JURIST - Paper Chase: EPA faces suit over post-9/11 New York City air quality statements

Residents and workers in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn filed a class-action suit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday for allegedly misleading statements its officials made about air quality in Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center towers. See, for example, this September 21, 2001 EPA press release. The suit says that people should not have been allowed to go back to the area so soon after the collapse of the structures, which spread soot, dust and other debris for miles, and that residents and workers had their health seriously harmed as a result. WCBS Radio New York carries this AP report. The New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygeine provides background information on public health concerns raised by the World Trade Center disaster. Columbia University's School of Public Health provides an online World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database. In January 2003, an EPA Inspector-General's interim report found that the agency "did not have sufficient data to declare that the air in lower Manhattan was "safe to breathe" in the days following the collapse of the World Trade Center", according to a BNA summary.

For a one-stop snapshot of the latest legal news that matters, with breaking documents, new legal videos, live law-related webcasts, commentary by expert law professors and more - all updated through the day in real time, with no ads and no registration barriers - visit JURIST's homepage and check back often...