World Trade Center
EPA's Most Recent Test and Clean Program Raises Concerns That Need to Be Addressed to Better Prepare for Indoor Contamination Following Disasters Gao ID: GAO-07-1091 September 5, 2007The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and World Trade Center (WTC) collapse blanketed Lower Manhattan in dust from building debris. In response, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an indoor clean and test program from 2002 to 2003. In 2003, EPA's Inspector General (IG) recommended improvements to the program and identified lessons learned for EPA's preparedness for future disasters. In 2004, EPA formed an expert panel to, among other goals, guide EPA in developing a second voluntary program; EPA announced this program in 2006. As requested, GAO's report primarily addresses EPA's second program, including the (1) extent to which EPA incorporated IG and expert panel member recommendations and input; (2) factors, if any, limiting the expert panel's ability to meet its goals; (3) completeness of information EPA provided to the public; (4) way EPA estimated resources for the program; and (5) extent to which EPA has acted upon lessons learned regarding indoor contamination from disasters.
EPA has incorporated some recommendations and input from the IG and expert panel members into its second program, but its decision not to include other items may limit the overall effectiveness of this program. For example, while EPA agreed to test for more contaminants, it did not agree to evaluate risks in areas north of Canal Street and in Brooklyn. EPA reported that it does not have a basis for expanding the boundaries of its program because it cannot distinguish between normal urban, or background, dust and WTC dust. The expert panel's ability to meet its goals was limited by two factors: (1) EPA officials' belief that some panel goals were more appropriately addressed by other agencies, and (2) EPA's approach to managing the panel process. Furthermore, the majority of expert panel members believe the panel did not meet any of its goals, and that EPA's second program does not respond to the concerns of residents and workers affected by the disaster. EPA's second plan does not fully inform the public about the results of its first program. EPA concluded that a "very small" number of samples from its first program exceeded risk levels for airborne asbestos. However, EPA did not provide information such as how representative the samples were of the affected area. Residents who could have participated in this voluntary second program might have opted not to do so because of EPA's conclusion about its first program. EPA did not develop a comprehensive cost estimate to determine the resources needed to carry out its second program. EPA is implementing this program with $7 million remaining from its first program. While EPA has acted upon lessons learned following this disaster, some concerns remain about its preparedness to respond to indoor contamination following future disasters. Specifically, EPA has not developed protocols on how and when to collect data to determine the extent of indoor contamination, one of the concerns raised by panel members.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-07-1091, World Trade Center: EPA's Most Recent Test and Clean Program Raises Concerns That Need to Be Addressed to Better Prepare for Indoor Contamination Following Disasters
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Contamination Following Disasters' which was released on September 5,
2007.
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
September 2007:
WORLD TRADE CENTER:
EPA's Most Recent Test and Clean Program Raises Concerns That Need to
Be Addressed to Better Prepare for Indoor Contamination Following
Disasters:
GAO-07-1091:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-07-1091, a report to congressional requesters.
Why GAO Did This Study:
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and World Trade Center (WTC)
collapse blanketed Lower Manhattan in dust from building debris. In
response, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an indoor
clean and test program from 2002 to 2003. In 2003, EPA‘s Inspector
General (IG) recommended improvements to the program and identified
lessons learned for EPA‘s preparedness for future disasters. In 2004,
EPA formed an expert panel to, among other goals, guide EPA in
developing a second voluntary program; EPA announced this program in
2006.
As requested, GAO‘s report primarily addresses EPA‘s second program,
including the (1) extent to which EPA incorporated IG and expert panel
member recommendations and input; (2) factors, if any, limiting the
expert panel‘s ability to meet its goals; (3) completeness of
information EPA provided to the public; (4) way EPA estimated resources
for the program; and (5) extent to which EPA has acted upon lessons
learned regarding indoor contamination from disasters.
What GAO Found:
EPA has incorporated some recommendations and input from the IG and
expert panel members into its second program, but its decision not to
include other items may limit the overall effectiveness of this
program. For example, while EPA agreed to test for more contaminants,
it did not agree to evaluate risks in areas north of Canal Street and
in Brooklyn. EPA reported that it does not have a basis for expanding
the boundaries of its program because it cannot distinguish between
normal urban, or background, dust and WTC dust.
The expert panel‘s ability to meet its goals was limited by two
factors: (1) EPA officials‘ belief that some panel goals were more
appropriately addressed by other agencies, and (2) EPA‘s approach to
managing the panel process. Furthermore, the majority of expert panel
members believe the panel did not meet any of its goals, and that EPA‘s
second program does not respond to the concerns of residents and
workers affected by the disaster.
EPA‘s second plan does not fully inform the public about the results of
its first program. EPA concluded that a ’very small“ number of samples
from its first program exceeded risk levels for airborne asbestos.
However, EPA did not provide information such as how representative the
samples were of the affected area. Residents who could have
participated in this voluntary second program might have opted not to
do so because of EPA‘s conclusion about its first program.
EPA did not develop a comprehensive cost estimate to determine the
resources needed to carry out its second program. EPA is implementing
this program with $7 million remaining from its first program.
While EPA has acted upon lessons learned following this disaster, some
concerns remain about its preparedness to respond to indoor
contamination following future disasters. Specifically, EPA has not
developed protocols on how and when to collect data to determine the
extent of indoor contamination, one of the concerns raised by panel
members.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that EPA develop (1) guidance on crisis communication,
(2) guidelines on cost estimates for disaster response, and (3)
protocols specific to indoor contamination. EPA stated that it is
taking actions on these recommendations.
[hyperlink, www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1091].
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact John B. Stephenson at
(202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov.
[End of Section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
EPA Incorporated Some Recommendations, but It Did Not Adopt Other
Input, Which May Limit the Second Program's Effectiveness:
Two Factors Limited the Expert Panel's Ability to Meet Its Goals:
EPA Did Not Provide the Public with Complete Information to Make Fully
Informed Decisions:
EPA Did Not Assess Resource Needs for the Second Program:
EPA Has Taken Preparedness Actions, but Some Concerns Remain:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Information Classified by the Environmental Protection
Agency Does Not Address the World Trade Center:
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix III: Comparison of EPA's First and Second Indoor Programs:
Appendix IV: Questions and Responses to the Structured Interview
Questions for the Expert Panel:
Appendix V: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
GAO Comments:
Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Table:
Table 1: EPA Classification Decisions Pursuant to Executive Order 12958:
Figures:
Figure 1: Collapse of WTC Building 1 at Approximately 10:30 a.m. on
September 11, 2001:
Figure 2: Collapsed WTC Towers on September 11, 2001:
Figure 3: EPA's 2002-2003 Indoor Clean and Test Program Boundaries in
Lower Manhattan:
Figure 4: Timeline of EPA's WTC Indoor Contamination Activities:
Figure 5: Key Recommendations and Additional Input Regarding EPA's
Second WTC Indoor Test and Clean Program:
Figure 6: Expert Panel Members Who Viewed the Panel As Somewhat or Very
Unsuccessful, or Neither Successful Nor Unsuccessful, at Meeting Its
Goals:
Abbreviations:
AEGL: acute exposure guideline level:
AHERA: Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act: ATSDR: Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry: CBR: chemical, biological, and
radiological: CEQ: Council on Environmental Quality: CLC: Community-
Labor Coalition:
DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
EBAM: electronic beta attenuation monitor: EPA: Environmental
Protection Agency:
EPIC: Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center: ERAMS:
environmental radiation ambient monitoring system: ERT: Environmental
Response Team:
ESF: emergency support function:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency: HEPA: high efficiency
particulate air: HHS: Department of Health and Human Services: HVAC:
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning: MMVF: man-made vitreous
fibers:
NHSRC: National Homeland Security Research Center: NIOSH: National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health: ORD: Office of Research
and Development: OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration:
PAL: provisional advisory level:
Stafford Act: Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency
Assistance Act: TSP: total suspended particulate:
WTC: World Trade Center:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
September 5, 2007:
The Honorable Hillary Clinton:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health: Committee
on Environment and Public Works: United States Senate:
The Honorable Carolyn Maloney:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler:
House of Representatives:
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
turned Lower Manhattan into a disaster site on a scale the nation had
never experienced. The World Trade Center was a complex of seven
buildings on 16 acres surrounding a 5-acre plaza. The twin towers were
at the center of the complex. Each tower had 110 floors, with
approximately 43,200 square feet on each floor. As the towers
collapsed, the area was blanketed in a mixture of building debris and
combustible materials that coated building exteriors and streets, as
well as the interiors of apartments and offices, with dust. This
complex mixture gave rise to another major concern: that thousands of
residents and workers in the area would now be exposed to known hazards
in the air and in the dust, such as asbestos, lead, glass fibers, and
pulverized concrete.
On the day of the attacks, the President signed a major disaster
declaration, which activated the Federal Response Plan. The Federal
Response Plan, now replaced by the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) National Response Plan, established the process and structure for
the federal government's assistance to state and local governments when
responding to any major disaster or emergency declared under the Robert
T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford
Act).[Footnote 1] In May 2002, after numerous cleanup, dust collection,
and air monitoring activities were conducted outdoors by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), other federal agencies, New York
City, and New York State, New York City formally requested that FEMA
provide the necessary funding for the hiring of contractors to perform
the cleaning and testing of exterior and interior spaces in the
vicinity of the World Trade Center (WTC) site for asbestos that might
be present.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administered the
Federal Response Plan, provided such assistance, entering into an
interagency agreement with EPA in 2002 to develop EPA's first program.
This voluntary program allowed residents of Lower Manhattan living
south of Canal Street (representing over 20,000 residences) to elect to
have their home professionally cleaned, followed by testing, or to have
their home tested only.[Footnote 2] Approximately 20 percent of the
eligible residences participated in the program. As part of EPA's first
program, the majority of these residences were professionally cleaned
before they were sampled for airborne asbestos because their owners
selected the clean and test option rather than the test only
option.[Footnote 3] Even though samples were collected after cleaning
in most cases, some residences (less than 1 percent) were still found
to have levels of asbestos exceeding EPA's cleanup benchmark.
Owing to concerns by members of the affected community regarding its
first program, EPA developed a second program, which is the focus of
our current work.[Footnote 4] This second program was influenced by a
variety of individuals, including the EPA Inspector General and an
expert panel that EPA convened. In August 2003, EPA's Inspector General
made recommendations and provided additional input that addressed EPA's
first indoor WTC cleanup efforts, as well as EPA's preparedness for
future large-scale disasters resulting in indoor contamination. The
Inspector General reported that "additional actions can be taken to
provide greater assurances that the program is fully protective of
human health." For example, EPA's first program did not require that
entire buildings be systematically cleaned, and therefore, the
Inspector General recommended that EPA implement a program to verify
that apartments that had participated in the first program had not been
recontaminated by uncleaned apartments through heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. With regard to preparedness, the
Inspector General identified lessons learned from the WTC disaster and
recommended, among other things, that EPA develop protocols for
determining how indoor environmental contamination would be handled in
the event of a future disaster.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) indicated in
October 2003 that EPA would organize and lead an expert technical
review panel to address the concerns of the Inspector General and
others. In March 2004, EPA convened the World Trade Center Expert
Technical Review Panel, which met periodically through December 2005.
The panel included 18 individuals from academe and from city and
federal health and science agencies, such as the Department of Labor's
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS). It also included two
representatives from the Community-Labor Coalition (CLC)--a network of
community, tenant, labor, and environmental organizations formed after
September 11, 2001, to advocate for appropriate health and safety
efforts in the recovery from the WTC attacks. The panel was chaired by
an EPA official.[Footnote 5] The expert panel's broader goal or
purpose, as outlined at the first panel meeting by the EPA chairman,
was to advise EPA "on ongoing efforts to monitor the situation for New
York City residents and workers potentially affected by the collapse of
the WTC." This purpose included providing advice on the development of
EPA's second program plan. The panel chairman also provided the
following longer-term goals: (1) identify any remaining risks using
exposure and health surveillance information, (2) identify unmet public
health needs, and (3) determine steps to further minimize
risks.[Footnote 6] Expert panel members, including the CLC
representatives, submitted individual recommendations to EPA.
After obtaining views from many sources, including the Inspector
General, members of the expert panel, and the CLC, EPA announced its
plan for a second program in December 2006. In this 2006 plan, EPA
indicates that it will test residences for the presence of contaminants
and clean residences if test results exceed EPA's cleanup benchmarks.
The plan targets residents and building owners in the same portion of
Lower Manhattan as its first program. The plan also provides the
results of EPA's sampling from its first program. EPA told us that 272
residents and 25 building owners had enrolled in the second program,
compared with 4,167 residents and 144 building owners that participated
in the first program.
In this context, you asked us to determine (1) the extent to which EPA
incorporated recommendations and additional input from the expert panel
members and its Inspector General in its second program; (2) what
factors, if any, limited the expert panel's ability to meet its goals;
(3) the completeness of information EPA provided to the public in its
second plan; (4) the way EPA estimated the resources needed to conduct
the second program; and (5) the extent to which EPA has acted upon
lessons learned to better prepare for indoor contamination that could
result from future large-scale disasters. In June 2007, we testified on
some of these issues before the Subcommittee on Superfund and
Environmental Health, Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works.[Footnote 7] In addition, owing to concerns raised in the media
about EPA's use of classification authority, you asked that we
determine the extent to which EPA has classified information, and, if
so, whether any classified information discusses the environmental
impact of the towers' collapse. Appendix I provides the results of our
analysis of EPA's classification of information under this authority.
In conducting our work, we reviewed, among other things, EPA's 2002-
2003 indoor program plan, EPA's planning leading to the December 2006
program plan, the 2003 EPA Inspector General report, all 13 summaries
of EPA's WTC Expert Technical Review Panel meetings and conference
calls, and funding data from EPA. We assessed the reliability of EPA's
funding data and determined that these data were sufficiently reliable
for the purposes of this report. In addition, we interviewed officials
from EPA headquarters, including the Office of Research and Development
and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response; Region 2, which
is responsible for New York City, and EPA's National Homeland Security
Research Center, among others; FEMA Region 2; and the New York City
Department of Environmental Protection. We also attended a National
Institute of Standards and Technology technical seminar on WTC
materials and observed the disaster area with a FEMA official. In
addition, we conducted structured interviews with all 18 WTC Expert
Technical Review Panel members and both EPA panel chairmen. A more
detailed description of our scope and methodology is presented in
appendix II. We performed our work from June 2006 to September 2007 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
While EPA has taken some actions to incorporate recommendations and
additional input from the Inspector General and expert panel members
into its second program, it did not incorporate other items, which may
limit the overall effectiveness of its program. For example, EPA's
second program expands the number of contaminants tested from only
asbestos to three additional contaminants, and it includes tests of
dust as well as the air. However, EPA's program does not expand the
boundaries of the cleanup to north of Canal Street and to Brooklyn. EPA
reported it was unable to develop a method for distinguishing between
normal urban dust and WTC dust; therefore, the agency reported it could
not assess the extent of WTC contamination and had no basis for
expanding the cleanup effort. EPA did not begin examining methods for
differentiating between normal urban, or background, dust and WTC dust
until May 2004--nearly 3 years after the disaster--making the process
for distinguishing between the two types of dust more difficult. In
addition, EPA's second program does not include sampling in HVACs or
"inaccessible" locations within apartments and common areas, such as
behind dishwashers, because EPA only included these efforts when it
planned to determine the extent of contamination. The agency's second
program plan notes that because EPA is not able to assess the extent of
WTC contamination and because it is attempting to devote the maximum
resources to testing requests, EPA will not test in these locations.
Testing in such a restricted manner makes evaluating the adequacy of
cleanup efforts difficult. Moreover, according to EPA officials, this
program does not test workplaces because other federal agencies have
procedures to address worker safety.
Two factors limited the expert panel's ability to meet its goals: (1)
EPA officials' belief that some panel goals were more appropriately
addressed by other agencies and (2) EPA's approach to managing the
panel process. With respect to the first issue, EPA was acting in
response to a CEQ letter indicating that EPA would convene a panel to
identify unmet public health needs. However, EPA believed that other
federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services,
were better equipped to address public health. Therefore, rather than
having the expert panel members discuss and recommend actions to
address this issue, EPA allowed time during panel meetings for public
health presentations. EPA believed that these presentations allowed the
panel to satisfy CEQ's request. While the expert panel members listened
to these presentations, the majority of them told us that the panel did
not successfully identify unmet public health needs. As to the second
issue, in the view of expert panel members, EPA's management of the
panel process was problematic in several ways. Specifically, EPA did
not allow the panel to reach consensus on key issues and prepare a
final report. Instead, EPA solicited individual recommendations and,
according to the majority of panel members, did not have a fully
transparent process for adopting or rejecting these recommendations.
EPA did not have the panel reach consensus because this approach might
limit individual contributions. In addition, several expert panel
members told us that EPA dedicated half or less of each daylong panel
meeting to technical discussion, instead devoting the remainder of each
day to public comment. As a result of these and other factors, the
majority of expert panel members do not believe the panel successfully
met any of its goals. Furthermore, all 10 panel members who responded
to a follow-up inquiry believe that EPA's second program is not
responsive to the concerns of residents and workers impacted by the
collapse of the WTC towers.
EPA did not fully disclose in its second plan the limitations in the
testing results from its first program. This more complete information
would have allowed the public to make informed choices about
participation in its most recent voluntary program. EPA concluded in
its second plan that a "very small" number of samples from its first
program exceeded risk levels for airborne asbestos but did not explain
that over 80 percent of the samples were taken after residences were
professionally cleaned as part of EPA's program. In addition, EPA did
not explain that its conclusion was based on participation from 20
percent of the eligible residences and that, due to the voluntary
nature of the program, the sample of apartments may not have been
representative of all residences eligible for the program. Without this
additional information, some eligible residents of Lower Manhattan may
have concluded that they were not at risk from indoor contamination and
therefore elected not to participate in the second program.
Rather than estimate the resources needed to carry out its second
program, EPA is implementing this program with the $7 million remaining
from the first program. According to EPA officials, it would have been
difficult to estimate program costs without knowing the number of
participants as well as the size of apartments, which vary widely
throughout Lower Manhattan. While EPA agreed to increase the number and
type of contaminants being sampled in the second program, available
funding is less than 20 percent of what was spent on the first program.
In its final plan, EPA noted that it would prioritize requests for
participation based on proximity to the WTC site.
EPA has acted upon lessons learned about its preparedness following the
WTC disaster, but we are uncertain about how completely EPA has laid
the groundwork for effective response to indoor contamination following
future disasters. For example, EPA has identified likely threats and
developed approaches to address them and has had an ongoing effort to
clarify internal roles and responsibilities. EPA officials told us that
they will use the National Response Plan in the future to guide their
response actions following disasters and that they will develop site-
specific responses; however, the National Response Plan does not
explicitly address indoor contamination. Furthermore, EPA has not
resolved some outstanding issues raised by expert panel members after
the WTC disaster, such as how and when to collect data to determine the
extent of indoor contamination, which we believe are important for
addressing future disasters. Without clarifying actions that are
appropriate for each federal agency in these scenarios, important
public health needs, including resident and worker health, may not be
promptly addressed.
To enhance EPA's ability to provide complete and clear information to
the public and decision makers and to ensure that EPA is better
prepared for future disasters that involve indoor contamination, we are
recommending that EPA (1) facilitate the implementation of the agency's
recently issued Crisis Communication Plan by issuing guidance that
ensures the presentation of environmental data, such as testing
results, in an appropriate context, with appropriate technical caveats
noted in plain language; (2) establish guidelines for developing
program cost estimates for disaster response programs; and (3) develop
protocols that specifically address indoor contamination.
In commenting on a draft of this report, EPA's Assistant Administrator
for Research and Development and Assistant Administrator for Solid
Waste and Emergency Response identified actions that EPA has begun
taking that are responsive to these recommendations. EPA also provided
comments on aspects of the report it considered misleading or
inaccurate, such as the completeness of information EPA provided to the
public. We continue to believe that EPA did not include appropriate
caveats in its second program plan that articulated the limitations in
the first program's results. For example, EPA did not explain in its
second plan that 20 percent of eligible residents participated in its
first program and, therefore, the results may not have been
representative of all residences. We believe that the report offers a
balanced portrayal of EPA's development of its second program, the
expert panel process, and its actions to better prepare for future
disasters. EPA also provided technical comments, which we incorporated
as appropriate. EPA's letter and our detailed response to it appear in
appendix V.
Background:
On the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the
President's declaration of a major disaster under the Stafford Act
activated the Federal Response Plan (superseded by and incorporated
into the National Response Plan). The Federal Response Plan established
the process and structure for the federal government to provide
assistance to state and local governments when responding to major
disasters and emergencies declared under the Stafford Act. Under the
Federal Response Plan, FEMA coordinated this assistance through mission
assignments and interagency agreements, which assigned specific tasks
to federal agencies with the expertise necessary to complete them. The
Congress authorized $20 billion to respond to the attacks, of which
$8.8 billion was provided through FEMA, for the New York City area.
Under the Federal Response Plan (and the National Response Plan today),
EPA served as coordinator during large-scale disasters for 1 of 15
emergency support functions (ESF)--ESF 10, which addresses oil and
hazardous material releases. ESF 10 encompasses various phases of
hazardous material response, including assessment and cleanup. In the
first 6 months after the WTC disaster, EPA responded to FEMA mission
assignments to assist with the response efforts and, among other tasks,
provided wash stations for responders and disposed of waste from the
WTC site.
There are an estimated 330 office buildings in Lower Manhattan below
Canal Street and roughly 900 residential buildings with approximately
20,000 apartments. In 2002, after initial efforts by the city of New
York to advise New York residents how to clean the World Trade Center
dust in their homes, FEMA and EPA entered into an interagency agreement
to address indoor spaces affected by the disaster. While EPA has
responded to hazardous material releases for decades, the WTC disaster
was the first large-scale emergency for which EPA provided testing and
cleanup in indoor spaces.
WTC dust is a fine mixture of materials that resulted from the collapse
and subsequent burning of the twin towers and includes pulverized
concrete, asbestos, and glass fibers. WTC dust entered homes and
offices through open windows, was tracked in, or was picked up by air-
conditioning system intakes. Figures 1 and 2 show the dust generated by
the WTC disaster.
Figure 1: Collapse of WTC Building 1 at Approximately 10:30 a.m. on
September 11, 2001:
[See PDF for image]
Source: New York Police Department Photo Unit.
[End of figure]
Figure 2: Collapsed WTC Towers on September 11, 2001:
[See PDF for image]
Source: New York Police Department Photo Unit.
[End of figure]
The amount of dust in indoor spaces in and around Lower Manhattan
varied due to a variety of factors, including distance from the WTC
site; weather conditions, such as wind; and damage to individual
buildings. In the years since the disaster, the level of WTC dust in
indoor spaces has varied, depending upon the cleaning performed by
residents and other groups, including EPA and professional cleaning
companies.
In May 2002, EPA, New York City, and FEMA officials announced a
program, to be overseen by EPA, offering a cleanup of residences in
Lower Manhattan. Between September 2002 and May 2003, residences were
cleaned and tested, or tested only, for airborne asbestos.[Footnote 8]
EPA analyzed samples from 4,167 apartments in 453 buildings and 793
common areas in 144 buildings. This program cost $37.9 million--$30.4
million for indoor cleaning and testing by the New York City Department
of Environmental Protection and $7.5 million for EPA oversight and
sample analysis. Figure 3 shows the area in Lower Manhattan eligible
for participation in EPA's program. Residents could choose either an
aggressive or modified aggressive testing method for providing samples
of indoor air to EPA. For the modified aggressive method, the
contractor ran a 20-inch fan for the duration of testing. For the
aggressive method, a leaf blower was used, in addition to the 20-inch
fan, to direct a jet of air toward corners, walls, fabric surfaces, and
the ceiling to dislodge and resuspend dust. The contractors HEPA
vacuumed and wet-wiped hard surfaces,[Footnote 9] including floors,
ceilings, ledges, trims, furnishings, appliances, and equipment; and
they HEPA vacuumed soft surfaces, such as curtains, two times. In
addition, in cases where there were still significant amounts of WTC
dust and debris, contractors used asbestos abatement procedures such as
the use of personal protective equipment, including respirators and a
properly enclosed decontamination system; posting of warning signs;
isolation barriers to seal off openings; and disposal of all waste
generated during the cleaning in accordance with applicable rules and
regulations for asbestos-containing waste.
Figure 3: EPA's 2002-2003 Indoor Clean and Test Program Boundaries in
Lower Manhattan:
[See PDF for image]
Source: EPA and GAO.
[End of figure]
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry (ATSDR) collected samples from in and around 30
buildings in Lower Manhattan from November though December 2001. In
September 2002, these agencies released their assessment of the
public's exposure to contaminants in air and dust,[Footnote 10]
recommended additional monitoring of residential spaces in Lower
Manhattan, and referred residents to EPA's program.
Before EPA finalized its second indoor program plan, several
assessments related to indoor contamination were conducted: an August
2003 EPA Inspector General report; an expert technical review panel
that EPA conducted from March 2004 through December 2005; and three EPA
studies. The studies identified background levels of contamination in
New York City ("background study"); the WTC-related contaminants of
potential concern, and associated cleanup benchmarks ("COPC study");
and the efficacy of various cleaning methods in eliminating WTC-related
contaminants of concern ("cleaning study").
During the time EPA met with the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel,
some expert panel members encouraged EPA to develop a method for
differentiating between contaminants found in the New York City urban
environment and those found in WTC dust. This method would have served
as the basis for determining the extent of WTC-related contamination,
and EPA officials believed it would have enabled the agency to limit
its focus to contamination specific to the WTC disaster. Early in the
panel process, EPA formed a subpanel of these experts to assist EPA's
Office of Research and Development in developing such a methodology. In
August 2005, EPA released its final report describing its methodology,
which was peer reviewed. In their October 2005 final report, the peer
reviewers criticized the reliability of EPA's method and provided
suggestions on improving EPA's approach. In a November 2005 letter, EPA
officials told expert panel members that in the absence of a valid
method, EPA could not definitively distinguish between WTC contaminants
in dust and levels of the same contaminants found in an urban
environment. At the same time, 2 weeks before the final panel meeting,
the EPA chairman informed the panel that it would be disbanded as of
the final meeting and that EPA would not be implementing a plan that
included determining the extent of WTC contamination. Experts that were
a part of the subpanel addressing this method reported that the peer-
review comments could be addressed and that EPA should perform
additional sampling. Nonetheless, EPA ultimately decided not to pursue
developing this methodology. Figure 4 shows the chronology of events
preceding the second program.
Figure 4: Timeline of EPA's WTC Indoor Contamination Activities:
[See PDF for image]
[A] EPA's registration period ended in March 2007, and on June 18,
2007, EPA began implementing the program.
Source: GAO analysis of EPA data; photos (top to bottom); NYPD Photo
Unit; Federal Emergency Managment Agency; Dr. Lung Chi Chen, New York
University.
[End of figure]
In January 2006, EPA formally requested funds from FEMA. EPA and FEMA
signed an interagency agreement to conduct EPA's second program in July
2006, and EPA announced the agency's second program to test indoor
spaces in Lower Manhattan in December 2006. Appendix III provides
information regarding EPA's first and second indoor programs.
EPA Incorporated Some Recommendations, but It Did Not Adopt Other
Input, Which May Limit the Second Program's Effectiveness:
In response to recommendations and additional input from the Inspector
General and expert panel members, EPA's second program incorporates
some additional testing elements. However, EPA's second program does
not incorporate other items. Figure 5 shows the key recommendations and
additional input the EPA Inspector General and expert panel members
provided to EPA.
Figure 5: Key Recommendations and Additional Input Regarding EPA's
Second WTC Indoor Test and Clean Program:
[See PDF for image]
Notes: Not all expert panel members made each recommendation.
[A] The program allows commercial building owners to request testing,
but it does not permit workers or employers to do so. EPA officials
noted that employees who have concerns about their working conditions
could file a complaint with OSHA or request an evaluation by HHS's
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
EPA Expanded the Number of Contaminants It Will Evaluate in Testing:
While EPA tested solely for airborne asbestos in order to trigger
cleanup in the first program, it agreed to test for three additional
contaminants in its second program--man-made vitreous fibers,
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and lead. These contaminants, as well
as two additional ones--dioxin and silica, were identified as WTC
contaminants of potential concern in a May 2003 report issued by EPA
and other federal, New York City, and New York state agencies.[Footnote
11] EPA did not include dioxin and silica in the second program for
several reasons. Regarding dioxin, EPA noted that concentrations were
elevated in the weeks following the disaster when fires were still
burning, but concentrations returned to predisaster levels by December
2001. Furthermore, because "only eight" of 1,500 dioxin samples
exceeded cleanup benchmarks during tests in 2002 and 2003, EPA decided
not to sample for this contaminant in its second program. Regarding
silica, EPA noted that in 2002 an ATSDR/New York City Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene report stated that short-term exposure to
silica is unlikely to cause adverse health effects and that adverse
health effects from chronic exposure are possible but unlikely if
recommended cleaning is conducted.[Footnote 12] EPA also explained that
levels of silica are likely to have been reduced by cleaning activities
over the past 3 years.
EPA also agreed to test for contaminants in dust. To do so, EPA
developed site-specific cleanup benchmarks for asbestos and man-made
vitreous fibers in dust over the course of nearly a year. In its second
program plan, EPA explains that these benchmarks are not risk based but
rather are based on, among other things, work by experts in the field
as to what constitutes contamination and how it compares with site-
specific background levels, and the benchmarks employed for cleanup at
a Superfund site with asbestos-contaminated residences.
EPA Is Not Assessing the Extent of WTC Contamination, and It Did Not
Agree to Evaluate Risk in Workplaces:
Though EPA expanded the number of contaminants tested for in its second
program, it did not adopt recommendations and additional input from the
EPA Inspector General or the expert panel that addressed the following
issues:
* Evaluating risks in geographic areas north of Canal Street and in
Brooklyn. EPA did not expand the scope of testing north of Canal
Street, or to Brooklyn, as advisory groups had advised. EPA reported it
did not expand the scope of testing because it could not differentiate
between normal urban dust and WTC dust; differentiating between the two
would have enabled EPA to determine the geographic extent of WTC
contamination. Some expert panel members had suggested that EPA
investigate whether it was feasible to develop a method for
distinguishing between normal urban dust and WTC dust. EPA initially
agreed to do so. Beginning in 2004--almost 3 years after the disaster-
-EPA conducted this investigation into developing a WTC dust signature.
However, EPA officials told us that because so much time had passed
since the terrorist attack, it was difficult to distinguish between WTC
dust and urban dust.[Footnote 13] EPA ultimately abandoned this effort
because peer reviewers questioned its methodology; EPA decided not to
explore alternative methods that some of the peer reviewers had
proposed. Instead, EPA will test only in an area where visible
contamination has been confirmed by aerial photography conducted soon
after the WTC attack, although aerial photography does not reveal
indoor contamination.[Footnote 14] Furthermore, EPA officials told us
that some WTC dust was found immediately after the terrorist attacks in
areas, including Brooklyn, that are outside the area eligible for its
first and second program.
* Testing in HVACs and inaccessible areas. In its November 2005 draft
plan for the second program, EPA had proposed collecting samples from a
number of locations in HVACs. In some buildings, HVACs are shared; in
others, each residence has its own system. In either case, contaminants
in the HVAC could recontaminate the residence unless the system is also
professionally cleaned. However, EPA's second program will not provide
for testing in HVACs under any circumstances but will offer cleaning in
HVACs if tests in common areas reveal that cleanup benchmarks for any
of four contaminants have been exceeded. EPA officials told us that EPA
will sample near HVAC outlets in common areas and will obtain dust
samples in proximity to these locations. EPA explained in the second
plan that it will not sample within HVACs because it is no longer
assessing the extent of contamination resulting from the WTC disaster
and because it is attempting to devote the maximum resources to testing
requests. Similarly, EPA had proposed sampling for contaminants in
"inaccessible" locations, such as behind dishwashers and rarely moved
furniture within apartments and common areas. Again, because it was
unable to differentiate between normal urban dust and WTC dust, EPA
stated that it would not test in inaccessible locations in order to
devote its resources to as many requests as possible. EPA told us that
272 residents and 25 building owners had enrolled in the second
program, compared with 4,167 residents and 144 building owners that
participated in the first program.[Footnote 15]
* Evaluating risks to workers/workplaces. According to EPA, its second
program plan is "the result of ongoing efforts to respond to concerns
of residents and workers." Workers were concerned that workplaces in
Lower Manhattan experienced the same contamination as residences. In
its second program, EPA will test and clean common areas in commercial
buildings, but only if an individual owner or manager of the property
requests the service. EPA stated that employees who believe their
working conditions are unsafe as a result of WTC dust may file a
complaint with OSHA or request an evaluation by HHS's National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Concerns remain,
however, because these other agencies do not have authority to conduct
cleanup in response to contaminant levels that exceed cleanup
benchmarks. In addition, OSHA's benchmarks are designed primarily to
address airborne contamination, while EPA's test and clean program is
designed to address contamination in building spaces, whether the
contamination is airborne or in settled dust. OSHA requires individual
employers to adopt work practices to reduce employee exposure to
airborne contaminants, whereas EPA's test and clean program is designed
to remove contaminants from affected spaces.
* Addressing whole buildings. Between March 2004 and December 2005,
when EPA met with expert panel members, officials discussed sampling a
representative number of each buildings' apartments in order to
"characterize the building," which would have allowed EPA to
characterize areas in Lower Manhattan. This information would have been
used to inform decision-making regarding the extent of indoor
contamination. According to EPA officials, all residents from each
building would need to volunteer their individual apartments, and EPA
would select the units it then tested. The approach that EPA developed
entailed cleaning a building, including all units, common areas and
HVACs, if there was a high degree of certainty that the average
concentration of at least one contaminant, across all apartments
tested, exceeded the benchmark, and dust could be associated with the
WTC.[Footnote 16] While this method addressed the Inspector General
recommendation that buildings be treated as a system so that
potentially contaminated apartments did not contaminate previously
cleaned apartments, EPA did not ultimately include this particular
methodology in its second program plan due to the lack of a method to
identify WTC dust. Instead, EPA will clean whole common areas, such as
lobbies, and HVACs in buildings. It will clean common areas when at
least one contaminant is found to exceed the cleanup benchmark in that
area. It will clean HVACs and common areas when there is a high degree
of certainty that the mean contaminant level for accessible areas,
infrequently accessed areas, or air samples in common areas exceeds one
contaminant benchmark.
Two Factors Limited the Expert Panel's Ability to Meet Its Goals:
The expert panel's ability to meet its goals was limited by two
factors: (1) EPA officials' belief that some panel goals were more
appropriately addressed by other agencies and (2) EPA's approach to
managing the panel process. Furthermore, the majority of expert panel
members do not believe the panel successfully met any of its goals. All
of the panel members who responded to our follow-up inquiry regarding
EPA's second program (10 out of 10 members) told us the program is not
responsive to the concerns of residents and workers affected by the
collapse of the WTC towers. Appendix IV provides the full range of
responses from structured interviews with expert panel members about
EPA's management of the panel process.
EPA Officials Believed That Some Panel Goals Were More Appropriate for
Other Agencies:
According to EPA officials, some panel goals were more appropriately
addressed by other agencies. We believe this view limited the panel's
ability to address these issues. In particular, one panel goal, as
stated by CEQ, was to advance the identification of unmet public health
needs. However, EPA officials believed that other federal agencies,
such as HHS, were better equipped to address the issue of public
health. Therefore, rather than having the expert panel members discuss
and identify actions to address this issue, EPA allowed time during
panel meetings for public health presentations. EPA officials believe
that the panel met CEQ's charge by including health experts on the
panel and by including health presentations during panel meetings.
While the panel was provided with these presentations, the majority of
expert panel members (16 out of 18) told us the panel did not
successfully identify unmet public health needs. Outside of the panel,
a multiagency effort established a WTC health registry to assess the
health impact of the WTC collapse. The EPA panel chairman noted that
panel member recommendations to maintain the WTC health registry for
more than 20 years and to link the results of subsequent indoor testing
to the registry had been provided to the appropriate agencies.
In addition, EPA officials believed that, despite the panel's broader
goal, which was to help guide EPA in its ongoing efforts to "monitor
the situation for New York residents and workers impacted by the
collapse of the WTC towers," OSHA should address the issue of workplace
safety because that is OSHA's mission. Consequently, as noted earlier,
the second program does not address workers' concerns, and employers
and workers are not eligible to request testing or cleaning.[Footnote
17] EPA stated that employees who believe their working conditions are
unsafe as a result of WTC dust may file a complaint with OSHA or
request an evaluation by HHS's National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH).
EPA's Management of the Panel Process Was Problematic, According to
Expert Panel Members:
EPA's management of the panel process limited the panel's ability to
successfully meet its goals. According to 9 or more of the 18 expert
panel members we interviewed, problematic aspects of EPA's management
included (1) the lack of a consensus approach, (2) inadequate time for
technical discussion, and (3) no fully transparent decision-making
process. In addition, a number of expert panel members told us that
failure to document recommendations created other concerns.
* Lack of a consensus approach. EPA did not allow the panel to reach
consensus on key issues and prepare a final report; instead it obtained
recommendations from each member of the expert panel. The majority of
expert panel members (13 out of 18) told us that EPA's approach was not
appropriate, and one panel member noted that the lack of a consensus
approach prevented the resolution of key issues. The EPA chairman told
the panel that the panel would not be asked to reach consensus because
this approach might limit the contribution of individual panel members.
EPA officials also noted that it would have been difficult to reach
consensus with such a diverse panel of experts and the technical nature
of the discussion.
* Inadequate time for technical discussion. The majority of expert
panel members (14 out of 18) told us there was not adequate time on the
agenda for the panel to discuss issues. According to several panel
members, EPA dedicated half or less of each daylong panel meeting to
technical discussions, devoting the remainder of each day to public
comment.
* Lack of a fully transparent decision-making process. EPA's reasons
for accepting or rejecting expert panel members' recommendations were
not at all transparent, according to half of the panel members (9 out
of 18). Furthermore, six panelists said that EPA did not respond to
their recommendations or provide any explanation for rejecting
recommendations. In contrast, the two EPA panel chairmen we interviewed
told us they believed the decision-making process was completely
transparent.
* Failure to document recommendations. Although EPA stated in its
operating principles that it would keep detailed minutes of each panel
meeting, including all individual recommendations, whether oral or
written, EPA did not maintain a list of recommendations. Instead, EPA
provided "summaries" of each meeting that included an overview of
issues raised, and, starting with the fifth meeting, EPA provided audio
recordings of six of the remaining panel meetings. The majority of
expert panel members (10 out of 18) said that having written
transcripts of the meetings available would have been somewhat or very
helpful. Some expert panel members told us the lack of transcripts
presented a problem because they had no record of EPA agreement with
several recommendations that were later not adopted.
Most Expert Panel Members Did Not Believe They Addressed the Panel's
Goals and Ultimately Did Not Agree with EPA's Final Indoor Test and
Clean Program:
The majority of expert panel members told us that the panel was unable
to meet its goals as outlined by EPA. As figure 6 shows, these included
guiding EPA in: (1) developing the second program, (2) identifying
unmet public health needs, (3) identifying any remaining risks using
exposure and health surveillance information, and (4) determining steps
to further minimize risks.
Figure 6: Expert Panel Members Who Viewed the Panel As Somewhat or Very
Unsuccessful, or Neither Successful Nor Unsuccessful, at Meeting Its
Goals:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
According to all expert panel members who responded to our follow-up
inquiry regarding EPA's second program (10 out of 10 members), this
program does not respond to the concerns of residents and workers
affected by the collapse of the WTC towers. At the final panel meeting,
some expert panel members said publicly that they would discourage
participation in EPA's program and several expert panel members said
that the data yielded by the test and clean program will not be useful
and the program is unlikely to adequately identify or clean up
contaminants. In addition, the Community-Labor Coalition distributed
information that also discouraged participation, citing lack of expert
panel member support.
EPA Did Not Provide the Public with Complete Information to Make Fully
Informed Decisions:
EPA did not provide complete information in its second plan to allow
the public to make informed choices about their participation in its
voluntary program. While EPA stated that the number of samples in its
first program exceeding risk levels for airborne asbestos was "very
small," EPA did not provide the following additional information to
help inform residents' decisions regarding participation in the second
program:
* Voluntary program participation. Participation in the first program
came from about 20 percent of the residences eligible for
participation. In addition, participation was voluntary, which may
suggest that the sample of apartments was not representative of all
residences eligible for the program.
* Only asbestos tested. EPA's conclusions were based only on tests for
asbestos, rather than other contaminants, and the conclusions focused
on airborne contamination rather than contamination in dust inside
residences.
* Sampling protocols varied. EPA did not explain that over 80 percent
of the samples were taken after professional cleaning was completed as
a part of EPA's program. In addition, EPA did not identify the portion
of the samples that were collected following aggressive, as opposed to
modified aggressive, techniques. In the first case, the air inside
apartments was more actively circulated before sampling occurred. In
these instances, about 6 percent of apartments tested were found to
exceed EPA's asbestos level, compared with roughly 1 percent that used
the modified aggressive technique. Out of 4,167 apartments sampled, 276
were sampled using the aggressive method.
* Discarded sample results. EPA also did not explain in its second
program plan that its first program's test results may have been
affected by sample results that were discarded because they were "not
cleared"--that is, they could not be analyzed because the filter had
too many dust particles to be analyzed under a microscope. However,
EPA's final report on its first program stated that residences with
more than one inconclusive result, such as filter overload, were
encouraged to have their residences recleaned and retested.
Without complete explanations of EPA's sampling data, residents who
could have elected to participate might have decided not to do so. The
number of participants declined from roughly 4,200 residents and 144
building owners in the first program to 272 residents and 25 building
owners in the second program. In addition, community leaders on the
panel believed that allowing participants to choose between two
sampling techniques, coupled with the voluntary nature of the program,
had the effect of making the overall program appear unnecessary.
EPA Did Not Assess Resource Needs for the Second Program:
EPA did not take steps to ensure that it would have adequate resources
to effectively implement the second program. Instead, EPA is
implementing this program with the approximately $7 million in Stafford
Act funds remaining after its first program. Although this program
increases the number and type of contaminants being sampled, the funds
available are less than 20 percent of those used in the first program.
EPA Is Implementing the Second Program with $7 Million and Did Not
Complete a Cost Estimate to Determine Whether This Was an Appropriate
Amount:
EPA is implementing its second program with the funding remaining after
completion of its first program--approximately $7 million--but EPA did
not determine whether this amount would support the effective
implementation of its second program. According to EPA officials, they
could not estimate the cost of the second program without information
on the number of program participants and the size of residences, which
vary widely throughout Lower Manhattan. Nevertheless, the interagency
agreement between FEMA and EPA for the first program included estimated
costs, although EPA faced the same challenges. This first estimate of
$19.6 million was based on projections for the number of eligible
residents participating in the program--specifically, 10,000 residences
requesting cleaning and 3,000 residences requesting testing only--and
included, among other things, detailed estimates for sample analysis,
equipment and supplies, and EPA salary and travel costs.
In the first program, EPA spent $7.5 million--of $19.6 million
obligated by FEMA to EPA--on program oversight and analysis of air
samples, while New York City spent approximately $30.4 million to
collect air samples and clean residences. EPA returned $12.1 million in
unspent funds to FEMA. According to FEMA officials, when the agency
learned about the establishment of the expert panel, FEMA retained $7
million for additional EPA activities. EPA officials told us that in
discussions with FEMA about whether the amount was appropriate, FEMA
responded that only $7 million was available.
In July 2006, an interagency agreement was signed by EPA and FEMA for
the second program that describes EPA's role as developing and
implementing a program to test and clean in the specified area. After
EPA entered into this agreement, EPA officials told us that if the
number of registrants for the program exceeded the number that could be
covered by the $7 million, they were unsure where additional funds
could be obtained. EPA did not provide information to FEMA in the
agreement about how many residents and building owners could
potentially be served under the program. Thirteen of the 18 expert
panel members told us they did not believe the $7 million for the
sampling and cleanup was sufficient. According to one of the expert
panel's chairmen, the $7 million was sufficient for initial sampling in
the second program but not for sampling and cleanup. In its final plan,
EPA noted that requests for participation from eligible residents and
building owners would be prioritized based on proximity to the WTC site.
Although EPA's second program increases the number and type of
contaminants being sampled, the $7 million available is less than 20
percent of the $37.9 million spent on the first program. While only 1
percent of roughly 20,000 eligible residences are participating in the
second program, compared with 20 percent who participated in the first
program, it is not clear whether funding for the second program will be
adequate without a cost estimate.
EPA Has Taken Preparedness Actions, but Some Concerns Remain:
EPA has acted upon lessons learned from the WTC disaster to prepare for
future disasters, such as clarifying internal roles and
responsibilities and improving health-related cleanup benchmarks.
Nevertheless, we are uncertain about how completely these activities
address EPA's ability to respond to contamination in indoor
environments in the face of future disasters. For example, EPA has not
yet addressed certain methodological challenges raised by expert panel
members regarding the WTC disaster, such as how it will determine the
extent of contamination, which we believe are important for addressing
future disasters. Without addressing this and other challenges, it is
uncertain whether people in affected areas will be protected adequately
from risks posed by indoor contamination stemming from future disasters.
EPA Has Taken Preparedness Actions Following the WTC Disaster:
Since the WTC disaster, EPA has taken actions to improve its ability to
respond to future disasters. However, EPA's approach to emergency
response does not differentiate between indoor and outdoor
contamination, and therefore it is difficult to determine how EPA's
preparedness actions have improved EPA's readiness to respond
specifically to indoor contamination. EPA's actions are consistent with
several Inspector General recommendations, as the following examples of
EPA's preparedness actions illustrate:
* Clarified roles and responsibilities. EPA has completed response
policies, established various specialized response teams, and conducted
training. Though not specific to indoor contamination, EPA's June 2003
National Approach to Response policy outlines EPA roles and
responsibilities in the event of future large-scale disasters. Its
October 2004 Homeland Security Strategy also notes that in the event of
a national incident, EPA has the lead responsibility for
decontaminating affected buildings and neighborhoods and for advising
and assisting public health authorities on when it is safe to return to
these areas and on what the safest disposal options for contaminants
are. EPA's National Decontamination Team provides general scientific
support and technical expertise for identifying technologies and
methods for decontaminating buildings and other infrastructure. EPA
also expanded the capabilities of its existing Environmental Response
Team (ERT), which is responsible for technological support and training
through the establishment of an additional ERT office in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Along with the Radiological Emergency Response Team and the
National Decontamination Team, these teams provide support during
emergencies. In addition, EPA officials noted that they have developed
and delivered a training course on the Incident Command System, to be
used under the National Response Plan, to 2,000 staff as well as senior
managers in all regions to provide additional guidance on roles and
responsibilities. Finally, in its newly developed Crisis Communication
Plan, EPA outlines the responsibilities of agency staff in providing
the public with information during disasters. EPA officials told us
they have added 50 on-scene coordinators to their emergency response
staff to improve preparedness and response capabilities.
* Shared information on likely targets and threats and developed
approaches to address them. EPA's Office of Research and Development
(ORD) has several efforts to develop approaches to address future
threats, including research on building decontamination, and EPA's
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response has begun to establish a
network of environmental laboratories. In 2003, EPA created the
National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC), part of ORD, to
develop expertise and products to prevent, prepare for, and recover
from public health and environmental emergencies arising from terrorist
threats and incidents. Its research focuses on five areas: threat
assessment, decontamination, water infrastructure protection, response
capability, and technology evaluation. In November 2004, NHSRC reported
on several threat scenarios for buildings and water systems;[Footnote
18] these threat scenarios guide NHSRC's research, which is focused
heavily on chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) agents. EPA
also participates on a number of interagency workgroups, including
policy coordination committees formed by the White House Homeland
Security Council; DHS work groups addressing sampling and other issues;
and FEMA work groups that address various aspects of the National
Response Plan. Although an interagency team, including EPA, has
developed tabletop exercises to respond to nationally significant
incidents, these exercises have not yet included residential
contamination. EPA has also developed standardized analytical methods
that environmental laboratories can use to analyze biological and
chemical samples during disasters caused by terrorist attacks, and the
agency has begun to establish a network of environmental laboratories
capable of analyzing CBR agents, which would benefit from these methods.
* Improved health-related benchmarks for assessing health risks in
emergencies. According to EPA officials, EPA's Office of Prevention,
Pesticides and Toxic Substances is leading the agency's participation
in developing acute exposure guideline levels (AEGL), an international
effort aimed at describing the risk resulting from rare exposure to
airborne chemicals. The AEGLs focus on exposures of 10 minutes, 30
minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, and 8 hours. To date, AEGLs have not been
developed under emergency situations; however, EPA officials told us
the availability of methodologies such as those used to derive AEGLs
make it possible to develop emergency benchmarks quickly, if necessary.
EPA is also developing subchronic exposure guidance--provisional
advisory levels (PAL)--to bridge the gap between acute exposure
durations addressed by AEGLs and the chronic lifetime exposure
guidance. EPA officials told us that NHSRC is developing this guidance
for contaminants in air and water, and it will focus on exposure
periods of 1 day, 30 days, and 2 years. EPA officials noted that, to
date, it has developed PALs for over 20 chemical agents.[Footnote 19]
In addition, EPA officials told us that the agency has completed a
method to assess risk from exposure to contaminated building surfaces
and that it is also completing guidance on how to address future
incidents involving asbestos.
* Additional monitoring capabilities. The Deputy Director of EPA's
Office of Emergency Management told us the agency has five total
suspended particulate (TSP) monitors in each region; however, these are
not real-time monitors. For real-time data monitoring, each region has
portable air monitors--Data-Rams--to provide approximate measures of
ambient particulate matter concentrations. EPA officials told us they
also have mobile monitoring labs, as well as specialized vans and
aircraft, that can be deployed during disasters to conduct monitoring.
EPA officials said they are evaluating other monitors--electronic beta
attenuation monitors (EBAM)--that have the capability to work with
higher dust loads. The Deputy Director of EPA's Office of Emergency
Management also told us that fixed near real-time radiation monitors,
part of the environmental radiation ambient monitoring system (ERAMS),
are currently being deployed at a rate of five per month at cities
across the United States.
EPA Has Not Demonstrated How It Will Overcome Methodological Challenges
Identified by Expert Panel Members to Better Respond to Future
Disasters:
While EPA has taken actions since the WTC disaster to prepare for
future incidents, it has not demonstrated how it will overcome several
methodological challenges that expert panel members identified. These
challenges include determining the extent of contamination; developing
appropriate cleanup benchmarks; and testing for contaminants that cause
acute or short-term health effects. In addition, some expert panel
members questioned EPA's reliance on visual evidence, rather than
sample data, as the primary basis for its actions, as well as its use
of the modified aggressive sampling technique.
* Assessing extent of contamination. Some expert panel members
recommended that EPA reconsider its decision to abandon its efforts to
develop a method for differentiating between normal, urban dust, and
WTC dust, which would have allowed EPA to determine the extent of WTC
contamination. Several panel members encouraged EPA to continue to
refine the method and collect applicable sample data, saying that
collecting data now could provide critical information for future
responses. EPA was unable to develop a WTC dust signature that would
have allowed it to determine the extent of WTC contamination, in part,
because of the limited number of dust samples taken immediately after
the disaster, and the length of time that elapsed between the event and
development of the signature. EPA officials told us they would need to
identify contamination signatures in responding to future disasters.
* Developing cleanup benchmarks. Some expert panel members also
expressed concerns regarding the cleanup benchmarks that EPA developed
in response to the WTC disaster. Some expert panel members agreed with
the concept of dividing sampled spaces into categories, such as
accessible and inaccessible areas, with associated cleanup benchmarks;
however, these panel members disagreed with how EPA defined the
categories. For example, an expert panel member noted that children
access areas under beds, which were not considered "accessible" by
EPA's definitions, and workers such as telecommunications technicians
and housing inspectors access areas defined by EPA as "inaccessible" on
a daily basis. In addition, expert panel members disagreed with some
cleanup benchmarks that EPA developed for the various categories. For
example, two panel members asserted that EPA's proposed cleanup
benchmark for man-made vitreous fibers was not stringent enough. While
EPA then changed the benchmark for man-made vitreous fibers in
inaccessible areas from 100,000 fibers/cm2 to 50,000 fibers/cm2, EPA
has not demonstrated how it will determine appropriate cleanup
benchmarks for future indoor contamination events.
* Testing for contaminants with acute effects. An expert panel member
questioned whether it was appropriate for EPA to focus on contaminants
that could cause future long-term health problems, rather than those
that could cause immediate problems. At a subsequent meeting, an expert
panel member also noted that it would be useful to identify the
contaminants causing acute health effects in the affected population.
* Relying on visual evidence. Some expert panel members questioned
EPA's reliance on visual evidence rather than on sample data during its
two programs. For example, during the first program, in response to
requests from building owners, EPA "visually" evaluated some HVAC
systems rather than obtaining wipe samples. When EPA decided to clean
28 of the 116 HVACs, the reinspection was also visual. In addition,
some expert panel members questioned EPA's reliance on aerial photos as
primary support for assigning boundaries to its first and second
program because not all contaminants are visible.
* Using the modified aggressive sampling technique. Some expert panel
members questioned EPA's use of the modified aggressive sampling
technique. The number of samples exceeding cleanup benchmarks was
greater when the aggressive sampling technique was used. EPA's
rationale for departing from the technique specified by the Asbestos
Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) is that the aggressive technique
does not appropriately represent conditions of human exposure in a
residence.
EPA has not identified in its protocols how these methodological
concerns can be overcome, such as how and when data collection will
occur, in order to facilitate determining the extent of contamination.
Without clarifying actions that are appropriate for EPA and other
federal agencies in these scenarios, important determinations about
risk from disaster-related contamination may not be promptly addressed.
Conclusions:
Shortcomings in EPA's second program to test and clean residences for
WTC contamination raise questions about the agency's preparedness for
addressing indoor contamination resulting from future disasters. With
respect to communication, the public relies on EPA to provide accurate
and complete information about environmental hazards that may affect
them. However, in announcing its plan for the second program, EPA did
not fully disclose the limitations of its earlier test results.
Consequently, some eligible residents of Lower Manhattan may have
concluded that they were not at risk from contaminated dust and
therefore elected not to participate in the second program.
EPA did not develop a cost estimate to support its use of available
Stafford Act funds for its second program. Without this information,
EPA and other decision makers could not know how many residents and
building owners could potentially be served by the program. Given
limited federal disaster response funds and competing priorities, the
federal government must carefully consider how best to allocate these
monies to be sure that these funds are used most cost effectively. In
the future, unless officials justify the Stafford Act funds necessary
for achieving program objectives prior to implementation, EPA will not
have a sound basis for securing needed funds and, as a result, may be
forced to scale back its programs in ways that limit their
effectiveness.
Moreover, EPA has reported that it faced several challenges in
addressing WTC indoor contamination, including limited indoor sampling
protocols, health benchmarks, and background data for urban areas. In
addition, since the National Response Plan does not explicitly address
indoor contamination, it is unclear how EPA, in concert with other
agencies--including the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and
Human Services, and Labor--will address these challenges. Unless these
agencies establish an approach for responding to indoor contamination,
the nation may face the same challenges after future disasters.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To enhance EPA's ability to provide environmental health risk
information to the public that is complete and readily understandable,
we recommend that the Administrator of EPA facilitate the
implementation of the recently issued Crisis Communication Plan by
issuing guidance that, among other things, ensures the presentation of
environmental data in an appropriate context, with appropriate
technical caveats noted in plain language.
To provide decision makers with a sound basis for the Stafford Act
funds needed for future disaster response programs, we recommend that
the Administrator of EPA establish guidelines for developing program
cost estimates. These cost estimates should support the programs'
objectives and promote the efficient and effective use of government
resources.
To ensure that EPA is better prepared for future disasters that involve
indoor contamination and that it captures important information that
could guide future cleanup decisions, we recommend that the
Administrator of EPA, in concert with the Departments of Homeland
Security, Health and Human Services, and Labor, and other appropriate
federal agencies, develop protocols or memorandums of understanding
under the National Response Plan that specifically address indoor
contamination. These protocols should define when the extent of
contamination is to be determined, as well as how and when indoor
cleanups are to be conducted. EPA should seek additional statutory
authority if it determines that such additional authority is necessary.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In commenting on a draft of this report, EPA's Assistant Administrator
for Research and Development and Assistant Administrator for Solid
Waste and Emergency Response identified actions that EPA has begun
taking that are responsive to these recommendations. EPA also provided
comments on aspects of the report it considered misleading or
inaccurate, such as our characterization of the Expert Technical Review
Panel process, including the panel's goals. Though EPA preferred that
we present the charges identified by CEQ, we reported the goals that
EPA provided directly to the expert panel at its first meeting, and we
believe this accurately characterizes the priorities that EPA
established for the panel. In addition, EPA asserted that the report
creates a misleading impression that EPA did not fully disclose the
limitations of test results from its first program. EPA refers to an
appendix in its second plan, which includes a discussion of EPA's
methodology; raw data, such as the total number of samples taken; and
the results of sampling efforts, but does not include a discussion of
the factors that may have influenced these results. We continue to
believe that EPA did not include appropriate caveats that clearly
articulated the limitations in the results in its discussion, such as
that 20 percent of eligible residents participated and, therefore, the
results may not have been representative of all residences. We believe
that the report offers a balanced portrayal of EPA's development of its
second program, the expert panel process, and EPA's actions to better
prepare for future disasters. EPA also provided technical comments,
which we incorporated as appropriate. EPA's letter and our detailed
response to it appear in appendix V.
We are sending copies of this report to the Administrator, EPA;
appropriate congressional committees; and other interested parties. In
addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web
site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you have any questions about this report or need additional
information, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or
stephensonj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional
Relations and of Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this
report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix VI.
Signed by:
John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Information Classified by the Environmental Protection
Agency Does Not Address the World Trade Center:
Since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was given the authority
to classify information in May 2002, it has classified information in
three documents. However, none of these documents address the World
Trade Center (WTC) or the environmental impact of its destruction.
EPA Received Authority to Classify Information Related to National
Security in May 2002:
In May 2002, through Executive Order 12958, the President gave the EPA
Administrator the authority to classify information as
"Secret."[Footnote 20] Section 1.4 of the executive order, as
amended,[Footnote 21] prescribes a uniform system for classifying,
safeguarding, and declassifying national security information,
including information relating to defense against transnational
terrorism. It also identifies the types of information that should be
considered for classification: military plans, weapon systems, and
operations; foreign government information; intelligence activities,
sources, and methods, and cryptology; scientific, technological, and
economic matters relating to the national security, which includes
defense against transnational terrorism; U.S. programs for safeguarding
nuclear materials and facilities; vulnerabilities and capabilities of
systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, and
protection services relating to the national security, which includes
defense against transnational terrorism; and weapons of mass
destruction.
The executive order also describes several different classification
types and levels. Original classification refers to the classification
of information that has not already been classified by another
authority. Derivative classification refers to the classification of a
document that uses information that has already been classified. The
levels of classification--"Top Secret," "Secret," or "Confidential"--
refer to the severity of national security damage that disclosure of
the information would result in.
EPA Originally Classified Information in Three Documents:
Since it received its classification authority in May 2002, EPA has
originally classified information in three documents, according to
EPA's review of classified information, and identified 51 documents
with derivative classification. This assessment concurs with our review
of National Archives program data, as table 2 shows.
Table 1: EPA Classification Decisions Pursuant to Executive Order 12958:
Original classification:
Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 1;
Fiscal year: 2005: 2;
Fiscal year: 2006: 0;
Total: 3.
Original classification: Top secret;
Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 0;
Fiscal year: 2006: 0;
Total: 0.
Original classification: Secret;
Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 1;
Fiscal year: 2006: 0;
Total: 1.
Original classification: Confidential; Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 1;
Fiscal year: 2005: 1;
Fiscal year: 2006: 0;
Total: 2.
Derivative classification:
Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 5;
Fiscal year: 2006: 46;
Total: 51.
Derivative classification: Top secret; Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 0;
Fiscal year: 2006: 8;
Total: 8.
Derivative classification: Secret;
Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 3;
Fiscal year: 2006: 21;
Total: 24.
Derivative classification: Confidential; Fiscal year: 2001: 0;
Fiscal year: 2002: 0;
Fiscal year: 2003: 0;
Fiscal year: 2004: 0;
Fiscal year: 2005: 2;
Fiscal year: 2006: 17;
Total: 19.
Source: National Archives.
[End of table]
In information that EPA submitted to the National Archives, it
explained that, although EPA did not originally classify information in
any documents in fiscal year 2006, the three documents containing
originally classified information significantly increased the number of
derivative classification decisions made by EPA because subsequent
documents included the originally classified information.
Information EPA Originally Classified Does Not Concern the
Environmental Impact of the WTC Collapse:
EPA has not classified any WTC information, including environmental
information, according to our review of the three documents that EPA
has classified. According to nonclassified portions of these three
documents, they discuss threat scenarios for buildings, water systems
and drinking water infrastructure, and water decontamination.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
We were asked to determine (1) the extent to which the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) incorporated recommendations and additional
input from the expert panel and its Inspector General in its second
program; (2) what factors, if any, limited the expert panel's ability
to meet its goals; (3) the completeness of information EPA provided to
the public in its second plan; (4) the way EPA estimated the resources
needed to conduct the second program; and (5) the extent to which EPA
has acted upon lessons learned to better prepare for indoor
contamination that could result from future large-scale disasters. In
addition, owing to concerns raised in the media about EPA's use of
classification authority, we were asked to determine the extent to
which EPA has classified information, and, if so, whether any
classified information discusses the environmental impact of the
towers' collapse.
To examine EPA's actions to incorporate recommendations and additional
input from the expert panel and its Inspector General, we reviewed four
Inspector General recommendations on EPA's test and clean program; all
13 WTC Expert Technical Review Panel meeting summaries, which included
input from the WTC Community-Labor Coalition representatives to the
panel and other panel members; and EPA's 2002-2003 indoor test and
clean program plan and all drafts leading to the 2006 program plan. We
analyzed the December 2006 Final Test and Clean Plan to determine
whether EPA had incorporated individual panel member and Inspector
General input. We relied upon EPA's summaries of the panel meetings to
obtain information on individual panel member input because EPA did not
have a comprehensive list of panel recommendations. We also conducted
interviews with EPA officials from headquarters (Washington, D.C.) and
Region 2 (New York City) to identify actions EPA took to incorporate
the expert panel and Inspector General input into the test and clean
program plan. Finally, we conducted structured interviews with all 18
expert panel members, as well as the two chairs of the WTC Expert
Technical Review Panel. The expert panel members included community
representatives, local and federal government officials from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Labor's
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the New York City's
Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene, and nongovernment members.
To determine the factors that affected the expert panel's ability to
meet its goals, we conducted structured interviews with all 18 WTC
expert panel members, as well as the two former EPA Assistant
Administrators for the Office of Research and Development who chaired
the panel. We analyzed expert panel member and panel chair responses to
both qualitative and quantitative questions in order to describe the
panel process and obtain information on EPA's management of the
process. In follow-up correspondence, we asked panel members whether
EPA's second program was responsive to the concerns of residents and
workers; we were only able to obtain 10 panel member responses. We also
reviewed all 13 panel meeting summaries and reviewed selected video or
audio recordings of meetings.
To evaluate the completeness of information EPA provided to the public
in its second plan, we reviewed EPA's 2002-2003 program plan and all
drafts leading to the December 2006 program plan, information on
testing data included on EPA's Web site, the 2003 EPA Inspector General
report, and all 13 summaries of EPA's Expert Technical Review Panel
meetings.
To examine EPA efforts to estimate the resources needed to conduct the
second program, we obtained and analyzed funding documentation,
including interagency agreements between FEMA and EPA, as well as
documentation related to funding and expenditure data for the WTC
indoor test and clean program. We found discrepancies in the data EPA
and FEMA provided. We assessed the reliability of expenditure data
received from EPA but were unable to assess the reliability of
expenditure data provided by FEMA. We assessed the reliability of the
EPA expenditure data by interviewing officials knowledgeable about the
data and reviewing existing information about the data and the system
that produced them. We determined that EPA's funding data were
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our review. We also
interviewed agency officials to gather information on EPA's
expenditures, its plans to spend funding, and whether EPA plans to seek
additional funds.
To examine the extent to which EPA has acted upon lessons learned for
addressing indoor contamination resulting from future large-scale
disasters, we interviewed officials from EPA headquarters, including
the Office of Research and Development and the Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response; from Region 2, which is responsible for New
York City; and from EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center,
among others. We compared EPA's activities with the Inspector General's
recommendations on preparedness and with recommendations in EPA's
Lessons Learned in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001.[Footnote 22] We
also attended a National Institute of Standards and Technology
technical seminar on WTC materials and observed the disaster area with
a FEMA official.
To determine the extent to which EPA has classified information, and,
if so, whether any classified information discusses the environmental
impact of the towers' collapse, we requested a statement from EPA on
(1) whether any EPA officials, including former EPA Administrators,
authorized by Executive Order 12958 to classify information as secret
have done so since the executive order was promulgated; and (2) whether
any of the classified information pertains to the environmental impact
of the WTC collapse, including the indoor test and clean program,
contaminants of potential concern, or geographic boundaries, that are
relevant to EPA's approach to addressing indoor contamination. After
EPA responded, we requested access to and we reviewed all classified
information to determine whether it was related to the WTC disaster. In
addition, we obtained and reviewed data from the National Archives to
determine the number of documents EPA has classified since receiving
authority to do so. Appendix I provides the results of our analysis of
EPA's classification of information under this authority.
We performed our work between June 2006 and September 2007 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comparison of EPA's First and Second Indoor Programs:
Table 2:
Activity: Agency roles;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003): New
York City Department of Environmental Protection:
* entered into contracts for cleaning and monitoring, as well as for a
hotline to register residents for the program; EPA:
* provided oversight of cleaning and testing and contracted for the
analysis of samples collected by cleaning and monitoring contractors;
Lower Manhattan indoor dust test and clean program (December 2006): EPA
only.
Activity: Contaminants tested;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003):
Air[A]:
* asbestos;
Lower Manhattan indoor dust test and clean program (December 2006): Air:
* asbestos;
* man-made vitreous fibers (MMVF);
Dust:
* asbestos;
* MMVF;
* polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons;
* lead.
Activity: Sampling;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003): Air
samples taken:
* 4,167 residential units[B];
* 28,702 total samples;
* 22,497 residential samples;
* 6,205 common area samples;
Lower Manhattan indoor dust test and clean program (December 2006):
Registrants:
* 272 residents and 25 building owners registered and filled out
necessary paperwork to have sampling and, if necessary, cleanup
conducted.
Activity: Cleaning;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003):
Residents were offered a choice of services: either to have their
residence professionally cleaned, followed by confirmatory testing, or
to have testing only:
* 3,403 residential units cleaned;
* 144 buildings' common areas cleaned; Lower Manhattan indoor dust test
and clean program (December 2006): In general, a cleanup will be
offered if a benchmark for any contaminant is exceeded in any unit or
building common area tested. EPA will conduct surveys to determine if
contamination levels exceeding benchmarks may be attributed to sources
within or adjacent to the place of business or residence. This
information will be considered with information on building cleaning
history to determine whether additional sampling or further cleaning
will be offered.
Activity: Program boundaries;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003):
* below Canal Street and west of Allen and Pike Streets based on the
EPIC visual[C]; Lower Manhattan indoor dust test and clean program
(December 2006):
* below Canal Street and west of Allen and Pike Streets based on the
EPIC visual[C].
Activity: Eligibility;
World Trade Center residential dust cleanup program (2002-2003):
* residents: owners or renters;
* residential buildings: common areas, as well as evaluation of HVAC
systems; Lower Manhattan indoor dust test and clean program (December
2006):
* residents: owners or renters;
* buildings: residential or commercial building common areas;
* employees and employers not eligible.
[A] Air samples were also analyzed for total fibers, including MMVF;
however, this did not affect cleanup decisions. In a subset of
residences, pre-and post-cleanup dust wipe samples were collected and
analyzed for dioxin, mercury, lead, and 21 other metals. This included
over 1,500 samples from 263 residences and 157 buildings.
[B] Depending on the size of the residence, three to five air samples
were collected.
[C] The targeted area was based, in part, on an analysis conducted by
EPA's Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) to
determine the geographic extent of the dust and debris produced by the
collapse.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Questions and Responses to the Structured Interview
Questions for the Expert Panel:
The body of this report generally identifies expert responses to our
questions about EPA's management of the panel process. The following
tables include the full range of experts (out of 18) who responded to
these questions. The tables also indicate the number of experts who
provided no response.
Question: Was EPA's decision to obtain individual recommendations
rather than have the panel arrive at consensus appropriate?
Lack of consensus approach was appropriate; Yes: 2;
No: 13;
No response: 3.
[End of table]
Question: Did expert panel members have adequate agenda time for panel
discussion of issues?
Adequate agenda time;
Yes: 4;
No: 14;
No response: 0.
[End of table]
Question: How transparent was EPA's decision-making process behind
changes in the test and clean plan versions?
Transparency of EPA's decision-making process behind changes in the
test and clean plan; Completely transparent: 1;
Mostly transparent: 4;
Somewhat transparent: 4;
Not at all transparent: 9;
No response: 0.
[End of table]
Question: How helpful would it have been to have written transcripts of
the meetings available?
Helpfulness of written transcripts;
Very helpful: 6;
Somewhat helpful: 4;
Not helpful at all: 7;
No response: 1.
[End of table]
Question: How successful do you think the panel was in meeting each of
the following panel goals?
Goals: Identify unmet public health needs; Success meeting goals: Very
successful: 0; Success meeting goals: Somewhat successful: 1; Success
meeting goals: Neither successful nor unsuccessful: 1; Success meeting
goals: Somewhat unsuccessful: 2; Success meeting goals: Very
unsuccessful: 13; Success meeting goals: No response: 1.
Goals: Identify any remaining risks using exposure and health
surveillance information;
Success meeting goals: Very successful: 0; Success meeting goals:
Somewhat successful: 3; Success meeting goals: Neither successful nor
unsuccessful: 4; Success meeting goals: Somewhat unsuccessful: 2;
Success meeting goals: Very unsuccessful: 9; Success meeting goals: No
response: 0.
Goals: Develop EPA's second program;
Success meeting goals: Very successful: 1; Success meeting goals:
Somewhat successful: 4; Success meeting goals: Neither successful nor
unsuccessful: 1; Success meeting goals: Somewhat unsuccessful: 6;
Success meeting goals: Very unsuccessful: 5; Success meeting goals: No
response: 1.
Goals: Determine steps to further minimize risks; Success meeting
goals: Very successful: 2; Success meeting goals: Somewhat successful:
4; Success meeting goals: Neither successful nor unsuccessful: 2;
Success meeting goals: Somewhat unsuccessful: 1; Success meeting goals:
Very unsuccessful: 7; Success meeting goals: No response: 2.
[End of table]
Follow-up question: Is the Lower Manhattan Indoor Dust Test and Clean
Program Plan responsive to the concerns of residents and workers
impacted by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers?
Responsiveness of EPA's second program; Yes: 0;
No: 10;
No response: 8.
Note: Tables give the number of experts (out of 18) who indicated each
rating.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix V: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460:
AUG 21 2007:
Mr. John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: U.S. Government
Accountability Office: 441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for the opportunity to review the Draft Report entitled World
Trade Center: EPA's Most Recent Test and Clean Program Raises Concerns
That Need to Be Addressed to Better Prepare for Indoor Contamination
Following Disasters (GAO-07-1091). EPA appreciates GAO's efforts in
reviewing the substantial amount of material that EPA provided about
the Agency's response to indoor contamination related to the collapse
of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers and EPA's continuing efforts
related to disaster preparedness. However, EPA believes that the
resulting report does not present an accurate picture of the WTC Indoor
Dust Test and Clean Program (Test and Clean Program – the second
program currently underway to address concerns about potential
remaining indoor contamination from the collapse of the WTC), the WTC
Expert Technical Expert Review Panel process or the Agency's programs
for responding to disasters.
As discussed in detail below, EPA has a number of general and specific
concerns about the report. Additionally, we are including responses to
GAO's draft recommendations. (See comment 1.)
General EPA Concerns:
The report creates a misleading impression about the transparency of
the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel process and EPA's communications
with the public. EPA believes that the record for the panel process
does not support GAO's contention that the proceedings were lacking in
transparency. Panel members, the public and EPA staff participated in
12 day-long public meetings and an extended public conference call.
Summary reports of the matters discussed were prepared for each meeting
and provided to panel members for comment prior to posting on the panel
web site [hyperlink, (www.epa.gov/wtc/panel)]. Recordings of panel
meetings were posted on the panel web site, along with all written
comments submitted by individual panel members and the public. (See
comments 2, 3, and 4)
EPA believes that the report has not sufficiently incorporated the
complex technical and scientific information we have provided. The
report ignores information documenting the fact that our determination
of the geographic extent of contamination was based on modeling,
monitoring and visual evidence., We evaluated all this information and
concluded that the area most impacted by the collapse of the WTC towers
was in lower Manhattan. The report incorrectly asserts that we used the
Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) report alone to
guide our investigations of WTC contamination. (See comments 5 and 6.)
The report creates confusion about the purpose for sampling
inaccessible areas, including in heating, ventilation and air
conditioning units (HVACs). HVAC sampling in EPA's second program was
intended to utilize a WTC dust screening method that would solely
determine the extent of WTC indoor contamination. (see comment 7.)
The report suggests that EPA did not develop appropriate cost estimates
for its second program. As discussed below, the record shows that we
prepared appropriate cost estimates for our program using existing
government contracting guidance. (see comment 8.)
The report does not accurately portray the recommendations of EPA's
Inspector General (IG) or EPA's efforts to implement the charge to the
panel from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). (See comment 9.)
Concerns with GAO Findings:
a) The extent to which EPA implemented recommendations from the expert
panel members and the Inspector General in its second program:
GAO claims that while EPA has taken some actions to incorporate input
from the Inspector General and individual panel members into its second
program, it did not incorporate other recommendations, which may limit
the overall effectiveness of the second program. EPA believes that its
public record and its decision to implement one of the plans presented
to the panel demonstrate the manner in which comments from the panel
and the public were considered. EPA has included Table I, below, as a
supplement to its comments, to provide a concise summary of its
responses to the recommendations of the IG and the CEQ charge. (See
comment 9.)
b) The factors, if any, that limited the expert panel's ability to meet
its goals:
The report is critical of EPA's approach to the expert panel process.
GAO attributes the panel's alleged difficulty in meeting its goals to
EPA officials' beliefs as opposed to EPA's actions. We do not agree
with GAO's conclusions about why the panel did not meet the specific
goals and objectives stated in the letter from CEQ. (See comment 4.)
EPA also believes that GAO has reported the views of the individual
panel members in a misleading manner. The report states broad
conclusions based, in some instances, on only half of the 18 panel
members. The opinions appear to be based on a ranking scheme devised by
GAO for purposes of the report rather than an analysis by GAO of the
factors that formed the individual panel members' opinions.
The operating principles of the panel, cited on EPA's panel web site,
were devised to facilitate accomplishing the goals and objectives set
forth in the CEQ letter. We believe that the record reveals that the
scope of what members of the panel could consider was not limited by
EPA officials' belief that some goals could more appropriately be
addressed by other agencies. Panel members were free to suggest new
approaches and to chart pathways to accomplish their goals. The freedom
to refocus key issues became evident at the April 2004 panel meeting
when individual panel members strongly recommended that EPA abandon
CEQ's first charge to consider the results of post-cleaning
verification sampling to be done by EPA in residential areas included
in the 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential Assistance Program (the first
program) to verify that recontamination had not occurred from central
heating and air conditioning systems. As a result, the mission changed
markedly. (See comment 10.)
With the changed focus of the panel, a number of issues arose that were
not part of the initial CEQ charge. Discussions of proposed sampling
plans, the use of slag wool as a potential WTC dust "signature," as
well as the concerns of individual panel members about these matters
focused attention away from the initial CEQ charge (see EPA's Table 1,
below, for a summary). After extensive review, EPA determined that
development of a WTC dust "signature" was not feasible. The Agency
decided to implement a voluntary program to test and clean residences
and whole buildings, both commercial and residential, within the area
of lower Manhattan most impacted by the collapse of the WTC towers.
(See comment 11.)
c) The completeness of information EPA provided to the public in its
second plan.
The report creates the misleading impression that EPA did not fully
disclose to the public the limitations of the test results from the
first program. The summary minutes of the first panel meeting reveal
that EPA presented in detail the results of its initial sampling and
cleaning efforts. In addition, a detailed report on the information
gathered during the first program has been available on EPA's WTC web
site. Further analysis of this data was presented at subsequent panel
meetings and was posted on the panel web site. EPA also presented a
plan for assessment of "recontamination" at the first expert panel
meeting in March 2004. The possible biases inherent in voluntary
sampling approaches were discussed at this meeting, as well as at many
subsequent panel meetings. In the report of its first program, EPA
reported that it collected approximately 28,000 asbestos in air samples
in 466 buildings. Of the approximately 28,000 residential asbestos in
air results generated, the number of samples that exceeded the health-
based benchmarks for airborne asbestos was very small, 0.47% for the
clean and test residences and 0.5% for the test only residences. As a
result, EPA concluded that the results appeared indistinguishable from
background contamination. (See comment 12.)
d) The manner in which EPA estimated the resources needed to conduct
the second program:
GAO contends that EPA did not take steps to ensure that it would have
adequate funds to implement the second program effectively, and it is
using $7 million in remaining Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) funding from the first program. The report states incorrectly
that EPA did not complete a cost estimate for the second program.
For its cost estimates, EPA utilized guidance from the Agency's
Contracts Management Manual, which were provided to GAO. The Contracts
Management Manual has general applicability for cost estimation, and it
was appropriately utilized for estimating the cost of the second
program. EPA calculated the cost for Plan A which was based on finding
a "signature" for WTC dust and for Plan B which is being implemented in
the absence of a WTC dust "signature." EPA told GAO that its initial
cost estimate for Plan A exceeded $7 million. EPA also informed GAO
that the ultimate cost of the second program could not be calculated
until after the registration period closed, because the total cost was
directly proportional to the number of eligible registrants. EPA
provided GAO with a copy of the outline it was using to estimate costs
for the second program and with the overall cost estimate for the plan
that was included in the interagency agreement (IAG) with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). EPA explained to GAO that it had
prepared independent government cost estimates for all of the
components of the second program using the Contracts Management Manual.
In accordance with contracting procedures, those individual estimates
could not be shared until EPA had concluded the contract procurement
process. As each portion of the procurement process was completed, EPA
provided GAO with the cost of that portion of the program. (See comment
8.)
e) EPA Has Not Demonstrated How It Will Overcome Methodological
Challenges Identified by Expert Panel Members to Better Respond To
Future Disasters:
EPA is concerned with the title of this section. We believe it
undermines all the valuable work the Agency has undertaken since the
collapse of the WTC towers. The WTC Expert Technical Review Panel was
not tasked to address preparedness for future disasters. Specifics are
provided in 3c below. (See comment 13.)
Response to GAO Recommendations:
GAO's report recommends that EPA develop (a) guidance on crisis
communication, (b) cost estimates that inform decision makers, and (c)
protocols specific to indoor contamination.
a) Recommendation that EPA develop guidance on crisis communication:
EPA is implementing its Crisis Communication Plan. EPA has formed a
Crisis Communication Workgroup that is co-chaired by the Office of
Public Affairs and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
This workgroup developed the recently issued Crisis Communication Plan
and is now working on a companion resource guide. The plan summarizes
EPA's public information roles at the field, regional and national
levels during an incident of national significance; provides guidelines
for developing and distributing information to the public in
coordination with partner agencies; and outlines the Agency's training
requirements for public information staff The resources guide will
include message maps, fact sheets and templates for communication of
sampling data, job aids and other tools to assist the public
information staff during a response. (See comment 14.)
An important aspect of communicating risk is the coordination between
the Incident Command System Public Information Officer (PIO) staff and
the Environmental Unit (EU) staff to assure that environmental data is
communicated in an appropriate . context in plain language. During and
following the Agency response to Hurricane Katrina, a policy was
established to include an EU in headquarters that will work with PIO
staff after the data has been evaluated, validated and interpreted to
assure that the data is presented in language that is easily understood
and in formats easily accessible to the public.
b) Recommendation that EPA develop cost estimates to inform decision
makers:
EPA agrees with the importance of good cost estimates that support
program objectives and promote efficient use of government resources.
The Agency would like to clarify the existing practices and also
indicate our commitment to improve these practices where possible.
When EPA responds under the Stafford Act, the Agency is tasked by FEMA
to work on activities requested by the State, most often related to
Emergency Support Function (ESF) #10 of the National Response Plan
(NRP), Oil and Hazardous Materials Response (for which EPA is the
coordinator and primary agency, along with the U.S. Coast Guard), as
well as other Emergency Support Functions. This work is requested by
the State, based on the situation. The State request addresses specific
assistance that is. needed (e.g., household hazardous waste collection,
environmental cleanup, environmental sampling) and takes into
consideration the State's capabilities and EPA's capabilities and
responsibilities under the NRP. There are often collaborative
conversations between the affected State, FEMA and EPA in planning
EPA's assignments, and EPA may be asked to estimate costs for those
assignments. In developing the estimates for the assignments, EPA must
conform to the requirements for the NRP, including the Financial
Management Annex, which ensures that EPA and all " agencies
participating in a Stafford Act response operate in accordance with
established Federal law, policies, regulations and standards.
Furthermore, FEMA has provided training to participating agencies,
including EPA, on the development of mission assignment supporting
documents, including cost estimates, and EPA must conform to this FEMA-
authorized training and practices. This guidance provided by the NRP
and FEMA training help ensure high quality cost estimates.
During very large responses, such as the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
responses; EPA and other agencies have developed more extensive cost
estimates for longer time periods. For instance, during the first few
months of the Katrina/Rita response, EPA was working with the States
and with FEMA to develop proJections for as much as a year in advance.
These projections were used to help FEMA establish the scope for
additional mission assignments. Thus, in large incidents since the WTC
disaster, EPA has developed more detailed cost estimates to help plan
the Agency's Stafford Act activities. (See comment 15.)
Additionally, FEMA has requested that all ESF coordinating agencies
prepare Prescribed Mission Assignments (PSMAs) for short and long-term
response activities anticipated under their ESF. The PSMAs are designed
to minimize the time necessary to prepare and process mission
assignments during a response by providing a description of the work
and an initial cost estimate prior to the actual response. EPA has
responded by developing PSMAs for both short and long term duration
response activities under ESF #10.
EPA has also undertaken an effort to improve the cost tracking during
disaster responses, and it is included as part of the Agency's "Green
Plan" (President's Management Agenda). EPA is working to establish more
specific reporting requirements with pre-established formats and
criteria as to the various breakouts and categories that will be
tracked. This will help provide improved financial reports after the
fact, and also help well inform planning and estimates during large
incidents.
EPA believes, however, that many of GAO's comments on cost estimates
for our second program are based on errors. We have provided general
comments in the discussion, above, and more specific details are
described below. (See comment 8.)
c) Recommendation that EPA develop protocols specific to indoor
contamination:
With regard to protocols and memoranda of understanding, the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) will make the determination as to which
department or agency is best suited to address indoor contamination
based upon existing authorities and capabilities as well as the
specific scenario to be addressed. When EPA has been requested to
provide assistance under the NRP related to indoor contamination, the
Agency has responded. EPA is currently involved in several interagency
efforts to address decontamination that are coordinated by the
Executive Office of the President. EPA is a member of the National
Science and Technology Council's Committee on Homeland & National
Security and its Subcommittee on Decontamination Standards &
Technologies. Its working groups are developing Cleanup Decision-Making
Guidance. for Biological Incidents and Chemical Incidents. These
documents are currently undergoing interagency review. EPA is also in
the final stages of working with DHS and other agencies to develop
Remediation Guidance for Major Airports after a Bioterrorist Attack,
which EPA will issue jointly with DHS this year. EPA has also created a
National Decontamination Team (NDT) to augment its decontamination
capabilities for chemical, biological and radiological incidents. The
NDT is working closely with EPA's National Homeland Security Research
Center to develop and compile protocols that specifically address
indoor contamination for these types of incidents. The NDT can also
provide scientific support and technical expertise for decontamination
of buildings and building contents.
Specific Comments:
In addition to the discussion above, we also have a number of comments
specific to individual factual errors in the report that are described
in the following section of this letter. An excerpt from the language
of GAO's report is cited in bold to identify the section commented on.
EPA's comment follows in italics. The page numbers referenced below are
those printed on the pages in the PDF version of GAO's draft report.
Page 2:
In May 2002, after numerous cleanup, dust collection and air monitoring
activities were conducted outdoors by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), other federal agencies, New York City and New York State,
New York City formally requested federal assistance to clean and/or
test residences in the vicinity of the World Trade Center (WTC) site
for airborne asbestos:
This is not correct. In May 2002, New York City (NYC) sent a letter to
FEMA stating that many building still have visible deposits of WTC
debris. NYC requested that FEMA provide funding to hire contractors to
perform cleaning and/or testing of interior and exterior spaces, as
appropriate. The request does not cite testing or cleaning for airborne
asbestos. (See comment 17.)
Even though samples were collected after cleaning in most cases, some
residences (less than 1 percent) were still found to have unsafe levels
of asbestos:
The use of the term "unsafe" in this context is misleading, and the
import of the entire statement is an exaggeration. EPA 's 2002/3 Indoor
Air Residential Assistance Program (the first program) was intended to
allay the concerns of lower Manhattan residents regarding the long-term
habitability of their residences. Clearance for this program was
established if all samples in a residential dwelling were below the
health-based benchmark of 0.0009 f/cc for asbestos in air. This
concentration equates to a one-in-tenthousand excess lifetime cancer
risk based on long-term (30 year) continuous (24/7) respiration of
asbestos-containing air. If a single exceedance was recorded, it should
not be assumed that the average concentration (reflective of exposure
over an extended time period) of airborne asbestos in the residence was
and/or would remain for any extended period of time at a level above
the benchmark. Consequently, characterizing a single exceedance as
"unsafe" is highly speculative and provocative. In its effort to
address the concerns of lower Manhattan residents, however, EPA offered
recleaning or initial cleaning in any residence where there was a
single exceedance of the benchmark The benchmark EPA used to clear
apartments was approximately 24 times more stringent " than that used
in the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) program to clear
schools after an asbestos abatement.
Page 3:
For example, EPA's first program did not require that entire buildings
be systematically cleaned, and therefore the Inspector General
recommended that EPA implement a program to verify that apartments that
had participated in the first - program had not been re-contaminated by
uncleaned apartments through heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
(HVAC) systems. With regard to future preparedness, the Inspector
General identified lessons learned from the WTC disaster and
recommended, among other things, that EPA develop protocols for
determining how indoor environmental contamination would be handled in
the event of a future disaster:
This is incorrect. GAO's report consistently misstates IG
recommendations. See EPA Table 1, below. IG recommendation 6-3 stated:
Due to concerns over possible recontamination of residences cleaned
under the 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential Assistance Program, EPA should
treat buildings as a system and implement a post-cleaning verification
program to ensure that residences cleaned by the program have not been
recontaminated. (See comment 19.)
The expert panel's broader goal or purpose, as outlined at the first
panel meeting by the EPA chairman, was to advise EPA "on ongoing
efforts to monitor the situation for New York City residents and
workers potentially affected by the collapse of the WTC." This purpose
included providing advice on the development of EPA's second program
plan. The panel chairman also provided the following longer-term goals
as outlined by CEQ: (1) identify unmet public health needs; (2)
identify any remaining risks using exposure and health surveillance
information; and (3) determine steps to further minimize risks:
This is not accurate. The actual charge is cited on the panel web site
as follows:
* Review post-cleaning verification sampling in the residential areas
included in EPA 's Indoor Air Cleanup to verify re-contamination has
not occurred from central heating and air conditioning systems.
* Review the World Trade Center Residential Confirmation Cleaning Study
which concluded asbestos was an appropriate surrogate in determining
risk for other contaminants.
* Identify areas where the health registry could be enhanced to allow
better tracking of post-exposure risks by workers and residents.
* Review and synthesize the ongoing work by the federal, state and
local governments and private entities to determine the characteristics
of the WTC plume and where it was dispersed, including the geographic
extent of EPA and other entities' monitoring and testing, and recommend
any additional evaluations for consideration by EPA and other public
agencies. (See comment 10.)
Page 4:
EPA told us that 297 residents and building owners had enrolled in the
second program, compared to 4,167 eligible participants in the first
program:
This is stated incorrectly in multiple places in the report. There were
4,167 eligible residences and 144 whole buildings participating in the
first program. The 297 represents 272 residences and 25 whole buildings
for the second program. (See comment 20.)
Page 5:
EPA reported that it was unable to develop a method for distinguishing
between normal urban, or background, dust and WTC dust; therefore, the
agency reported that it could not assess the extent of WTC
contamination, and had no basis for expanding the cleanup effort:
EPA notes that the Agency was considering levels of background
contamination in urban dust. The statement, above, is incorrect for two
reasons.
1) EPA endeavored to develop a method to screen for WTC dust.
Additional development work and inter-laboratory testing of the slag
wool component would have been necessary to improve the precision and
accuracy of the method and reduce inter- and intralaboratory
variability from levels observed in the inter-laboratory evaluation to
render this method usable. Such efforts would be without assurance of a
successful result (see page 13 and 18 of this response letter). (See
comment 21.)
2) EPA conducted extensive monitoring and modeling after 9/11 in order
to determine the extent of contamination. There are summaries of these
efforts in Appendix 1 attached to the WTC Indoor Dust Test and Clean
Program Plan and in EPA 's National Center for Environmental
Assessment's Exposure and Human Health Evaluation of Airborne Pollution
from the World Trade Center Disaster. (See comment 6.)
With the exception of heavily impacted buildings which remain uncleaned
(such as the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street), the
level of contamination measured in indoor environments in the area most
heavily impacted by the plume is low. No pattern that could be related
to the WTC collapse was detectable in this area of lower Manhattan. It
appears that cleaning efforts by residents, building owners and
operators, EPA and NYC, where applied, have been successful in reducing
levels of contamination. The contaminants of potential concern (COPC)
asbestos, man-made vitreous fibers (MMVF) and lead are common materials
in the urban environment. Silicates form 59% of the earth 's crust.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxins are produced by
many combustion sources, including automobiles and the 28,000
structural fires that occur in NYC each year. We estimate that there
are over 170 million square feet of interior space in lower Manhattan.
There may be areas within this space that have not been cleaned of WTC
dust. Therefore, a sampling effort to ident additional areas whose
cleanup would result in a reduction in exposure to WTC contaminants is
not feasible for the following reasons: the lack of a specific
indicator for WTC dust; the nature of the contaminants; the widespread,
low-level, background contamination from other urban sources; and the
large and varied nature of the spaces involved (see Appendix I of the
Test and Clean Program plan). (See comment 22.)
EPA did not begin examining methods for differentiating between normal
urban dust and WTC dust until May 2004 – nearly three years after the
disaster – making the process for distinguishing between the two types
of dust more difficult:
This is incorrect. EPA began looking into ways in which WTC
contaminants could be identified soon after the WTC disaster. EPA
participated in the workgroup that developed the sampling methodology
implemented by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
(NYCDOHMH) commencing in November 2001. This study was explicitly
comparing the composition of dust in lower Manhattan with dust
composition in areas of Manhattan not impacted by the collapse. In the
summer of 2002, EPA formed a multi-agency task force specifically to
evaluate indoor environments for the presence of contaminants that
might pose long-term health risks to local residents. In September
2002, the committee released a draft document titled World Trade Center
(WTC) Indoor Air Assessment: Selecting Contaminants of Potential
Concern (COPC) and Setting Health-Based Benchmarks. The final report
was released in February 2003. These activities were all related to
examining methods to distinguish between background contamination and
WTC contamination. (See comment 23.)
EPA's second program does not include sampling in HVACs or
"inaccessible" locations within apartments and common areas, such as
behind dishwashers because EPA only included these efforts when it
planned to determine the extent of contamination. The agency's second
program plan notes that because EPA is not able to assess the extent of
WTC contamination and because it is attempting to devote the maximum
resources to testing requests, EPA will not test in these locations.
Testing in such a restricted manner makes evaluating the adequacy of
cleanup efforts very difficult:
This is incorrect. Testing in inaccessible areas was never suggested as
a means of determining the adequacy of cleanups by EPA or panel
members. Some individual panel members suggested testing in
inaccessible areas as a means of determining extent of contamination.
None of the proposed plans were intended to establish benchmarks that
could be used for testing and/or cleaning inaccessible areas. (See
comment 7.)
Page 6:
Moreover, this program does not test workplaces because, according to
EPA officials, other federal agencies have procedures to address worker
safety:
This statement is misleading. It is worded to suggest that this is an
EPA opinion. An Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
representative sat on the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, and both
OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) made presentations at panel meetings and indicated that they
would address the concerns of workers or employers. The Test and Clean
Plan documents this and includes information directing workers or
employers to contact OSHA or NIOSH and request an evaluation if they
have concerns. So far as we know no one has contacted OSHA or NIOSH.
(See comment 24.)
Two factors limited the expert panel's ability to meet its goals: (1)
EPA officials' belief that some panel goals were more appropriately
addressed by other agencies; and (2) EPA's approach to managing the
panel process:
We have commented earlier about EPA's approach to managing the panel
process. This statement also creates the impression that other agencies
were not addressing the health related issues that were part of the
panel charge. The WTC Health Registry began operations in September
2003. The Registry was funded by FEMA and is managed by NYCDOHMH and
ATSDR All three agencies were represented on the expert technical
review panel, and EPA facilitated the presentations made to them by
scientists and the public. We do not consider this a failing in our
management of the panel process. (See comment 25.)
Furthermore, all panel members we asked believe that EPA's second
program is not responsive to the concerns of residents and workers
impacted by the collapse of the WTC towers:
This is a misleading statement that makes it seem as if all panel
members have this belief. It is either incorrect or inconsistent with
GAO's summary on page 41 in Appendix IV. There GAO states that it asked
18 panel members this question, ten responded no and eight did not
respond. (See comment 3.)
EPA did not fully disclose in its second plan the limitations in the
testing results from its first program:
GAO's contention that EPA failed to disclose the limitations in testing
results is not supported by the record. Appendix 1 of the second plan
has an extensive discussion of the results of the first program. The
results of the first program were also extensively discussed during
panel meetings, e.g., [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.ovtc/panel/ndfs/resamplingpdf].
EPA also made available information comparing aggressive and modified
aggressive sampling results on its website at: [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.gov/wtc/aggvsmod.htm#summary_test_modiftedaggressive].
GAO 's conclusion that EPA withheld data and thereby discouraged
participation in the second program has no basis. This contention is
incorrectly repeated on page 24. We also note that the rate of
benchmark exceedances was similar for residences cleaned and then
tested and residences which were. tested only in the first program.
(see comment 12.)
Page 7:
Rather than estimate the resources needed to carry out its second
program, EPA is implementing this program with the $7 million remaining
from the first program. According to EPA officials, it would have been
difficult to estimate program costs without knowing the number of
participants and the size of apartments, which vary widely throughout
Lower Manhattan:
This is an inaccurate statement. EPA told GAO that we estimated the
cost of implementing the second program when we negotiated the IAG with
FEMA for that program. GAO was provided a copy of the IAG which
includes the cost estimate. EPA also told GAO that it had independent
government cost estimates (IGCE) for the contracts that it was going to
procure for the program. The IGCE is developed by the program office.
It is based on the individual elements of costs that are estimated for
each of the components and sub-components of the statement of work for
each contract. The IGCE is one of the tools used by the contracting
officer to determine if the contractors' proposed price/cost is fair
and reasonable. EPA could not share those with GAO while the
procurements were in process but provided GAO with actual costs as the
contracts were procured. Ultimate program cost is dependent upon the
number and size of the apartments and buildings that participate and
the number that will require cleaning. These inaccurate statements are
reiterated on page 25. (See comment 8.)
Page 9:
There are an estimated 330 office buildings in Lower Manhattan below
Canal Street and roughly 900 residential buildings with approximately
20,000 apartments. In 2002, after initial efforts by the City of New
York to advise New York residents how to clean the World Trade Center
dust in their homes, FEMA and EPA entered into an interagency agreement
to address indoor spaces affected by the disaster:
What is the source of these numbers? They do not compare with the
current information in NYC databases nor do they compare with the 2001
information used in the initial response. (See comment 26.)
Page 11:
GAO's description of EPA's 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential Assistance
Program (the first program) on this page:
EPA is concerned that GAO's description of our first program is not
accurate and is misleading. GAO describes only one aspect of a
multipart program. All aspects of the program and their
interrelationship are described in EPA 's final report on the program,
which can be found on EPA 's web site. The statement also raises
concerns since GAO's intention was not to discuss the first program
because of ongoing litigation against EPA. In Footnote 4 on Page 2, GAO
states, "A lawsuit was filed in March 2004 that, among other things,
challenged the adequacy .of EPA's first program. The case is on appeal
in the US. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Benzman v. Whitman,
2006 WL 250527 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2006), appeal docketed, Nos. 06-1166-
cv, 06-1346-cv, 06-1454-cv (2nd Cir. March 10, 2006). Pursuant to its
longstanding policy of not addressing issues in ongoing litigation, GAO
has not addressed EPA's first program. " In fact, the report discusses
the first program in numerous sections. We suggest that rather than
providing an incomplete and misleading summary, you provide the link to
the final report on the first program available at [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.gov/wtc/fInalreport/]. (See comment 27.)
Page 12:
While EPA's program was ongoing, the New York City Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene and the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
analyzed samples taken in and around 30 buildings in Lower Manhattan,
and released their assessment of the public's exposure to contaminants
in air and dust:
This statement is misleading. The samples referenced were collected and
analyzed before the EPA program started. Although the final report,
which included this sampling, was issued in September 2002, the
analytical results were released in February 2002 and utilized by EPA.
(See comment 28.)
Page 13:
Before EPA finalized its second indoor program, several assessments
related to indoor contamination were conducted: an August 2003 EPA
Inspector General report; an expert technical review panel that EPA
conducted from March 2004 through December 2005; and three EPA studies:
This is misleading. The IG report and expert technical review panel
occurred prior to the time EPA finalized its second indoor program. The
three EPA studies cited by GAO were conducted at the start of EPA 's
first program. The timeline in Figure 4 is incorrect because it only
states the publication dates for the studies without any recognition
that the results were available and used by EPA at an earlier point in
time. These studies commenced in May 2002, and they were designed to,
and they did inform, implementation of the cleanup program. In fact,
the studies were conducted before EPA commenced its first program in
September 2002. (See comment 29.)
During the time EPA met with the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel,
some expert panel members encouraged EPA to develop a method for
differentiating between contaminants found in the New York City urban
environment and those found in WTC dust:
It is incorrect to contend that a "method" could be developed for this
purpose. Based on previous work by Greg Meeker (panel member) at the
US. Geological Survey (USGS), two government agencies and six
commercial laboratories collaborated to refine a comprehensive
screening method to distinguish WTC-affected dust from background dust,
using slag wool, gypsum, and concrete as markers for WTC dust. It was
determined that concrete and gypsum did not appear to be useful
indicators of WTC dust but that slag wool had potential as a screening
tool. Additional development work and inter-laboratory testing of the
slag wool component would have been necessary to improve the precision
and accuracy of the method to render this method useable as a WTC dust
screening tool. Such efforts would be without assurance of a successful
result. (See comment 21.)
Page 14:
Figure 4: Timeline of EPA's WTC Indoor Contamination Activities:
The timeline in Figure 4 is incorrect. The EPA Confirmation Cleaning,
Background and COPC studies, cited in the timeline, were conducted at
the start of EPA's first program and commenced in May 2002. As
indicated, GAO's timeline in Figure 4 is incorrect because it only
reflects publication dates for the studies. They were designed to
inform the cleanup approach in the first program, and they were
conducted before EPA commenced its first program in September 2002. In
addition, there was no single date for reoccupation of residences.
Areas were reopened over a period that extended to April of 2002, and
some residents delayed their return for a longer period of time. (See
comment 29.)
Page 15:
GAO Table I: Key Input Regarding EPA's Second WTC Indoor Program:
GAO Table 1 does not accurately characterize the IG recommendations and
the relationship between them and the CEQ charges. EPA has prepared its
own table that it submits to accurately represent the IG
recommendations and the CEQ charges. (See comment 9.)
EPA Table 1:
Question:
IG Chapter 6-1: Submit the revised World Trade Center Indoor Air
Assessment: Selecting Contaminants of Potential Concern and Setting
Health-Based Benchmarks document to TERA for a second peer review.
Status:
The response to peer review comments for the World Trade Center Indoor
Air Assessment: Selecting Contaminants of Potential Concern and Setting
Health-Based Benchmarks (peer review draft, September 2002) adhered to
EPA's peer review guidance (Science Policy Council Peer Review
Handbook, EPA 100-B-00-001, December 2000). Given the substantial
amount of comments on the peer review draft, it was reasonable for the
peer reviewers to recommend additional review of the report. The
inclusion of most of the peer review comments into the final report
(May 2003) significantly reduced the need for a second formal review.
The time-critical need to implement a cleanup program with established
clearance benchmarks further dictated that additional refinement to the
report would not justify the time, expense and logistic challenges of
further peer review.
The contaminants of potential concern (COPC) and addition of benchmarks
were discussed during the expert technical review panel process. No
further COPC were identified by the panel or EPA. However, panel
members recommended that benchmarks for asbestos and MMVF fibers in
dust be established despite the objections of the peer reviewers about
establishing such benchmarks.
Question:
IG Chapter 6-2: Implement a post-cleaning testing program to ensure
that, in addition to asbestos, the indoor cleanup program has reduced
residents' risk of exposure from all of the identified COPC to
acceptable limits.
Status:
See discussion below under CEQ 3.
Question:
IG Chapter 6-3: Due to concerns over possible recontamination of
residences cleaned under the 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential Assistance
Program, EPA should treat buildings as a system and implement a post-
cleaning verification program to ensure that residences cleaned by
the program have not been recontaminated.
Status:
See discussion below under CEQ 2.
Question:
IG Chapter 6-4: Work with FEMA and OSHA to assess whether the ongoing
residential testing and cleaning program should be expanded to address
potential contamination in workspaces in lower Manhattan, or whether
other measures need to be taken to ensure that workspaces are not
contaminated with WTC dust.
Status:
Both FEMA and OSHA had representatives on the expert technical review
panel. During panel meetings, OSHA stated that it was willing to
respond to any complaints that individual employers or workers might
have about their workplaces. Union and other worker representatives
deemed this unsatisfactory.
EPA's plan stated: "The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
gives employees the right to file complaints about workplace safety and
health hazards. If employees or their representatives believe that
their working conditions are unsafe or unhealthful as a result of
contamination by WTC dust they may follow the procedures outlined at
[hyperlink, http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/worker/complain.html] to file a
complaint. Alternatively, employees, authorized representatives of
employees or employers can request an evaluation by the National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of possible health
hazards associated with a job or workplace. The procedure to be
followed is outlined at [hyperlink,
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/Request.html.]"
Question:"
CEQ 1: Extend the health follow-up associated with the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) registry of residents and
workers.
Status:
NIOSH funds the WTC Medical Monitoring Program which provides, through
Mount Sinai Medical Center, free medical monitoring examinations and
treatment to workers and volunteers who responded to the WTC attacks.
The program started in 2004 and is funded through 2009.
Details are provided at [hyperlink,
http://www.wtcexams.org/programoverview.html].
Question:
CEQ 2: Review post cleaning verification sampling to be done by EPA in
the residential areas included in EPA's 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential
Assistance Program to verify that recontamination has not occurred from
central heating and air conditioning systems.
Status:
The panel considered EPA's plan to determine whether recontamination
has occurred during the first two panel meetings. During the April 2004
meeting, individual panel members requested that EPA abandon this
approach and instead determine the extent to which contaminants from
the WTC collapse might have entered the indoor environment.
Question:
CEQ 3: Review the peer reviewed World Trade Center Indoor Air
Assessment and Selection of Contaminants of Concern and Setting Health-
Based Benchmarks, which concluded asbestos was an appropriate
surrogate in determining risk for other contaminants.
Status:
The CEQ letter cited the wrong document. The conclusion that asbestos
was an appropriate surrogate was reached based on results in the
Confirmation Cleaning Study. EPA established a peer review panel whose
results were presented in the report titled Summary Report for the Peer
Review on the Use of Asbestos as a Surrogate Contaminant for
Determining the Risk from Other Contaminants (April 2004).
One peer reviewer determined that asbestos was an appropriate surrogate
and another concluded that asbestos was not. The remaining reviewers
provided qualified answers to this question, such as asbestos would be
an appropriate surrogate if EPA included validation sampling. After
discussions each of the reviewers agreed that adding lead wipe
sampling, in addition to asbestos air sampling, would provide a better
estimate of risk from other WTC COPC. Each of the five reviewers
concluded that they knew of no other contaminants associated with the
WTC that were not included in the COPC document or the Confirmation
Cleaning Study that could serve as an appropriate surrogate for
determining risk.
EPA's Office of Research and Development then evaluated whether there
was any association between the lead wipe sampling results and a
visible pattern of contamination from the WTC collapse. The results
were presented at the November 15, 2004 panel meeting. [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.gov/wtc/paneUpdfs/wipedata-20041115.pdf].
Lead results show that 12% of the measurements exceed the health-based
benchmark. The results were examined as a function of three factors
that may affect measured lead concentrations: 1) location
(Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) zone and
distance from Ground Zero), 2) age of building, and 3) floor of
building where measurement is taken.
The overall results do not appear meaningful among the distance
categories. There is a suggestion that higher lead concentrations are
found on lower building floors. The clearest relationship is between
lead concentrations and age of building, i.e., older buildings tend to
have higher concentrations regardless of location.
Question:
CEQ 4: Identification of any areas where the health registry could be
enhanced to allow better tracking of post-exposure risks by workers and
residents.
Status:
The WTC Health Registry is maintained by NYCDOHMH and ATSDR. Both
agencies participated in the expert panel meetings. The Registry will
be used to monitor periodically the mental and physical health of
71,437 enrollees for 20 years. It is now the largest health registry in
the United States. The Registry has its own Community Advisory Board,
Labor Advisory Committee and Scientific Advisory Committee. NYCDOHMH
provided updates to the panel on the registry progress during the
September 13, 2004 and July 12, 2005 panel meetings:
[hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/wtc/paneVpdfs/henning-20040913.pdf]
[hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/pdfs/thorpe.pdf)].
Panel member input to the Registry is discussed in the link below:
[hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/pdfs/oppelt_letter_l12905.pdf]
Question:
CEQ 5: Review and synthesize the ongoing work by the federal, state and
local governments and private entities to determine the
characteristics of the WTC plume and where it was dispersed, including
the geographic extent of EPA and other entities' monitoring and
testing, and recommend any additional evaluations for consideration by
EPA and other public agencies.
Status:
In October 2002, EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment
published a summary of state and federal agencies air monitoring
activities to better understand the ongoing impact of emissions from
the WTC disaster. The report focused on evaluating what is typical for
NYC or general urban background and interpreting potential human health
consequences. "The draft report, peer and public comments are available
at: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfin?deid=54667
EPA's Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) evaluated
aerial photographs and digital imagery of the area around the WTC in
order to identify those areas most significantly impacted by dust,
debris and. other structural materials resulting from the collapse of
the buildings on 9/11. EPIC is EPA's primary source of interpreted
remote sensing data. The final report is available at:
[hyperlink,http://www.epa.gov/wtc/paneUpdfs/WTC5_WTC_Report_TextOnly_Dec
ember_2005.pdf] [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.gov/wtc/paneUpdfs/WTC5_WTC_Report_FiguresOnlv_December_20
05.pdf]
A brief summary is also included in Appendix 1 of the December 2006
Test and Clean Program plan.
[End of table]
Page 16:
EPA also agreed to test for contaminants in the dust. In order to do
so, EPA developed site-specific cleanup standards, or benchmarks, for
asbestos and man-made vitreous fibers in dust over the course of nearly
a year. In its second program plan, EPA explains that these standards
are not risk based, but rather are intended to, among other things,
ensure consistency with the standards employed for cleanup at a
Superfund site with asbestos-contaminated residences:
This is misleading. EPA developed only cleanup benchmarks, not
standards. These benchmarks measure adequacy of cleanup (assuming there
was something present to begin with). The statement is also incorrect
as to EPA's rationale for developing benchmarks for asbestos and MMVF.
Benchmarks for asbestos and MMVF were based on work by experts in the
field as to what constitutes contamination and how it compares with
site specific background. (See comment 30.)
Page 17:
EPA did not expand the scope of testing north of Canal Street, or to
Brooklyn, as advisory groups had recommended. EPA reported that it did
not expand the scope of testing because it could not differentiate
between normal urban dust and WTC dust; differentiating between the two
would have enabled EPA to determine the geographic extent of WTC
contamination.
However, EPA officials told us that because so much time had passed
since the terrorist attack, it was difficult to distinguish between WTC
dust and urban dust. EPA ultimately abandoned this effort because peer
reviewers questioned its methodology; EPA decided not to explore
alternative methods that some of the peer reviewers had proposed:
These two sections do not accurately reflect EPA's discussions with GAO
about expanding the geographic area to be investigated and its
determinations related to the WTC dust screening method.
Initially, the proposed sampling plans involved sampling dust to find
levels of specific constituents that would be indicative of WT-related
residue. When identifying and measuring specific dust constituents
proved to be unworkable, some panel members recommended using a dust
"signature" consisting primarily of high levels of slag wool fibers as
a surrogate measure that would serve as an indicator of WTC
contamination and thereby attempt to establish the geographic extent of
WTC contamination. With guidance and technical input and support from a
subcommittee of panel members, a method for measuring slag wool in dust
was drafted and tested. The intent in developing the method was to use
it as the fundamental basis for deciding whether dust from a sampled
site was contaminated with WTC residue. The GAO report is not clear
about this essential element of the method. The method was never
intended to distinguish "WTC contaminants in dust." In particular, one
of the difficulties in using slag wool as a surrogate was that high
levels of slag wool in dust were measured at sites that could not have
been contaminated by the WTC collapse (e.g., Yonkers, NY and RTP, NC).
Other problems were directly related to the method which proved to have
poor reproducibility among laboratories. Peer reviews of the method
were negative. The Agency decided not to pursue the use of the slag
wool method as the basis for assessing the extent of WTC contamination
although some individual panel members indicated that it would be
possible to do so with additional development work. Such efforts would
be without assurance of a successful result. (see comment 21.)
Instead, EPA will test only in an area where visible contamination has
been confirmed by aerial photography conducted soon after the WTC
attack, although aerial photography does not reveal indoor
contamination. Furthermore, some aerial photography identified dust in
Brooklyn, and EPA officials told us that some WTC dust was found
immediately after the terrorist attacks in areas, including Brooklyn,
that are outside the area eligible for its first and second program:
This is inaccurate. We have summarized the information used to consider
the extent of contamination in Appendix 1 of our plan. In brief:
EPA and many other agencies collected and analyzed environmental
samples after the September 11, 2001 attack on the WTC. EPA has posted
monitoring data on its web site.
The EPA sampling data and the data from many other federal and state
agencies are also available at [hyperlink,
http://oaspub.epa.gov/nyr/cd].
Remote monitoring data was collected and analyzed by the US. Geological
Survey (USGS, 2001) the Aerospace Corporation (2002), and EPA's
Environmental Photographic and Interpretation Center (US EPA, December
2005). The New York City Department of Environmental Protection
(NYCDEP) conducted a building-by-building survey of the lower Manhattan
buildings to determine the extent of external contamination. The plumes
resulting from the collapse of the towers and subsequent fires were
modeled by EPA (Gilliam, et al., 2005, Huber, et al., 2004). It is
clear from this data that the plumes from the collapse of the WTC and
subsequent fires impacted much of the NYC metro area. The most heavily
impacted area is bounded on the north by Chambers Street and the
Brooklyn Bridge approaches. This area is entirely contained within the
area that. was the subject of EPA's 2002/3 Indoor Air Residential
Assistance Program (the first program) and the current plan. (See
comment 6.)
However, EPA's second program will not provide for testing in HVACs
under any circumstances, but will offer cleaning in HVACs if tests in
common areas reveal that cleanup standards for any of four contaminants
have been exceeded:
This is incorrect. GAO has correctly stated the issue on page 19. EPA
will clean common areas when at least one contaminant is found to
exceed the cleanup standard in that area. EPA will clean HVACs and
common areas when there is a high degree of certainty that the mean
contaminant level for accessible areas, infrequently accessed areas or
air samples in common areas exceed one contaminant benchmark. (See
comment 31.)
Page 18:
Addressing whole buildings:
The description of the objective of the plans that were considered
between March 2004 and December 2005 is inaccurate. The intent of these
plans was not to characterize buildings but to use the information from
representative buildings to characterize areas. This information would
then be used to inform decision making about the remaining extent of
indoor contamination from the WTC collapse plume.
The description of EPA actions is also inaccurate. The IG
recommendation stated: "Due to concerns over possible recontamination
of residences cleaned under the Indoor Air Residential Assistance
program, EPA should treat buildings as a system and implement a post-
cleaning verification program to ensure that residences cleaned by the
program have not been recontaminated. " EPA's proposal to do this was
rejected by both individual panel members and the public. (See comment
32.)
Page 19:
Consequently, the majority of expert panel members do not believe the
panel successfully met any of its goals. All of the panel members we
asked (10 of 10) told us that EPA's second program is not responsive to
the concerns of residents and workers affected by the collapse of the
WTC towers.
This is a misleading statement that makes it seem as if all panel
members have this belief It is either incorrect or inconsistent with
GAO's summary on page 41 in Appendix IV There GAO states that it asked
18 panel members this question, ten responded no and eight did not
respond. (See comment 3.)
Page 21:
Inadequate time for technical discussion: The majority of expert panel
members (14 of 18) told us there was not adequate time on the agenda
for the panel to discuss issues:
EPA notes that WTC Expert Technical review Panel agendas with proposed
timetables were circulated for comment prior to each panel meeting. We
do not recollect that panel members requested more time to discuss
technical issues at panel meetings. (See comment 4.)
Lack of a transparent decision-making process: EPA's reasons for
accepting or rejecting expert panel members' recommendations were
unclear, according to most panel members (13 of 18). Furthermore, six
panelists said that EPA did not respond to their recommendations or
provide any explanation for rejecting recommendations:
The record does not support this statement. EPA held 12 panel meetings
and an extended conference call. Detailed summaries of each meeting
were prepared and presented to the panel members for comment before
posting to the panel web site. Most of the meetings were recorded and
the recordings posted on the panel web site.
Any comments submitted by panel members or the public are posted on the
panel web site at: [hyperlink,
http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/backdocs.html].
Each of the plans contains within it an explanation of the rationale
for the plan. Although the panel members may not have been satisfied
with the outcome, it was not due to lack of transparency. (See comment
4)
Page 22:
Failure to document recommendations: Although EPA stated in its
operating principles that it would keep detailed minutes of each panel
meeting, including all individual recommendations, whether oral or
written, EPA did not do so. Instead, EPA provided "meeting summaries"
of each meeting that included an overview of issues raised and,
starting with the fifth meeting, EPA provided audio recordings of panel
meetings:
It is misleading to state that EPA failed to document recommendations.
As GAO indicated in the report EPA provided meeting summaries of each
meeting. These are typically 20 pages long and include an overview of
issues raised. All written comments provided were posted on the panel
web site as were copies of all presentations made by members of the
public and panel members. There are also a series of summaries of
comments made by the public or panel members posted on the panel web
site at: [hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/backdocs.html].
In addition, as noted above EPA included within each plan a rationale
for the activities included with the plan. It appears that GAO is
questioning the format in which we have documented the recommendations,
rather than an EPA failure to document recommendations. (See comment
33.)
Page 24:
Discarded samples: EPA also did not explain in its second program plan
that its first program's test results excluded samples that were
discarded because they were "not cleared"” that is, could not be
analyzed because the filter had too many fibers to be analyzed under a
microscope. However, EPA's final report on its first program stated
that residences with more than one inconclusive result, such as filter
overload, were encouraged to have their residences re-cleaned and re-
tested:
This discussion is incorrect. There were no samples discarded. In
addition, GAO's definition of" not cleared" is incorrect. EPA reported
three classes of results – cleared, not cleared and not determined.
"Not determined" results were reported as such and the occupants
offered an opportunity to retest or reclean as they desired. To our
knowledge, none of the filters were classified as "not determined"
because they had too many fibers to be analyzed. With the exception of
a few filters that were physically damaged the filters were reported to
be overloaded because of too much particulate matter. This is not
uncommon in urban environments. (See comment 34.)
Page 25:
EPA did not take steps to ensure that it would have adequate resources
to effectively implement the second program. Instead, EPA is
implementing this program with the approximately $7 million in Stafford
Act funds remaining after its first program. Although this program
increases the number and type of contaminants being sampled, the funds
available are less than 20 percent of those used in the first program:
This is a misleading statement. As we noted in our comments on page 7
of the GAO report, ultimate program cost is dependent upon the number
and size of the apartments and buildings that participate and the
number that will require cleaning. (See comment 8.)
Page 27:
For example, EPA guidance has not yet addressed certain methodological
challenges raised by expert panel members, such as how it will
determine the extent of contamination resulting from disasters:
This is not correct. The ability to determine the extent of
contamination is largely based on analytical capabilities and
verifiable sampling plans. EPA has developed over the years a robust
library of verified analytical methods for the analysis of inorganic
and organic constituents of concern. Since the WTC disaster, EPA has
added to that capability through the development of Standardized
Analytical Methods for Environmental Restoration following Homeland
Security Events. The manual contains methods for laboratories to use in
measuring specific contaminants possibly associated with a terrorist
attack EPA formed an interagency workgroup of experts to review many
analytical methods, seeking to balance the need to use existing
techniques and methodologies against the goal of obtaining consistent
results. The workgroup selected methods for measuring chemical agents
in aqueous/liquid, solid, oily solid and air matrices, as well as
biological agents in water, dust and aerosol matrices for the analysis
of chemical, radiological and biological agents of concern. In
addition, since the WTC incident, EPA has also been engaged in an
interagency effort for the development of a Validated Sampling Plan.
This validation process has included both the development and extensive
testing of sampling methods in the laboratory and testing the sampling
methods and sampling strategies in the field (the field exercise is
planned for September 2007). The first Validated Sampling Plan in
development is for biological agents of concern. The second is for
chemical agents of concern. (See comment 35.)
Clarified roles and responsibilities:
The information on teams at the end of this page (carried over to the
top of page 28) is inaccurate. We suggest the following correction: EPA
also expanded and extended the capabilities of its existing
Environmental Response Team (ERT) responsible for technological support
and training through the establishment of an additional ERT office in
Las Vegas, NV. Along with the Radiological Emergency Response Team and
the National Decontamination Team, these teams provide support during
emergencies. (See comment 36.)
Page 28:
Shared information on likely targets and threats and develop approaches
to address them:
Please note that EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response is
responsible for the establishment of a network of environmental
laboratories, rather than the Office of Research and Development. It
may be less confusing to avoid attribution to specific offices within
the Agency here and in other parts of the report. (see comment 37.)
Although an interagency team including EPA has developed table-top
exercises to respond to nationally significant incidents, these
exercises have not yet included residential contamination:
EPA wants to clarify that although the, exercise scenarios may not have
explicitly included residential contamination, the methods (including
analytical detection, risk assessment and remediation) developed for
response to incidents of national significance are directly applicable
to residential contamination. EPA's risk assessment guidance (that can
inform both cleanup and analytical method verification) can, by design,
accommodate a variety of exposure scenarios including residential
exposure assumptions.
Page 29:
Improved health-related benchmarks for assessing health risks in
emergencies Please correct the text on the fourth line of this section
to read: "... (AEGLs), an international effort aimed at describing the
risk resulting from rare exposure to airborne chemicals." Delete "once
in a lifetime." (See comment 38.)
Page 30:
While EPA has taken actions since the WTC disaster to prepare for
future incidents, it has not demonstrated how it will overcome several
methodological challenges that expert panel members identified. These
challenges include identifying the extent of contamination; developing
appropriate cleanup standards; and testing for contaminants that cause
acute or short-term health effects. In addition, some expert panel
members questioned EPA's reliance on visual evidence, rather than
sample data, as the primary basis for its actions, and its use of the
modified aggressive sampling technique:
This is not correct. Please see the response to EPA's effort in the
determination of extent of contamination, above, on page 21 of this
response letter. (See comment 13.)
With regard to the development of cleanup standards (goals), EPA has
stated that we have well established methods for the calculation of
site-specific cleanup goals for soil; water and air through the Risk
Assessment Guidance for Superfund. During WTC response and subsequent
to the response, EPA has been engaged in the development of indoor
surface cleanup goal methods. World Trade Center Indoor Environmental
Assessment: Selecting Contaminants of Potential Concern and Setting
Health-Based Benchmarks provides details of the methods used to
calculated cleanup goals (benchmarks) during the WTC response and the
benchmarks calculated for that response. Subsequent to the WTC
response, EPA has been engaged in an effort to incorporate
methodologies for the calculation of indoor cleanup goals into a more
broadly applied risk assessment guidance. This will enable the
utilization of the indoor cleanup goals into remedial measures
throughout EPA as well as other agencies throughout the government,
assisting both traditional environmental cleanup efforts and cleanup
efforts following terrorist events.
Testing for contaminants that cause acute or short-term health effects
implies both the analytical measure in the environment of chemicals
that cause acute or short-term health effects and the ability to
determine the level (environmental concentration) at which a chemical
may cause an acute or short-term health effect. As we have stated in
the past, EPA is actively involved in both of these issues. With regard
to EPA's analytical capabilities, please see the response above
concerning our efforts in the development and validation of
Standardized Analytical Methods. Our efforts regarding acute or short-
term advisory levels were summarized within GAO's draft report on page
29, which references EPA's contributions in the development of Acute
Exposure Guidance Levels (AEGLs) and Provisional Advisory Levels (PALs)
that address three short-term exposure durations (1 day, 30 day, ,and 2
years) and three levels of severity. AEGLs address inhalation exposures
while PALs address both inhalation and oral exposures.
Page 31:
Testing for contaminants with acute effects:
The report states that a panel member questioned whether it was,
appropriate for EPA to focus on contaminants causing long-term rather
than short-term health effects. The Agency wants to clarify that
chemicals often cause adverse health effects at much lower
concentrations when exposed for longer durations when compared with
acute exposure durations. Therefore, in the absence of available, acute
exposure duration criteria, the use of criteria that are based on long-
term or chronic exposures to monitor health effects from chemical
exposures that are acute in duration is often a conservative, health
protective approach.
EPA's COPC reports considered both short-term and long-term effects for
the COPC. It should be noted that with respect to the panel member
comment that this is a speculative discussion. Ultimately neither panel
members nor the public suggested health effects or COPC beyond those
included by EPA in the COPC reports. (see comment 13.)
Relying on visual evidence: Some expert panel members questioned EPA's
reliance on visual evidence rather than on sample data during its two
programs. For example, during the first program, in response to
requests from building owners, EPA "visually" evaluated some HVAC
systems when requested by building owners rather than obtaining wipe
samples. When EPA decided to clean 28 of the 116 HVACs, the re-
inspection was also visuaL In addition, some expert panel members
questioned EPA's reliance on aerial photos as primary support for
assigning boundaries to its first and second program because not all
contaminants are visible:
Two different issues are condensed into one paragraph which could be
misleading. It is important to understand the relevance of visual
evidence of outdoor contamination. The most visibly impacted outdoor
area was contained within the area addressed during EPA's first
program. This area was also the area that monitoring, modeling and
interpretation of aerial and satellite data indicate were most
impacted. All of these data sources agree, and it is valid to focus our
indoor testing on the area they indicate are most impacted.
HVAC system evaluations:
The visual assessment of HVAC systems during the first EPA cleanup
effort was not a simple process. The process was developed after
consultation with NYCDEP and an EPA contractor with extensive HVAC
expertise. Below is a description of the process excerpted from
direction to the HVAC contractor during the first program. (See comment
13.)
Visual Assessment:
All required interior surfaces in contact with the air stream shall be
inspected for visible accumulations of dust and/or debris. Inspect all
surfaces in contact with the air stream. Information indicates that
some of the defining characteristics of WTC-related dust are that it
contains extremely fine particles similar to talcum powder in
consistency, is light-colored, contains pulverized concrete and/or
gypsum wallboard, and may contain asbestos fibers. The visual
inspection shall document:
A general description of the appearance of interior surfaces of the
various system components. The description for each component will
include, but may not be limited to:
* Interior duct/fan housing surfaces are porous/non-porous;
* Interior duct and fan housing surfaces are lined with insulation;
* Interior duct and fan housing surfaces are double-walled (i.e.
interior insulation with perforated metal cover);
* Filter loading, condition offilters and filter rack;
* Interior surfaces are free/not free of visible dust and debris or
suspect WTC-related dust and debris;
* Description of dust color, level of dust loading that may include:
The depth of dust observed on each component (e.g., less than 1/16
inch, greater than or equal to 1/16 inch); The depth and location of
dust on. ducts and fan housing (i.e., on interior bottom, top and sides
of ducts); Visually estimated percentage of surface area with suspect
WTC-related dust;
* Whether or not there are materials that are likely not associated
with WTC-related dust such as building-related asbestos-containing
materials, animal carcasses, delaminating lining material, visible mold
growth, water damage, fecal matter, feathers or other evidence of
animals, etc.
Historical Assessment:
The evaluation team shall attempt to describe any other available
information from site occupants or building managers, such as the known
status of system operating conditions at the time of the WTC collapse,
ventilation system maintenance (i.e., cleanings, filter changes, or
replacement since the WTC collapse).
Based on these assessments, to the best of his/her ability the
Environmental Professional will state a general impression of the
overall cleanliness of each component, and whether or not it appears to
be impacted by WTC-related dust.
As the summary of activities demonstrates, this was a complex process.
Reliance on Aerial Photography:
As we have noted in our detailed comments on page 17 and 31 of the
report, aerial photographic analysis was only one of many elements of
information used to inform our decision as to the boundary encompassed
by the our programs. (See comment 6.)
Page 36:
We relied upon EPA's summaries of the panel meetings to obtain
information on individual panel member input because EPA did not have a
comprehensive list of panel recommendations:
This statement is a more accurate statement of EPA's documentation than
earlier statements in the report. Our documentation is reliable, but
EPA did not have a single list with every recommendation on it. It has
multiple lists. As suggestions and recommendations were made we
documented them. GAO's criticism appears to relate to the fact that EPA
did have a single list with all the recommendations. See comment 33.)
Page 39:
Appendix III: Comparison of EPA's First and Second Programs:
This Appendix is not accurate. The comparison also conflicts with GAO's
representation in Footnote 4 on Page 2 that states: "A lawsuit was
filed in March 2004 that, among other things, challenged the adequacy
.of EPA's first program. The case is on appeal in the US. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit. Benzman v. Whitman, 2006 WL 250527
(S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2006), appeal docketed, Nos. 06-1166-cv, 06-1346-cv,
06-1454-cv (2nd Cir. March 10, 2006). Pursuant to its longstanding
policy of not addressing issues in ongoing litigation, GAO has not
addressed EPA's first program." The following matters need to be
corrected: 1) EPA did not supervise contract workers. It acted purely
in an oversight role. 2) All air samples were also analyzed for total
fibers these include MMVF and a subset of approximately 260 apartments
were also tested for lead, mercury, a suite of other metals and dioxin.
3) The common areas in 144 buildings were sampled for asbestos and
total fibers. 4) The extent was not based solely on the EPIC "visual."
Thank you again for the opportunity to review GAO's draft report. Your
consideration of our comments and concerns will be appreciated.
Sincerely,
[Signed by]
George M. Gray:
Assistant Administrator for Research and Development:
[Signed by]
Susan Parker Bodine:
Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response:
[End of Section]
The following are GAO's comments on the Environmental Protection
Agency's letter dated August 21, 2007.
GAO Comments:
1. We believe that the report offers a balanced portrayal of EPA's
development of its second program, the WTC Expert Technical Review
Panel process, and EPA's actions to better prepare for future
disasters. In several cases we have clarified the language in the draft
report to address EPA concerns.
2. In regard to EPA's comments about the transparency of the WTC Expert
Technical Review Panel process, we reported on the factors that limited
the panel's ability to meet its goals and not on the overall
transparency of the process. We stated that two factors limited the
panel's ability to meet its goals: (1) EPA officials' assertion that
other agencies were better equipped to address public health and (2)
EPA's approach for managing the panel process. Regarding EPA's
management of the panel process, however, expert panel members told us
that EPA did not have a transparent process for adopting or rejecting
their recommendations, as we stated in the draft report.
3. Regarding panel members' views on the responsiveness of EPA's second
program to concerns of residents and workers, we clarified our report
to note that the source of the views included all of the expert panel
members who responded to a follow-up inquiry regarding this question.
4. We disagree that the draft report provided panel member views in a
misleading manner. However, we clarified the report language to
indicate that 9 of 18 panel members reported that the decision-making
process behind EPA's changes to its plan were not at all transparent.
In doing so, we reported the category with the largest number of
responses and, as indicated in the draft report, the full range of
responses can be found in appendix IV. As stated in the draft report,
in order to determine the factors that affected the expert panel's
ability to meet its goals, we conducted structured interviews with all
18 expert panel members. We analyzed these responses in order to
describe the panel process, including EPA's management of the panel
process. We reported the views that panel members provided to us during
structured interviews and included the full range of responses to these
questions in an appendix, as stated above. Regarding comments
supporting inadequate time for decision making, panel members requested
at the final panel meeting that EPA allow time for additional
discussion. According to the December 2005 meeting summary, the panel
co-chair "summarized that the overall sense of the panel members is
that there is a need for additional discussion."
5. We acknowledge that EPA would have preferred for us to include more
detailed information in our discussion of the agency's second WTC
program, the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel process, and its
programs for responding to disasters. However, the purpose of our
report was not to reiterate the technical details of EPA's efforts but
to summarize specific findings related to our key objectives.
6. EPA asserts that it conducted extensive monitoring and modeling
after September 11, 2001, in order to determine the extent of
contamination. We acknowledge that appendix I in EPA's December 2006
plan states, "the plumes resulting from the collapse of the towers and
subsequent fires were modeled by EPA" and that "EPA and many other
agencies collected and analyzed environmental samples after the
September 11, 2001, attack on the WTC," and we incorporated these facts
in the report. However, when we asked EPA to identify which samples
were taken indoors, EPA officials told us they did not have this
information. Furthermore, in the body of EPA's December 2006 program
plan, EPA acknowledges that it is no longer attempting to assess the
extent of WTC contamination. We maintain that the challenge of
identifying the extent of WTC contamination in indoor spaces remains.
7. We agree that neither EPA nor panel members suggested testing in
inaccessible areas as a means of determining the adequacy of its
cleanups. However, our statement was intended to convey our belief that
if EPA had information about these areas, a more complete picture of
both the extent of contamination and the adequacy of overall efforts
directed toward cleaning and testing could be assessed.
8. EPA takes issue with our assertion that EPA did not estimate the
resources needed to carry out its second program. We believe that EPA
did not conduct a cost estimate that identified the resources needed to
effectively implement the second program. As EPA stated in comments, it
provided information for potential contract costs for the second
program; however, we continue to believe that the information was
limited as it related to only one program component--sampling--and it
was unclear how the sampling costs related to an overall cost estimate.
In EPA's comments, it states that cost data provided in its interagency
agreement constituted a cost estimate; however, information on key
assumptions such as estimated participation rates as well as key
program elements, including the cost of sampling, were not included.
Further, the information provided in the interagency agreement was not
the basis for determining whether $7 million in funding would be
adequate for implementing the second program--as this amount had
already been established as the remaining funds FEMA set aside for
EPA's use. In contrast, for its first program, EPA provided information
in the interagency agreement with FEMA that included details associated
with individual cost elements, such as sample analysis, equipment and
supplies, and salary and travel costs. For example, EPA provided
detailed estimates for analytical services based on key assumptions
related to participation, samples per unit, and the testing for
specific contaminants. EPA did not provide this information in the
second interagency agreement to support its identification of resources
needed for analytical activities. We note that the interagency
agreement for EPA's first program identified over $9 million for
sampling and analysis of asbestos. While the second program is
addressing three additional contaminants, the interagency agreement has
limited detail on the associated sampling and analysis costs or how
these relate to the total funding of $7 million.
9. EPA asserts that table 1 in the draft report (figure 5 in the final
report) does not accurately characterize the IG recommendations and the
relationship between them and the CEQ charges. As the draft report
stated, table 1 in the draft report (figure 5 in the final report)
showed key recommendations and additional input that the IG and panel
members provided to EPA. We believe that the figure accurately presents
both recommendations such as those found in Chapter 6 of the IG report,
as well as input the IG provided in other sections of the report that
supports these specific recommendations. The figure also presents input
provided by panel members, which we believe is not documented
comprehensively in other locations.
10. In EPA's comments, it notes that panel members were free to refocus
issues, and our draft report acknowledged that EPA adopted panel
members' input to address contamination, rather than recontamination,
of spaces. On page 8 of its comments, EPA took issue with our
description of the panel's goals. EPA provided the charges identified
by CEQ in its October 27, 2003, letter to the agency. In our report,
rather than present these charges, we instead reported goals that EPA
directly provided to the expert panel at its first meeting on March 31,
2004. We believe this is an accurate characterization of the priorities
EPA established for the panel.
11. In its comments, EPA states that the agency decided to implement a
voluntary program to test and clean residences and whole buildings. In
fact, when requested by building owners, the December 2006 program plan
offers testing and cleaning in residential and commercial buildings'
common areas, but does not use the term "whole buildings."
12. EPA takes issue with our assessment that EPA failed to disclose the
limitations in testing results. EPA refers to appendix I of its second
plan and notes that it contains an "extensive discussion" of the
results of the first program. The appendix includes a discussion of
EPA's methodology, raw data such as the total number of samples taken,
and the results of sampling efforts but does not include a discussion
of the limitations that may have influenced these results. EPA also
notes that discussion of its first program's test results were
available in panel meeting summaries and on EPA's WTC Web site;
however, these sources summarized presentations made to the panel and
responses to panel member comments but lacked the same discussion of
limitations as EPA's second program plan. We continue to believe that
EPA did not include appropriate caveats that clearly articulated the
limitations in the results in its discussion, such as that 20 percent
of eligible residents participated and, therefore, the results may not
have been representative of all spaces. Finally, GAO did not conclude
that EPA withheld data, as EPA suggested in its comments.
13. In EPA's comments, EPA disagrees with our assessment that EPA has
not demonstrated how it will overcome certain challenges identified by
expert panel members. We acknowledge EPA's analytical capabilities and
the acute exposure guideline levels and other benchmarks that are
available to EPA. We continue to believe that expert panel members
raised valid issues regarding EPA's second program following the WTC
disaster, including what cleanup benchmarks EPA used, what contaminants
EPA tested for, and EPA's reliance on visual evidence. We believe these
issues point to the need for protocols or interagency agreements that
clarify how EPA, along with other agencies, is to address indoor
contamination in the future. Further, after reviewing the summary that
EPA provided on pages 24 and 25 of its comments of the HVAC system
evaluation process it employed, we continue to believe that this
process is primarily a visual assessment and that we accurately
portrayed panel member concerns with EPA's reliance on visual evidence
rather than sample data for HVAC evaluations.
14. We encourage EPA to complete and implement its Crisis Communication
Plan's companion resource guide, described in its comments, in a timely
fashion. The public relies on EPA to provide accurate and complete
information about environmental hazards that may affect them. Assuring
that environmental data are presented in language that is easily
understood and in easily accessible formats will improve the public's
ability to make informed decisions.
15. We note that EPA's comments indicated that since the WTC disaster,
EPA has developed more detailed cost estimates to help plan the
agency's Stafford Act activities and that the agency is working to
establish more specific reporting requirements. In order to more fully
inform planning and to allow for the efficient allocation of disaster
funds, we encourage the agency to continue these efforts.
16. We recognized in our recommendation the role that DHS and other
federal agencies would play in developing protocols and memorandums of
understanding under the National Response Plan that specifically
address indoor contamination. We acknowledge that EPA plays a critical
role under Emergency Support Function 10 for addressing oil and
hazardous waste releases. It is encouraging that EPA is pursuing a
number of efforts related to chemical, biological, and radiological
incidents, including the development of protocols that specifically
address indoor contamination involving these types of agents. In
addition to these areas, we believe that protocols specific to indoor
contamination, which define when the extent of contamination is to be
determined, as well as how and when indoor cleanups are to be
conducted, should be priorities.
17. We edited the sentence as suggested, but we note that the May 3,
2002, letter from Christopher Ward, New York City Department of
Environmental Protection, to Brad Gair, FEMA, refers specifically to
asbestos. It states, "The City of New York believes that it is in the
public's interest to remove this material from buildings in the
vicinity of the WTC site. Samples collected during the inspections
indicate that asbestos [italics added] may be present in some of the
debris. The removal of this material will assure that it will not
become re-entrained in the air in the future, thereby protecting
against any adverse affects on air quality or public health and
safety."
18. We edited the sentence on residential sampling as suggested.
19. EPA is concerned that we provided additional detail beyond the
specific statement of IG recommendation 6-3. We believe our statement
accurately characterizes the recommendation by taking into
consideration other information in the IG report. Specifically,
preceding this recommendation, the IG provides details that support
this recommendation. The IG states on page 51 of its August 2003 report
that "in the case of centralized HVAC systems, selective cleaning does
not ensure that cleaned apartments will not be recontaminated by
uncleaned apartments through the HVAC system. Consequently, the
cleaning of contaminated buildings should proceed by treating the
building as a system."
20. We included this information in our final report.
21. EPA asserts that our discussions of EPA's efforts to develop a WTC
dust screening method are incorrect. We recognize that additional
development would have been necessary to improve the precision and
accuracy of the method and, in doing so, render the method usable as a
WTC dust screening tool. Our draft report described the subpanel's work
to help EPA develop such a methodology and provided information about
the peer review of the methodology. As indicated on page 18 of its
comments, EPA suggested that its method was never intended to
distinguish "WTC contaminants in dust." Our draft report asserted that
EPA was unable to develop a method for differentiating between normal
background dust and WTC dust and therefore EPA was unable to determine
the extent of WTC contamination. We believe the phrase "WTC
contaminants in dust" is synonymous with dust contaminated with "WTC
residue."
22. We included this information in our final report.
23. EPA disagrees with our statement that EPA did not begin examining
methods for differentiating between normal urban dust and WTC dust
until May 2004. While multiagency workgroup and task force activities
were related, EPA initiated its specific effort to develop a method for
identifying a WTC dust signature after individual expert panel members
recommended that it do so at its May 12, 2004, meeting. This decision
is documented in a September 8, 2006, letter from the EPA Region 2
Administrator to a Member of Congress that states, "As a result of
these [panel] discussions, EPA decided to explore whether a WTC
signature exists in dust." We continue to believe that our statement is
accurate.
24. We disagree that our statement regarding workplaces is misleading.
Despite OSHA and NIOSH presentations made at panel meetings, we
continue to have concerns because these agencies do not have authority
to conduct cleanup in response to contaminant levels that exceed EPA's
site-specific cleanup benchmarks. Furthermore, our draft report stated
that OSHA's standards are designed primarily to address airborne
contamination, while EPA's test and clean program is designed to
address contamination in building spaces, whether it is airborne or in
settled dust.
25. We disagree with EPA's assertion that this statement creates the
impression that other agencies were not addressing health-related
issues. Our comments were limited to the panel's ability to meet its
goals, one of which was to identify unmet public health needs. While
EPA's facilitation of public health presentations may have provided
information about health issues, all but two expert panel members told
us that the panel did not successfully identify unmet public health
needs. We did not address the quality of the WTC Health Registry or
other agencies' public health activities.
26. The source of the office and residential building data is the May
12, 2004, panel meeting summary posted on EPA's Web site. The summary
identifies a New York City Department of Buildings database from which
EPA drew this information.
27. The draft report provided basic facts and background information
about EPA's first program that were derived from EPA's December 2006
program plan and other EPA reports in order to provide context for the
development of the second program.
28. EPA takes issue with our draft regarding our characterization of
the availability of sample results from the New York City Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene and the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry's study. In fact, our draft report provided a footnote
pointing out the results of the study were made available to EPA in
February 2002.
29. EPA said the dates we provided in a timeline of events did not
accurately portray when the results of agency studies were available
for its use. We provided publication dates for three EPA studies in our
timeline to illustrate the range of activities that EPA engaged in
prior to its second program. EPA also asserted that there was no single
date for reoccupation of residences. In fact, our timeline specifically
includes the date, 9/17/2001, that New York City residents began to
reoccupy homes and Wall Street was reopened.
30. As suggested, we replaced the term "cleanup standards" with
"cleanup benchmarks" and we expanded our discussion of how these
benchmarks were developed.
31. EPA asserts that our statement is incorrect because it omits
discussion of cleaning in common areas. We acknowledge that EPA will
clean in common areas under certain circumstances; however, the context
of this discussion was the panel members' recommendations that EPA
clean in HVACs.
32. We believe that the draft report correctly presents the IG
recommendation, what EPA considered, and the agency's rationale for not
electing to pursue a sampling approach that would have addressed whole
buildings; however, we clarified the report's language to include more
detail regarding EPA's proposed approach. The July 26, 2004, panel
meeting summary supports our description of how EPA considered various
approaches. While EPA said that its intent was not to characterize
buildings but rather to use the information from buildings "to
characterize areas," the meeting summary includes a presentation by an
EPA official on a sampling approach that involved "—conducting air and
dust sampling in several units within the building to characterize the
building." Further, we disagree with EPA's explanation of why its
proposal to do so was rejected by panel members and the public. Panel
members rejected the aspect of the plan that would have limited the
sampling to the same residences that participated in EPA's first
program, as panel members wanted the plan to allow for sampling in
residences that had not participated previously. Thus, EPA's assertion
in its comments that the panel members rejected EPA's approach because
it was addressing whole buildings is not accurate.
33. We clarified this statement in the report, noting that EPA did not
maintain a list of recommendations; however, we continue to believe
that the meeting summaries maintained by EPA did not constitute
comprehensive documentation of recommendations made by expert panel
members.
34. We disagree that our discussion of overloaded samples is incorrect;
however, we clarified report language to indicate that sample results,
rather than samples, were discarded and that dust particles, rather
than fibers, obscured analysis. In EPA's final report from its first
program, the agency states, "there were a number of outcomes that
resulted in inconclusive results. Filter overload was the most common.
Filter overload occurs when too many dust particles are captured on the
filter. The filter becomes obscured so technicians examining it under a
microscope cannot separate out individual fibers. This causes an
inconclusive result, which is discarded." In its second program plan,
EPA does not present this information in its description of its first
program's test results. We continue to believe that this information
would have provided additional context to the public.
35. EPA disagrees with our assessment that EPA guidance has not yet
addressed how the agency will determine the extent of contamination
resulting from disasters. We acknowledge that EPA has built its
capacity to address contamination since the WTC disaster and that it
continues to work to develop additional sampling methods. In fact, the
draft report provided examples of research EPA is conducting,
benchmarks EPA is developing, and other preparedness activities that
EPA has undertaken. However, we do not believe that existing guidance
or protocols have provided additional assurances that EPA has addressed
the challenges it faced from 2004 to 2005 when working to develop a
reliable screening method for WTC dust.
36. As suggested, we edited the sentence regarding the Environmental
Response Team.
37. As suggested, we edited the sentence regarding environmental
laboratory networks.
38. As suggested, we edited the sentence regarding acute exposure
guideline levels.
39. EPA noted matters for correction in an appendix that provides
background information on EPA's first and second programs. We edited
the statement regarding EPA's role in the first program, as suggested.
However, we note that in its final report on its first program EPA
states, "contractors cleaned and tested homes, under the direction of
the EPA." In addition, our draft report included a table note referring
to the subset of 263 residences that EPA tested for additional
contaminants, and we have added detail regarding total fibers. For
common areas, the draft report included the number of samples taken
from common areas, and it also notes that 144 buildings had common
areas cleaned. We clarified the appendix III language regarding
geographic extent to note that the appendix provides program
boundaries.
[End of section]
Appendix VI GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
John B. Stephenson, (202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Diane B. Raynes, Assistant
Director; Janice Ceperich; Michele Fejfar; Brandon H. Haller; Katheryn
Summers Hubbell; Karen Keegan; Omari Norman; Carol Herrnstadt Shulman;
and Sandra Tasic made major contributions to this report. Additional
assistance was provided by Katherine M. Raheb.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 42 U.S.C. § 5121, et seq. The purpose of the Stafford Act is "to
provide an orderly and continuing means of assistance by the Federal
Government to State and local governments in carrying out their
responsibilities to alleviate the suffering and damage which result
from such disasters." 42 U.S.C. § 5121(b).
[2] In addition to using asbestos as a trigger for cleanup, in a small
subset of residences, EPA conducted sampling for dioxin, mercury, and
22 metals to inform a study about the effectiveness of its cleaning
techniques.
[3] EPA regional officials overseeing the program told us they assumed
that some residents elected to have testing only because they had their
residences cleaned before EPA's program.
[4] A lawsuit was filed in March 2004 that, among other things,
challenged the adequacy of EPA's first program. The case is on appeal
in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Benzman v.
Whitman, 2006 WL 250527 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2006), appeal docketed, Nos.
06-1166-cv, 06-1346-cv, 06-1454-cv (2nd Cir. Mar. 10, 2006). Pursuant
to its long-standing policy of not addressing issues in ongoing
litigation, GAO has not addressed EPA's first program.
[5] The first panel chairman retired and was replaced while the panel
was ongoing.
[6] The panel was also given a number of requests for document reviews
to be completed within 3 to 6 months.
[7] GAO, World Trade Center: Preliminary Observations on EPA's Second
Program to Address Indoor Contamination Provide Lessons for the Future,
GAO-07-806T (Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2007).
[8] In addition to residents, building owners could ask EPA to evaluate
common areas, such as lobbies, and HVAC systems.
[9] HEPA is an acronym for "high efficiency particulate air" filter.
HEPA vacuums contain HEPA filters that can remove at least 99.97
percent of airborne particles 0.3 micrometers (µm) in diameter.
[10] EPA officials told us that the results of this study were made
available to them in February 2002.
[11] EPA, OSHA, ATSDR, New York State Department of Health, and New
York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, World Trade Center
Indoor Environment Assessment: Selecting Contaminants of Potential
Concern and Setting Health-Based Benchmarks (May 2003).
[12] Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and New York City
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Final Report of the Public
Health Investigation to Assess Potential Exposures to Airborne and
Settled Surface Dust In Residential Areas of Lower Manhattan (September
2002).
[13] In addition to the lack of a specific indicator for WTC dust, EPA
officials also noted that a sampling effort to identify additional
areas whose cleanup would result in a reduction in exposure to WTC
contaminants is not feasible for the following reasons: the nature of
the contaminants; the widespread, low-level background contamination
from other urban sources; and the large and varied nature of the spaces
involved.
[14] Appendix I of EPA's December 2006 program plan states that EPA's
assessment of the extent of contamination was also based on modeling
and monitoring data.
[15] Of the 640 residents and building owners who registered for the
second program, 272 residents and 25 building owners submitted the
necessary access agreements.
[16] According to EPA's May 2005 draft plan, a building would be
cleaned when the 95 percent upper confidence limit on the mean
concentration of at least one contaminant of potential concern in all
units was above the cleanup benchmark.
[17] Residential and commercial building owners may participate in this
program.
[18] EPA, Office of Research and Development, National Homeland
Security Research Center, Threat Scenario for Buildings and Water
Systems Report (November 2004).
[19] Each PAL has three exposure durations, three levels of severity,
and two media (water and air) for which it is to be applied, and
therefore EPA has developed over 360 different values for these
chemicals.
[20] Delegation of this authority is in accordance with section 1.4 of
Executive Order 12958, "Classified National Security Information."
[21] Amended by Executive Order 13292 (March 2003).
[22] EPA, Lessons Learned in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001
(February 2002).
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