October 10, 2001—The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration (OSHA) announced October 3 that both federal agencies are making the results of extensive environmental and occupational sampling around the World Trade Center site available on their sites, and will post additional data as it becomes available. Both agencies have taken hundreds of samples to monitor environmental conditions since September 11, and have found no evidence of any significant public health hazard to residents, visitors, or workers beyond the immediate World Trade Center area.
EPA and OSHA, working closely with other federal, state, and local agencies, have been sampling the air, dust, water, river sediments, and drinking water and analyzing them for the presence of pollutants such as asbestos, radiation, mercury and other metals, pesticides, PCBs, or bacteria that might create health hazards. They have found no evidence of any significant public health hazard to residents or visitors to the New York metropolitan area.
Out of a total of 442 air samples EPA has taken at ground zero and in the immediate area, only 27 had levels of asbestos above the standard EPA uses to determine if children can re-enter a school after asbestos has been removed—a stringent standard based upon assumptions of long-term exposure. OSHA has analyzed 67 air samples from the same area, and all were below the OSHA workplace standard for asbestos.
For further information, visit the EPA or OSHA sites, or the New York City Department of Health, the US Department of Health and Human Services, or the New York State Emergency Management Office.
