Top Stories

NEW YORK (AP) ― Torn apart by fire, its protective coverings open to the elements for a week, the toxic tower at ground zero that has frightened the neighborhood for years is breathing in open air.

Panicked residents fear that the scarred building, site of a fire that killed two firefighters last week, may now be putting out the same contaminants that blanketed the neighborhood just after Sept. 11, 2001.

"I try not to dwell on the possibility of dying from this stuff or getting sick, said Kathleen Moore, who stares at the 26-story, partially demolished former Deutsche Bank tower from her 10th floor apartment next door. "Toxic debris was burning in there. ... It's twice as bad as it was before."

The Aug. 18 blaze at the black-shrouded building began on a floor layered with asbestos, World Trade Center dust, lead, mercury and other toxins. About 15 floors of the building had yet to be cleaned of toxic debris, and several of them have now been exposed with broken, open windows. Work stopped at the site this week after a second accident injured two more firefighters, postponing further repairs.

But hundreds of air samples from a dozen monitors posted around the building before, during and after the fire haven't shown contamination that exceeds federal limits called "target levels."

More than 300 tests for asbestos have been negative; immediately after the fire, the air had higher amounts of particulate matter as expected, but not what government officials considered dangerous. Subsequent tests for toxic metals and combustible organic compounds were normal, and didn't exceed federal levels that are considered dangerous.

Paul Lioy, a Rutgers University professor who has studied post-Sept. 11 air quality near ground zero, said the dust in the building is not substantial enough to pose a serious health threat.

"To get that layer of dust outdoors would take an awful lot of wind," said Lioy, the deputy director of the Environmental Occupational Health Sciences Institute, affiliated with Rutgers.

Any dust, if it escaped from the building's open windows, would be diluted, he said. "Then you're asking it to come through the windows and into their homes, and it's not a very large source." Environmental advocates are skeptical.

"We think that there should be something showing up in these samples," said Kimberly Flynn, co-coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action. "This was a big fire. Black smoke was billowing off of that building, as everybody could see and everybody could breathe."

The air tests are conducted by private analysts for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the government rebuilding agency that owns the building, is heading its cleanup and dismantling.

Flynn said the air samples captured by monitors may not be able to accurately convey a health risk. Air monitors that have been in place for months around the building wouldn't be able to measure what debris may have settled onto surfaces or in people's homes, she said. One air monitor -- located on a scaffold of the skyscraper's 15th floor, which was heavily involved in the fire -- has not been in service, she said.

Residents like Moore, who said she takes more medicine than she used to and has had bad bouts of bronchitis a few times a year since Sept. 11, fear the building contains residue of trade center dust that several scientific studies have linked to respiratory illness. Thousands say they have been sickened by exposure; lawyers suing the city attribute over 100 deaths to exposure.

The abandoned tower, permanently damaged on Sept. 11 when the south tower collapsed into it, has long been considered one of the most contaminated office buildings in the United States. A study in 2004 for the LMDC found toxic levels of asbestos, several metals including lead, mercury, PCBs and dioxins. Hundreds of human remains have also been found there in the past two years.

State and federal regulators took more than a year to approve a plan to deconstruct the building, with workers required to wear head-to-toe protective suits and take decontamination showers after scrubbing walls, ceiling tiles and crevasses of toxic dust.

Some contractors and other officials have privately wondered whether the regulation was excessive and led residents to believe the building was a greater toxic threat than it was.

"Was there some overkill? Probably," said Mike Taylor, executive director of the National Demolition Association. "But (the owners) were insistent that this project needs to be done in compliance with all state-federal regulatory conditions and they spent a lot of money to do that."

Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow defended the measures.

"There is still contamination in this building. It needs to be addressed in a way that protects people's health," she said. "There's a plan in place that has been approved by the regulatory agencies and it must continue to be followed."

Moore said the building should be resealed as quickly as possible, then taken down in as much time as it takes to do it safely.

"I don't care if it takes 100 years to do that," she said. "I don't want another disaster happening."

(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)