eathe. Thomas Cahill, a professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric science, headed the scientific team that studied the aerosols from the fuming site in lower Manhattan during the weeks right after Sept. 11, 2001.

In an interview Tuesday, Cahill called the conditions for people working at ground zero without respirators "brutal" and said conditions were only slightly better for those working or living in adjacent buildings.

"The site was hot for months. The metals burned into fine particles. They rose in a plume and moved over people's heads on most days. There were at least eight days when the plume was pushed down into the city. Then people tasted it, smelled it and saw it. But people who worked in the pile were getting it every day. The workers are the ones that I worry about most," Cahill told The Chronicle.

Cahill's data found that the pollution included very fine metals, which interfere with lung chemistry; sulfuric acid, which attacks lung cells; carcinogenic organic matter; and very fine insoluble particles such as glass, which travel through the lungs and into the bloodstream and heart.

Cahill heads the DELTA Group, which stands for Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols, an association of scientists at several universities and national laboratories. The U.S. Energy Department asked the group to monitor air quality in New York.

Comment: Did the Dept. of Energy warn anyone?

"The burning ruins of the World Trade Center spewed toxic (metals, acids and organics)gases 'like a chemical factory' for at least six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite government assurances the air was safe, according to a study released on Wednesday.

://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&ncid=1896&e=1&u=/nm/20030910/us_nm/sept11_air_dc_3

Health Concerns

In the two years since the attack, thousands of New Yorkers have contacted the World Trade Center health registry, reporting cases of persistent coughs, wheezing, shortness of breath and sinus inflammation.

A year ago, the New York Fire Department reported that up to 500 employees may have to retire early as a result of respiratory disability or chronic breathing problems caused by their exposure to dense clouds of dust, smoke and fumes at the site.

Cahill's first report in 2002, based on 8,000 air samples collected a mile from the complex, found high levels of very fine airborne particles that could increase risk of lung damage and heart attacks.

The new data confirm four classes of pollutants at levels higher than what Cahill's group found in Kuwait or China, Cahill said. Tons of concrete, glass, furniture, carpets, insulation, computers and paper were reduced to debris piles that burned for three months.

In that hot pile, some of the elements combined with organic matter and abundant chlorine from papers and plastics and then escaped to the surface as metal-rich gases. They burned or chemically decomposed into very fine particles capable of penetrating deeply into human lungs, Cahill said.

(Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 10 September 2003

"A building near ground zero still has dust from the World Trade Center and cancer-causing chemicals in the air after a cleanup overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, an EPA veteran scientist said in a memo released Tuesday.

://1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_252234839.html

A story of censorship of the 9-11 toxic air quality story

Following recent revelations that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency misled the public about air quality in New York following the 9/11 terrorist attack, the New York Daily News has been crowing about how columnist Juan González "was the first to sound the alarm" that ground zero was a toxic dump after 9/11. Indeed, sources say, .... editors

discouraged the columnist from pursuing the toxic story and buckled under pressure from federal and local authorities."

According to Fallout, several authorities contacted the News seeking to discredit the story, including "one of Giuliani's deputy mayors" who "called a top editor" to complain.

The Daily News' metro editor Richard Pienciak appointed a four-reporter team to investigate the toxic threat, but soon he "was removed from his post without explanation" and the team was "immediately dissolved."

SOURCE: Village Voice, September 10-16, 2003

http://villagevoice.com/issues/0337/cotts.php

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063166401

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