World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant ... - ACS Publications

Chapter 13

World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database: A Publicly Available Air Quality Dataset for the New York City Area 1

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Steven N. Chillrud , Alison S. Geyh , Diane K. Levy , Elsie M . Chettiar , and Damon A. Chaky Downloaded by UNIV LAVAL on March 26, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: November 15, 2005 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2006-0919.ch013

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Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205 Statistical Analysis Center, Department of Biostatistics, 722 West 168 Street, 6 Floor, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032 2

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Environmental data collected in response to the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001 and air quality data collected between from 1970 to December 31, 2003 in New York City and New Jersey are now available on the World Wide Web via the World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database (1). This database was developed by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and Bloomberg School of Public Health at John's Hopkins and is intended for use by individuals interested in having access to raw data (i.e., not summary statistics or averaged data) in order to explore the exposures related to the WTC disaster as well as general air quality issues in New York City and New Jersey. This website provides an easily accessible format to tabular data as well as various help files and sampling site maps to facilitate ease of use. Within the next year, the WTCECD should provide links to other (offsite) datasets relevant to WTC exposures, and will incorporate additional datasets provided by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS) Centers for Environmental Health.

© 2006 American Chemical Society

Gaffney and Marley; Urban Aerosols and Their Impacts ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2005.

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Introduction As a result of the World Trade Center (WTC) attack on September 11,2001, a strong interest in environmental contaminant data for the New York Metropolitan area has emerged. There are currently multiple independent sources for these data, including: •

Downloaded by UNIV LAVAL on March 26, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: November 15, 2005 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2006-0919.ch013

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various federal, state and local agencies that have collected New York City air quality data in direct response to the disaster (2-5); the U.S. EPA's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) dataset (5), which includes air quality readings for much of the New York metropolitan area dating from the present back to the 1970s.

While data from these various sources are public, they are not easily accessible to interested individuals. They reside in physically separate locations, in a variety of unfamiliar formats that do not lend themselves to being easily searched. In order to simplify the process of acquiring relevant air quality data, the World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database (WTCECD) has been developed by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John's Hopkins. The purpose of the WTCECD is to provide pre- and post-9/11 environmental data from the New York City area and the state of New Jersey in an easily accessible format at one location (7). This database is intended for use by individuals interested in having access to raw data (i.e., not summary statistics or averaged data) in order to explore exposures related to the WTC disaster and/or general air quality issues in New York City and New Jersey.

Discussion The WTCECD currently provides data collected by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) on samples of outdoor air, outdoor bulk dust, indoor air, and indoor dust wipes specifically in response to the WTC disaster. Figure 1 shows the location of the monitoring sites established in the New York City area by these agencies in response to the WTC disaster.



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Figure 1. Monitoring sites established in the New York City area by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Department ofHealth in response to the WTC disaster. Insets are Staten Island (lower left), and Lower Manhatten (lower right).



280 Approximately 250 parameters are included in the WTCECD including fine and coarse particulate matter mass (PM-2.5, PM-10), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals, and asbestos. The sampling frequencies and sampling periods for these different parameters varied greatly depending both on the parameter and/or the sampling site, ranging from hourly integrations, to 24-hr integrated samples that occurred daily to weekly, to muliple day integrations (2 to 10 days) that occurred with the samefrequencyas the sampling period, to one time grab samples. The WTCECD also provides air quality data reported to the U.S. EPA's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) from fixed-site air quality monitoring stations operated by local, state and federal environmental agencies from 1970 to December 31, 2003. The location of these sites are shown in Figures 2 and 3. The list of pollutants reported include ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide, on an hourly basis, lead every 3 to 6 days, total suspended particulates (TSP) and fine and coarse particulate matter mass (PM-10, PM-2.5), which were sampled atfrequenciesfromhourly to daily to every 6 day, depending upon the time period and size cut. Also available are parameters measured on an irregular basis, which include a suite of VOCs, dioxins, PCBs, particle-associated metals, and some limited meteorological data. The web-based interface allows users to search the WTCECD for one or more contaminant parameters from one or more specific sites. Users are guided through the search process by labels which enumerate each step (see Plate 1). Context sensitive help is available as the user moves through the process. Based on the criteria entered in each step, the system determines the valid criteria for successive steps. For example, when the user selects a specific site, the system responds by displaying only those pollutants that are measured at that site. This interactive search process saves the user from receiving messages from the system that no records are available to satisfy the search criteria. All quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) documentation resides with the reporting agencies. The WTCECD conducted no additional QA/QC on the data sets other than analyzing the AIRS and post 09/11 data for data discrepancies before loading it into the WTCECD. Any discrepancies identified were corrected with agency input. Examples of discrepancies identified include duplicate sample identifications and end sample date being before the begin sample date. Any questions on QA/QC issues should be directed to the reporting agencies listed for that data set. A typical WTCECD query automatically provides sampling location, sampling date and other fields helpful for data interpretation (e.g. agency provided data quality flags). Additionalfieldsare available and may be selected. th


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Query results are provided for download as either comma or tab-delimited text files, and may be date-limited prior to download. Within the next year, the WTCECD should provide links to other (oflsite) datasets relevant to WTC exposures, and will incorporate additional datasets provided by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS) Centers for Environmental Health.

Figure 2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) monitoring sites in New York City.



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Figure 3. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) monitoring sites in New Jersey.

Conclusions The WTCECD provides pre- and post-9/11 environmental data from the New York City area and the state of New Jersey in an easily accessible format at one location (7). This database is intended for use by individuals interested in having access to raw data (i.e., not averaged data or summary statistics) in order to explore exposures related to the WTC disaster as well as general air quality issues in New York City and New Jersey.



Plate 1. Example of the enumerated steps for searching the World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database. (See page 30 of color inserts.)


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Acknowledgements The WTCECD was developed with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences via their Centers for Environmental Health Programs at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins (NIEHS grant numbers P30 ES09089 and P30 ES03819). We also gratefully acknowledge all the help we received from numerous staff at The U.S. EPA and NYSDEC. This is LDEO contribution 6710.


References 1.

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"World Trade Center Environmental Contaminant Database (WTCECD)" [http://wtc.hs.columbia.edu/wtc/] Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. "EPA Response to September 11" [http//www.epa.gov/wtc] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. U.S. Geological Survey (2002). Fact sheet 0050-02. "OSHA WTC Sampling Results" [http://www.osha.gov/nycdisaster/summary.html] U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "Air Monitoring in Lower Manhatten" [http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/airmonit.html] New York City Department of Environmental Protection. "EPA-Air Facility System (AFS)" [http://www.epa.gov/Compliance/planning/data/air/afssystem.html] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.


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