The lies, half-truths and forsaken logic of Bush-apologist Condi Rice have been broadly displayed on various blogs and internet sites. But there is one specific example that hasn’r received the appropriate attention. Keep the following in mind as some yahoos bellow “Rice in 2008.” Christie Whitman doesn’t come off too well here either.
After more than 3,000 died and many more were wounded, the following vividly demonstrates the worth and value Rice and the rest of her ilk placed on human life in New York after 9/11. 2,000 dead soldiers, countless military members maimed, untold dead Iraqis–such is just the beginning of the toll on humanity on this Administration’s watch.
THE AIR AT GROUND ZERO
Editor’s Letter
Graydon Carter
VANITY FAIR
September 2004
As someone who lives 34 blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood, and watched them come down from the corner of Seventh Avenue and 11th Street, I will say this: It didn’t take a scientist to know that the air downtown was foul and that it was going to have serious health effects on the tens of thousands of rescue workers and volunteers from all over the continent who spent months undoing that mountain of deformed, smoldering steel and rubble.
As the third anniversary of September 1 approaches, this is as good a time as any to review how the Bush administration and the Environmental Protection Agency handled the issue of air quality at Ground Zero:
* September 12.
The day after the attacks, the office of the EPA’s deputy administrator told senior EPA officials that “all statements to the media should be cleared through the [National Security Council, headed by Condoleeza Rice,] before they are released.”
* September 13.
EPA head Christie Whitman issued a press release saying, “EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no signifigant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City.” A section in the original draft of the release had stated that “even at low levels, EPA considers asbestos hazardous in this situation.” It was deleted by the White House and the NSC.
* September 16.
The agency issued a further notice, saying, “The new samples confirm previous reports that ambient air quality meets [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] standards and consequently is not a cause for public concern.” The White House and the NSC removed the following from the original draft of the statement: “Recent samples of dust gathered by OSHA on Water Street [almost a half-mile from the Trade Center] show higher levels of asbestos in EPA tests.”
* September 18.
Whitman pronounced that the air at Ground Zero was “safe to breathe.”
And on it went. The White House was eager to reassure Wall Street employees that the air around them was safe, so that the New York Stock Exchange could be reopened quickly. The EPA followed along by repeatedly delivering deceptively upbeat news.
In reality, the air quality was toxic and extremely dangerous. As the 110 story buildings fell, millions of tons of pulverized material
exploded into the sky, carrying all manner of toxins.
Some details:
When they were built, between 1968 and 1973, both towers were fireproofed with materials manufactured by W R Grace. The fireproofing, like most installations in those days, contained asbestos. It’s not dangerous in its installed state, but airborne asbestos is lethal, even in small amounts.
A memorandum written by Cate Jenkins, while she was a senior chemist with the EPA, states that with the level of asbestos in the apartments near Ground Zero was “comparable to or higher” than that in the home of Libby, Montana, where the W R Grace mine had, over 30 years, produced what is possibly the worst Superfund disaster in American history. Jenkins found that dust collected from a windowsill four blocks from Ground Zero contained 79,000 fibers per square centimeter, 22 times higher than the levels found in Libby.
For the rest of the article, go here:
http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/2004-September/001492.html
Here is an excerpt from a Kristen Lombardi-written Village Voice article that provides an update:
Dusted
Long after 9-11, some people say the dust is still making them sick. Now they want the EPA to do something about it.
Kristen Lombardi
The Village Voice
September 6th, 2005
Alex Sanchez likes to say he’s “living proof” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the September 11 terrorist attacks bordered on the criminal. Sanchez was exposed to dust from the World Trade Center disaster as a cleanup worker in skyscrapers around ground zero. He spent seven months enveloped in the lethal material, wiping it from cubicles, blowing it out of vents. It stung his throat, burned his eyes, and choked his lungs.
“The EPA said the air was safe,” he remembers, as the fourth anniversary of 9-11 nears, “and when you read that coming from a government official, you don’t second-guess it.”
Now he does. Sanchez, 38, of Washington Heights, walks with a cane, hunched in pain, hampered by escalating respiratory problems. Doctors have diagnosed him with musculo-skeletal syndrome and asthma, attributed to exposure to the WTC dust. He takes as many as 23 medications.
Yet what bothers Sanchez isn’t so much his own health. ”I’m already damaged goods,” he says but the bigger picture. He thinks about people who live and work in the buildings surrounding ground zero, like the ones he used to clean, the ones he worries weren’t properly tested for contamination. Residents, office workers, schoolchildren: These are the people who may still be breathing in toxic dust, yet not know it. “I’m afraid there are people who will end up just like me walking around these buildings today,” he says.
Sanchez isn’t alone. For more than a year, dozens of people who live and work in and around Lower Manhattan have been locked in a debate with the EPA over its latest proposal to test for lingering Trade Center dust. A coalition of activists from labor, tenant, small business, and environmental groupshave pushed agency officials to do the right thin gthat is, determine the 9-11-related contamination remaining in downtown and clean it up.
The coalition is helped by a few local lawmakers, among them Representative Jerrold Nadler and Senator Hillary Clinton, and fueled by distrust born of the EPA’s initial response after 9-11. New Yorkers were told back then that conditions were safe when in fact they were not. None of these activists finds it easy to believe the agency’s latest promises.
For the rest of the article, go here:
http://villagevoice.com/news/0536,lombardi,67520,5.html
