(At the end of the letter is a link to the EPA's November 30 response.)

October 26, 2004

Michael O. Leavitt
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Bldg.
1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Leavitt:

We are community, tenant, religious, disaster recovery, social service, environmental and labor organizations, and residents, workers, and small business owners in the affected areas, who have been concerned by unaddressed environmental and public health issues since Sept. 11, 2001. Many of us have diligently participated in the EPA World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel process that began in March 2004, and our work as community representatives in that process was recently placed on a formal basis by EPA.

In our own names, and in the names of the thousands of workers and residents whom we represent, we make the following statement and request:

The lower Manhattan and Brooklyn communities, both residents and workers, have, for three years, called on EPA to clean up the contaminants left behind by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For three years, EPA has been unresponsive to the appeals of our communities, our elected representatives, and EPA’s own Inspector General. For the last eight months, lower Manhattan and Brooklyn residents and workers have worked, in good faith, as closely with the EPA WTC Technical Expert Review Panel as we have been permitted to do. We appreciate the efforts of panel members and we hope to be able to continue working with the panel.

Nevertheless, eight months after this panel began its work, no additional environmental testing or clean-up has been conducted. Our children, our neighbors, our co-workers, and our firefighters continue to live with the uncertainty of possible exposure and unnecessary risk. After three years of delay by EPA and eight months of work by this panel, EPA has yet to make a public commitment to testing and decontamination.

We therefore call upon EPA, by the end of October 2004, to publicly commit itself in a written statement released at a press conference presided over by an official EPA spokesperson to the following seven principles:

1. EPA will conduct, with appropriate input from the community, comprehensive indoor environmental testing for multiple contaminants. The testing will occur as promptly as possible.

2. EPA will expand the geographic range of the testing from its original boundaries to include, at a minimum, additional southern Manhattan communities, including all of Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and also the neighborhoods in Brooklyn affected by World Trade Center dust.

3. EPA will test both residences and workplaces. Landlords, residents, employers, and employees will all be given the option of volunteering to have their respective buildings, residences, and workplaces tested.

4. EPA testing will include mechanical ventilation systems.

5. Where test results warrant, EPA will decontaminate not only the tested buildings but the neighborhoods affected by 9/11 contaminants. The clean-up clearance criterion for each identified contaminant will be based upon consideration of health-based benchmarks and background levels, utilizing the criterion that is more protective.

6. EPA will, with appropriate community input, take the lead role in supervising the environmental safety of all 9/11-related clean-up, demolition, and reconstruction activities.

7. As EPA evaluates unmet health needs resulting from the attacks, it will support all necessary national and local efforts to ensure public health education, outreach, and long-term medical follow-up for affected communities and to ensure medical care for affected individuals.

This statement of principles is endorsed by the following community, residential, tenant, religious, disaster recovery, social service, environmental, small business and labor organizations and businesses:

• Manhattan Community Board No. 1 (by resolution)
• Manhattan Community Board No. 2 (by resolution)
• Manhattan Community Board No. 3 (by resolution)
• 9/11 Environmental Action (residents and school parents organization)
• Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
• Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW 2325, AFL-CIO
• Battery Park City United
• Candy World (small business)
• Chinese Progressive Association
• Citizens Environmental Coalition (CEC)
• Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)
• Communications Workers of America (CWA), District 1
• Communications Workers of America (CWA), Local 1180
• District Council 37, AFSCME
• Duane Street Block Association
• Essex World Cafe (small business)
• Family Association of Tribeca East (FATE)
• Fiscal Policy Institute
• Good Jobs New York
• Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES)
• Greater NY Labor and Religion Coalition
• Independence Plaza North Tenants Association (IPNTA)
• Investor Data Services (small business)
• Little Italy Neighbors Association (LINA)
• Manhattan Trustee Rudy Sanfilippo, Uniformed Firefighters Association
• Met Council on Housing
• National Postal Mail Handlers Union, Local 300
• National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 293
• New Jersey Work Environment Council
• New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning (NYCCELP)
• New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH)
• New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS)
• New York Environmental Law & Justice Project (NYELJP)
• New York From the Ground Up (represents 600 small businesses in the WTC area)
• New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF)
• Organization of Staff Analysts (OSA)
• Parents Association of Stuyvesant High School
• Physicians for Social Responsibility - New York City
• Pop Filter Music (small business)
• Professional Staff Congress (PSC)
• Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF)
• Rebuild with a Spotlight on the Poor Coalition (represents 20 community-based organizations)
• Residents of 125 Cedar Street
• Sierra Club
• Sierra Club - Fairfield County Group (Connecticut)
• Tenants and Neighbors
• The 2M Corporation (small business)
• Transport Workers Union (TWU), Local 100
• Uniformed EMTs & Paramedics - FDNY (EMTs & paramedics from Fire Dept)
• Uniformed Fire Officers Association
• United Federation of Teachers
• University Settlement
• Worthy Eyes (small business)
• WTC Residents Coalition (represents 30,000 Battery Park City residents)

Click here to view the EPA's November 30 response.