Dear Editor:
It’s obvious that Stevens Institute has hired a public relations firm to deal with its waterfront issues. I recognize all the standard tricks of the trade in a blatantly misleading letter by Roger Cole entitled “The truth about asbestos.”
Cole accuses Ron Hine of being irresponsible for alerting the public to the dangers of asbestos, and then tries to downplay those dangers through a variety of obfuscations. If anything, Ron Hine has been too willing to compromise with waterfront developers. The simple facts are that Stevens has exposed the citizens of Hoboken to increased levels of asbestos, the stuff is toxic, and the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has found the levels high enough to order Terminal Construction to clean up the stuff they dumped in Carlstadt and dispose of it in accordance with DEP regulations. Cole also makes the irrelevant claim that asbestos is a naturally occurring substance (which causes natural lung cancer.) Mercury, lead and uranium are also natural. Which brings me to another subject.
Judging from personal observation, the city of Hoboken just doesn’t seem to give a damn about construction dust in general, even though it often contains lead and possibly other toxic substances. I would recommend anyone living near a major construction site to at least have their children tested for elevated levels, since it does cause significant and permanent brain damage.
But back to the asbestos. Cole writes about the EPA’s “stringent” guidelines for the WTC area. Stringent for a disaster area maybe. It’s amazing how many opportunists have used the WTC disaster as an excuse to advance their own personal agendas. And the excuses in Tony Soares’ letter are equally misleading and irrelevant, and boil down to “if it’s good enough for us, it ought to be good enough for you.”
Destroying the natural features of the environment and exposing all of us to toxic substances to build a parking garage with a world class view, hardly seems like the right thing to do, despite the lullabies of those with a vested interest in the project.
Greg Ribot