(42nd in a series on Martin Tower)
Martin Tower demolition May 19
www.martintowerbethlehem.com
Though it felt like it had to be forced out into the open at the public meeting last night on the Martin Tower demolition, here is what we might call a position statement by Bethlehem Health Director Kristen Wenrich (the only Health official present) on the long-term effects of the implosion method of demolition that has concerned many Gadfly followers:
“The Health Department does not regularly get involved with air quality issues . . . but in looking at long-term health outcomes due to dust, you are looking at direction, long-term exposure, and you’re looking at quantity. So that everything I’ve been told and everything I’ve seen, they’ve done everything that they can to minimize [garbled audio]. It’s a short-term event, they’re not expecting any type of long-term exposure, and we’re not expecting [garbled audio] amount of dust. So that’s my opinion from a public health standpoint.”
Gadfly will come back to this issue of long-term effects shortly, but one crucially important thing he was looking for was a statement from a public health official. This seemed to him the one big hole in the City’s otherwise comprehensive planning.
So, more later on this and yesterday’s meetings in general.
Dr Cate Jenkins is the foremost expert on concrete dust. She retired from the EPA several years ago. Here is some good information on concrete dust. On page 38 they even have a picture of and made reference to implosions. Basically concrete dust is very caustic. It’s even more caustic that Drano. I can’t believe in light of all the current studies the Health Director would say concrete dust doesn’t present any problems. There’s 33,000 cases of cancer caused by the dust from the WTC collapse. Many of them form a one time exposure to the dust. Here’s some interesting info on the subject.
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/DrJenkinsRequestsSenateInvestigationOnWTCdust.pdf