Whitman: 9/11 health woes are city's fault

[cal04]

Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is blaming the city for not forcing Ground Zero workers to wear respirators, prompting a fiery response from the city's top lawyer.

In a "60 Minutes" interview to air Sunday, Whitman maintains that the nation's leading environmental agency did not have authority to enforce rules at the site, though the agency did warn the city about dangers in the air at Ground Zero.

(snip)
Despite Whitman's current claims, her remarks at the time suggested that the air at Ground Zero was not a major health hazard.

She was quoted in Newsday on Sept. 15, 2001, as saying, "There is no reason for concern," referring to asbestos measurements at Ground Zero and elsewhere in lower Manhattan. And on Sept. 16, she said, "New York is safe."

http://www.amny.com/news/local/groundzero/am-whit0908,0,5366101.story?coll=am-topheadlines

[hatrack]

1. Given her bald-faced lies on 9/15 and 9/16/01, obviously it's NYC's fault

And if not their fault, then it's got to be Clinton's fault.

There's an especially hot corner of hell just warming up for Ditzy Clod Witless.

[Erika]

2. The Republican lying bitch

Says it all.

[peacebird]

3. whitman was/is a whore for the whitehouse. Trying to deflect blame

from her own failed "leadership" and cowardice.

When SHE said "New York is safe" she failed every citizen of this country. She deserves to be tried and sentenced to jail - it would be kinder than the sentence she has given to the people who believed her and are now suffering.

[ramapo]

4. I hope they included her quote in the broadcast

but knowing the MSM, they probably did not.

Whitman is crap

[stillcool]

5. she should go to the fire & police stations...

in New York and explain it all to them. I'm sure they'd be very receptive to any documentation she might have.

[Drum]

11. f'real! m/t

[UpInArms]

6. looking back at Whitman's performance:

TESTS SHOW AIR AND WATER ARE SAFE, SAYS WHITMAN

09-16-2001
TESTS SHOW AIR AND WATER ARE SAFE, SAYS WHITMAN -- LEVELS OF ASBESTOS - `THE
BIGGEST CONCERN' - DROP HEALTH
By BOB GROVES, Staff Writer
Date: 09-16-2001, Sunday
Section: NEWS
Edition: All Editions -- Sunday

JERSEY CITY -- The rubble of the Twin Towers is not posing a threat to the area's
air or water, federal environmental chief Christie Whitman said
Saturday.

Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, also promised that the
Bush administration "will do everything that needs to be done" to hunt
down the terrorists responsible ...

(This preview shows 598 of 4766 characters)

NEW YORK CITY DRINKING WATER SAFE, EPA SAYS

NEW YORK, New York, September 21, 2001 (ENS) - The most detailed results to date of ongoing monitoring of drinking water in New York City show that residents and workers are not being exposed to contaminants such as asbestos, radiation, mercury and other metals, pesticides, PCBs and bacteria.

"EPA has been very aggressive in monitoring for potential environmental problems in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, and I am very pleased by what we've discovered. New Yorkers and New Jersians need not be concerned about environmental issues as they return to their homes and workplaces," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman said today. "Air quality monitoring data in residential areas has been consistently reassuring. More recently, we've also tested drinking water supplies and found no sign of asbestos bacterial contamination, PCBs or pesticides."

EPA personnel, working in coordination with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection at and around the World Trade Center disaster site, have taken 13 drinking water samples from water mains in lower Manhattan. In addition to analyzing the samples for asbestos, pesticides and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), the EPA has also tested drinking water for metals (including mercury), and radioactivity (both alpha and beta).

None of these contaminants exceeded EPA drinking water standards.

"In addition to carefully evaluating drinking water in the New York area, EPA has taken samples at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, where runoff from lower Manhattan goes for treatment, to identify what sort of materials are leaving the disaster site," Whitman continued. "While we haven't yet gotten results for all possible contaminants, we do know that levels of metals and mercury are below permit discharge limits."

...more...

EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report says

Saturday, August 23, 2003


(08-23) 04:00 PDT New York -- In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA. It noted that some of the agency's news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.

"When the EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement," the report says. "Furthermore, the White House Council on Environmental Quality influenced . . . the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."

On the morning of Sept. 12, according to the report, the office of then-EPA Administrator Christie Whitman issued a memo: "All statements to the media should be cleared through the NSC (National Security Council in the White House) before they are released." The 165-page report compares excerpts from EPA draft statements to the final versions, including these:

The draft statement contained a warning from EPA scientists that homes and businesses near ground zero should be cleaned by professionals. Instead, the public was told to follow instructions from New York City officials.

Another draft statement was deleted; it raised concerns about "sensitive populations" such as asthma patients, the elderly and people with underlying respiratory diseases.

...more...

and in an unrelated story - same shit - different day:

White House halted EPA warning on asbestos-contaminated insulation.

WASHINGTON _ The Environmental Protection Agency was on the verge of warning millions of Americans that their attics and walls might contain asbestos-contaminated insulation. But, at the last minute, the White House intervened, and the warning has never been issued.

The agency's refusal to share its knowledge of what is believed to be a widespread health risk has been criticized by a former EPA administrator under two Republican presidents, a Democratic U.S. senator and physicians and scientists who have treated victims of the contamination.

The announcement to warn the public was expected in April. It was to accompany a declaration by EPA of a public health emergency in Libby, Mont. In that town near the Canadian border, ore from a vermiculite mine was contaminated with an extremely lethal asbestos fiber called tremolite that has killed or sickened thousands of miners and their families.

Ore from the Libby mine was shipped across the nation and around the world, ending up in insulation called Zonolite that was used in millions of homes, businesses and schools across America.

<snip>

In a meeting in mid-March, EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman and Marianne Horinko, head of the Superfund program, met with Paul Peronard, the EPA coordinator of the Libby cleanup and his team of health specialists. Whitman and Horinko asked tough questions, and apparently got the answers they needed. They agreed they had to move ahead on a declaration, said a participant in the meeting.

...more...

[Just-plain-Kathy]

7. It had to obvious the air quality would be bad...

Believe me, I'm not sticking up for Whitman, but there are a lot of government officials in NY that should have stepped up to the plate. How could anyone in their right mind consider the air down at Ground Zero to be safe? Why wasn't Whitman's proclamation questioned?

[Erika]

8. Because Rudy agreed there was no health hazard

The GOP are fantastic liars.

[gratuitous]

17. Follow the bouncing Republicans

Whitman's proclamation wasn't questioned by "America's Mayor", the ghoulish Rudy Giuliani, nor by Republican governor George Pataki, because Republicans don't contradict Republicans. There was also a massive rescue and clean-up operation going on, and the federal EPA was the best-positioned agency to make determinations about the environment in lower Manhattan. That is, the EPA wasn't digging through rubble or rescuing people, so it could concentrate on its end of the operation, which is environmental.

Now Whitman wants to plead that she and the rest of the federal government were totally powerless to "require" anyone at the site to wear respirators or masks. Bush's government sure seems powerless when it suits their purposes, isn't it?

[journalist3072]

9. The White House EDITED the EPA's reports

I have so little respect for people who engage in revisionist history.

Is Christe Todd Whitman forgetting that the EPA's Inspector General concluded that the White House EDITED the EPA's statement, made on September 18, 2001, about the air quality in and around Ground Zero. She concluded that the White House pressured the EPA to delete cautionary statements and add more reassuring ones (that it did not have the facts to back up).

From an Associated Press article on September 10, 2003:

"Last month, an internal report by Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) Inspector General Nikki Tinsley said the White House pressured the agency to make premature statements that the air was safe to breathe.


The EPA issued an air quality statement on Sept. 18, 2001, even though it "did not have sufficient data and analyzes to make the statement," the report said.


The White House "convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones," Tinsley said. Among the information withheld was the potential health hazards of breathing asbestos, lead, concrete and pulverized glass, the report said."

[Erika]

10. The Whitehouse has no problem in exposing our workers

to dangers. None at all. It's called corporate profit.

[Drum]

12. We're all just being told to be clear here...

we are supposed to acknowledge their fallacious statement: that they have no responsibility...In other words their battery of word-smith, truth-torturing attorneys are working the BushCo indemnification into the National record and in many cases the Law. Covering their asses. Infuriating.

[mhatrw]

13. Yes. The buck never stops at BushCo, n/t

[krkaufman]

14. I would hope that she could be held legally liable. n/t

[Eugene]

15. "We never lied," she says.

She just presented the "truth" in a misleading form. :grr::grr::grr:

Whitman is using the tobacco defense.


Reccommended for outrageousness even by BushCo standards.

[cal04]

16. Whitman piles blame on Rudy

Says EPA warned city of health risks at toxic WTC

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/450484p-379149c.html

[leesa]

18. Somebody better be naming her in a civil suit then.

[Javaman]

19. Whitless grows a spine...

I always had this feeling about whitlesss, she so wanted to be a player, so wanted to stir the crap and climb the ladder, however, dreams and reality are two very different things. Once she fell from grace as a gop wanna-be and got a full dose in the face of disillusionment, she realizes that sacrificing integrity for power doesn't always feel so good. Especially, when she realized that she was nothing more than a disposable water carrier.

Now she speaks out, now she feels the need to clean her conscious. Better late than never but sadly this is so not the topic for her to do here mia culpa. She needs to come clean on all the bullshit from years ago. But doing that would require nerve and integrity, which she quickly disposed of when she made her pack with the repukes.

[JerseygirlCT]

20. I don't see where this is coming clean

This is blaming others for her own unconscionable collaboration with the Bush administration, and her lies that have likely lead to many very sick people.

She's hoping to clear her own guilty conscience by blaming the city of NY.

[Javaman]

22. Good point, I used a poor header...

I thought about it after the post but didn't get a chance to change it.

She's just another evil apologist for all the screw ups she and the other minions put upon the American people.

[librechik]

27. she's a coward--still blaming others for her "mistake"

who told her to declare it was safe, contrary to facts and common sense?

[lovuian]

21. Whitman Bush Guliani are all responsible for

thousands suffering this poisoning...

[MurrayDelph]

23. As they said in "Animal House"

You fucked up: you trusted us!

[angryxyouth]

24. OSHA is a federal agency

29 cfr 1910 of the osha code book has provisions for emergency cleanup. Any official with half a brain could have seen that this was a hazardous site. Respirators are not one size fits all things. One should be fit tested to make sure that there is a good seal around the mouth and nose. Pulmonary function test should also be done before using one because they put extra stress on your system. The right filter for the right job. Someone had to be in charge at ground zero. Someone was handing out dust masks, which are useless, and wrong filters. If I was a private contractor, and I fucked up like this, I would be in jail. There are right to know laws in place. Workers have the right to know if they are working around hazardous materials. If the government lied about environmental test result in a work area, they broke the law. Someone needs to be held accountable for all of this needless suffering.:rant:

[LiberalHeart]

25. One guy at the EPA (Hugh Kaufman) tried to warn NYC

He couldn't speak in his capacity as an EPA employee, but he spoke out as a private citizen warning folks that the air wasn't safe. He also warned that illnesses will follow the mess left by Katrina -- despite people being told it was safe to go back home.

On edit, here's a link to what Kaufman had to say as early as Feb. 2002 about WTC air:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/02/24/rec.wtc.air.quality/

[fujiyama]

26. Typical

republican lying bitch.

What happened to that "It's my party - I'm a moderate " bullshit? Oh yeah, her republican instincts kicked in - blame others and never take responsibility for anything. She does make a fine lying whore of a republican after all!

I don't see how a single person in NYC and the surrounding NJ area can vote for a republican after this shit. How many people's lives have been shortened as a result of these lies?

Argggggh! Pisses me off so much and I don't live anywhere near NYC...but if I did I don't think I could contain my outrage at this bullshit.

[Octafish]

28. Another Liar for Bush.

What else does she lie about?

[Danmel]

29. She has sold her soul

I wondered how she lived with herself after 9-11 and when it became obvious that the air was toxic and that many many people would become ill.

I couldn't understand her "loyalty" to the Bush administration when they completely marginalized her at EPA and forced her out.

I mean, she certainly doesn't need the money,she is independetly wealthy andwas raised in great wealth. she is from New Jersey. not exactly a hot-bed of conservative Republicanism. She was a horsey set- pink and green sweater type Republican. I couldn't understand how she lived with herself.

I figured at some point she'd write book- and reveal all of the corruption and what not in the Bush Administration when it came to post 9-11 issues, that she'd apologize for her role in it- that she might want to cleanse herself of these people.

What do they have on people? Why is everyone loyal to them no matter what. McCAin, Whitman....dot hey have pictures of them with farm animals or something, I just don't get it.

You sold your soul Christie and you continue to lie and kiss this administrations ass. I hope there is a special corner of hell for all of those who lied about this. Where they can never never draw a breath without pain. They deserve, the first responders did not.