The Freedom Tower

A federal appeals court says that people exposed to World Trade Center dust after the 9/11 terrorist attacks can’t sue former Environment Protection chief Christine Todd Whitman.
This ruling handed down yesterday by a federal appeals court ruled comes despite the fact that Whitman made public and private assurances that “their air is safe to breathe.”
According to hundreds of press reports, the ruling contradicts a federal judge who had refused to dismiss the lawsuit in 2006, finding that Whitman had “made misleading statements … and may in fact have created the danger” to residents, students and workers near Ground Zero.
The appeals court said Whitman was drawing from conflicting information and her “poor choice” was not sufficient to prove liability.
Yet Whitman had made this choice when EPA tests showed hazardous levels of asbestos, PCBs and other contaminants in the air and in the dust, according to agency documents obtained by the New York Environmental Law & Justice Project.
The Project also uncovered a memo written by a city Health Department commissioner in response to a warning letter from the EPA. “The risk of serious injury or death to civilians in high,” it said.
The new decision was “disappointing,” said Project attorney Joel Kupferman, co-counsel for the plaintiffs with Philadelphia law firm Berger & Montague.