White House meddled with 9-11 reports

Early U.S. EPA statements made after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City reassuring the public that the air outside the “Ground Zero” area was “safe” to breathe were not substantiated by the data available at the time, according to a report by EPA’s Inspector General (IG), the agency’s watchdog arm. Instead, the White House Council on Environmental Quality convinced EPA “to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones” in its press releases, the report finds. In effect, EPA’s overriding message was that there was no significant threat to human health, even though the agency lacked monitoring data for several contaminants, particularly PCBs, particulate matter, dioxin, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Because of the lack of supporting data—including health-based benchmarks for short-term and acute exposures to many of the contaminants of concern, research data on synergistic effects, and reliable information on the extent of the public’s exposure to these pollutants—the IG concludes that “the answer to whether the outdoor air around the World Trade Center was safe to breathe may not be settled for years to come.” EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapses: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement can be accessed at www.epa.gov/oig.