In their resignation letters, the top two members of the Ombudsman Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have accused the agency of covering up the existence of deadly pollution in the area of the destroyed World Trade Center towers in New York. Emergency workers who were sent to the scene and residents of Lower Manhattan are developing serious, and in some cases, life-threatening respiratory ailments and other health problems. Ombudsman Robert Martin's Earth Day resignation letter accuses EPA Administrator Christine Whitman of withholding data about the problem for personal gain. Whitman's husband is an officer at Citigroup, which owns an insurance company that could have to pay out large claims if the extent of toxic exposure at the 9/11 site becomes known.