According to a Sept. 5 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) second program to test and clean building interiors contaminated by toxins from the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse was a virtual failure. The program's problems stemmed from EPA's inadequate public notification and refusal to listen to its own science experts. The GAO report also indicated that EPA was reluctant to accept cleanup responsibility according to expert recommendations. The result was a limited program grossly underutilized by the public.

The 2001 WTC attacks resulted in toxic dust clouds spread throughout New York City. Though EPA tested the outside air for public health concerns, it initially deferred responsibility for indoor air concerns to New York agencies. The Department of Homeland Security has since clarified that EPA has lead responsibility for building cleanup when contamination is related to terrorism. EPA then began the first building testing and cleanup program in September 2002 for individual apartments, upon tenant request, in lower Manhattan.

After a 2003 Inspector General (IG) review critical of the first program, EPA began a second program in December 2006, based on the recommendations of an expert panel, to address the IG concerns. The resulting program expanded the number of chemicals considered and allowed for testing dust as well as air but, disregarding panel recommendations, remained limited to independently participating apartments in the small area of lower Manhattan. The program also did not test outside of normally accessible areas, such as behind appliances and in heating systems. Cleaning an apartment without addressing recontamination risks from other potentially contaminated apartments in the same building is seen as short-sighted and counterproductive, ignoring the likelihood that other apartments are health risks to their tenants and could undo the progress made in the cleaned areas.

Though there are approximately 20,000 apartments in lower Manhattan, only 272 residents participated in the second program. This low participation rate may be more understandable when considering that EPA used results from the first program to insinuate that there was little or no risk of WTC dust contamination in residences. What EPA didn't explain was that 80 percent of the results finding no asbestos risks were from after cleaning, not before. Apartments with air so dirty the filters clogged were disregarded, and only asbestos levels were tested, which gives no indication of the potential health risks from other toxins.

EPA has also been reactive instead of preventative when considering geographic boundaries for the program. Though obvious that buildings outside the small designated area of lower Manhattan were polluted, EPA used the difficulty in confirming the origins of toxic dust that might be found as the reason for not expanding the program above Canal Street or into Brooklyn. Avoiding areas known to have a high probability of WTC contamination because the exact science for confirmation does not exist is more conservative than the expert panel recommended.

EPA has cited resource constraints for the second program limitations. However, EPA never assessed the program needs or requested additional funds, considering itself bound to $7 million left over from the first program, which used almost $38 million.

Beyond ignoring the majority of the expert panel recommendations in the second program, the GAO report found that EPA's management of the panel and lack of transparency actually hindered the panel's effectiveness. EPA did not regard the panel as an independent body, and instead, treated them more as personal advisors. Rather than developing panel consensus recommendations, EPA considered members' individual suggestions separately. Thirteen of the eighteen members considered this process "inappropriate." Additionally, panel meetings and conversations were not adequately documented, which resulted in the reported loss of recommendations.

As a result, none of the members considered the panel successful in meeting its established goals:

1. to develop the second program;
2. to identify unmet public health needs;
3. to identify remaining risks using exposure and health surveillance information; and
4. to determine steps to further minimize risk.

Some members were so unsatisfied with the second program that they discouraged public participation.