Opinion ID: 797630
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Allegedly Misleading Statements

Text: 7 The complaint invokes a report issued by the EPA Office of the Inspector General, which critiques the EPA's response to the September 11 disaster. See EPA Office of the Inspector General, EPA's Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement, Report No. 2003-P-00012 (Aug. 21, 2003), available at http:// www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2003/WTC_ report_20030821.pdf (last visited April 17, 2007) (the OIG Report). 1 8 A September 13, 2001, EPA press release, which is cited in the OIG Report, [i] indicated that initial environmental tests done at the site after the terrorist attacks were very reassuring about potential exposure of rescue crews and the public to environmental contaminants; [ii] concluded that the results of [a]dditional sampling of both ambient air quality and dust particles . . . in lower Manhattan . . . were uniformly acceptable; and [iii] expressed the EPA's intent to work with other agencies and rescue workers to provide respiratory equipment and to make sure they observed appropriate safety precautions — assistance that the plaintiffs allege (to their knowledge) never materialized. OIG Report at 87-88. 9 A September 16 EPA press release reported additional good news: 10 [N]ew samples confirm previous reports that ambient air quality meets OSHA standards and consequently is not a cause for public concern. New OSHA data also indicates that indoor air quality in downtown buildings will meet standards. EPA has found variable asbestos levels in bulk debris and dust on the ground, but EPA continues to believe that there is no significant health risk to the general public in the coming days. Appropriate steps are being taken to clean up this dust and debris. Our tests show that it is safe for New Yorkers to go back to work in New York's financial district, said John L. Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA. Keeping the streets clean and being careful not to track dust into buildings will help protect workers from remaining debris. 11 Id. at 85. 12 A September 18 press release reported that EPA's testing of the air and drinking water showed that these vital resources are safe and that the vast majority of air samples taken near the site measured harmful substances at below maximum acceptable levels. According to the release, the highest asbestos levels were close to the site itself, where rescue and cleanup workers were supposedly being supplied with adequate equipment. The same release quoted defendant Whitman: 13 We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances, Whitman said. Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath [sic] and their water is safe to drink, she added. 14 Id. at 77. In fact, according to the EPA Inspector General, 25 percent of the bulk dust samples taken up to that point recorded asbestos at levels representing a significant health risk. See id. at 14. 15 Press releases issued on September 21, October 3, and October 30 — as well as a statement made by an EPA spokesperson to the New York Daily News on or about October 11 — all reiterated the message that testing and sampling done near the site indicated no significant health risk to the public. See Compl. ¶¶ 49-51. 16 The OIG Report suggests that: [i] the EPA's press releases conveyed the dominant message that there was no risk to public health without necessary qualifying statements about, for instance, the initial lack of monitoring data for many harmful substances besides asbestos, see OIG Report at 9-11; [ii] the EPA did not disclose publicly that it lacked adequate benchmarks for measuring the long term health effects of each substance or the combination of them in the unprecedented conditions created by the disaster, see id. at 9-13; [iii] the EPA's reassuring statements were interpreted by some to apply to site workers as well as the public, see id. at 43-44; [iv] the EPA and other agencies sent mixed messages to workers about the need for respirators, see id. at 43-45; and [v] the EPA's decisions as to what information to release were heavily influenced by suggestions from the CEQ, see id. at 14-17. See Compl. ¶¶ 52-57. 17 As to the last point, a September 12 internal EPA email directed that all statements to the media were to be cleared by the National Security Council before release, and the OIG Report indicates that an official in the CEQ was the conduit through which this clearance was granted, OIG Report at 15; a comparison of draft press releases with their final counterparts reveals that the CEQ suggested edits that removed cautionary wording (for instance, in the September 13 press release, a portion of the title was changed from [EPA] Testing Terrorized Sites for Environmental Hazards to [EPA] Reassures Public About Environmental Hazards), id. at 17; and in response to the CEQ's suggestions about the September 16 press release, the EPA [i] removed a reference to recent test samples that recorded higher asbestos levels than those in previous samples and [ii] added a quote from John L. Henshaw of OSHA assuring that it was safe to go to work in Lower Manhattan, id. at 16. 18 The press releases were not without cautionary language: they referred to the EPA's plan for continued monitoring efforts; and early press releases warned of the need to take certain cautionary measures — for instance, to change air conditioning filters, sweep up debris, and wet down buildings covered in debris to avoid its becoming airborne.