Environment risks seen low at New York attack sites
Date: 05-Oct-01
Country: USA
"Our data show that contaminant levels are low or nonexistent and are generally confined to the Trade Center site," Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.
"There is no need for concern among the general public, but residents and business owners should follow recommended procedures for cleaning up homes and businesses if dust has entered."
A statement from the EPA and a Labor Department division dealing with health and safety said metals levels were slightly higher than normal in run-off water from the site, but this was not a cause for concern.
Levels of deadly dioxin were also somewhat higher than normal, but the agencies said this would die down once the last fires were extinguished at the site, where hijackers rammed commercial planes into the World Trade Center's twin towers.
Some 5,500 people are dead or missing, presumed dead, in the New York suicide attacks, and an additional 233 were killed on two other hijacked planes and in a separate attack on the Pentagon near Washington.
The EPA said it had tested 835 air samples in New York, including 442 in or near the ground zero center of the attack.
Some 27 samples near ground zero, where workers are using protective masks, showed asbestos exceeding government standards, but the statement noted that this was "a stringent standard based on long-term exposure."
The two hijacked planes, loaded with enough fuel for coast-to-coast flights, caused intense fires at the towers, with smoke billowing across lower Manhattan and other parts of New York City.
The towers collapsed little more than an hour after the attacks.