Thomas Cahill is a crucial pioneering researcher of the environmental impact of 9/11. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of California Davis.
"Professor Cahill, originally in nuclear and atomic physics, now specializes in environmental applications of accelerator beams (soft beta rays, ions, polarized x-rays, lasers, ..) in atmospheric physics and chemistry, with emphasis on long range transport of aerosols and their radiative effects in the atmosphere. This work also includes the health effects of very fine particles, including aerosols from the World Trade Centere, and aerosol impacts on Lake Tahoe.
Honors and Awards
for
Thomas A. Cahill
American Lung Association Outstanding Scientist Volunteer (2002)
Founder and Head, DELTA Group, 1997 - present
Distinguished Public Service Award, 1994
Japanese National Research Fellow, Kyoto University (1992)
Director, Crocker Nuclear Lab, 1980-1989
Co-designer and Principle Investigator, National Park Service aerosols and visibility programs, 1977-1997
Outstanding Educator of America, 1974, 1973
Director, Institute of Ecology, 1972-1975
O.A.S. Fellow, University of Chile, Santiago, Summer 1969
NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship Saclay, France (Centre de'Etudes Nucleaires), 1966-67
NDEA Fellowship, UCLA, 1959-62
Recognized in Who's Who in America,?
Recognized in American Men & Women in Science
Recognized in Who's Who in Science & Technology"
http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/Text/Cahill.html healthandenergy.com recognized Cahill's pioneering contribution to studying the environmental impact of the WTC Event:
"UC Davis scientist concurs that EPA reports misled the public
A UC Davis scientist who led the air monitoring of the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center said dangerous levels of pollutants were swirling about the site at the same time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assured the public that the air was safe to breathe.
Thomas Cahill, a professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric science, headed the scientific team that studied the aerosols from the fuming site in lower Manhattan during the weeks right after Sept. 11, 2001.
In an interview Tuesday, Cahill called the conditions for people working at ground zero without respirators "brutal" and said conditions were only slightly better for those working or living in adjacent buildings.
"The site was hot for months. The metals burned into fine particles. They rose in a plume and moved over people's heads on most days. There were at least eight days when the plume was pushed down into the city. Then people tasted it, smelled it and saw it. But people who worked in the pile were getting it every day. The workers are the ones that I worry about most," Cahill told The Chronicle.
Cahill's data found that the pollution included very fine metals, which interfere with lung chemistry; sulfuric acid, which attacks lung cells; carcinogenic organic matter; and very fine insoluble particles such as glass, which travel through the lungs and into the bloodstream and heart.
He is expected to present his latest findings at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York today.
Cahill's comments echo a report issued in August by the EPA inspector general, an internal watchdog on the agency. The inspector general concluded that under White House influence, the EPA issued misleading assurances that there was no health risk from air pollution after the attack.
A week after the attack, the EPA announced that the air near ground zero was safe to breathe, but the agency did not have enough information to make such a guarantee, the inspector general's report said.
"Christie Whitman was too premature to say it was safe," Cahill said Tuesday. "I think the EPA should have known. The EPA had its own reports saying it could be dangerous. Why didn't the EPA bring in their own people from all over the country? They could have. Never thought of it. They did later. But not in the time that mattered." ...
Cahill heads the DELTA Group, which stands for Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols, an association of scientists at several universities and national laboratories. The U.S. Energy Department asked the group to monitor air quality in New York. The group has studied global transport of aerosols from the Gulf War oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, volcanoes, dust storms and worldwide factory emissions in China."
http://healthandenergy.com/ground_zero_air_pollution.htm Thomas Cahill talked to Christopher Bollyn of The American Free Press in 2004:
"Thomas Cahill, professor of physics and atmospheric sciences, analyzed the plumes from a station one mile north of the burning WTC rubble. “The small particles worried me the most,” Cahill told AFP, referring to the sub-micron-size particles, which can pass through the filters of respirators.
Cahill said the high levels of silicon, vanadium, nickel and sulfuric acid concerned him. The fine concrete dust, he said, acted “like Drano” in the lungs of the workers, where it irritated and burned the wet membranes.
Until Dec. 15, the pile was so hot, a piece of paper would ignite on contact with the rubble, Cahill said. “You had the workers working on top of a huge incinerator in the rush to get Wall Street going again,” Cahill said. “It was really dumb.
“Only 30 percent of the firefighters working at the site in October were wearing any protection at all,” he said.
A class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 800 people who suffer health effects was filed against WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein and the companies that supervised the cleanup: AMEC, Bovis Lend Lease, Turner, and Tully Construction.
The suit was filed on Sept. 10, the last day set by a federal three-year statute of limitations for lawsuits related to 9-11."
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium.html The article failed to note that radioactive Uranium, Actinium and Thorium had actually been found in WTC explosive debris sampled just east of ground zero, all the way back in the fall of 2001.
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2002/110p703-714lioy/lioy-full.htmlCahill of UC-Davis turned up again in an article in New York Magazine, September 20, 2004:
"Thomas Cahill, a scientist who analyzed the plumes from a rooftop one mile away, says that the levels of acids, insoluble particles, high-temperature organic materials, and metals were in most cases higher in very fine particles (which can slip deep into the lungs) than anyplace ever recorded on earth, including the oil fires of Kuwait.
“What you had,” says Cahill, a UC-Davis professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric sciences, “was a ground-level municipal incinerator that smoldered for months. And it was burning up the most heavily computerized building in the world.” "
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/9875/index1.html In 2002, Professor Cahill also observed "an unusual, very fine, silicon-containing aerosol. This latter type of aerosol can be produced only by very high temperatures, including vaporization of soil and glass.
We had seen this previously, but at much lower concentrations, in the plumes of coal-fired power plants in the EPA BRAVO study in Texas, the burning oil fields of Kuwait, and Beijing during the winter coal heating season.
In the case of metals, we saw many different species in the very fine particles. Most, including lead and mercury, were at low concentrations at our site, but some, such as vanadium, were the highest that we have seen recorded."
http://www.ecoisp.com/perspectives29.asp I have argued before that the condensed metal deposits on very fine particles help us to understand the high temperature explosive events which actually destroyed the WTC Towers. I've tried to gather evidence on the thermodynamics and chemistry of what was going on by molten metal pools deep in the WTC rubble after 9/11 -- a true "smoking gun"!
Professor Cahill sounded a health alarm for ground zero clean-up workers through the Disaster News Network:
" "Dr. Thomas Cahill, professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric sciences at the University of California-Davis, is conducting a study of these extremely small particles.
Cahill is working with a groups of researchers known as the DELTA group (Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols), a scientific organization he founded in 1977.
On Feb. 23, 2002, at an Investigative Hearing of the National Ombudsman for the EPA in New York, Cahill testified that his measurements "indicated that the size of particles appearing at our site were both in high concentration and very fine, unlike any we had ever sampled before."
In an interview Jan. 2, Cahill said he can't say for sure what the possible health effects will be, but he can point out areas of definite concern.
Cahill's main worry is "ultra fine silica" – or vaporized glass and dirt – which the DELTA group found in high concentrations. Unfortunately, he said, the heatlh effects of aerosolized silica have received little study.
The health effects of inhaled vanadium have also received little scrutiny – and the DELTA group also found a lot of that, more than has ever before been recorded, Cahill said.
"That bothered me a lot," he said.
The people who worked on WTC rubble pile are the ones who really need to worry, he said, since most of them worked with no breathing equipment, or with just dust masks, which were essentially useless.
“The very high temperatures below the WTC that caused the strange chemical reactions also protected the people of New York (because the heat carried the worst toxins high in the air), but unfortunately the same cannot be said for the people working on 'The Pile,'" he said. "A lot of people had their lungs really fried. That's a fact." "
Now it turns out that more than their lungs were fried. Some of the strangest long term health effects experienced by ground zero cleanup workers, such as teeth falling out and leukemia, may be explained radioactive Actinium, which lodges in the bones and teeth of the body. Actinium was identified by it's emision spectrum in WTC explosive debris collected just east of ground zero shortly after 9/11. It is one of the rarest elements in nature, occuring in Uranium ore, but there is less than a gram of it in each ton of ore. Most of it that exists on this Earth was created in nuclear power plants. It is used to power thermoelectric systems in satellites and emits a strange bluish glow. Very few people or institutions have any of it...but the US Department of Defence can sell you some at around $100 dollars a gram. That's where the Actinium coporation gets it.
That should make us wonder what happened deep in the WTC sub-basements that was still vaporizing glass and dirt weeks after 9/11.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
