Calling 9/11

David Epstein lives in New York and works as an intern for the New York Daily News.

For many liberals, the most disconcerting face at the Republican National Convention last night was probably Zell Miller's, the Democrat from Georgia whose fervent berating of his own party on national security brought the loudest roar from the crowd all night. But for an environmentalist, Christie Todd Whitman's mug might have been more enraging.

Whitman was not a featured speaker last night, but she did appear as a guest commentator for WABC-TV Eyewitness News after the close of last evening's RNC speeches, trading barbs and giggles with Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). The TV caption under Whitman identified her as the former governor of New Jersey. True to that incomplete identification, Whitman uttered not a word about her years as administrator of the Bush EPA, or her role in the rush to declare the toxic air at Ground Zero to be clean in the days after 9/11. Certainly New Yorkers would have been interested in that topic.

But maybe it is time to forgive and forget. After all, the EPA did eventually clean some of the homes around Ground Zero. What's a little dust among friends? Just ask Barbara Trees, who has been handing out "I support the Ground Zero community" stickers every day this week in the streets around Ground Zero.

Trees fled her home when she woke to the attacks on New York. In her haste to evacuate her Fulton St. apartment, she left her windows open and dust from the collapsing towers billowed in covering everything.

Initially following the 9/11 attacks, intuition told Trees that the soot was not safe, and she found refuge in New Jersey for a few days. But then, like a tough New Yorker, she came back. "Christie Todd Whitman said it was okay," she recalled. "I'm smart, but I wanted to believe it, so I came home." Trees still sensed danger in her dust-covered apartment, but she did not see fit to make a big stink about it. "With people jumping out of buildings, it was kind of hard to complain about a dirty house," she said. In reward for her confidence in the Bush EPA, Trees was plagued by short-term breathing problems, and now pays in daily anxiety. "I'm worried they took 10 years off my life. I check with doctors all the time," Trees said. "The doctors used to just shrug their shoulders. They couldn't tell me anything because as far as they heard, I wasn't exposed to bad things."

Later, Trees' apartment was one "cleaned" by the EPA, but she doubted the work's thoroughness. "The subcontractors they sent in didn't even wear masks," Trees said. "And they didn't clean everywhere." Last July, Trees took it upon herself to clean some of the closets, nooks, and crannies that had gone untouched by EPA. The project covered her face in soot left from 9/11. "I've never had acne in my life, and my whole face broke out," Trees said. For residents of Lower Manhattan, the dust on this issue certainly has not settled. "My place still has that stuff in there," Trees said.

In a report released earlier this month based on EPA records and scientific studies, the Sierra Club said that the EPA showed a "reckless disregard" for the health of Lower Manhattan residents. The report is riddled with lowlights like this one, noted by Juan Gonzalez in an April 19 column for the New York Daily News:

"Oddly, EPA reports that it did not find PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons] in the outdoor air, either, stating: 'As of April 2002, none of the 15 PAHs monitored were detected in any air samples' ... In fact, EPA scientists from its Research Triangle Park [laboratory] in North Carolina published a paper in 2003 reporting the detection of the same PAHs that EPA Region 2 was monitoring (and reportedly not finding), and others as well -- including a compound that has never before been reported in ambient air sampling."

The Ground Zero community became the guinea pig for this new mystery compound. And the experiment is not over, according to report author Suzanne Mattei, who was at work in Lower Manhattan on 9/11. "Most people's homes still have not been professionally cleaned. There was lead in that dust that is still in people's apartments," Mattei said. "The federal government still hasn't admitted that something is wrong here." She knows that even if the government eventually decides to do more to help the Ground Zero community, for many, the damage is already done. "They pulled immigrant workers who don't have health care off the streets to sweep and clean around Ground Zero without protection," she added. "You can't fix that."

And now Christie Whitman, who oversaw this "reckless disregard" during her watch at EPA, may be about to slither back into the political spotlight -- without a word of apology to Lower Manhattan. According to an Aug. 22 Newsday article, she may be tapped by Republicans to run for New Jersey governor, again, hoping to fill the seat of recently resigned Democrat James McGreevey.

At the GOP convention last night, hardly a sentence was uttered that did not reference Sept. 11, or national security. Some of the most rousing applause during Vice President Dick Cheney's speech came when he proudly stated, "George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people." Nor did the president seek a doctor's note before he OK'd reopening Wall Street, allowing people to return to Lower Manhattan. What about their security?

"I couldn't defend myself and EPA did not defend us," Trees said. And still, it does not. The continued inaction of the federal government could mean that the last victim has not yet been tapped by 9/11. As Mattei said, "Somewhere right now in Lower Manhattan, there's a child playing on a carpet covered in lead."

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This piece reflects the opinion of its author and should not be taken to constitute an official endorsement by Grist Magazine, its staff, its board members, their massage therapists, or their personal trainers.