From CBS News, 9/7/06:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_250165234.html
Memo: NYC Reopened WTC Area Despite EPA Warning
Giuliani May Have Known Air Near World Trade Center Site Was Toxic;
Area Was Reopened Anyway
A CBS 2 Exclusive
Marcia Kramer
Reporting
(CBS) NEW YORK
He was hailed a hero after 9/11.
But CBS 2 has learned Mayor Rudy Giuliani may have knowingly put New
Yorkers in harm's way after the attacks.
CBS 2 obtained memos that show the city was told the air at Ground
Zero was toxic, but reopened Lower Manhattan anyway.
What did the former mayor know about the air quality at Ground Zero
and when did he know it?
An explosive memo from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to
an associate commissioner at the city health department -- dated
October 5, 2001 -- told the tale.
"This site ... poses threats to workers related to potential exposure
to hazardous substances," the head of EPA's Response and Prevention
Branch wrote.
The memo went on to list the hazardous substances, which included
asbestos, refrigerants, hazardous wastes, ethylene and "products of
combustion emitted from the long-burning fires."
Just two days before EPA's private memo to the Giuliani
administration, the agency said publicly that the air quality in Lower
Manhattan was safe.
It's a position the administration was still maintaining weeks later.
"For residents and people who are working in the open area that has
been created downtown, there is no realistic danger to health," said
Joel Miele on October 26, 2001.
At the time, he was the city's Commissioner of Environmental
Protection.
People believed City Hall.
"If the mayor says it's OK, then I believe him. It's OK," one person
told CBS 2 in October 2001.
No more.
"If that information existed how dare they keep that from everyone --
not just the workers but the people who lived down there," said Leigh
Ann Vinciguerra, the wife of a 9/11 first responder.
One man who lives at Ground Zero, Salvatore Rosillo, told CBS 2 he
feels betrayed.
"Five months after the event my cat dropped dead and I woke up with
Quasimodo's face. Look at my face. I cannot move it," he said.
The head of the city's fire union charged that firefighters and rescue
workers in the pit were left unprotected.
"The fact that the city knew that the air wasn't safe and had a
responsibility to protect us and didn't do anything is a disgrace,"
said fire union president Stephen Cassidy.
"It was all about money and it wasn't about the safety of first
responders. Those people should be ashamed of themselves."
Former Mayor Giuliani was not available for comment.
His then-Deputy Mayor for Operations, Joe Lhota, told CBS 2 he had no
knowledge of the EPA memo and if he had, he would have made it public.
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"Hero" Giuliani caught in 9/11 scandal.
Harry
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