White House ordered false assurances on air quality after 9/11

[Malachi151]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0823-03.htm

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030823/ap_on_go_ot/epa_air_safety_8

WASHINGTON - At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.

President Bush (news - web sites)'s senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.

The White House "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a report issued late Thursday by EPA Inspector General Nikki L. Tinsley.

"When EPA made a Sept. 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, the agency did not have sufficient data and analyses to make the statement," the report says, adding that the EPA had yet to adequately monitor air quality for contaminants such as PCBs, soot and dioxin.

In all, the EPA issued five press releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels — well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.

[subgenius]

Just an extreme instance of a pattern of putting politics over science, especially in environmental matters.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by subgenius
Just an extreme instance of a pattern of putting politics over science, especially in environmental matters.


You missed the point entirely. They had already warned people to wear respiratory protection. It seems like they were trying to avoid a big panic in the wake of the current one at the time (9-11).

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with air-quality policy in general.

This was obviously a judgement call. I am not sure this warranted the action they took. However, we do now have the benefit of hindsight.

Once again, take off the blinders and see this for what it is and not part of a grand scheme of politics over science. There are already enough examples of that out there.

[Segnosaur]

Perhaps before panicing and playing the blame game, we should wait a few years and see what the health affects really are. People could be paranoid over nothing.

There have been several situations where there have been complaints about poisons and toxins; however, when the statistics are examined, it is found that the people exposed to the 'toxins' don't have any more health problems than those not exposed to the toxins. This could be another example of people blaming every little health problem, and using test results out of context to support bad conclusions.

If you look at Fumento's site (http://www.fumento.com), you'll see what I mean; gulf war syndrome, agent orange, and Hinkley California (the town featured in the movie Erin Brockovich) were all assumed to be key words for "Major health problems", but with no real proof that there is a problem.

[fishbob]

The thing about the regulations regarding toxins and poisons is that the exposure limits are overly cautious, in part because they were developed to protect innocent bystanders from unwitting exposures.

It is one thing if you choose to be exposed to some toxin if you know that your risk of cancer is increased by .1% if you get any on you. It is quite a different if 1,000 kids play in some toxin not knowing there is any risk, and one of them dies.

I seem to recall news footage of the WTC rescue and cleanup crews all over the site without any respiratory protection. Was that because EPA said the air quality was OK?

[fishbob]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20030828/ap_on_go_ot/clean_air (http://)WASHINGTON - In a major environmental decision, the Bush administration is making it easier for thousands of older power plants, refineries, factories, chemical plants and pulp and paper mills to make large upgrades without installing costly new anti-pollution controls.

The Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites)'s new rule affecting 17,000 facilities could save billions of dollars for utilities, oil companies and others that have lobbied the White House for the changes the past two years. They complained former President Clinton discouraged modernization with his crackdown on pollution from aging coal-fired power plants.
. . .
The rule broadens EPA's interpretation of the "routine maintenance" definition for plants dating to the 1970s, to allow industrial facilities to avoid having to pay for expensive emissions-cutting devices for up to 20 percent of the replacement costs for key equipment — even if the upgrade increases emissions. The White House-led reworking of the maintenance standard essentially allows industries to modernize a facility's production systems one-fifth at a time.

Until now, operators have been required to add more pollution-cutting devices if they do anything more than "routine maintenance" on a plant and cause emissions to increase significantly, a policy called "new source review."

During the Clinton administration, the federal government began suing 51 aging power plants and succeeded in forcing several to install hundreds of millions of dollars of pollution-control equipment. Since then, five of the 12 companies that operate the plants have settled with the Justice Department. EPA has estimated that settlements with all the companies would cut almost 7 million tons of pollutants annually.

Also: From Science News, August 2, 2003, page72
A 1991 analysis by Joel Schwartz, then at the Environmental Protection Agency, concluded that some 60,000 U.S. residents die from heart attacks and respiratory problems each year because of the effects of airborne dust at concentrations within federal pollution limits.

Stunning as those numbers were at first, they're now accepted by most researchers. In that 1991 study and subsequent ones, Schwartz, now at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, has shown that community death rates rise and fall nearly in lock-step with local changes in concentrations of tiny dust particles - even when concentrations of those particulates are just one-quarter of the federal limit for outdoor air.

OK now - 60,000 deaths per year out of 300 million is about 1 death per 5,000 people per year caused by air pollutants. In a normal American life span that means that you and I each have about a 1% chance of dying due to bad air quality. So what our president has just done is to ease regulations by executive order to allow air quality to worsen. Science is clearly not the driving force behind Bush policy decisions.

Is Bush counting on most of those 60,000 deaths per year to be Florida Democrats?

[Ladewig]

You missed the point entirely. They had already warned people to wear respiratory protection. It seems like they were trying to avoid a big panic in the wake of the current one at the time (9-11).

Yes, they had already warned people to wear respiratory protection. The announcement indicated that respiratory protection was no longer needed. The point is that Bush people removed that warning before the EPA (or anyone else) had time to "monitor air quality for contaminants such as PCBs, soot and dioxin."

As for avoiding panic. Not allowing people to return to southern Manhattan would not necessarily cause panic.


This was obviously a judgement call. I am not sure this warranted the action they took. However, we do now have the benefit of hindsight.

If it was a judgement call then let the administration say, "it was a judgement call." Instead they are saying that "the decision was justified by national security."

[subgenius]

"Once again, take off the blinders and see this for what it is and not part of a grand scheme of politics over science. There are already enough examples of that out there."

Who's got the blinders on?

A pattern. You have to be an apologist with blinders on not to see it.

[subgenius]

"Is Bush counting on most of those 60,000 deaths per year to be Florida Democrats?"

Not just Florida Democrats.
But the theory is get as rich as you can as fast as you can. Grab as much power as you can as fast as you can.
Some pocket change will fall out for the poor. Screw the poor, they deserve it. "Trickle down."

[fishbob]

Screw the poor, they deserve it The new sooper sekrit Bush administration campaign slogan.

[subgenius]

Was that press release misleading? According to Nikki Tinsley, “It was surely not telling all of the truth.”
In an exclusive interview, Inspector General Tinsley, the EPA’s top watchdog, tells NBC News the agency simply did not have sufficient data to justify such a reassurance.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/961134.asp?vts=090320032340

There's no pattern here.....move along....

[Tricky]

Originally posted by subgenius
Screw the poor, they deserve it.
[old Doonsbury punchline]
"The beauty of this plan is that the only people who will suffer are the poor, and they're used to it."
[/old Doonsbury punchline]