Asbestos exposure assessment at the World Trade Center site

Industrial Hygiene: A comprehensive exposure assessment report. Asbestos exposure World Trade Center disaster

Since September 11, 2001, the outdoor environment around the World Trade Center (WTC) site and nearby areas has been expansively monitored by Acme Industrial Hygiene Consultants and health agencies. As a consultant there have taken samples of air, dust, water, river residues, and drinking water and examined them for the existence of pollutants that could posture a health risk to answer workers at the WTC site, headquarter workers, and local populaces.

Sampling?

Everyone from Acme Industrial Hygiene collected bulk samples of fallen dust. This was all done by using a paper scoop, bulk samples were then reserved from numerous outdoor sites (e.g. car hood, window ledge, park bench) in addition to one indoor location, all of which seemed uninterrupted ever since the fall of the towers, as evaluated by the presence of a suave even layer of dust and the absence of indicators of recent human action. As a consultant, we were able to gather thirteen samples and the categorized them all with numbers (1-13) on September 11, 2001 and seven samples were gathered and labeled with letters (A - F) on September 13, 2001. All of these samples were put in 855 l polystyrene bottles. This was done at room temperature. Every one of these samples were gathered before rain fell on September 15, 2001, which surely changed physical and chemical characteristics of the dust. Samples were taken back to the lab for processing to separate contradictory mass fractions.

We picked the building types chosen for this Study. Also we tried to make sure that this Study endeavored to focus on sampling sites that are related to the inner city housing stock. This location included: high-rise condominiums, high-rise co-operatives, and post-1920 non-doorman mid-rise studio flat, and turn-of-the-century apartments. Inner city residential roof space could not be exemplified in the Study, because the lofts located uptown are chosen for commercial use only. So as to solicit volunteer participants from the targeted building types, a list of buildings that were matching the housing stock talked about from above was provided to us.

Control Samples

Quality control samples were gathered in order to assess the sampling and methodical World Trade Center study. Consultants used 14 processes and that was done to make sure that these processes were being piloted right. Control samples were gathered throughout each day of sampling. These samples contained within them the collection of field spike wipe samples. Control samples were collected for air samples wipe and microvacuum, Control samples were not collected with the bulk dust samples owing to insufficient material required to accomplish the analyses. Field spike samples were also collected by us for lead analysis with the purpose of assessing if the laboratory digestion technique used for the wipe material was efficient of attaining recovery inside the control samples limit of 90 to 130%. We were able to find out that the results of the spike samples point out that the laboratory was able to attain the recovery necessary for the analysis of lead wipe samples within the control sample limits with the exclusion of sample numbers 2 and 3 which were hardly outside the control sample limits at 80% and 81%, correspondingly.

We gathered all of the bulk samples and then had them analyzed in the following order by the contracted research laboratory: asbestos, calcite, crystalline silica, lead, and gypsum. Because of the backlog of asbestos examples at the New York test center, the samples were transported to the lab in New Jersey for the continuing examination. In executing the analysis for the residual restrictions the research laboratory used all of the material existing therefore, the asbestos examination was not completed on a bulk of the mass dust samples collected. This was done without statement to the Acme Industrial Hygiene Center.

Workers

We made sure that the workers were separated into four categories, which were founded on exposure stages (day of the week at the WTC site, work in the rubble, and interaction to dust cloud):

Low contact (15% of total)

Intermediate contact (70% of total)

High contact (20% of total)

Extremely high contact (5% of total)

"Breathing in the toxic, extremely alkaline dust (pH=10-11) is the likely cause of upper and lower respiratory injury in recovery and rescue workers." (Kazan-Allen, 2012). The Preceding studies have exposed that New York City police officers were the group that was at the lower risk than some responders for increasing mental health illnesses after the WTC occurrences. Possible explanations for these results consist of training, preceding experience in dealing with parallel stressors, self-selection of persons with high resilience throughout recruitment into the labor force, and possible under-reporting of mental symptoms on account of perceived job-related consequences.

Results

At the end of the day, there were three bulk dust samples gathered together and then analyzed for asbestos. Then all three of these samples were accumulated from the housing spaces. We found out that the results for the three samples were below the exposure limit of about 1%. Because of the sample size being so small and the results all being below the exposure limit, the UCL for asbestos in majority dust could not be evaluated. However, the data does make the suggestion that background asbestos absorptions in bulk dust are less than 1%, however, the confidence in making this statement is actually partial by reason of the small sample size. We did recognize that ATEM examination was capable of discovering that no amphibole asbestos of no type but that there were some bits of chrysotile asbestos existent in all the dust examples gathered. Another thing that was discovered was that the concentration of endotoxin examples utilized in this study would not be expected to contribute straight to any inflammatory reaction in the lungs, we used the higher 95% confidence restrictions, which are the upper bounds for the asbestos concentration originated on what we were able to measure. It is clear that the concentration of asbestos in lower Manhattan was about 500- lower than other parts of the city that were forming the crystal like particles. Since that time, Acme Industrial Hygiene Consultants has taken the position that WTC-associated dust should be considered possibly asbestos-contaminated and handled therefore.

Conclusion

This report displays that the risk of coming up with diseases possibly from asbestos exposures throughout, and following to, the failure of the World Trade Center towers is insignificant; we make no approximation of the risk from gasping fine particulate substance at this time.