The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)
Copyright 2007 Newark Morning Ledger Co.
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It is clear that Christie Whitman and other officials didn't do nearly enough to warn people of the pollution danger after the collapse of the World Trade Center. And the government still isn't doing enough to protect people in Lower Manhattan from 9/11's toxic legacy.

Those conclusions are not new. But their truth was poignantly highlighted at yesterday's lengthy congressional hearing on the toxic fallout of the Sept. 11 attacks.

At one point, Rep. Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, told Whitman, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator at the time of the attacks, that she should read the reports from Mt. Sinai Medical Center and elsewhere on the health fallout from the collapse of the Twin Towers.

The medical reports, and a growing number of cases of death and illness, prove that the government botched its duty to protect the public. The illness and suffering of police officers, firefighters, apartment dwellers and office workers show that Whitman and others were horribly mistaken when they concluded that the air was safe in the days after 9/11, but said little about dust and soot.

Yes, the science did seem to show that airborne levels of asbestos and other toxic substances were not terribly high for the most part, particularly if someone wasn't directly on a huge debris pile at Ground Zero.

But Whitman and a host of other officials at the federal, state and local levels all but ignored giving the public any effective warnings about the lingering effects of contaminated dust and soot. The powder from the fall and conflagration of the towers was highly polluted. It infiltrated windows, heating and air conditioning systems and every conceivable nook and cranny for blocks around the Trade Center site.

Yet the EPA didn't hammer home the need for the skilled cleanup of homes, offices and schools, even though Whitman and other officials quickly saw to it that the agency's own building near the Twin Towers was thoroughly decontaminated. Instead, the public tone was one of reassurance. Whitman, a former governor of New Jersey, seems genuinely to believe the EPA did the best it could, that the confident tone was justified by the science at the time.

The mounting medical evidence shows that the reassurances were optimistic at best. The evidence shows Washington still needs to help clean up buildings in Lower Manhattan, still needs to expand funding for medical tracking and services for those coming down with 9/11-related maladies.

The people who really need to read the medical reports Pascrell mentioned are currently at the EPA and the White House.