Water and Air Quality Testing Threatened

Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council are rushing to push through
a bill, 2007 Intro 650, which would require police department -
issued permits for anyone or organization to possess
environmental monitoring equipment or to conduct environmental
investigations with instrumentation to measure air or water
pollutants, radiation, or biological contamination. If such
police department permit is not issued, the perpetrator has
committed a misdemeanor. There are all kinds of impediments in
the bill to persons other than City officials owning or using
environmental monitoring equipment. This quashes scientific and
educational investigations, making the government the sole
authority in assessing the health of our air and water.

This is a serious move on the part of the NYC Council to hinder
environnmental assessments, even by environmental engineers who
serve our patients by identifiying toxic exposures. Please
distribute this widely.

Here are excerpts of the language of the bill:
It shall be unlawful for any person to possess or deploy a
biological, chemical or radiological detector in the city of New
York unless such person holds a valid permit therefor, provided
that the commissioner in his or her discretion may exclude by
rule any class or type of biological, chemical or radiological
detector that shall not require such permit because requiring a
permit therefor would not further the purposes of this chapter.

While the proliferation of these capabilities may represent a
positive development in furthering public safety, such
instruments should be deployed and operated only with the
knowledge of the Police Department and other appropriate City
agencies. Moreover, the City has an interest in the reliability
and effectiveness of these instruments so that their deployment
will not cause excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety
that a large-scale public emergency is occurring. Therefore, the
Council finds that, to further the public safety, the possession
and deployment of biological, chemical and radiological detectors
should be regulated by the issuance of permits and the
promulgation of standards for such detectors and their use, and
that alarms triggered by such detectors should be immediately
reported according to prescribed procedures.

Here's the very short, very damaging bill:

http://webdocs.nyccouncil.info/textfiles/Int%200650-2007.htm?CFID\
=1037835&CFTOKEN=99377284

I understand that there may be another hearing within the next
few days and that the Mayor and City Council Speaker want to push
this through this coming week. For the time being, the New York
Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) is serving
as the point organization for those organizations and scientists
who are against this bill. Their contact information is: Dave
Newman, (212) 227-6440, dave@nycosh.org. Their testimony is at:
http://www.nycosh.org/pdf/NYC_council_Joint_Testimony1_08_08.pdf
>

We don't have much time. Please forward this widely and
especially to national, professional organizations if you have
contacts there.


Please send comments or suggestions on Int 650 to Massiel Garcia
in the Mayor’s Office of City Legislative Affairs,
MGarcia@cityhall.nyc.gov, and please copy Alix Pustilnik, Deputy
Director, City Council Government Operations Division, at
Legpusti@council.nyc.gov.

Maggie Clarke, Ph.D.
www.MaggieClarkeEnvironmental.com
Environmental
Scientist, Educator
mclarke@hunter.cuny.edu