Found it//: Study Finds WTC Fires Spewed Toxic Gases for Weeks

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> Study Finds WTC Fires Spewed Toxic Gases for Weeks

> Sept. 10

>

> By Ellen Wulfhorst

>

> NEW YORK (Reuters) - The burning ruins of the World Trade Center spewed

> toxic gases " like a chemical factory " for at least six weeks after the

> Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite government assurances the air was safe,

> according to a study released on Wednesday.

>

> The gases of toxic metals, acids and organics could penetrate deeply into

> the lungs of workers at Ground Zero, said the study by scientists at the

> University of California at Davis and released at a meeting of the

American

> Chemical Society in New York.

>

> Lead study author Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and engineering,

> said conditions would have been " brutal " for workers at Ground Zero

without

> respirators and slightly less so for those working or living in adjacent

> buildings.

>

> " The debris pile acted like a chemical factory, " Cahill said. " It cooked

> together the components and the buildings and their contents, including

> enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids

> and organics for at least six weeks. "

>

> The report comes amid questions about air quality at Ground Zero and what

> the public was told by the government.

>

> Last month, an internal report by Environmental Protection Agency

Inspector

> General Nikki Tinsley said the White House pressured the agency to make

> premature statements that the air was safe to breathe.

>

> The EPA issued an air quality statement on Sept. 18, 2001, even though it

> " did not have sufficient data and analyzes to make the statement, " the

> report said.

>

> The White House " convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete

> cautionary ones, " Tinsley said. Among the information withheld was the

> potential health hazards of breathing asbestos, lead, concrete and

> pulverized glass, the report said.

>

> New York leaders including Sen. Hillary Clinton have called on the Justice

> Department to investigate.

>

> EPA acting administrator Marianne Horinko has defended the agency, saying

> it used the best information it had available.

>

> According to the newly released UC-Davis study, after the towers

collapsed,

> tons of concrete, glass, furniture, carpets, insulation, computers and

> papers burned until Dec. 19, 2001.

>

> Some elements of the debris combined with organic matter and chlorine from

> papers and plastics and escaped to the surface as metal-rich gases that

> either burned or chemically decomposed into very fine particles that could

> easily penetrate deep into human lungs, it said.

>

> Specifically, the study said samples from Ground Zero found four types of

> particles listed by the EPA as likely to harm human health -- fine metals

> that can damage lungs, sulfuric acid that attacks lung cells, fine

> undissolvable particles of glass that can travel through the lungs to the

> bloodstream and heart and high-temperature carcinogenic organic matter.

>

> Measurements made at Ground Zero in May 2002, months after the fires were

> out, showed levels of nearly all the fine components had declined more

than

> 90 percent, the study said.

> http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20030910_291.html

>