White House told EPA to lie after 9/11

EPA Misled Public on 9/11 Pollution
White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report says

by Laurie Garrett

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.

www.commondreams.org...

And...

www.msnbc.com...

Hmmm, I've always found the best way to deal with a crisis is to tell the truth. What is it about these guys that their first instinct is to lie?

They probably kept in mind that 3,000 people had just died. Instead of making matters worse, they probably withheld info because of the terrible atrocitie that had just taken place. Think outside the box.

Mighty funny how there are under-developed/under-sized babies being born from those women who live or lived in the area of the Twin Towers collapses.....

Article:
"Exploiting 9/11 Babies"
nypost.com...


regards
seekerof

[Edited on 24-8-2003 by Seekerof]

Last year I attended a seminar about domestic terrorism and emergency operations command planning. One of the classes was hosted by the field commander for our regional section of Texas Taskforce 1 (urban disaster, search and rescue rapid deployment taskforce, of which my group has since been attached).

On 9/12, Texas Taskforce 1 flew out of Kelly AFB on 2 C-141 Starlifters to NYC. Once on scene, they set up a command center in the driveway of what was once Ladder Company 10, directly across the plaza from the World Trade Center (all of Ladder Company 10 was killed when the towers collapsed).

TT1 was the only group on the scene that issued respiratory protection (all TT1 members were given Level B respirators with pariculate and OVM cartridges), and they also set up an air monitoring station to monitor for airborne concentrations of numerous contaminants, including lead, asbestos, and many others.

At the time, none of the NYFD personnel were using respirators, and indeed, many of them looked at the TT1 guys as wasting time with them (keep in mind, they were very intent on finding any possible survivors, many of whom were hoped to be fellow fire fighters).

The TT1 air monitoring station did in fact record significant (hazardous) amounts of numerous airborne contaminants, and it turned out to be a very good thing that all members used respirators. I have no idea if these results were ever given to the EPA or other environmental groups, but I believe that TT1 turned out to be the only responding group on site that had NO reports of respiratory injury from the time at Ground Zero.

Found these to go along with what you posted DR:

"WTC Air Quality Questioned At Hearing"
www.newsmax.com...

"Ground Zero Workers Suffering"
www.cbsnews.com...

regards
seekerof

for the first time in recorded history i can truly say that i actually agree with goregrinder on this one.

Airborne particulate matter from the Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols (DELTA) Group at the University of California at Davis indicate that parts of Lower Manhattan in the months after Sept. 11 were contaminated with a variety of toxic substances, including metals at the highest levels ever recorded in air in the United States.

Yep, this would certainly fit the bill....

If you are a first responder, ALWAYS use your respirator!

for the first time in recorded history i can truly say that i actually agree with goregrinder on this one.

Huh, imagine that. But i'm sure there was some vast Right Wing Conspiracie behind this, right?

What the HELL were they supposed to do?! Tell every single person in New York to hold their FORKIN' Breath?!

Are YOU serious? Have you thought this through?!

WHAT, EXACTLY, would YOU have done? Told 13 million, already DEVISTATED people that after what they've been through, NOW THEY CAN'T BREATHE the air because it MIGHT be toxic?!

Oh and don't come back with "well the people had the right to know. To know what? That they were totally screwed WORSE than the hell they had already gone through and there was NOTHING that could be done about it?

Yeah THAT would've been GREAT leadership.

Sheesh!

Sorry if I came off a little strong here but this is just rediculous IMHO...

P...
m...

[Edited on 8-24-2003 by Springer]

I really don't think anyone is eluding to a conspiracy gentlemen/ladies. What is being eluded to is the matter of bureaucratic BS....

regards
seekerof

Whew! Thank you for the clarification... The way the original post is titled and written I took it as some sort of "the evil regime in D.C. tried to purposely injure the survivors of NYC, post 9/11, with non disclosure"

No matter what, the title certainly alludes to that. I will accept the "Bureucratic B.S." line only because YOU claim it.

P...
m...

hehehe...Springer, we have had our differences in the past but please....don't take something because "I said it." You are entitled to your opinion as anyone else. I do agree that the "lie" word may be a bit beyond "mis-leading"...but sometimes you have to get past a 'word' use sometimes.

regards
seekerof

[Edited on 24-8-2003 by Seekerof]

I agree, I dont know that there was ever a "do not report" order (although I dont believe it to be beyond possibility). However, as I understand how municipal governments work, and considering the massive chaos that reigned at the time, there probably just was not a clear cut procedure to either take air monitoring or to distribute the findings.

I also agree, at the time, locating any possible survivors was the TOP priority, and such environmental screening would have been an afterthought.

Case in point, although TT1 was the only group to do such air monitoring, they were basically doing it just for the purposes of keeping the team itself safe, and had nowhere the capacity to generalize over the entire site. They never did find an avenue to make thier findings public, or to submit them to NYC environmental.

Well, this is hardly going to be Bush II's downfall, is i? The language of this cutting is scarcely clear: "it was safe" when there wasn't "evidence"? So, it may have been "safe" and then it wasn't a "lie".
No one's saying that the evidence clearly showed it wasn't safe and that this was suppressed.
Non-news. If there's even a germ of truth in it, it was probably a sensible stratagem in terms of public order: not that I imagine it would have made much difference either way: western governments spend billions of the taxpayers' dollars and pounds etc. pointing out clearly that breathing tobacco smoke definitely isn't "safe"and all to relatively little effect.
Drivel-media non-news; but as always why release it at all and why release it now?

I disagree, gore and springer. of course they should have been told the air was bad to breathe. Not telling them that it was hazardous dont protect them anymore from the hazards of breathing the air there. They should have been informed, and at the very least, dust masks should have been made available to them to have on demand for free.

Not only to they have to survive the hideous trauma of being there in the middle of the horrid mess, now they get to look forward to years of long term ills and woes, from babies born underdeveloped, to lung, kidney, and other physical ailments.

The govornment was hideously irresponsible here. Their job is to reduce as much injury as possible. They should have shipepd #loads of dust makes, respirtators, ect to NYC to protect the already horrified and damaged people of New York from further harming themselves.

This is criminal in my book. Not disclosing this info is criminal negligence. the people of New York had the right to know, so at leats they could decide whether or not people wanted even enter the city to go to work, or for those who had to, at least giving them some sort of protection from it.

Not only do they now have a changed skyline, thousands of dead friends and relatives, but they get to look forward to birth defects and lung cancer.

Hiding a threat or danger does not minimize or make it go away.

Hasn't anyone here ever heard of evacuation? That's the course of action that should've been taken, if there was dangerous poisons lingering in the air. They wouldn't even have to evac the state, probably...just the city. Or at least advise people to leave.

"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."

sfgate.com.../c/a/2003/08/23/MN300070.DTL


[Edited on 26-8-2003 by Satyr]

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
I disagree, gore and springer. of course they should have been told the air was bad to breathe. Not telling them that it was hazardous dont protect them anymore from the hazards of breathing the air there. They should have been informed, and at the very least, dust masks should have been made available to them to have on demand for free.

Not only to they have to survive the hideous trauma of being there in the middle of the horrid mess, now they get to look forward to years of long term ills and woes, from babies born underdeveloped, to lung, kidney, and other physical ailments.

The govornment was hideously irresponsible here. Their job is to reduce as much injury as possible. They should have shipepd #loads of dust makes, respirtators, ect to NYC to protect the already horrified and damaged people of New York from further harming themselves.

This is criminal in my book. Not disclosing this info is criminal negligence. the people of New York had the right to know, so at leats they could decide whether or not people wanted even enter the city to go to work, or for those who had to, at least giving them some sort of protection from it.

Not only do they now have a changed skyline, thousands of dead friends and relatives, but they get to look forward to birth defects and lung cancer.

Hiding a threat or danger does not minimize or make it go away.

totaly agree, and what gives the Gov the right to choose what they should know? to say on the grounds that it would cause panic or they ahve no choice to breadth the air anyway is iresposable to say. these people have rights they were violated by not being informed it is that simple. forget polotics this is there rights to be warned of hazzards they were ignored that can never be justifiable in this case.


btw Hi

Didin't I write about this in my blog a long time ago?

Seeing how this has just been released by respected news sources on the 23rd (from what I see), maybe this has now been proven not to be speculation?

[Edited on 26-8-2003 by Satyr]

Let me ask a simple question:

Do you blindly trust those in power SO MUCH that you let them make decisions FOR YOU based on information THEY DON'T TELL YOU?

"Oh but it's just the government making a decision that might affect my and my family's life without giving me any of the facts first."

That's pretty pathetic. If you say something like that, knowing that the US government has lied to its own people many times before then YOU ARE A SHEEP.

This is a betrayal, pure and simple. They're NOT looking out for your best interests, they're looking out for theirs. It's not THEIR lives that are at risk, it's yours, so it makes their decision a little easier...


Sad.

jakomo