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Where-Is-Asbestos-Found
EPA Asbestos Mistake

"Uncertainty surrounds asbestos" By Traci Watson, USA TODAY, Feb. 6, 2002 update

When the World Trade Center collapsed, thousands of tons of asbestos spewed into the air of Lower Manhattan. On this point, nearly everyone agrees.

Beyond that, nothing is simple. In recent months, the asbestos has aroused more fear and blame than any other pollutant in the controversy over air quality near Ground Zero.

The stakes are high. Asbestos does not cause the respiratory and eye problems that many New Yorkers are experiencing, but the microscopic fibers do cause lung cancer.

"I've heard there were nearly 5,000 tons of asbestos released in Manhattan, but (officials say) everything's okay," says Steve Swaney, head of a tenants' group at a downtown apartment building. "I think they should give people the truth."

The truth will be very hard to discern. Few environmental toxins boast the complications of asbestos. "The only thing everyone agrees about is how to spell the word," says Rashad Shaikh, the former head of a research institute devoted to asbestos.

For starters, there's the hit-and-miss monitoring. Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency say city officials took responsibility for whether buildings should be reoccupied. So the EPA restricted its testing to air and dust levels outdoors.

The city has yet to release indoor test results, which could be available as soon as today.

Despite the lack of monitoring, EPA officials started reassuring the public soon after Sept. 11 that asbestos posed no problem. "EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City," EPA chief Christie Whitman said Sept. 13.

Whitman and other EPA officials neglected to say that the agency tested only outdoors, where air pollution and toxic dust are quickly diluted to harmless levels.

Dozens of private firms have run tests, but the results can be controversial. There are many methods of asbestos testing, and even experts disagree over which should be used.

However, it is clear that the interiors of at least a few buildings are coated with enough asbestos to be subject to EPA rules for asbestos cleanup. Those rules apply to dust or debris containing more than 1% asbestos. If kicked up by activity, that dust could easily be inhaled.

A private scientific firm hired by elected officials found up to 79,000 of the most dangerous types of asbestos fibers per square centimeter in the dust in an apartment near Ground Zero. "These dust numbers are extraordinary," says Richard Lee, president of RJLee Group, a materials lab and consulting firm. "I think you'd have to recommend, based on (these) numbers, that these be professionally cleaned."

A second firm hired by a construction company found high levels of asbestos in the air in several large office buildings near the Trade Center site.

Such buildings should be cleaned by specialists, Lee said. Ill-equipped cleaners could be exposed to high levels of asbestos. And even one-time doses of asbestos, if large enough, can raise the risk of mesothelioma, a rare cancer.