Friday, July 20, 2007
Trusting the EPA Seems a Big Risk
Airborne Asbestos Hazard Minimized, but Debris Shows Contamination - New York Times: "A small army of workers in coveralls, rubber boots, helmets and, for at least a time, respirators swept away mud and asphalt yesterday from the vicinity of Wednesday’s steam pipe explosion as health officials and environmental experts continued to play down the danger from asbestos that was spewed by the blast and later settled to the ground.
Michael R. Bloomberg said that 12 air samples were taken throughout the day by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and that none showed evidence of asbestos.
But 14 of 56 samples of debris collected near the blast contained asbestos. Most had just trace amounts of less than 1 percent, Mr. Bloomberg said, but two samples, believed to hold pieces of the pipe insulation, did contain what he called significant amounts of asbestos. Con Edison officials said their own sampling produced similar results.
One sample, from 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, was 8 percent asbestos, while the other, taken at 150 East 42nd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues, contained 16 percent, according to Charles G. Sturcken, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. Results from tests on 15 other samples were pending."
The same EPA that is splitting the ridiculous hair of the asbestos being in the dust but not the air is the same one who continues to insist that the 9/11 air was safe. First, it does not take much of anything to kick up this asbestos-laden dust. Therefore, what is dust is in the air. The fact that our Environmental Protection Agency at the State or Federal level allows this kind of rubbish to be disseminated to a trusting public is really criminal. Christine Todd Whitman was just on the Hill in the last couple of weeks reasserting the sad and very dangerous claim that the air in Lower Manhattan after 9/11 was absolutely safe. Let me just take one little bit of that and run with it. When we go to the airport and board a plane, there are signs all over the outside of the airport walls that have warnings about fuel hazards. These are air and flammability warnings among others. That day, we had two fully fueled jetliners crash on one city block which fueled a fire that lasted at least a day or two. Jet fuel smoke is perfectly safe? If so, then why are smokers America's red-headed step-children? I mean seriously, if flaming jet fuel is safe, then cigarettes seem hardly the public safety issue that it is made out to be as parks across the country ban it in open air. And the jet fuel is but one of the many issues of that air in those days. I can't be the only one who think the EPA is the very stretched rubber band readying itself for a very public break. I just hope that someone wo knows more about this than I do speaks up...loudly!!
Michael R. Bloomberg said that 12 air samples were taken throughout the day by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and that none showed evidence of asbestos.
But 14 of 56 samples of debris collected near the blast contained asbestos. Most had just trace amounts of less than 1 percent, Mr. Bloomberg said, but two samples, believed to hold pieces of the pipe insulation, did contain what he called significant amounts of asbestos. Con Edison officials said their own sampling produced similar results.
One sample, from 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, was 8 percent asbestos, while the other, taken at 150 East 42nd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues, contained 16 percent, according to Charles G. Sturcken, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. Results from tests on 15 other samples were pending."
The same EPA that is splitting the ridiculous hair of the asbestos being in the dust but not the air is the same one who continues to insist that the 9/11 air was safe. First, it does not take much of anything to kick up this asbestos-laden dust. Therefore, what is dust is in the air. The fact that our Environmental Protection Agency at the State or Federal level allows this kind of rubbish to be disseminated to a trusting public is really criminal. Christine Todd Whitman was just on the Hill in the last couple of weeks reasserting the sad and very dangerous claim that the air in Lower Manhattan after 9/11 was absolutely safe. Let me just take one little bit of that and run with it. When we go to the airport and board a plane, there are signs all over the outside of the airport walls that have warnings about fuel hazards. These are air and flammability warnings among others. That day, we had two fully fueled jetliners crash on one city block which fueled a fire that lasted at least a day or two. Jet fuel smoke is perfectly safe? If so, then why are smokers America's red-headed step-children? I mean seriously, if flaming jet fuel is safe, then cigarettes seem hardly the public safety issue that it is made out to be as parks across the country ban it in open air. And the jet fuel is but one of the many issues of that air in those days. I can't be the only one who think the EPA is the very stretched rubber band readying itself for a very public break. I just hope that someone wo knows more about this than I do speaks up...loudly!!
