AIR QUALITY UPDATE

AIR QUALITY UPDATE (Mike Weiss)Who is responsible for monitoring and alerting, and has this improved after 9/11?The 9/11 air quality issue at the time of the attack arose because (1) building materials (primarily asbestos) had been used in the Towers’ construction and (2) right after the attack there was confusion between government agencies as to who was responsible for monitoring and alerting people about air quality hazards.1. So far, there doesn’t seem to have been any news about improving building materials standards (which materials are safer during a disaster, as well as during demolition and construction). The use of asbestos was outlawed just after the construction of the Twin Towers, and there doesn’t seem to have been any other toxic contaminants that were found during 9/11 which then led to use restrictions. Instead, this aspect of the story has shifted to the cleaning of the asbestos-laden residue from 9/11 which still covers buildings downtown.2. Right after 9/11, many observers feel that the Federal EPA and OSHA should have stepped forward and centralized efforts to immediately issue accurate air quality alerts, and to then coordinate all government agencies’ activities during the clean up. Further, once in this position a centralized authority would have been able to oversee the construction boom that is happening in Lower Manhattan (35 new buildings since 9/11, 68 currently in the works) in order to monitor and alert people about air conditions.This didn’t happen. For various reasons, seemingly stemming from Mayor Giuliani’s insistence that City government and the City agency DDC (Dept. of Design and Construction) oversee all 9/11 building issues, there is now no central authority accountable for air quality issues. Instead, there is a mix of City, State, and Federal agencies which are performing various regulatory roles they were used to performing from before 9/11, but in the post-9/11 world it is unclear what their formal responsibilities are, what they are responsible to report and who they need to report to.To sum up, the issue of air quality standards and how they may have been improved after 9/11 seems to focus on alerting procedures. This means how have procedures improved which will alert people better next time in the event of an emergency, and also who is monitoring and alerting people about the current air quality relating to the post-9/11 demolition and construction boom.