Christie blasts Rudy on WTC air - nydailynews.com

BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, June 23rd 2007, 10:25 AM

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Former head of the EPA Christie Whitman

In an upcoming interview with WNBC-TV, former head of the EPA Christie Whitman says former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts to force WTC workers to wear respirators.

Former Environmental Protection Agency boss Christie Whitman says she urged Ground Zero workers to wear respirators, but then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts.

She also said city officials didn't want EPA workers wearing haz-mat suits because they "didn't want this image of a city falling apart."

In an interview scheduled to run the day before Whitman testifies in front of Congress on Monday, she told WNBC-TV she warned the city of the risks almost every day.

And she said she believes illnesses killing first responders can be blamed on the city's lack of action.

"I'm not a scientist ... but I do [believe that]," she told WNBC's Brian Thompson.

"I mean, we wouldn't have been saying that the workers should wear respirators if ... we didn't think there might be health consequences."

She said the city had the responsibility to make sure workers wore respirators. But many took them off, complaining of heat. She said workers without respirators were barred from cleanup efforts at the Pentagon.

"We were certainly frustrated at not being able to get people to wear respirators because we thought that was critically important to workers on The Pile," Whitman said.

"Every day, there would be telephone calls, telephone meetings and meetings in person ... with the city when we repeated the message of the necessity of wearing respirators."

But her concern at the time only involved breathing air on The Pile.

Only seven days after the 9/11 attacks, as fires still raged at the site, she said, "I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that the air is safe to breathe."

Whitman also criticized Giuliani's handling of a suspected anthrax attack at NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters weeks after 9/11.

"There was concern by the city that EPA workers not be seen in the haz-mat suits," she said. "They didn't want this image of a city falling apart. I said, 'Well, that's not acceptable.'"

Giuliani's former Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota rejected Whitman's claims.

"As the incident commander, F.D.N.Y.’s response was exemplary. They coordinated, conducted and affected a multi-agency response in a timely, safe and efficient fashion," Lhota said.

Despite initially refusing, Whitman agreed to testify about how her agency handled airquality issues at Ground Zero.

It will be the first time a top federal official will publicly respond to questions about the thousands of Ground Zero workers and lower Manhattan residents who believe they were sickened by toxins in the dust.

She will face Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), who has already slammed her as a liar for calling the air quality safe.

"I don't think it's going to be any fun at all," she told Thompson. "[But] I'm tired of having to be on the defensive about something I think we did very well."

anichols@nydailynews.com
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