The proposed $657 million settlement of the lawsuit by 9/11 rescue and recovery workers acknowledges what the scientific literature already confirms – that health harm occurred from exposure to World Trade Center-derived environmental contaminants, according to the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

“These exposures were largely unnecessary and avoidable,” NYCOSH Executive Director Joel Shufro said. “If city, state and government officials had enforced longstanding OSHA and EPA laws during the many months of work at Ground Zero, thousands of workers might have been spared the serious respiratory and other illnesses that have since devastated their lives.”

The existing regulatory framework of environmental and occupational safety and health laws is supposed to prevent avoidable exposures. But the regulatory framework failed for several reasons, Shufro said.

“The City of New York, both as the controlling entity at Ground Zero and as an employer of thousands of workers at Ground Zero, simply did not comply with applicable protective regulations for workers at the site.”

According to NYCOSH, OSHA and EPA regulations were not enforced by federal or state agencies, either. “The sad fact is that politics won out over sound public health principles,” Shufro said.

Shufro says there are significant gaps in the regulatory framework that must also be addressed. As just one example, there are no protective legal limits for exposure to dioxin. EPA dioxin measurements blocks from the WTC were the highest ever recorded.

He said that while disaster preparedness and response has improved somewhat since 9/11 and Katrina, much more remains to be done.

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