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Assessing Risks
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Sept 21, 2001 - WTC site. |
“Determining which pollutants were out there in
concentrations that were hazardous,” was at the top of EPA Region II’s list of
challenges. That meant assessing the risks of exposures to pollutants it wasn’t
required to monitor by law—such as dioxin, PCBs and dozens of other
compounds—and for which health standards had not been set.
Of course, too, truly life threatening hazards
awaited in the recovery effort. There were many hazardous materials, such as
Freon tanks for the air conditioning units, stored in six underground levels of
the WTC. If the fires reached these levels they might have triggered larger
fires or toxic plumes. There were hazards amid the rubble because moving debris
could open pockets of oxygen that could mix with combustible dust and vapors
and cause other explosures.
So
pinpointing sources of hazards were key.
Among
the first agencies to help in this regard was EPA. But On-Scene Coordinator
(OSC) Steve Touw, who had been to Hurricane Hugo and Floyd, as well as oils
spills and overturned tank trucks, was unprepared for the scope and size of the
environmental disaster at the 16-acre World Trade Center site. “The resources
brought to bear were like nothing I’d ever seen,” he says.
Among
other responsibilities, Touw was tasked with collecting hazardous materials,
and so he had to determine where those might be by tracking hazardous waste
permits on file—finding oil storage tanks in the basement, sources of perchloroethane
from dry cleaning establishments, and so forth.
“We
came cross several drums of cleaning chemicals at the former Vista Hotel,” Touw
remembers, “and the excavators turned up a white vapor wafting up.” Suddenly,
the site had to be evacuated, though, fortunately, says Touw, it only turned
out to be casks of laundry detergent.