Lawsuit may clear the
air
on 9/11 cleanup
danger
EDITORIAL, NJ Home
News Tribune Online, February 5, 2006
It has long been known that the
assurances about air quality given by Christie Whitman, as head of the
Environmental Protection Agency, to residents, schoolchildren and workers in
lower Manhattan in the days after Sept. 11 were unfounded.
Last Thursday a federal court judge allowed a class-action lawsuit against the
EPA and Whitman herself to go forward, ruling that Whitman's misleading
statements were "conscience-shocking."
The judge's blunt assessment brought a jolt to a case that had been low on the
public and media radar, even though the EPA's own Office of Inspector General
previously had said the agency had no data to back up its reassuring words.
The judge found, however, that even without concrete data, Whitman had to have
known that tons of dangerous toxins, including asbestos, had been released into
the air with the collapse of the Twin Towers.
The real question, of course, is why the EPA, and Whitman herself, were so
anxious to allay public concern and whether Whitman, under threat of personal
liability in the suit, will explain how the assurances came to be given.
The Inspector General's report said White House officials were behind the
decision to mislead the public. Given this administration's history of
withholding information, news that it shaded the truth may in itself not come as
a huge shock.
But this all took place long before Iraq or Afghanistan, and in some part before
al-Qaida and its vast network had been publicly identified and explained.
The bad air was not perpetrated on terrorists, or even on citizens with links to
suspicious groups, but on victims of an attack, their rescuers and
schoolchildren. To what end?
It may be the administration, which has never taken environmental threats
seriously, also found this one unconvincing. Although the judge's ruling
last week does not prove that harm was done — that will be the focus of any
trial — people in Little Egg Harbor are still mourning the death of 34-year-old
James Zadroga, a retired New York City police detective who died from
respiratory complications the police union says are related to his long hours
doing search and rescue at the World Trade Center site.
Besides this administration's cavalier attitudes toward clean air, one also
cannot help wondering if there was an even more sinister calculation. In
the days following the strike, the administration was determined to show those
responsible that this nation remained unbowed. It seems reasonable to
ponder whether the air quality assurances were in part motivated by politics, or
at least by a desire to put forward a face of strength and perseverance, and not
to let the terrorists know how badly we had been crippled.
These calculations, if made, are indeed conscience-shocking. We can only
encourage Whitman, a respected moderate and self-described environmentalist, to
tell what she knows. And let the chips fall where they may.
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