Environmental Issues

One of the biggest disasters that hit the world in the first decade of the 21st century was the terrorists attack on the World Trade Centre twin towers and the pentagon on September 11, 2001. This incident was horribly devastating to the people and national pride of the United States and it left so many people around the world shocked and dumbfounded. It raised fundamental questions on national security of magnitude not seen before in the United States. The attack was a series of co-coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States in which 19 Al-Qaeda members hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners and intentionally crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City killing every one on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed in a span of two hours destroying nearby buildings and also damaging others .A third airliner was also crashed into the pentagon in Arlington, Virginia right outside the Washington D.C while the fourth one crashed in a field near Shanks Ville in rural Pennyslavia after some of the passenger who were on board and flight crew tried to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected towards Washington D.C.  No one survived from any of the four flights. Its believed that 2,973 victims and all the 19 hijackers died as a result of the attacks. The overwhelming majority of the casualties were civilians together with nationals from over 90 countries. In response, the United States launched war on terrorism by invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban who were believed to have harbored some of the al-Qaeda terrorists. In addition, many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers (Greene, 2001).

Recommended Industrial hygiene
Industrial hygiene is broadly used to refer to modalities aimed at protecting and enhancing the health and safety of people at work and in their communities. It covers a wide range of physical, chemical, biological and ergonomic stressors to limit personal exposures (Debra, 1999). As a member of the response recovery team, I would recommend the following role of industrial hygiene recognizing, evaluating (measurements) and controlling the potential hazards at the site of attack. The industrial hygiene program should be able to use environmental monitoring and analytical techniques to detect the extent of workers exposure and should hence use engineering controls, work practice controls and other methods to control the potential health hazards. Its through industrial hygiene that the health hazards that may have been present at the 911 site could have been detected because every workplace is a potentially a hazardous environment and with the increased interest in protection of the environment and the people working at the site it would be very necessary to have modalities to identify or rather recognize the possible dangers available (Talty, 1988). Industrial hygiene will measure the health hazards to check whether their magnitude can really cause the anticipated harmful health effects and risks to the recovery workers. Once the measurements have been carried out, the different ways of controlling the health hazards that have been identified or their effect should be put in place. Hazard control in this case means the primary means of reducing workers exposure to occupational hazards by either reducing or removing the hazards at the source or isolating the worker from the source (Talty, 1988). For the case of 911, controls may include enclosing work processes or confining work operations and installing general ventilation at the work site.

Considering that many recovery workers at the 911 site reported several serious health issues, an industrial hygiene programme with the above discussed elements would be of great aid for their own benefit, the environment and the people around.

Major Potential Hazards at the Site
The major potential health hazards available at the 911 site as assessed by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) included the presence of particulate matter, metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, asbestos, volatile organic compounds, particle- bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, silica and synthetic vitreous fibers (SVFs). The assessment showed that the persons exposed to extremely high levels of particulate matter and its components, SVFs and other contaminants were likely to be at risk for acute and potentially chronic respiratory effects. Available information also shows that contaminant concentrations within and near the 911 site remained significantly elevated above ground levels for some days after the incidence occurred hence posing risk to people. Apart from the inhalation exposures that occurred on the very day of the attack, the general population was likely to suffer health effects caused by inhalation days afterward. The thousands of tonnes of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the twin towers consisted of more than 2,500 Contaminants Non-fibrous material and construction debris (50), glass and other fibers (40), Cellulose (9.2) and 0.8 of the extremely toxic carcinogenic asbestos as well as small amounts of lead and mercury. (Lober, 2007)

In the hours and days that followed the attack, rescue, workers, volunteers contractors and other people from across the country had landed at the 911 site to search for survivors and when the search came to an end, an unprecedented recovery and cleanup of the place took over. Together with death and devastation caused by the attack, concerns were raised on the health effects caused on recovery workers by collapse of the building and this necessitated monitoring of their health (medical surveillance). In better words, occupational medical surveillance is the monitoring of employees health progress during their period of work to ensure their health is up to standard. It is mostly done to those workers who have workplace exposure to particular health hazards known to pose risk for a potentially serious health condition or to those who perform specific work tasks that require a certain degree of health and fitness to ensure the health of employees and public health (Stellman, 2008). Different exposures were associated with different health impacts but over the last five years, respiratory and mental health conditions have emerged as the most common ailments though concerns are being raised that chronic diseases may arise in the future. Many recovery workers have also developed cancer as opposed to having contracted respiratory ailments and some of these cancers are said to have developed as a result of the exposure to toxins at the site. Up to date, 75 recovery workers have been diagnosed with blood cell cancers (Stellman, 2008).

Industrial Hygiene Sampling Plan
The main objective of an industrial hygiene sampling plan should be to find whatever pollution at World Trade Center that may cause or present risk to human health (especially the recovery team) and remove it. The sampling plan should identify the following main substances (pollutants) Asbestos, man-made vitreous fibers, crystalline silica, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and lead. In addition, the affected neighborhoods and other areas likely to have been impacted by the disaster should be included in the sampling plan.

Moreover, the sampling plan should be a two-dimensional grid process to ensure that the selected buildings to be used in the exercise are geographically represented to avoid bias which may interfere with the quality of the results obtained from the analysis. The sampling plan would allow property owners-not the tenants or workers who live there to volunteer their buildings for the sampling program if the Environmental Protection Agency selects them (Hughes, 2005). Some of the direct reading instruments that may be required include Video Exposure Monitoring, Passive dosimeters, Noise dosimeters, heat stress monitors, radio frequency probes and air monitoring pumps. The Video Exposure Monitoring is an instrument used to provide better documentation of workers at risk both in Europe and in the United States and it can detect exposure sources and the interaction between work practices and engineering controls such as local exhaust ventilation. A Noise dosimeter is a specialized sound level meter intended to measure the noise exposure of a person integrated over a period of time usually to comply with health and safety regulations. Heat stress monitors measure the environmental factors that can contribute to heat stress. Air monitoring pumps are used to indicate to workers when a hazardous atmosphere is present and to maintain a record of employee exposure to chemical agents that are airborne hence ensuring the safety of employees, the environment and the public.

There are different types of air monitoring which include the following (a)Background monitoring-conducted prior to initiation of site operations to provide a baseline of reference for subsequent analyses and determine any interference in the area(b)area monitoring-provides an early warning to personnel that there is a problem and that action must be taken(c)Perimeter monitoring-used to document conditions over time and confirm a hazardous condition(d)mobile area monitoring-used to sample air borne levels of contaminants in the workplace(e)Surface monitoring-to determine if surface decontamination is required for media like scrap metal(f)Headspace monitoring-conducted on environmental samples suspected of being contaminated with chemical agent prior to offsite shipment for analysis (McGlothlin, 2005). Air samples would be collected according to the standard operating procedures into pre-cleaned and pre-evacuated canister containers using flow regulators and thereafter submitted for volatile organic compound analyses in the chemical laboratories to analyze any contaminants present (Jeebhay, 2004).

Personal Protective Equipments
The Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) are of great importance in protecting the lives of the recovery team workers and some of the necessary ones include the following. Dust masks are required and they can be used in place of self-contained breathing apparatus which are inappropriate for debris removal and they can be an initial attempt in protecting workers from inhaling airborne contaminants. Initially its said that air purifying respirators were not made available to workers in adequate numbers until several weeks after the attack and when they finally became available for use, several problems had already emerged. Therefore, face piece air purifying respirators adapters are of essential use to provide the workers especially the firefighters with an alternate choice of respiratory protection. Helmets or hard hats can be used to protect the heads from falling debris of the collapsed building. Safety glassesgoggles can be used to protect the eyes from dust, molten metals, and liquid chemical and flying objects like pieces of glass that can easily get lodged in peoples eyes during the operations. Bunker coats or high visibility vests are required so that as they work at the site through the rubbles and debris they can easily notice each other from afar because some areas at the site could be dark or not properly lit so if they dont wear easily visible garments they can easily cause harm to each other. Work gloves and latex gloves are good for protecting the hands during removal operations which involves getting hold of several dangerous materials (both sharp and blunt), chemical burns and thermal burns. In addition steel toed heavy duty work shoes for the feet should be worn to avoid stepping on objects that may harm the feet and lastly ear foam plugs are required in areas where noise levels are high to prevent damaging the ear drums because people can easily become deaf.

Work Practice and Administrative Controls
Work practice controls and administrative controls are terms that are used interchangeably and can be explained using the same terms as those controls that reduce the likelihood of exposure by altering the manner in which a task is performed. In other words they can be illustrated as changes in work procedures such as written safety policies, rules, supervision, schedules and training with the goal of reducing the duration, frequency and severity of exposure to hazardous chemicals or situations. Its of great importance that those who work with hazardous materials (recovery workers) be familiar with the administrative controls and that their employers provide information and training about the risk involved in the work they perform. Although administrative controls should always be used to control exposure to the workers, they are prone to human error and may not be relied upon to reduce exposure at all times, therefore other additional control mechanisms like substitution of less hazardous materials or procedures, engineering controls and personal protective equipment will be required to address the issue of exposure of hazards to the recovery workers (Kuntal, 2010).

The following are examples of administrative controls  which can be considered in this case to protect the health of the recovery workers at the 911 site(a) Rotating the workers through various job assignments so that they dont develop repetitive motion injuries (b)prohibiting the workers from working with ionizing radiation once they have reached the predetermined levels of exposure(c)Reducing clutters and( this case heaps of debris and rubbles) to minimize the effects if an accident occurs (Kuntal, 2010)

In conclusion, the 911 attack on the United States was unexpected and as such, the ways in which the disaster was handled may not have been up to standard because its clearly evident that in addition to the many victims affected, even the rescue and recovery teams reported several health effects due to loopholes in disaster preparedness of the country. Its therefore important that the lessons learned from this incident be used to upgrade and improve disaster preparedness in the United States especially in ensuring that rescue and recovery workers are totally safe from any hazards at sites of accidentsattacks because the country relies on to deal with such events.