Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse [Paperback]

Juan Gonzalez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2004

What public officials failed to say about post-9/11 New York air.

I am glad to reassure the people of New York...that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.—Christie Todd Whitman, Administrator of the EPA, September 18, 2002

Officials knew that their own preliminary environmental tests of the air, dust, and water in lower Manhattan...found considerable amounts of asbestos and heavy metals.—from Fallout

On the strength of reassurances from Christie Todd Whitman and Mayor Giuliani that it was safe to do so, thousands of Lower Manhattan residents moved back to their apartments within weeks of September 11, kids returned to local schools, office staff resumed work. There was just one problem: those reassurances were not based in fact.

A source of controversy and embarrassment when it first appeared in hardcover, investigative reporter Juan González's damning indictment of the Giuliani administration and EPA shows that, in their rush to get the city—and Wall Street in particular—back to work, the mayor and Whitman put tens of thousands of downtown residents and workers at risk.

Initially dismissed as alarmist, Fallout has since been corroborated by reports in The National news media documenting the long-term health implications of an enormous failure of leadership.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Among the consequences of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11 was the release of high levels of toxic substances into the air, the street, and scores of buildings. Those substances included asbestos, lead, mercury, dioxins, furans, diesel fuel and oils, aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, and corrosive dust. Many of the survivors, rescue workers, emergency personnel, firefighters, police, and others who came in contact with these substances have developed serious ailments that will affect their health for years to come. Gonzalez, a prize-winning New York Daily News journalist, alleges that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, OSHA inspectors, the New York City Health Department, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and New York newspapers lied to the public by intentionally downplaying the risks of exposure and the anticipated dangers. Information was suppressed, and those who tried to reveal the true extent of the damage were silenced. Gonzalez states that thanks to the efforts of politicians, lawyers, and ordinary citizens who refused to be intimidated, details about the disaster's environmental consequences were finally brought to the public's attention. This book is a tragic indictment of the breakdown of public trust when it was needed most. Recommended. Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A tragic indictment of the breakdown of public trust when it was needed most. -- Library Journal

A wide-angle view of the environmental and health hazards created by the September 11 attack. -- Mother Jones

González documents with meticulous detail the misleading statements and sometimes outright lies of environmental officials. -- The Christian Science Monitor

González points up a need to reexamine the closed-ranks mentality that snaps into place after a national disaster. -- The New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (February 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848454
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848450
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,537,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The FBI Failed Us Before 9/11; The EPA Failed Us Afterwards, June 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Attack (Hardcover)

I live 5 blocks north of Ground Zero and have attended hearings and forums and read hundreds of articles, studies memos and reports about the post 9/11 environmental issues in Lower Manhattan. But my jaw dropped when I read Juan Gonzalez' book - here are the missing pieces, the things I'd heard but was never able to find in print - and lots of insider information that only someone as dedicated to this story as he was could have. It is a clear, readable summary of the case against the EPA, OSHA, NYC DEP - and, de facto, an indictment of all those newspapers whose reportage consistently minimized the issue. Not since the Vietnam War has there been so much media "disinformation."

If you live or work in lower Manhattan and/or have any interest in the true story of how our government knowingly and intentionally jepordized the lives and health of the rescue workers, residents and workers downtown after 9/11 while ensuring that their own health was well protected, this book is a "must read."

Juan Gonzalez is to be commended for his courage in bucking his editors to continue to cover this story.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars must read, June 8, 2005

By 

Jenna Orkin "world trade center environmental... - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Attack (Hardcover)

Juan Gonzalez was the first journalist to grasp the impact of the environmental disaster of 9/11. His article on October 26, 2001 said what some of us already sensed: Contrary to the 'good news' being sold like sugarcoated poison by government officials who wanted Wall Street back up and running, the air was dense with astronomical levels of asbestos, lead, dioxin, mercury and hundreds of unpronouncable contaminants including some that had never previously existed.

Fallout is in this tradition of groundbreaking journalism.

Unfortunately Gonzalez is so ahead of the pack that when I showed his article to my son and exhusband, whom I was trying to convince that our son should not remain at Stuyvesant High School, four blocks north of the World Trade Center, they dismissed it as a red herring.

Fallout is a compelling account of this environmental disaster which may ultimately claim more lives than the attacks themselves.

Jenna Orkin
World Trade Center Environmental Organization

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where Is This Story In The Media?, November 29, 2002

By 

Gary Fusco (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Attack (Hardcover)

This is an extremely disturbing book. Perhaps because along with the well-documented facts concerning the unprecedented toxic environmental fallout from 9/11, it is the shocking realization that it's not just the NYC and federal goverment cover-up of this story -- it is the citizens themselves collectively turning away from the horrible reality of this disaster.

The national media has not pursued the obvious leads -- the common sense questions -- but Mr. Gonzales has. And the logical conclusion of this story, in the not-too-distant future, is a public health nightmare that will have the media self-righteously condeming Giuliani and Whitman in hindsight as bearing responsibility for perhaps thousands more deaths.

The story from 9/11 that the media immediately created was of the heroes and victims. We remember them, and try to forget the horror of the collapsing towers. But if we are a truely a courageous nation, we will look clearly and not turn away from the terrible reality that ground zero represents. That is what I think this book is really about -- there are facts and consequences of 9/11 that have not yet been dealt with. And closing our eyes and wishing them away simply won't work.