Experts fear exposure to harmful trade center dust

NEW YORK — From Latin American day laborers to Southern Baptist volunteers, hundreds of people cleaned potentially hazardous dust from buildings around the World Trade Center site without standard safety gear.

The cleanup continued for months after Sept. 11 as public agencies issued confusing and often reassuring assessments of risks posed by the dust, according to public documents and dozens of interviews.

Asbestos, glass particles and caustic powder settled unevenly in scores of apartment and office buildings when the twin towers collapsed and sent dust clouds rolling through lower Manhattan, public and private tests show.

But while some public officials said it should be assumed the dust contained asbestos and required professional cleaning, others said it could be safely removed with wet rags, mops and vacuum cleaners.

In the weeks and months that followed, air-filtering respirators were used sporadically or not at all by many volunteers, immigrant laborers and residents who cleaned up the dust.

More than 400 laborers have reported dizziness, coughing and other maladies months after stopping work, according to a medical team's study of their health problems, the most extensive such survey to date. Some scientists say the workers also face an elevated, if still relatively low, risk of asbestos-related cancer in coming decades.

Any such illness, they say, would have been entirely preventable.

"It's a public health outrage they were allowed to be exposed in this way," said Dr. Stephen Levin, medical director of the Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Local and federal rules require elaborate safety procedures and respirators for workers cleaning up material that is more than 1 percent asbestos. As much as 35 percent of the dust may have contained that much, but labor groups charge that enforcement of the rules was lax, and federal officials acknowledge that it was a low priority.

Now, after months of saying that indoor cleaning was landlords' and residents' responsibility, federal and local agencies have reversed course. The Environmental Protection Agency and city Environmental Protection Department announced May 8 they will spend federal funds to professionally clean the apartment of any resident who requests it.

On Friday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that about $12 million in federal money has been allotted to track respiratory and other health problems among 8,000 rescue workers and others who helped clear debris at the trade center site.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center, was about halfway through a multimillion-dollar asbestos-removal project when the twin towers were attacked. Both towers had asbestos fireproofing on heating pipes, interior spaces and the support columns behind their distinctive metal cladding, Port Authority spokesman Allen Morrison said.

Public agencies have tested thousands of dust samples taken in lower Manhattan since Sept. 11.

Up to 35 percent of the samples tested by the EPA had enough asbestos fibers to require professional cleaning and the use of respirators. Tests conducted for the city found those levels of asbestos in only 6 percent of the samples.

As recently as last month, private and public tests still detected asbestos in some lower Manhattan buildings.

Tests by a New York University team also found minimal levels of chromium, dioxin, lead, nickel and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

The U.S. Geological Survey found that the dust could be caustic when mixed with water, apparently because of a substance in concrete. And tests conducted for the city health department found fiberglass, a possible carcinogen, in nearly half of the samples.

Labor groups, environmentalists and downtown residents say that federal and local agencies downplayed potential risks posed by the dust, leaving residents confused.

On Sept. 13, the EPA issued a statement that said: "Sampling of bulk materials and dust found generally low levels of asbestos … the general public should be very reassured by initial sampling."

But EPA officials say they also warned residents and cleaning companies that they should presume the dust had asbestos levels high enough to require professional contractors with respirators to clean up heavy deposits.

"We knew that there was asbestos in the dust and the recommendation was to use professional abatement contractors," agency spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow said.

"I never heard EPA say that," said Jessica Leighton, assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Health. "It was not the assumption we're working under."