A Warning From the Big Apple to the Big Easy

The lessons from the toxic fallout unleashed by the collapse of the World Trade Center, and the lack of proper governmental response, should serve as a lesson to the people of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The parallels between the two cases are eerie.

A massive disaster combined with government malfeasance has left many citizens in an environmental and health danger of which we don’t even know the extent. Did you think I was writing about New Orleans? Actually, the reference was to Lower Manhattan and the surrounding areas.

The lessons from the toxic fallout unleashed by the collapse of the World Trade Center, and the lack of proper governmental response, should serve as a lesson to the people of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The parallels between the two cases are eerie.

Just mere days after the fall of the Trade Center, then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Todd Whitman declared, “I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.” Lower Manhattan residents were directed by the agency to clean any World Trade Center dust in their homes and offices with “a wet rag or sponge.”

Yet even as those words were leaving Ms. Whitman’s lips, the building that houses EPA’s New York City office was evacuated and underwent a professional cleaning and abatement for harmful materials. It was later revealed that its own testing showed high…

Posted by Ryz
Born and raised in The Netherlands and living in Canada since 2000. Spent most of his professional career in the IT industry for corporations. Now self-employed. Loves music, graphics, science, politics and various other things that happen to pass in...