current EPA sampling plan, which was implemented despite its
rejection by the EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, repeats
many of the flaws of the earlier efforts, including the
exclusion of Brooklyn.
The current testing program should be replaced with a
comprehensive scientifically sound effort to identify and
quantify residual contaminates, if any, in indoor spaces and to
provide effective environmental cleanup if and where warranted.
Businesses, schools and Government spaces as well as residences
must be included.
Testing should concentrate on indoor spaces closest to
ground zero and proceed outward, as Congressman Nadler pointed
out, outward in concentric circles until measurements indicate
that contaminates do not exceed background levels or health-
based benchmarks. The goal should be to identify and remove
residual resources, if any, of ongoing or potential exposure.
Here we see an EPA from an earlier plan that the EPA
presented to the panel. They proposed sampling of Brooklyn. As
recommended by the panel, this proposal to sample in Brooklyn
was withdrawn by EPA.
A comprehensive approach is also needed to identify, treat
and tract 9/11 related illness of rescue and recovery workers
and also of area workers, residents and students.
It is essential that the Federal Government support and
adequately fund over the long term the three medical centers of
excellence: The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program
and its affiliated clinics; the Fire Department of New York
Medical Program, and; the World Trade Center Environmental
Health Clinic of Bellevue Hospital. Reportedly, the Federal
Government may withdraw its support of these medical centers
and instead require 9/11 health victims to pursue treatment on
their own in the health care market. This would have dire
consequences for the thousands of people who have or who may
develop 9/11 related illnesses, and it would be a grave error
in public health policy.
These hospitals and clinic-based centers provide a high
level of expertise in diagnosing environmentally induced
symptoms and illnesses and in rendering effective treatment--
and I'm finishing up here--through access to broad
institutional resources. These could not be duplicated if 9/11
health victims were forced to rely on a market-based health
care model. The centers of excellence are also capable, as
individual health care providers are not, of targeted outreach,
public health education, long term medical monitoring,
identification of disease trends and collection and sharing of
data to inform clinical practice and public health policy.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to present my
views.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Newman follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much for your testimony, Mr.
Newman.
Mr. Roohan.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK ROOHAN
Mr. Roohan. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Towns and
members of the subcommittee to allow me to present the findings
from our study entitled, ``Asman Medicaid Managed Care:
Enrollees Residing in New York City Results from a Post-World
Trade Center Disaster Survey.''
My name is Patrick Roohan. I'm the director of the Bureau
of Program Quality, Information and Evaluation in the New York
State Department of Health.
Our Bureau's role is to monitor the quality of care and
also to evaluate programs in Medicaid managed care as well as
the Medicaid program overall.
My testimony is a summary of our study, which has been
published in the Journal of Urban Health on 2005.
The collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11,
2001 created a plume of smoke and dust that covered much of
lower Manhattan before moving east to Brooklyn. The New York
State Department of Health is charged with administering the
State's Medicaid program and has oversight responsibility for
the 18 health plans that provide services to over 1 million
recipients enrolled in Medicaid Managed Care in New York to
assess the Asman status of Medicaid Managed Care enrollees who
may have been exposed the New York State Department of Health
Office of Managed Care conducted a mail survey among enrolls
residing in New York City.
A total of 16,629 enrollees aged 5 to 56 with persistent
asthma prior to September 11, 2001 were surveyed during the
summer of 2002. 3,557 completed surveys were available for
analysis. Administrative health service utilization data from
the Medicaid Encounter Data System, MEDS, were also used to
validate and supplement survey responses.
Multivariant logistic regression models were developed to
examine factors associated with self reported worsened asthma
post September 11, 2001, and with emergency department in-
patient hospitalizations related to asthma from September 11,
2001 through December 31, 2001.
Forty-five percent of survey respondents reported worsened
asthma post 9/11. Approximately half of these, 46 percent,
indicated that their asthma was still bad at the time of the
survey. Respondents most commonly cited: Dust 63 percent;
emotional stress 42 percent, and; and cold weather 37 percent
as the reason for the worsened asthma.
MEDS data were used to validate self reported change in
asthma status. Respondents reported worsened asthma post 9/11
were significantly more likely p less than 0.05 to have at
least one professional service visit, a specialty visit, an
emergency department visit and an in-patient hospitalization
with a diagnoses of asthma. Also they were significantly more
likely P less than 0.05 to have filled a prescription for
asthma medication, had a service with a behavioral health
diagnosis and filled a prescription for a psychoactive
medication.
Residents in both lower Manhattan with an adjusted odds
ratio of 2.28 and western Brooklyn with an adjusted odds ratio
of 2.4 were associated with self reported worsened asthma
compared to the rest of New York City. Significant differences
were also observed by days of weeks in lower Manhattan: One to
three odds ration of 1.95, 4 more days 2.43. However, only
residents of western Brooklyn had elevated odds ratios for
emergency department in-patient hospitalizations with a
diagnosis of asthma post 9/11. And that adjusted odds ratio is
1.52.
Worsened asthma was reported by significant proportion of
this low income largely minority population and was associated
with location of residence.
Results from this study provide guidance to health care
organizations and the development of plans to ensure that the
health of persons with asthma during disaster situations.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Roohan follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
Dr. Szema.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY SZEMA
Dr. Szema. Thank you, Chairman Towns.
I have a 1-minute video and 5 minutes of written testimony.
I thank Representatives Nadler and Platts.
This 1 minute video will show that it is plausible that
exposure to the inhalation energy from the World Trade Center
could reasonably lead to a worsening asthma exacerbation.
[Video shown].
Dr. Szema. We've been following children with asthma in the
largest ethically homogeneous neighborhood proximal to the
World Trade Center since 1997. After September 11, 2001
serendipity presented us with a control population to study pre
and post the World Trade Center disaster.
We had two hypotheses. No. 1: Pediatric asthma patients
exposed to the World Trade Center disaster may experience
increased asthma severity. No. 2: Some previously healthy
children may be newly diagnosed with asthma after September 11,
2001.
The study population comprised Chinese American pediatric
asthma patients who lived in New York City. They all received
medical care at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center,
1.5 miles from the WTC. The closest border of Chinatown to
ground zero is three blocks.
Eligible subjects included patients younger than 18 years
of age as of September 11, 2001 who had established asthma and
enrolled in an asthma registry by Dr. Debra H. Lynn, chief of
allergy at the CBWCHC prior to 9/11. All patients included in
the study were given a diagnosis of asthma by Dr. Lynn, who is
a pediatric allergist. Patients younger than 6 years of age
were given a diagnosis of asthma if they had two or more
episodes of wheezing or coughing within a 12 month period and
symptoms improved after asthma medication in the clinic.
Children older than 6 years of age were given a diagnosis of
asthma if they had wheezing, cough on at least two occasions
and symptoms and physical signs and peak flow rates improved
after bronchial dilator therapy.
We only included subjects who had at least one clinic visit
for asthma between September 11, 2001 and September 10, 2002,
and also had at least one clinic visit between September 11,
2001 and September 10, 2002.
This was a retrospective chart review. 205 pediatric
patients with established asthma from the clinic were studied.
Clinical data obtained for the 12 months before and after
September 11, 2001.
Seven physicians trained in internal medicine or pediatrics
reviewed 319 patient charts from the asthma registry. 205
patients met the inclusion criteria, which required them to
have at least nine of ten variables studied.
We studied: The number of visits to the MD for asthma;
number of asthma medication prescriptions; use of oral cordic
steroids; number of weekly doses of rescue inhaler, peak
expiratory flow rates measured in liters per minute as air
leaves the lung. A low number means an asthma attack; age,
height and weight 3 months pre and post 9/11 and sex; doctors
were blinded to the residential zip code; for PEFR the best
value of three trials was recorded at each visit. PEFRs were
obtained from all patients who were able to consistently
perform the maneuver.
Demographic characteristics of Chinese American patients
were as follows: Average age, 8 years; 34 percent female, 66
percent male; height 48 inches, weight 63 pounds.
We further characterized patients as those living within 5
miles of the World Trade Center and those living further away.
I have two tables which show that these groups were
appropriately matched. There was no statistical difference
between the two groups with regard to age, sex, height and
weight.
The number of clinic visits for asthma increased from 3.79
visits in the 12 months prior to 9/11 to 4.69 visits in the 12
months after 9/11.
The number of asthma prescriptions per child increased from
2 to 2.3 during the same period. The number of rescue inhaler
doses per week and oral steroid uses did not differ.
I have a map of ground zero. On the left we have zip codes
of residents of kids with asthma who lived within 5 miles of
the World Trade Center. In blue are those zip codes, those
asthmatic children who live greater than 5 miles away, which
includes Brooklyn.
The number of clinic visits for children in Region 1 within
5 miles increased after 9/11 along with the number of asthma
prescriptions. There are no differences in the number of rescue
inhaler doses or oral steroid use.
In Region 2 greater than 5 miles, although the average
number of clinic visits and asthma prescriptions increased
after 9/11, these increases were not statistically significant.
Now, for the entire clinic population we tracked the number
of children with a diagnosis of asthma. The number of children
of asthma increased 66 percent and pediatric asthma visits
increased 48.8 percent.
I have a bar chart which shows the increase in pediatric
asthma patients in Chinatown increased from 306 to 510. The
number of pediatric asthma visits increased from 1,044 to
1,544. In comparison, a control group children with asthma
treated in Flushing Queens, 11.9 miles from ground zero, by the
same physicians in Manhattan using the same standards showed
children with asthma decreased 10.9 percent and the number of
pediatric asthma visits decreased 13.6 percent. Mean percent
predicted peak flow rates decreased below 80 percent of
predicated in children living within 5 miles of ground zero.
The decrease lasted for 6 months.
In summary. Exposure to the World Trade Center disaster led
to increased asthma severity. Children living within 5 miles of
ground zero had more asthma clinic visits after September 11,
2001. These children received more prescriptions for asthma
medications. The increase in visits for asthmatic children
living further than 5 miles from ground zero was not percent.
Mean percent predicated peak expiratory flow rates decreased
solely for those patients living within 5 miles of ground zero
after September 11, 2001.
In conclusion. Asthma severity worsened after September 11,
2001 in pediatric asthmatic patients living near ground zero.
Residential proximity to ground zero was predictive of the
degree of decreased in asthma health.
I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues which include fellows
from SUNY-Stony Brook and Dr. Debra Lynn from the Charles B.
Wang Community Health Center. Our epidemiologist is Dr. Francis
Mary Maduna from the University of Pittsburgh. And our
statistician is Dr. Hong Chu Chin from Harvard Medical School.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Szema follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE MATTEI
Ms. Mattei. Good day. Thank you for allowing me to testify
today, Chairman Towns, and members of the panel.
My name is Suzanne Mattei. I am the New York City executive
for the Sierra Club, a national environmental group.
My testimony will describe information that the Sierra Club
has obtained regarding the extent to which the contamination
from the World Trade Center disaster travel eastward into the
borough of Brooklyn and looking at various neighborhoods trying
to answer the question did that dust become deposited at the
ground level, did it enter buildings.
So, thank you.
You know, obviously when you have a significant release of
hazardous substances you want an answer to two questions.
What's in it and where did it go? Neither of these questions
were answered for the ground zero pollution source.
We already have discussed the problems with EPA; bad
equipment, failing to test for the proper parameters, failing
to test systematically, falling to do proper indoor testing and
completely ignoring Brooklyn.
We've already talked about this. The original residential
program and the current one completely ignored Brooklyn.
Despite the Inspector General's criticism, despite advocacy
from residents, I want to particularly acknowledge Gena Orkin
who is a Brooklyn resident who advocated very vociferously for
testing in Brooklyn. They just continue to completely ignore
the borough.
So what are the information sources about what happened in
Brooklyn? You've seen the aerial photographs. There were also
some newspaper accounts where people talked about readable
papers being deposited in Brooklyn. There was also the
Inspector General's survey, which was discussed just a little
bit before. I'll get into the specifics relevant to Brooklyn.
We did our own informal supplementary survey, and you've heard
about some of the health studies that have been done.
The NASA aerial photographs showed it moving in a
southeasterly direction across Manhattan. You already saw that
picture.
The Newsday article described seeing people seeing readable
addresses, readable papers in Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens
and also Red Hook.
In 2003, the EPA Inspector General did conduct that survey
of residents. The interesting thing is that they did not limit
their survey to Manhattan residents. They did include people in
other boroughs. There were about 204 residents from Brooklyn
who responded. One of the questions was whether or not the
resident was aware of their own home having been invaded by
World Trade Center contamination. It was really quite stark
that about a quarter of the 200 some residents who responded
from Brooklyn said yes, that there was either visible dust or
debris in their homes. The interesting thing is that
information came out and then nothing happened. Nobody did any
further testing. EPA didn't take any further action.
So the three most significant reporting neighborhoods in
terms of how many reported and the percentage that said their
homes had been contaminated where Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill,
Brooklyn Heights Cobble Hill. They did it by zip code. So we
had to look at what the neighborhoods were, and Park Slope.
So the Sierra Club New York City Group didn't have any
particular funding to look at this. But just decided well we
want to see if this was just a fluke. Did people really see
dust in their homes and in what neighborhoods did they see it.
And so we just did it in a very sloppy way. We set up card
tables outside of grocery stores. And when people came
shopping, we asked them where they lived and did they remember
what they saw in their neighborhoods or in their homes at the
time of September 11, 2001.
I got to tell you, people's memories of that day are
crystal clear. It's like do you remember where you were when
you learned that President Kennedy was shot. It is that kind of
clarity. They remember everything about that day.
So we focused on three highest reporting neighborhoods in
the Inspector General's survey, and then based on the newspaper
accounts about Red Hook, we went into Red Hook as well.
We got a little bit of information from other boroughs just
because people started emailing our survey around. So I will
talk about a little bit of information from other neighborhoods
as well. But Brooklyn Heights, people who saw dust in their
neighborhoods, 67 percent. It's a small survey. But it was
really quite telling.
A lot in Brooklyn Heights. A lot in Cobble Hill. Red Hook,
a smaller amount but still really very significant, almost a
third of the people. And in Park Slope a very high percentage
of the people who responded said yes, we saw dust in our
neighborhood.
And then we went to the next question, which was did you
smell odors inside your home or see World Trade Center dust
inside your home. And, again, the numbers were really pretty
high. The percentages were pretty high. More than half in
Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, about a third again in Red
Hook and about a quarter in Park Slope.
You may remember that September 11th was a stunningly
beautiful day. The air was really clear and beautiful. It was
the first really nice day after a string of bad weather. A lot
of people had their windows open, and that definitely put them
at greater risk of contamination. Seventy percent of the people
who saw or smelled 9/11 pollution in their homes had their
windows open that day.
Now it is open to recognize that even with windows closed
you could still have infiltration. It is also important to
recognize that you did not have to see the dust for the dust to
be there. You could have very fine, essentially invisible dust
in your home or dust that you would not even notice. We know
that people in Manhattan who did not have visible dust when
they had chemical analysis with dust wipe tests, they found the
kinds of heavy metals and other materials that were associated
with World Trade Center dust contamination.
So what we are looking at is what people saw. We did not
have people to go in and do scientific tests. This is not
perfect. And probably a lot of people who said I did not see
anything or smell anything, may still have had contamination in
their home.
A lot of reports of smell in Dumbo, Williamsburgh,
Greenpoint, and Fort Green, we did not get much in the line of
dust reports from there. Although today we just heard from the
Deputy Borough President that she saw dust in her Fort Green
home. So these areas need to be investigated.
Areas from which we received only a few surveys, but they
indicated some neighborhood contamination that really should be
investigated further are listed up here. Downtown Brooklyn,
Sunset Park, Ocean Parkway. Sheepshead Bay, which Congressman
Weiner mentioned. We had one person who mentioned that she had
completely painted her steps, her front steps and her railing.
And when she came home that evening they were covered this sort
of grayish dust.
So what we have here are colored markings for the areas
where the red square indicate where we had a significant amount
of surveys--well, you know, more than 10 surveys and then we
have in orange the areas where we think ought to be further
investigated where we got a fewer number of surveys.
And this is not scientific. I want to emphasize. This is
only preliminary information designed to try to spur people to
do more. But it sure does follow the dust cloud. So I do not
think we are too far off in identifying where the worst
contamination was. It really looks as though central and
southern Brooklyn were hit harder than the northern parts of
Brooklyn. And a lot of neighborhoods were contaminated.
You know, 5 out of 10 people that we talked to in Coney
Island saw dust. So it really traveled.
The conclusion is really the dust cloud did not just go
over Brooklyn, it went through Brooklyn. And EPA really must
conduct a proper testing program, and this program must include
Brooklyn.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mattei follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Ms. Mattei.
I mean to do all of that without being funded, I mean I
just can imagine what you had been able to do if you had funds
to do it. I think that is a marvelous job.
I want to thank you for your testimony.
Now I would like to move into the question period. Let me
begin with you, Mr. Chan. During your tenure to your knowledge
did the Office of the IG experience any direct or indirect
pressure from any sources in the administration to soften its
evaluation of EPA's conduct or any work concerning the testing
and cleanup of 9/11? Do you know of any?
Mr. Chan. I don't have any evidence like that personally.
One of the great things about working for the Inspector
General's Office is that I know whatever evidence we gathered.
However they wish to change it, the evidence will be there. So
every single report that I have done have been through FOIA
have been exposed. So all the documents are there. So in that
sense I never worry about it. I do not feel that pressure at
all in my position.
Mr. Towns. You do not feel the pressure?
Mr. Chan. No, sir.
Mr. Towns. All right. Let me go just right down the line on
a very simple question, but I think it is a very important
question. Let me just go right down the line. I will probably
start with you on this side.
Is there scientific evidence of health problems and
contamination in Brooklyn or any other boroughs, scientific?
Let us go right down the line.
Ms. Mattei. Well, I think you have heard at this table the
best information that those of us who were called to this
hearing could pull together. I think that Dr. Szema's study is
scientific evidence. I think that the health officials study is
scientific evidence. But what they are is evidence, they are an
indication of a problem. But what our Government failed to do
was followup and do the comprehensive testing that is required.
Dr. Szema. I'm going to show you a slide which shows zip
codes of children with asthma who were in the hot zone or the
red zone within 5 miles of the World Trade Center who had
worsened asthma.
Keep in mind, however, that even though the numbers were
not statistically significant for children who lived outside of
the red zone, the numbers were also increased. And we were
limited by sample size, even though it was statistically
significant. But you will see that a variety of zip codes in
Brooklyn had worsened asthma.
So the answer is, yes, that there is scientific evidence
which shows that children who lived in parts of Brooklyn were
worse after 9/11.
Mr. Towns. Thank you.
Mr. Roohan. Our studies showed that were elevated persons
with asthma where their asthma worsened in Brooklyn. Again,
similar to the study in Chinatown, our sample size was small
but still statistically significant. So when I presented the
results over twice as likely to have significant worse asthma,
two and a half times worse asthma, compared to the rest of New
York City.
Mr. Towns. So the answer is yes?
Mr. Roohan. Yes.
Mr. Towns. Thank you.
Mr. Newman. Well, I have a two part answer to that
question.
First, we have EPA photos, one of which I projected earlier
that clearly show that visible particulate matter was dispersed
and deposited, at least on the northwestern edges of Brooklyn.
And again, as I mentioned earlier, we have a much higher level
of concern for the particulate matter that we don't see. So
that the presence of visible particulates is an indication that
there are microscopic invisible particulates that have the
potential to be present, and also to travel further.
Second, we have the photographs and the plume dispersion
model from the Office of Research and Development at EPA. So we
have well documented indications that there's a high
possibility for contamination in Brooklyn. What we do not have
is data. And, you know, data does not fall from the sky like
particulates do. We do not have data because data is a result
of investigation. Essentially there has been no investigation,
there has been no site characterization, there has been no
effort by EPA or any other Government agency to accumulate that
data and assess it.
So on the one hand we have an absence of data, on the other
hand, the absence of data is not indicative and cannot be used
to indicate safety. We just do not have the data to indicate
either safety or risk.
Finally, I would like to note two things. No. 1, that the
EPA World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel strongly
recommended that sampling be done in Brooklyn, and that
recommendation was not accepted by EPA.
Second of all, another reason for the absence of data is
the Centers of Excellence, the medical programs for which
people who are symptomatic or concerned about 9/11 exposure and
related health efforts until very recently with the opening of
the Bellevue Clinic on January 1st of this year, Brooklyn
residents, Brooklyn workers unless they worked at ground zero
were not eligible for those programs, and therefore there is no
data available for people from Brooklyn.
Mr. Towns. All right. So the answer is a yes?
Mr. Newman. The answer to that is the data that we have
indicate a problem, but we have very little data and we need a
lot more data in order to find out what we are actually dealing
with, yes.
Mr. Towns. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Gudaitis.
Mr. Gudaitis. Of the client we have in order for them to
make a successful application they have to have medical
documentation of their illness. So in our case the answer would
be yes as well.
Mr. Chan. My answer is that clearly there are indications
of that, but I would answer in a different way. My answer to
you is that I don't think that all the debris can be healthy to
me.
Mr. Towns. I did not hear the answer.
Mr. Chan. I do not think the debris is healthy to me.
Mr. Towns. Yes.
Mr. Chan. So that is the beginning.
I think EPA with its authority with concerns in terms of
protecting the human health as well as environment, it is their
job to determine if, in fact, what is released in the
environment could be harmful to the environment and the health
of its citizens.
Mr. Towns. Right.
Mr. Chan. I do not think they have done their job.
Mr. Towns. Right. Thank you.
Congressman Platts from the great State of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And our colleague,
Representative Fossella could not be with us today, but I know
he has asked permission, unanimous consent to submit a written
statement for the record.
Mr. Towns. Without object, so ordered.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Newman, I want to followup on your testimony and your
service on the Expert Technical Review Panel. First, can you
give me a little background of the makeup of the panel. You
state local, you know Federal officials. Who all were involved?
Mr. Newman. The EPA Expert Technical Review Panel was an
appointed panel. It was an unusual configuration. It initially
consisted, I believe, of seven representatives of Government
agencies such as EPA, FEMA, OSHA, New York City Department of
Health, etc., and seven nongovernmental experts, of whom I was
one.
The panel was charged broadly speaking with three tasks.
One was to characterize any remaining exposure and risks,
second was to identify unmet public health needs, and the third
was to recommend any steps to further minimize the risks
associated with the aftermath of the World Trade Center
attacks.
Mr. Platts. And that panel met, my understanding, about a
dozen times in over about a 2-year period and issued a report
in late 2005.
Mr. Newman. The panel did not issue a report.
Mr. Platts. OK. The report referenced, Mr. Chan, I
believe--OK. The objection I guess----
Mr. Newman. I think you're probably referring to the
Inspector General's report.
Mr. Platts. OK.
Mr. Newman. No. EPA subsequent to the dismissal of the
panel prior to the expiration of its term went ahead and
implemented, I believe, it is in December 2006, a new sampling
program which is currently underway. That sampling program was
rejected by the panel. Our rejection and our concerns were
ignored in EPA, they went ahead an issued a new program.
Mr. Platts. So it was not a written report rejecting that?
It was an expression?
Mr. Newman. No. No. The panel was an advisory body. It was
plagued by a number of procedural concerns, one of which was a
lack of clear process for memorializing the panel's input. So
there was no final report issued by the panel.
Mr. Platts. But the current EPA plan was one that the panel
looked at and rejected as again insufficient?
Mr. Newman. Correct.
Mr. Platts. Are you aware of the rationale of the EPA for
appointing you and the others to the panel but then not
adhering to the expert testimony and knowledge? Was there any
formal response from EPA why they were not following the lead
of the panel?
Mr. Newman. No.
Mr. Platts. No?
Mr. Chan, you left EPA late 2005, correct?
Mr. Chan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Platts. Are you aware of any in your work in the
Inspector General's Office of any EPA response internally to
the panel and how it reviewed it and the seriousness with which
EPA took the findings of the panel?
Mr. Chan. The findings, our recommendation and their
response are in the report and they accept a lot of our
recommendations and the ideas looking into the indoor air, I
believe, that is something that they initiated together with, I
believe, Senator Clinton and Senator Lieberman pushed to do
that.
We were in fact hopeful that they would follow through on
some of these recommendations. We are so disappointed in terms
of what happened since then.
Mr. Platts. OK. But thus far they have not really followed
the recommendations you made?
Mr. Chan. I can give you a short answer and a long answer.
The answer is no. The short one, yes.
Mr. Platts. My understanding was that in February 2006 that
there was a report issued by the panel, by your panel? No.
Mr. Newman. No.
Mr. Platts. OK. Give me one moment here.
Mr. Chan, one of the things of learning lessons here is my
understanding in the initial months following 9/11 that the
city of New York took the lead not EPA. Are you aware or can
you give us any information on how that decision came to be
between the city and the Federal Government? And then what
spurred in early 2002 the decision the EPA would take over the
effort?
Mr. Chan. This may be difficult for me to answer because it
appears to be still a legal issue.
I believe that city itself under the circumstance can, in
fact, decide to do the cleanup themselves. You know, the EPA's
obligation is to make sure that it is done. And I believe also
that the event that occurred afterwards that there were a lot
of complaints about the effort. And if I recall correctly
around February 2002 EPA stepped in and decided to begin the
cleanup for the indoor air.
Mr. Platts. Mr. Chairman, if I could squeeze in a quick
followup? Real quick.
Mr. Towns. Sure.
Mr. Platts. To all the panelists, are any of you aware of
the interaction between the city and EPA and the initial
decision for the city to take the lead and then EPA in early
2002 saying, no, we are going to take the lead? And even if you
do not have that knowledge, a recommendation for learning from
this experience should it be mandatory of EPA coming in and
being more the lead entity from the get-go and not having that
discretion at the local level?
Mr. Newman.
Mr. Newman. Yes. My understanding is that the EPA initially
denied that it had legal responsibility to assessing or
addressing indoor environmental contamination, and thus it
defaulted to New York City agencies. And in turn, New York City
agencies essentially in the real world defaulted to building
owners and employers whose efforts, you know, ran the gambit
from testing an appropriate cleanup to not, depending upon
their level of technical expertise depending on their financial
capabilities. And most importantly, depending upon guidance
from the Government. And as we know, guidance from the
Government, you know, tended to indicate or allege that there
was no problem and therefore it was a disinsentive to clean up.
Mr. Platts. Right. And opinion as far as whether that
should be more clear in the law and perhaps mandatory as far as
EPA versus the local?
Mr. Newman. Well, I think it's fundamentally clear that it
was and is EPA's responsibility period to assume--EPA
fundamentally has clear legal responsibility for environmental
and public health from contamination.
Mr. Platts. Yes?
Ms. Mattei. Right. I would just add to that. And I think
that some of this was defined very clearly for everyone by
Congressman Nadler's white paper that really looked into the
issue of responsibility. But fundamentally the Environmental
Protection Agency has the authority to respond to any
significant release of a hazardous substance. They can do that
no matter what the cause of that hazardous substance release.
And that is under what is known as the Super Fund Law. They
have that authority. They do not have to declare the site a
Super Fund site to get in there and do the analysis. They can
go indoor as well as outdoor. That statute does not
differentiate.
Also because this was a terrorist attack, there was a
Presidential Directive in place that specifically mandated that
the Environmental Protection Agency should take action.
So actually the law was in place and the agency clearly had
the responsibility and the duty, but it chose not to do so. So
we had a major failure in implementation of an existing law. It
was an administrative failure.
Mr. Platts. Right. So not that the law is flawed, but it
was not properly implemented?
Ms. Mattei. That's right. That's correct. It was
irresponsible behavior on the agency's part.
Mr. Platts. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much.
And I will now yield to Congressman Murphy of Connecticut.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A month or so ago when we had a committee hearing on this
subject in Washington, DC, we had Dr. Howard and Dr. Agwunobi
before us. And I left there at least with some fear that their
strategy was to study this to death and to basically require
going forward, that each person potentially present their own
personal white paper to prove that their illness was a direct
result of their exposure to the contaminates in and around the
site. So I want to talk for a second or ask some questions for
a moment on the limits of data going forward and to try to get
a better understanding of what our expectations are going to be
from data that we may be able to receive.
Maybe I'll direct the first question to Dr. Szema as the
one doctor I believe on the panel.
Let us take your specific study on asthma. What are the
expectations going forward on this case study, at the very
least, that we would have any ability going forward to examine
which patients had an increased level of asthma or an increased
exposure to asthma due to their exposure to contaminates
through September 11th or to what extent is this simply very
important aggregate data that we may not be able to distill
down to determine the actual cause of the increased level of
asthma?
Dr. Szema. The clinic population, the population in
Chinatown is relatively stable. So I would say that since this
is a good yard stick or gold standard, I would want to resurvey
and restudy it on a more broader scale and move out in
concentric circles.
We have already made a computerized questionnaire similar
to the World Trade Center Mount Sinai questionnaire and
standardized statistical instruments, like the St. George's
translated in Chinese and ready to go on the Internet. But I am
not currently funded to do so. My current NIH funding is to
study the genetic causes of asthma in mice. And, you know, we
are developing a new drug to treat asthma.
So I think if you study a controlled population, then you
will be able to compare other populations further out. An
analogy is if Osama Bin Laden decides to drop a nuclear weapon
on a location and you wanted to see the health efforts, you
would start from that location and move out.
Mr. Murphy. I guess my question is more relevant to an
individual case rather than as just a statistical analysis.
When you are dealing with an individual 8 year old who comes in
with asthma or an increased level of asthma they did not have
before, what is our ability to tell whether that increased
level of asthma is due to the contaminates?
Dr. Szema. Yes. One thing that we would like to do but we
have not done was to skin prick tests all over these kids for
dust mite antigen. There are at least two types. As well as to
rat and mice. Because after the World Trade Center collapse
there were lots of case reports of rodents running around the
city. They came because of the excavation, etc.
So I think your asthma can be worse as a result of
irritation injury, as a result of inhalation lung injury,
allergic sensitization to antigens. Air pollution is known to
increase asthma attacks and there is something called endotoxin
in the air which associated with increased particulate matter
in the air as well as air pollution.
So these are all things we can measure. You can skin test
them to these things. You can measure air quality. You can go
into the kid's house and see if there's any residual things
left.
None of these kids got complete pulmonary function testing
or cardiopulmonary exercise testing. So the peak flow is just a
little tube you blow in in the office when you are stationary
at rest. It does not say whether you can rest around. So, you
know, we did not put any of these kids on a treadmill, etc.
Mr. Murphy. Let me ask the more general question to the
panel, which is that is there some fear that we are going to be
set up for a fall here? That individual citizens are going to
be asked to present far more information that is available
here. If what we are going to rely on in the end is maybe more
aggregate data about particular exposure by neighborhood or by
geographical area, how do you then go about treating those
populations or dispersing funds, treatment dollars, etc?
Mr. Newman.
Mr. Newman. I think you are absolutely correct that it is
difficult to prove with confidence any individual--the
association of health symptoms or health condition, any
particular individual with a presumed exposure, especially in
the absence of data. However, in the aggregate data as you
mentioned, the scientific evidence is quite clear that we have
a number of clearly distinct geographic and what I call
exposure populations that have been adversely impacted by 9/11
related exposures. I think that there is virtually or actually
no scientific doubt about that.
So what is needed are programs in the aggregate and not
programs aimed at the individual. We have the beginnings of
those programs with an excellent track record. Those are the
Centers of Excellence to which I referred in my comments. Those
programs need to be supported. They need to be funded. They
need to be expanded and they need to continue over the long
term so that they can survive.
The eligibility criteria for people to get access to those
programs need to be expanded to include people who are effected
or potentially effected by 9/11 so that they can be screened in
or screened out based on their symptoms and based on their
exposure history and the development or absence of symptoms.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Congressman Murphy.
Congressman Nadler from Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Let me first compliment Mr. Chan for being one of the first
EPA or former EPA persons willing to speak out honestly on this
subject.
Now, you say in your testimony--first of all, the Inspector
General's report, as I said, and it has been referred to before
recommended that we do inspections of several hundred indoor
spaces going out in concentric circles from the World Trade
Center to find out where the contamination exists and where the
cleanup is necessary. Do you concur that is still necessary to
be done?
Mr. Chan. I would say yes, if I answer 2 or 3 years ago. As
time moves on the more study I do not think is needed to
determine whether in fact the plume reach the citizens around
here or around----
Mr. Nadler. It's becoming more clear that it did you mean?
Mr. Chan. No. It is becoming more that, you know, the
longer you wait the less evidence you are going to find by
definition. And because what happened is that it is going to be
in the body of individuals rather than--you know, it is all
like getting the dirty. After a while you can find it in the
fish, as in mercury.
Mr. Nadler. OK.
Mr. Chan. So why not look in the fish rather than the
water.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Second of all, you state in your
testimony that EPA's actions to evaluate, mitigate and control
risk to human health from exposure to indoor air pollutants in
the WTC area were consistent with applicable statutes and
regulations which do not obligate EPA to respond to a given
emergency allowing for local agencies to lead a response. And
New York City in fact exercised the lead role.
Ms. Mattei says in her testimony when a significant release
of hazardous substance occurred, the EPA has authority to
respond under CERCLA and with regard to the September 11th
attack, EPA had a mandatory duty under Presidential Decision
Directive 62 to conduct a cleanup. I believe that Marlanne
Horinko, Deputy Administrator of EPA, admitted under oath
before the Senate in 2004, that under CERCLA and under
Presidential Directive 62, EPA had a mandatory duty to be the
lead agency. Is that your understanding?
Mr. Chan. Yes, but I don't believe my comment is different
from what was just said. In fact, I think under CERCLA EPA does
have the responsibility to make sure that. But in this case
here where the New York City decided they wanted to make that
it happens.
Mr. Nadler. But let me ask you the key question.
Mr. Chan. OK.
Mr. Nadler. If EPA has the responsibility, it can delegate
that responsibility to some other responsible body to do it.
Mr. Chan. Exactly.
Mr. Nadler, But if it clear that other body is not doing
it, is there EPA thereby OK to wash its hands of it?
Mr. Chan. No. They should followup and take over, as they
have done. And there is a precedents for that. If you look at
Libby, MT where in fact the externals asbestos went into
buildings and whereby EPA is responsible.
Mr. Nadler. In Libby, MT the Administrator said that it
would be immoral to ask homeowners to bear the expense of
cleaning up their homes. In New York that was what was done.
Mr. Newman, you state in your testimony that neither
environmental or occupational health regulations were enforced
at or around ground zero. The failure to ensure that these
protective and legally required measures were utilized is
likely to have contributed to the high incidence of 9/11
related illness that we are seeing today and that we may see in
the future.
Who had legal authority to decide not to enforce the
environmental and occupational health regulations?
Mr. Newman. To take your question literally, I do not think
anybody had legal authority to decide to or not to enforce
them.
Mr. Nadler. Nobody had legal authority? Who to your
knowledge decided not to enforce the occupational health and
safety laws?
Mr. Newman. Obviously the regulatory agency is--I mean the
enforcement agency is the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and New York State Department of Labor of Public
Employee Safety and Health, and the applicable regulations?
Mr. Nadler. And the city? And the city, too?
Mr. Newman. The city does not enforce those regulations.
The city as an employer is legally required to comply with the
requirements of those regulations. The enforcement body would
be PESH and OSHA.
Mr. Nadler. But the city didn't comply with those
regulations?
Mr. Newman. In my opinion, absolutely not.
Mr. Nadler. So all three levels of government were at
fault?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Nadler. And is it safe to say that probably thousands
of people are sick today and will get sick because all three
levels of government did not enforce or apply the law?
Mr. Newman. I think that's pretty clear.
Mr. Nadler. That is pretty clear?
Now, there was as you may recall, a New York City
Department of Environmental--what is it? New York City EDC--oh,
DEP. There was a New York City DEP memo that I recall quoted in
the Inspector General's report saying we should enforce the
OSHA laws. And someone overruled that. Someone decided not to.
And I recall there is also a letter from Mayor Giuliani quoted
as an appendix to the--either quoted as an appendix to the
Inspector General's report or listed in the EPA response to the
Inspector General report saying do not come in, we will handle
it. Do you remember that letter?
Mr. Newman. I do.
Mr. Nadler. And that is what it said?
Mr. Newman. Generally.
Mr. Nadler. OK. Let me ask you one other thing. If we do
not--and as I've said, I have always maintained that there are
two coverups. The first coverup was the fact that people who
were exposed to an acute toxins that day and the days following
because they were caught in the plume or because they were
first responders, they worked at ground zero and they didn't
wear respiratory equipment, their health was compromised. That
coverup is pretty well unraveled and people are now admitting
that happened. Some people are saying we should deal with it,
not everybody.
But the second coverup is the impact on residents in
Manhattan and Chinatown and Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, for
all we know, were indoor spaces were contaminated and never
properly inspected and cleaned up. And as you said before, the
default was the building owners. I remember there was a U.S.
Senate hearing in January 2002, it was the New York City
department of something that while we sent notices to 1,800
building owners, owners of 1,800 buildings telling them that
they had to clean up the outdoor spaces and the common spaces
of the buildings, not the individual spaces. It was asked well
what was the agency of enforcement. Self certification, and how
many certifications did you get back? Three hundred, and what
did you do about the other 1,500 buildings? Nothing. Not to
mention that the individual spaces were not dealt with.
If nothing is done, is it accurate to think that people who
move into an apartment or start working in an office next year
or 5 years from now are still going to be poisoned and come
down with cancers eventually, or some proportion of them?
Mr. Newman. If you have indoor particulate manner, you
know, that have toxic properties, the likelihood is that some
of these particulates can persist for extremely long periods of
time unless they're subjected to a targeted and technical
environmental remediation.
Mr. Nadler. So the answer is yes?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Nadler. Which means that one has to say that as far as
we know many buildings in the entire metropolitan area may be
unsafe to live and work in in that sense?
Mr. Newman. Well, the operative word is ``may.'' From my
point of view, you know, it is entirely appropriate and
legitimate to have a level of concern about that contamination
that might remain indoors. In terms of our knowledge based on
data we do not have any knowledge, we do not have any data
because the testing has never been done. So it is entirely
appropriate to do the testing now and find out where we are at.
Mr. Nadler. And in fact essential to do the testing in
order to correct it?
Mr. Newman. Correct.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Congressman Nadler.
Let me just before we close, you know I can't close without
asking this question, Mr. Gudaitis, you know the fact that we
have all these people that are ill, more people that might
become ill that we are cutting case managed services. I mean,
that to me is the most ridiculous thing I think I have heard. I
mean, how could we explain that if there is any kind of
commitment or dedication on our part that we would cut case
services? I mean, there will be people that is going to get
sick in the future and all that, and the service will not be
there for them. How could that happen?
Mr. Gudaitis. That's a good question, sir.
You know, at the present time there is only one
organization funding case management in New York City, and that
is the American Red Cross Liberty Fund, and we are
administering that grant, but it ends in 2007. And after that
there will be no funding for community-based case management.
And at the present time we know that we have about 60
percent of the clients coming out of just one of the Centers of
Excellence needing case management services, and those numbers
are only increasing. But the money, as far as any of us know,
has run out. So unless coordinated case management assistance
and case management is added to one of the things that we are
looking for the Federal Government to fund along with the
Centers for Excellence, their needs will only be half met in
the medical monitoring and treatment programs.
Mr. Towns. Right. Let me, Mr. Chan, I am coming at this
question another way. I went after it one way with you and I am
going to come another way.
Both you and your former supervisor, Nikki Tinsley, are no
longer working at the Office of the Inspector General for the
EPA. For years the Inspector General's Office of the EPA
produced quality and impartial reviews of EPA's actions. Has
there been a culture change in the IG's Office in the EPA? In
other words, you know where I am trying to go.
Mr. Chan. Let me say that I worked for EPA for 5 years and
I had great hope in terms of working and helping the citizens
in terms of the environment and helping out. So the fact that I
left the agency I think suggests how disappointed I am in terms
of what I have achieved. I am not very happy with what could be
done given the fact that the Inspector General's Act gave us,
you know, independence as well as an ability to voice our views
and so on.
So I must admit to you, and I guess the first time in
public, even my wife does not know that, that I left with a
heavy heart. I am sorry that, you know, that there are a lot of
other issues, environmental issues that I find very difficult
to see how we are going with this. So it is a difficult thing
because I can talk to you about new source review, I can talk
to you about mercury and the effect on children, I can talk to
you about the coal fired stuff, and case after case I find
that, you know, somehow I am on the wrong side of the issue.
But I am happy I was there because it gave me tremendous
insight as to how Government works. Having worked for the
General Accounting Office from the congressional side or
legislative side I certainly learn a lot in terms of working
for the executive side.
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I really appreciate your coming to testify. I think that
Congressman Nadler indicated early on, you know, we really
appreciate it because there has been a silence, you know, and
for you to come and speak out, I think that to me is very, very
important.
Any other comments that any other Members might have?
Mr. Platts. Mr. Chairman. One, I do want to thank all of
the witnesses again for their testimony, but especially for
their reference on behalf of all the citizens of New York.
Also, I would like to ask unanimous consent that Mr. Shays
be allowed to submit a written statement for the record.
Mr. Towns. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Platts. Thank you.
Mr. Towns. Yes.
You have a comment that you wanted to make?
Dr. Szema. I just want to comment that our research is
dead. We published this paper in 2004.
Mr. Platts. Dead did you say?
Dr. Szema. Dead, D-E-A-D, dead. We did it with no money. I
had our fellows and students do it. We have no money now. The
cost of actually funding this type of research is actually less
than that of the long term health effects because if there are
going to be kids getting asbestosis or bronchial genetic
carcinoma in the next 20 years, the health effects are going to
be much more expensive, as Mr. Roohan has even suggested.
So I think to fund a unique pediatric population,
especially this vulnerable population with preexisting disease
is very important. I cannot emphasize that enough. Because even
other investigators like Dr. David Purzone who has come before
this committee before from the Fire Department has shown that
in the past 5 years previously healthy firefighters who do not
have asthma, who are big strapping firefighters have lost lung
function. They have measurable declines in lung function 5
years out from the World Trade Center disaster based on the
number of hours they put in ground zero. And these are people
who do not even live in the area. These are workers, and to not
study the residents is really a crime.
Mr. Towns. Ms. Mattei, yes.
Ms. Mattei. Yes. I want to imagine yourself in a home in an
effected area. A home in which the dust did infiltrate the
dwelling. There's no World Trade Center dust left on the
kitchen table. That table has been washed plenty of times,
thoroughly clean. You are not going to find World Trade Center
dust on the kitchen table. But what about the carpet?
We know that asbestos fibers and lead can go right through
an ordinary vacuum cleaner's bag. It goes right through and
settles right back down on that carpet. If it's professionally
cleaned the asbestos and the lead will still be there. And that
is the concern that I have.
I am more concerned for young children, toddlers who roll
around on carpets, bounce around on soft furniture and get dust
on their fingers and then put their fingers in their mouths. In
my view these are the people are most vulnerable to the indoor
contamination.
I just want to point out, you know, I know a lot of time
has passed, but we supposedly did a great job scouring the area
to recapture and try to identify the human remains. What are
still finding now 5 years later? We are finding bone fragments,
not only onsite but offsite. If the bones are still there, why
would we assume that the asbestos and lead are not.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Ms. Mattei, I am glad you brought
that up because you reminded me of something I wanted to ask
earlier.
New York City Department of Health shortly after 9/11 put
on its website, and it remained there for years and may still
be there as far as I know, that if you returned to your
apartment and you find World Trade Center dust, you should
clean it up with a wet mop and a wet rag. What do you think of
this advice as to its safety and its legality?
Ms. Mattei. Completely irresponsible, and the Department of
Health knows better. They have very detailed regulations just
for lead dust. Their Part 171 regulations for cleaning up lead
dust which requires professional cleaning, HVAC vacuuming. None
of this nonsense of wet mop and wet rag. That was horrendous
advice. What was even more horrendous is that EPA knew about
this advice and actually advocated and referred people to
follow that advice.
Mr. Nadler. People who followed that advice, correct me if
I am wrong: No. 1, if they are not professionally trained and
if they are not wearing proper equipment, protective suits when
they do it, are likely to inhale some of those fibers when they
correct it?
Ms. Mattei. Definitely at risk for exposure, yes.
Mr. Nadler. And are likely to leave a lot of that in the
carpets, the porous wood surfaces and so forth?
Ms. Mattei. It would not be a thorough cleaning. Yes, that
is a concern.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Let me thank all the witnesses for your testimony. I really
appreciate hearing from you, and to my colleagues also for
their participation. And to say to you that based on the
information that we received from you that we will working
together on a legislative fix. This is a serious problem. This
is the wealthiest country in the world, and now if it is the
wealthiest country in the world behaving like this, I mean this
just does not make a lot of sense. So I think that the Federal
Government has to step up to the plate and begin to take some
action.
So we will take the information that you have given us and
we will continue to work on it to see if we cannot bring about
a solution to this problem.
Thank you so much for your testimony.
And this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.)
[The prepared statements of Hon. Christopher Shays and Hon.
Vito Fossella and additional information submitted for the
hearing record follows:]
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