{"id":84086,"date":"2017-09-19T11:26:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=84086"},"modified":"2017-09-19T11:26:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:26:42","slug":"epa-director-during-911-misrepresented-nyc-air-quality-everyone-knew-but-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=84086","title":{"rendered":"EPA Director During 9\/11 Misrepresented NYC Air Quality—Everyone knew but her!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former EPA head admits she was wrong to tell New Yorkers post-9\/11 air was safe<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Christine Todd Whitman, who reassured the public over Ground Zero air, says: \u2018I\u2019m sorry. We did the very best we could \u2026 with the knowledge we had\u2019<\/p>\n

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Christine Todd Whitman was head of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 under President George W Bush, right. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque\/Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Joanna Walters in New York
\nThe Guardian<\/p>\n

Christine Todd Whitman, who as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under George W Bush\u00a0at the time of the 9\/11 attacks<\/a>\u00a0told the public the air around Ground Zero in New York was safe to breathe, has admitted for the first time she was wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among those who were exposed to toxins released when the World Trade Center collapsed, the toll of illness and death continues to rise.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Guardian for a report on the growing health crisis to be published on Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the attacks, Whitman made an unprecedented apology to those affected but denied she had ever lied about the air quality or known at the time it was dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we got wrong, we should acknowledge and people should be helped,\u201d she said, adding that she still \u201cfeels awful\u201d about the tragedy and its aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very sorry that people are sick,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I\u2019m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cEvery time it comes around to the anniversary I cringe, because I know people will bring up my name, they blame me, they say that I lied and that people died because I lied, [they say] people have died because I made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week after two hijacked passenger jets were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center, killing 2,753 people \u2013 184 died in the Pentagon in Washington DC and 40 were killed when a United Airlines plane came down in a field in Pennsylvania \u2013 Whitman issued a\u00a0statement<\/a>. It said: \u201cI am glad to reassure the people of New York \u2026 that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has always maintained that as head of the EPA she was simply passing on what government scientists were telling her, warning those working at Ground Zero itself to wear respirators but dismissing concerns over the surrounding area, which was engulfed in dust and ash.<\/p>\n

Three days after the attacks, Whitman, who had previously been the Republican governor of New Jersey, told reporters: \u201cThe good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause us no concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, the EPA inspector general\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0the agency\u2019s handling of the crisis, finding that the EPA had no basis for its swift pronouncements about air quality. Politicians, including the then New York senator Hillary Clinton, laid into the Bush administration, accusing it of\u00a0deceiving\u00a0<\/a>the public.<\/p>\n

More than 37,000 people registered with the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP), a federal organisation set up in 2011 to oversee those affected by exposure to the toxins released at Ground Zero, have been declared sick. Many have chronic respiratory illnesses or cancer.<\/p>\n

More than 1,100 people covered by the WTCHP have died. That number includes first responders who were at Ground Zero and people who lived and worked in the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

A WTCHP spokeswoman, Christy Spring, said: \u201cWe have a list of health conditions that the program provides medical monitoring and treatment for, established by the government to have been related to exposure to the dust and debris from the 9\/11 attack on the World Trade Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitman said: \u201cIf people are dying from this \u2013 and I have not seen the data \u2013 and they had believed everything was fine, then you have got to blame the message they were hearing, and what they were hearing was that the ambient air quality in Lower Manhattan at the time was OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerrold Nadler<\/a>, a veteran US congressman whose district covers the World Trade Center site, told the Guardian on Thursday that Whitman had never admitted she had been wrong about the air quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knew or should have known\u201d the air was dangerous, he said.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Nadler accused Whitman of causing thousands to suffer injury \u201cand in some cases death\u201d due to \u201cunnecessary exposure to toxins released by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a ruling in a lawsuit brought by New York residents that year, a federal appeals court ruled that Whitman\u00a0could not be held liable<\/a>\u00a0for health problems caused by the air around Ground Zero.<\/p>\n

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