Living-Today: Issues of modern living

THE VOLUNTEER STATE

Citizen interest in volunteer service within the United States and abroad has increased dramatically since President Bush last month appealed to Americans to consider devoting two years of their lives to helping others.

The Peace Corps -- which aims to double its numbers to about 15,000 during the next five years -- said visits to its Web site from Jan. 29 to Feb. 19 numbered 125,939 -- a 300 percent increase. Requests for information and applications -- via mail, phone and Internet -- have jumped 39 percent since the Jan. 29 State of the Union address, while the number of completed online applications for service abroad with the agency, founded by President Kennedy, has hit 477.

A little less than half of the applicants are eventually accepted for service and posted to one of the more than 70 countries in which the Peace Corps operates. The organization said it's planning "a very active recruitment program" this spring and summer for college campuses, seniors' groups and other community organizations.

In his appeal for volunteerism, Bush noted it would enable the American people contribute to the war against terrorism, aid in homeland security, and in tackling domestic social problems.

Linday Cosberg, spokeswoman for USA Freedom Corps, said public response has been "outstanding across the board." More than 5 million hits on its Web site have so far been recorded.

"When the president of the United States stands up and calls for people to volunteer their time, it's serious," and the people have taken it that way, she said.

Cosberg said one of the elements already in place but which will be expanded is the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Civilian Emergency Response Teams for disasters -- manmade and natural -- and others such as the Neighborhood Watch program. A Medical Reserve Corps is to be created as part of local Citizen Corps councils to recruit and train retired health-care professionals to augment local health care authorities in time of emergency, while the Volunteers in Police Program, in which civilians are used to free up regular officers from administrative tasks, will be expanded. A publicity and information campaign on crime prevention and what to do in an emergency also will be launched.

AmeriCorps, founded in 1984, and Senior Corps -- both under the auspices of the Corporation for National Community Service -- also will have a contributing role.

"What we're finding is that people really want to serve in this, our national moment," Siobhan Dugan, spokeswoman for the CNCS, said. "Sept. 11 was really an impetus." She added that interest in AmeriCorps is up 53 percent since the president's appeal.

(Thanks to UPI's Richard Tomkins in Washington)

'GROUND ZERO' ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

The controversy swirling around the environmental contamination in and around where the World Trade Center once stood continued at Saturday's hearing in New York City sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ombudsman's office.

"We invited the leadership of the EPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, the governor's office, state agencies, the mayor's office and city agencies, but none came," said Hugh Kaufman, the EPA ombudsman's chief investigator for the WTC. "This is the first time this has happened in this type of hearing."

According to Kaufman, the hearing was intended to give those who lived and worked in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 an opportunity to speak and to ask questions of some experts who have tested or studied the environmental impacts following the collapse of the Twin Towers. About 200 people attended the all-day hearing at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan.

"I'm hoping the EPA will do the measurements to test for ultra-fine particles," said Thomas Cahill, a professor at University of California-Davis who analyzed the dust and smoke produced by the fire and the collapse of the buildings following the crashes of the two hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers.

A U.C. Davis study of airborne particulate matter indicated that parts of Lower Manhattan in the months after Sept. 11 were contaminated with a variety of toxic substances, including metals at the highest levels ever recorded in air in the United States. The study also found that most of the contaminated respirable particulate matter was smaller than 2.5 microns, a size that can present serious health risks but is neither regulated nor monitored by EPA. People with upper respiratory problems such as asthma could be adversely affected by inhaled ultra-fine particles, Cahill said.

David Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a non-profit, union-based health and safety organization in Manhattan, told the hearing that widely publicized statements made after Sept. 14 and later by EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman downplaying any hazard influenced subsequent government response efforts as well as subsequent behavior by civilians.

Landlords and employers, relying upon EPA statements, have encouraged or forced workers and tenants to return to or remain in offices and residences which, in many cases, have not been adequately tested for contaminants or appropriately cleaned or abated, Newman added.

"Routine safety and health regulations and concerns were ignored and brushed aside after Sept. 11," Newman told UPI. "It was as if it was disloyal to even bring it up. ... We can't do anything for those who are gone, but we still do something for the rescuers and the residents."

(Thanks to UPI Science Writer Alex Cukin)

WHOSE AIRWAVES ARE THEY, ANYWAY?

A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation on the amount of air time that TV networks dedicate to public service announcements -- PSAs -- has touched a nerve among TV and advertising executives.

In "Shouting to Be Heard: Public Service Advertising in a New Media Age," Kaiser reported that its survey of the top four broadcast networks and several cable networks showed that, on average, just 15 seconds out of each hour were used for public service announcements. That works out to or six minutes of each broadcast day, or 0.4 percent of all airtime. By comparison, the study concluded, 25 percent of airtime is bought and paid for by commercial interests.

The study also found that 43 percent of the PSA minutes are relegated to late night -- running between midnight and 6 a.m. -- while just 9 percent of the public service messages showed up during primetime. And it found that on the major broadcast networks, 25 percent of PSAs served double duty -- promoting network stars even as they promoted some civic value.

The report was based on an analysis of one week's worth of programming from each of 10 broadcast and cable networks in seven different markets, conducted by researchers at the University of Indiana.

The National Association of Broadcasters told the Los Angeles Times that local TV ran $1.8 billion worth of PSAs in 2001. And NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton questioned the conclusion that almost half of PSAs run in the middle of the night. "Our research has found a pretty even distribution of PSAs throughout the various parts of the day," he said.

The Ad Council -- which produces PSAs on crime, education, drunk driving and various health-related issues -- told the newspaper that only 30 percent of its spots run during the middle of the night. Ad Council President Peggy Conlon said the Kaiser study's methodology was "questionable."

(Thanks to UPI Hollywood Reporter Pat Nason)