http://www.boston.com/dailynews/282/region/Feds_provide_5_million_for_Tra:.shtml

Feds provide $5 million for Trade Center air monitoring

By Joel Stashenko, Associated Press, 10/9/2001 13:32

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) The Centers for Disease Control will provide $5 million to monitor air quality in lower Manhattan and address potential respiratory impacts of the World Trade Center collapse.

Some of the grant money will be used to assess the air in homes and schools around the trade center wreckage and to continue surveillance of the respiratory health of rescuers and construction crews at ground zero, state health officials said Tuesday.

Hospital emergency room visits in New York City will be compared with air quality monitoring to see if more hospitalizations are occurring for respiratory ailments at certain times of the day or week, officials said.

And, outdoor mold and pollen count data will be included in air monitoring in southern Manhattan to better assess whether asthma is being exacerbated by those air quality factors.

The state also announced it will get $700,000 in grants in each of the next five years for purely asthma-related health services and monitoring programs throughout the state.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement released by Gov. George Pataki's office that ''we must make sure asthma patients are cared for property in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.''

Concerns about the air quality in lower Manhattan have been widespread since Sept. 11, though Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other officials have repeatedly said the air is not harmful.

The mayor has conceded that the acrid smell from the site is unpleasant and undoubtedly leads some people to believe there must be dangerous particles in the air.

Tests by city, state and federal monitors have at times shown asbestos levels around the site at above the federal limits for indoor spaces. But they said those readings were mostly taken on the 16-acre trade center site and that samples outside that ''hot zone'' were lower.

Long-term exposure to high levels of asbestos can cause the scarring of lungs and cancer.

More unclear are the effects of the dust and smoke at the trade center on asthmatics. State officials said Tuesday some of the federal money will be used to compare asthma levels among people in the dust plumes created by the collapse of the trade center towers and the population as a whole.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2001