# Presentation: 530029

## Community Participation Committee Report

- to the
- WTC Expert Technical Review Panel

- Presented by
- Catherine McVay Hughes and
- Micki Siegel de HernandezJuly 26, 2004

## This presentation is the result of a Community meeting held on

**July 15, 2004.**
**Marcia Pinkett-Heller, an expert in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), once again volunteered her time to help facilitate the meeting.**

## Presentation Overview

**Community Concerns: Process**
**Community Concerns: Unmet Public Health Needs**

**Presentation Overview**

## Accomplishments for July 2004: CBPR Progress Report

**Conference call on 7/1/04 with Community Liaison and Alternate to discuss EPA funding mechanisms and timeframes.**
**Conference calls on 7/9/04 and 7/19/04 with Community Liaison and Alternate to discuss EPA Task Order Statement of Work (SOW) for CBPR.**
**Task Order SOW ready for submission to EPA Contracts on 7/20/04.**
**Task Order for CBPR will be part of existing EPA contract.**
**Once finalized, will be for one year from execution of Task Order**
**(approx. end July 2005) and may be extended for additional work.**

**Accomplishments for July 2004: CBPR Progress Report**

**Notes:**

Test

## Accomplishments for July 2004: 

**CBPR Professional/Facilitator**
**Technical Consultants for the Community**
**P/T WTC Community Facilitator Outreach Assistant in N.Y.C.**
**Some Operational Expenses to cover outreach activities**

**Accomplishments for July 2004: **
**CBPR Process Progress Report**

**Special thanks to EPA’s Dr. Paul Gilman, Lisa Matthews, & Michael Bender**

## Community Concerns: Process

**Presentation schedule should arise from a GROUP process.**
**Community Participation Presentation should be scheduled at beginning of the Panel meeting, with time allotted for discussion/questions.**
**Transcripts should be provided.**

**Community Concerns: Process**

## Unmet Public Health Needs

**Primary categories of Community concern include:**
**Remaining Contamination**
**Health Concerns**
**Public Education**
**Exposures Related to On-going Demolition and Construction**

**Unmet Public Health Needs**

## Unmet Public Health Needs: Remaining Contamination

**Many affected locations and geographic areas have been ignored.**
**No agency knows what measures were taken in individual buildings to address contamination or has verified whether these measures were adequate.**
**No agency has ever provided appropriate guidelines for clean-up.**
**All existing WTC environmental sampling data should be collected, entered into a database, and made available to the public.**

**Unmet Public Health Needs: Remaining Contamination**

## Unmet Public Health Needs: Health Concerns

**No one knows complete extent of potential WTC-related illness of either workers or residents.**
**Inadequate funding provided for the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program and the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Monitoring Program:**
**	**
**Only some workers involved in rescue, recovery, restoration activities eligible because of limited funding.**
**Screening only; no funding for treatment.**
**Funding for monitoring program expected to cover periodic screening exams for participants for 5 years, well short of what is needed for detection of diseases that may develop in the future.**

**Unmet Public Health Needs: Health Concerns**

## Unmet Public Health Needs: Health Concerns

**Lack of access to appropriate medical care.**
**Community concerned about other illnesses, in addition to respiratory diseases.**
**Medical needs of sensitive populations, particularly children, must be addressed.**

**Unmet Public Health Needs: Health Concerns**

## Unmet Public Health Needs: Public Education

**Early intervention depends on adequate education of both providers and the Community.**
**Sampling, clean-up and health summary information should be systematically collected, centralized and available to all; possible development of GIS database.**

**Unmet Public Health Needs: Public Education**

## Unmet Public Health Needs:

**New contamination problems must be controlled and minimized**
**EPA should have oversight role as lead environmental agency**
**This is what the Community wanted after 9/11 and this is what the Community wants now**
**EPA should be actively involved in the imminent demolition of the Deutsche Bank (planning, on-going monitoring, etc.)**

**Unmet Public Health Needs:**
**Exposures Related to On-going Demolition and Construction**

## Unmet Public Health Needs:

**Exposures Related to On-going Demolition and Construction**

**EPA should follow the “Precautionary Principle”:**
**“****When an activity raises threats to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.  In this context the proponent of an activity [e.g., demolition of 130 Liberty] rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.  The forces of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties.  It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives...”**
_**Contaminated Communities: Coping with Residential Toxic Exposure**_**, by Michael R. Edelstein (second edition, 2004, p.188)**

## Slide 14