Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The Environmental Protection Agency and its ex-chief, Christine Todd Whitman, must defend a suit accusing them of misleading the public about the health risks from breathing the air in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts in New York rejected a request by the EPA and Whitman, a former New Jersey governor, to dismiss the case. The complaint seeks class action status on behalf of residents, workers, and students who were told it was safe to return to their homes after a pair of hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center, reducing the twin towers to rubble and filling the surrounding air with contaminated dust.

The suit seeks to hold Whitman personally liable for her actions as EPA administrator. Batts, who didn't rule on the merits of the complaint, said the plaintiffs had alleged enough facts to support a claim that Whitman's actions, if true, ``shock the conscience,'' a legal standard in cases seeking to hold government officials personally responsible.

If the lawsuit's claims are true, ``Whitman's deliberate and misleading statements made to the press, where she reassured the public that the air was safe to breathe around lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that there would be no health risk presented to those returning to those areas, shock the conscience,'' Batts said in an 83-page ruling.

Thousands of adults and children were ``unnecessarily exposed'' to airborne asbestos and other hazardous substances, the suit says. Whitman knew the air may have been unsafe, according to the complaint.

Health-Monitoring

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including reimbursement for cleanup costs and the creation of a fund to finance health-monitoring for people who were exposed to trade center dust.

The EPA said in a statement that it was pleased the court dismissed ``two of the four claims'' in the case ``including allegations brought under the federal Superfund law.''

A spokeswoman at the Whitman Strategy Group, a management consulting firm of which Whitman is the founder, didn't have an immediate comment.

In her decision, Batts dismissed claims against Marianne Lamont Horinko, who served as acting administrator of the EPA after Whitman left the agency in June 2003. Whitman was governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.

The case is Benzman v. Whitman, 04-CV-1888, Southern District of New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dglovin@bloomberg.net .