TRI in the NEWS as of 12/01/05
Group bashes proposed EPA reporting changes
Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX - 1 hour ago
By SCOTT STREATER. A group of emergency response officials, environmentalists and public health advocates sharply criticized a federal ...
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Critics say EPA plan may hide pollution
Augusta Chronicle (subscription), GA - 7 hours ago
By Rob Pavey | Staff Writer. A plan to streamline the way the nation's biggest polluters report releases of toxic chemicals would ...
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Extraordinary Problems, Difficult Solutions
(September 1st, 2005 - Washington Post) By Guy Gugliotta and Peter Whoriskey
First they have to pump the flooded city dry, and that will take a minimum of 30 days. Then they will have to flush the drinking water system, making sure they don't recycle the contaminants. Figure another month for that.
The electricians will have to watch out for snakes in the water, wild animals and feral dogs. It will be a good idea to wear hip boots and take care of cuts and scrapes before the toxic slush turns them into festering sores. The power grid might be up in a few weeks, but many months will elapse before everybody's lights come back on.
By that time, a lot of people won't care because they will have taken the insurance money and moved away -- forever. Home rebuilding, as opposed to repairs, won't start for a year and will last for years after that.
Even then, there may be nothing normal about New Orleans, because the floodwater, spiked with tons of contaminants ranging from heavy metals and hydrocarbons to industrial waste, human feces and the decayed remains of humans and animals, will linger nearby in the Gulf of Mexico for a decade.
"This is the worst case," Hugh B. Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, said of the toxic stew that contaminates New Orleans. "There is not enough money in the gross national product of the United States to dispose of the amount of hazardous material in the area."
Kaufman and other experts from around the country agreed yesterday that there will be no quick fix for New Orleans. But they acknowledged that even their sobering estimates for final "recovery" may be too optimistic, for nothing in their own personal and professional experience could compare with the abuse that Hurricane Katrina heaped upon the stricken city.
"We've had flooding events: Hurricane Floyd dropped 18 inches of rain in 24 hours; Isabel knocked down the power," said drinking-water expert Brian L. Ramaley, director of the Newport News (Va.) Waterworks. "But nothing we've had holds a candle to what they're facing now."
Officials in Baton Rouge, La., yesterday painted a bleak picture of New Orleans' immediate future. Its 485,000 inhabitants are refugees or soon-to-be refugees -- ordered out of town because the town is unlivable.
Electric power is gone. Drinking water is gone. Sewage service is gone. Roads are destroyed. Tens of thousands of homes are buried in contaminated floodwaters. The dead -- still uncounted -- float in drowned neighborhoods or lie pinned beneath debris.
"I surmise that there are people in New Orleans who will not be able to get back to their homes for months, if not forever," said Michael D. Brown, undersecretary of homeland security for emergency preparedness and response. "It will be a Herculean undertaking."
As if to underscore this grim forecast, state education officials urged parents living in shelters to enroll their children in out-of-town schools. Monroe, La., officials were already taking an informal census of displaced kids.
Before anything meaningful could happen in New Orleans, engineers had to figure out how to shore up two breaches in the city's fabled levees, then pump the flooded city dry -- a process that Maj. General Don T. Riley of the Army Corps of Engineers said would take a minimum of 30 days.
Pumping, Riley said, is a question of having electric power. The Corps would provide two generators, he added, but he could not say when they would arrive. Entergy, the local power company, said its crews are working, but only in "accessible" areas, of which New Orleans had few -- because of the flooding.
Out-of-town energy officials said Entergy, even once it gets up to speed, is likely to find that redoing electric power after Katrina presents far different challenges from clean-up after the devastation of a normal here-today-gone-tomorrow hurricane.
"You can throw the conventional methods of restoration out the window," said Fred N. Day IV, chief executive of Progress Energy Carolinas, which battled severe flooding in eastern North Carolina after Hurricane Floyd in 1999. "Just to get people and materials in place was so difficult we had to use helicopters."
Then there were "unusual safety issues," like "snakes and dogs and wild animals that can't make it to higher ground," Day continued. "Our employees went to a local sports shop and bought all the hip boots and flat-bottomed boats there were. It worked out good."
Jeff Corbett, Progress's vice president for distribution, said cuts and bruises are dangerous. "We had to be sure that a little scratch wouldn't create life-threatening infection," Corbett said. "With the stagnant water and the chemicals and dead animals, it eventually becomes a nasty soup."
Day said Progress restored power to "those who could take service" in less than a week, but the rest -- about 20 percent -- were part of "a long drawn-out process," with contractors from sister utilities, including Progress, cycling in and out over months.
But a real estimate? "Our scale was big to us at the time," Day said. "But it was nothing compared to what they have in Louisiana."
Having electricity will also be critical to restoring drinking-water and wastewater treatment. L.D. McMullen, chief executive and general manager of the Des Moines Water Works, described a "three-step process" to restore his plant. It was submerged in 1993, when the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers overflowed their banks.
The key, he said, is to keep contaminated water out of the system. First clean the treatment plant, start it up and run it until it is making drinkable water -- at least seven days. Then flush the system, using extra chlorine and taking care to dump the water wherever you can.
Finally, McMullen said, individual families have to flush their lines. He suggested a vigorous media campaign and phone bank staffed with plumbers, "who did a superb job" helping instructions.
The whole exercise took 19 days in Des Moines, with 350,000 people and 1,000 miles of pipeline. "The general concept would work fine in New Orleans, but probably would take longer because it's a bigger system," McMullen said. "There's probably a lot of broken pipes in town and broken mains, too. You'd have to repair them first."
Deciding whether to repair, or simply abandon, damaged homes will require a complicated triage involving not only residents but also insurance companies and local officials who will set the rules on which houses will be allowed to stand and which will come down.
"In most hurricanes, you're talking about wind damage, lost roofs -- that kind of thing," said Michael Carliner, an economist with the National Association of Homebuilders. "Flooding is much more insidious. Structures are still standing, but there are devastating effects. With the dirty water, it may never be possible to repair it. You'll have to rebuild, or at least gut it."
If you care. Carliner said experience shows that contractors will spend the first year after the water recedes in "patching up" damaged houses. There will be a run on plywood, roofing and other nonstructural materials.
Only after that will contractors turn to rebuilding, and "that takes a long time," Carliner said. "A lot of people who get insurance money for rebuilding don't do so -- they just move someplace else."
And they don't come back. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, South Florida needed 50,000 new units of housing, Carliner said, but there was no construction boom. "Rebuilding occurred over years, just in the normal course of events -- I don't think we'll have a building surge here."
Or anywhere nearby, perhaps. The EPA's Kaufman, a designer of the Superfund legislation to clean up toxic waste, said New Orleans and the Gulf Coast face "an absolute catastrophic situation" that will take years to abate.
Louisiana, a center of the oil, gas and chemical industries, "was known for its very weak enforcement regulations," Kaufman said, and there are a number of landfills and storage areas containing "thousands of tons" of hazardous material to be leaked and spread.
"On top of that, you have dead bodies that are going to start to decompose, along with the material that was in industrial and household discharge, sewage, gasoline and waste oil from gas stations," he added. "You've got a witches' brew of contaminated water."
Given New Orleans's desperate straits, recovery teams will not be able to do anything with the toxic mess except pump it into the Gulf of Mexico, ensuring that the contamination will spread to a larger area, he said. "There's just no other place for it."
Once the water is gone, environmental officials will likely undertake a "grid survey," sampling the formerly flooded areas to get soil profiles and determine how safe it is for residents to move back or rebuild.
The survey is likely to take six months. "If it were me, I wouldn't go back until there was a solid assessment of contamination of the land," Kaufman said. And even then, he added, authorities will be monitoring levels of water toxicity along the coastline for years: "There is no magic chemical that you can put in the Gulf to make heavy metals or benzene go away. You're stuck with it."
Whoriskey reported from Baton Rouge.
Banished Whistle-Blowers
(September 1, 2005: New York Times Readers Opionon)
The Bush administration is making no secret of its determination to punish whistle-blowers and other federal workers who object to the doctoring of facts that clash with policy and spin. The blatant retaliation includes the Army general sidelined for questioning the administration's projections about needed troop strength in Iraq, the Medicare expert muted when he tried to inform Congress about the true cost of the new prescription subsidies and the White House specialist on climate change who was booted after complaining that global warming statistics were being massaged by political tacticians.
We agree with critics like Congressman Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat, who has tracked a long list of abused federal workers who should be applauded, not penalized, for their dedication. The latest victims include Bunnatine Greenhouse, a career civilian manager at the Pentagon. She was demoted from her job as the top contract overseer of the Army Corps of Engineers after she complained of irregularities in the awarding of a multibillion-dollar no-bid Iraq contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton, the Texas-based oil services company run by Dick Cheney before he became vice president.
Ms. Greenhouse made complaints internally, then publicly, describing the contract as "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed." Recently, Ms. Greenhouse was ordered removed for "poor performance," just as unfairly as the administration forced out Lawrence Greenfeld as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Mr. Greenfeld's sin was to stand fast against senior political appointees intent on watering down a study's finding that blacks and Hispanics were subject to more searches and force in police traffic stops.
Damage control is a political hallmark of any administration. But the Bush team is taking it to the most destructive extreme.
TWO IMPORTANT FINDINGS BY THE EPA
1. Indoor air quality is a top health risk. The Environmental Protection Agency has declared the air two to five times as polluted indoors than out, and placed it among the top five environmental risks to public health.
2. EPA guidelines acknowledge the mounting evidence that children under 2 years of age are 10 times more likely than adults to get cancer from certain chemicals http://www.epa.gov/ncea/raf/cancer.htm
Related News: OMB Undermines Guidelines on Cancer Risk April 8, 2005
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised 20-year old standards for assessing the risks of cancer from exposures to environmental pollutants. The new guidelines acknowledge the mounting evidence that children under 2 years of age are 10 times more likely than adults to get cancer from certain chemicals. Unfortunately, the new guidelines may never see the light of day, because the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has added language to the regulations that will allow industry to block their implementation.
Cancer risk assessment guidelines provide a blueprint for agency regulators to determine the risks of cancer in humans from exposure to a certain chemical and to set allowable residues of pesticides or other chemicals in food, air, water, waste and contaminated sites. When the first risk assessments were adopted in 1986, little was understood about the vulnerability of different subpopulations to adverse health effects from chemical exposure. The new guidelines seek to correct this, "EPA notes that childhood may be a lifestage of greater susceptibility for a number of reasons, such as rapid growth and development that occurs prenatally and after birth, differences related to an immature metabolic system, and differences in diet and behavior patterns that may increase exposure." EPA also designed the guidance to reflect new evidence as it becomes known, "The supplemental guidance is separate from the Guidelines so that it may be more easily updated as scientific understanding about effects of early-life exposures evolve."
The regulations, including the children's supplemental guidelines, were issued by EPA in March 2003. In its review, the agency's Scientific Advisory Board agreed with EPA's conclusion that early-life exposures to chemical pollutants increase cancer risk and recommended the guidelines be finalized as written. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, the guidelines went to OMB for review, and sat there for two years. Finally, OMB added language allowing the chemical industry or an outside party to challenge the way the guidelines were applied for chemical assessment in a process termed "expert elicitation." OMB also inserted the requirement that EPA assessments meet OMB standards for implementation of the Data Quality Act, an obscure piece of legislation written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into an appropriations bill in 2000 with little debate. The Act, which consists of only two sentences, requires OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. So far the Data Quality Act has been used primarily by industry to forestall regulation.
The Washington Post analyzed 39 petitions filed during the first 20 months of the Data Quality Act and found that 32 were filed by regulated industries, business or trade organizations or their lobbyists. Among those was an American Chemistry Council petition that challenged data used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for a ban on the use of wood treated with heavy metals and arsenic in playground equipment. Another petition, filed for Syngenta, argued that atrazine should not be restricted as an endocrine disruptor, despite hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, because EPA had not yet established a "regulatory endpoint" or official measurement for endocrine disruption.
Consumers, environmental groups and worker advocates argue that the Data Quality Act is biased in favor of industry because it asks the government to use only data that have achieved a level of certainty rare in statistical or epidemiological research. The end result of this high bar is the discounting of scientific information that should trigger regulation. The costs of ignoring new evidence can be steep. Epidemiologist Devra Davis has pointed out, "a goal for public health research is predicting and thus preventing future harm. This purpose takes us out of the realm of pure knowledge and into an arena in which lives are at stake. Our standards of proof must change accordingly."
Children, the developing fetus and other sectors of the population that have been increasingly identified by researchers as particularly vulnerable to chemicals in the environment have waited a long time for this regulation. According to OMB, they may now have to wait even longer.
Sources: US EPA, "Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment" and Supplemental Guidance on Risks From Early-Life Exposure; OMBWatch, April 4, 2005, http://www.ombwatch.org New York Times, April 4, 2005; Washington Post, August 14, 2004; Davis, Devra, When Smoke Ran Like Water, Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution, 2002, Basic Books, New York, NY.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
W.R. Grace and Executives, Charged with Endangering
Libby, Montana Community, Fraud, and Obstruction of Justice
Contact: Cynthia Bergman, EPA 202-564-9828; DOJ 202-514-2007
(Washington, D.C. February 7, 2005) The United States
Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency announced today that a federal grand jury in the District of Montana has indicted W.R. Grace and seven current and former Grace executives for knowingly endangering residents of Libby, Montana, and concealing information about the health affects of its asbestos mining operations.
According to the Indictment, W.R. Grace and its executives, as far back as the 1970's, attempted to hide the fact that toxic asbestos was present in vermiculite products at the company's Libby, Montana plant.
The grand jury charged the defendants with conspiring to conceal information about the hazardous nature of the company's asbestos contaminated vermiculite products, obstructing the government's clean- up efforts, and wire fraud. To date, according to the indictment, approximately 1,200 residents of Libby have been identified as suffering from some kind of asbestos-related abnormality.
"This criminal indictment is intended to send a clear message: we will pursue corporations and senior managers who knowingly disregard environmental laws and jeopardize the health and welfare of the workers and the public," said Thomas V. Skinner, EPA's acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
"We will not tolerate criminal conduct that is detrimental to the environment and human health," stated Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "We look forward to working with the District of Montana's United States Attorney's Office to prosecute this case."
William W. Mercer, United States Attorney for the District of Montana, and Lori Hanson, Special Agent-in-Charge, Criminal Investigation Division, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Denver, Colorado, announced the unsealing of the 10-count indictment today in United States District Court in Missoula, Montana. In addition to W.R.
Grace, the indictment names as defendants Alan Stringer, Henry Eschenbach, Jack Wolter, William McCaig, Robert Bettacchi, O. Mario Favorito, and Robert Walsh, all current or former employees of W.R.
Grace. The defendants will be arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge Leif B. Erickson at the U.S. Courthouse in Missoula, Montana.
According to the indictment, W.R. Grace operated a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana from 1963 to 1990, as part of its Construction Products Division, which was headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Vermiculite was used in many common commercial products, including attic insulation, fireproofing materials, masonry fill, and as an additive to potting soils and fertilizers.
The vermiculite deposits in Libby were contaminated with a form of asbestos called tremolite. Asbestos is regulated under the Clean Air Act as a hazardous air pollutant. Studies have shown that exposure to asbestos can cause life-threatening illnesses, including asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Health studies on residents of the Libby area show increased incidence of many types of asbestos related disease, including a rate of lung cancer that is 30 percent higher than expected when compared with rates in other areas of Montana and the United States.
The indictment alleges that the defendants, beginning in the late 1970's, obtained knowledge of the toxic nature of tremolite asbestos in its vermiculite through internal epidemiological, medical and toxicological studies, as well as through product testing. The indictment further alleges that, despite legal requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act to turn over to EPA the information they possessed, W.R. Grace and its officials failed to do so on numerous occasions. In addition to concealing information from EPA, the indictment alleges that W.R. Grace and its officials also obstructed the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) when it attempted to study the health conditions at the Libby mine in the 1980's.
The indictment further alleges that, despite their knowledge gained from internal studies, W.R. Grace and its officials distributed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite and permitted it to be distributed throughout the Libby community. This occurred in numerous ways, including, allowing workers to leave the mine site covered in asbestos dust, allowing residents to take waste vermiculite for use in their gardens and distributing vermiculite "tailings" to the Libby schools for use as foundations for running tracks and an outdoor ice skating rink.
After W.R. Grace closed the Libby mine in 1990, it sold asbestos contaminated properties to local buyers without disclosing the nature or
extent of the contamination. One of the contaminated properties was
used as a residence and commercial nursery.
In 1999, EPA responded to reports of asbestos contamination in and around Libby, Montana. According to the Indictment, W.R. Grace and its officials continued to mislead and obstruct the government by not disclosing, as they were required to do by federal law, the true nature and extent of the asbestos contamination. Ultimately, the Libby Mine and related W.R. Grace properties were declared a Superfund site by EPA, and as of 2001, EPA had incurred approximately $55 million in cleanup costs.
If convicted, the defendants face up to 15 years imprisonment on each endangerment charge, and up to five years imprisonment on each of the conspiracy and obstruction charges. W.R. Grace could face fines of up to twice the gain associated with its alleged misconduct or twice the losses suffered by victims. According to the indictment, W.R. Grace enjoyed at least $140 million in after-tax profits from its mining operations in Libby. W.R. Grace also could be ordered to pay restitution to victims.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kris A. McLean and Trial Attorney Kevin M. Cassidy of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section. The case was investigated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigations Division, with assistance from EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center and the United States Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division.
Sierra Club vigil during RNC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26 , 2004 CONTACT:
David Willett 212-791-3600 x27
Sierra Club, Others Launch 8-Day Ground Zero Community Vigil During Republican Convention
***Featured Spokespeople Daily*** http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2004-08-26.asp
New York, NY: As New York prepares for the Republican convention, residents and workers of the Ground Zero area will participate in a daily vigil to hold President Bush accountable for failing to protect public health in the aftermath of 9/11. The goals of the sunrise-to-sunset (6:30 AM-7:30 PM) events are to call upon the President to meet the needs of the people exposed to Ground Zero pollution, and to educate the nation about the need for better public health protection in national emergencies.
The event is sponsored by: Sierra Club, 9/11 Environmental Action, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), and New York Environmental Law & Justice Project.
"While the country is focused on the city during the Republican Convention, we want to make sure that New York's real story is told," said Suzanne Mattei, Sierra Club's New York City Executive. "President Bush needs to hear the stories of those who were not protected in the aftermath of September 11th and take action now to meet their needs, and to protect those who would be put in harm's way at future national emergencies."
Participants will gather daily on the corner of Liberty and Broadway (one block from Ground Zero) from August 26 until the final day of the Convention to hand out stickers that say "I support the Ground Zero Community. Toxic Cleanup, Health Care, & Answers." Each day will honor and advocate on behalf of a different constituency of the Ground Zero community.
"It's ironic that EPA refused to clean the firehouses downtown, that the firefighters were forced to clean up their own WTC-contaminated stations without even having the proper equipment to do so. These are the same fire stations that protect Wall Street and all of the government buildings in lower Manhattan," said Joel Kupferman, New York Environmental Law & Justice Project and Environmental Counsel to the Uniformed Firefighters Association (NYC).
Bob Gulack, Union Steward, National Treasury Employees Union said, "It is now three years since Al Qaeda attacked us and EPA is still refusing to clean up the lethal contamination left behind by the original terrorist attack. As a union steward, I have seen the suffering of my colleagues in our contaminated office building, and I have personally suffered repeated bronchitis and pneumonia and have been left with permanent lung damage. As matters now stand, the EPA's plan for cleaning up the WTC dust is to have the people of NYC inhale the dust into their lungs."
Representing small business owners is Ariel Goodman, President of "From the Ground Up"-a small-business organization. "Shortly after the tragic events of September 11 th, we were told that the air was safe," said Goodman. "Not only did the EPA's misinformation put our health in jeopardy, it was used by insurance companies to deny coverage for damage.
"The federal government should step up to the plate and do testing and cleaning not only in residences but also in businesses - which were completely left out of its program. Also, the small business owners who were exposed should be included in the medical monitoring program. Right now, we're excluded," continued Goodman.
Kimberly Flynn, spokesperson, 9/11 Environmental Action said, "The September 11th attack was a time when the people of New York City needed to depend on their government as never before, for their safety and security -- and this Administration failed them. People who live and work downtown were put in harm's way by being told the air was safe and by being denied a proper cleanup; many of them who now suffer serious health effects have nowhere to turn. They have an important message for the president. Mr. Bush, you need to fix what went wrong in New York right now. If there is another terrorist attack -- here or anywhere -- which fills the air with dangerous substances, Americans must not be lied to and left in the dust as they were here in New York."
Marie Rogers, spokesperson for the Civil Service Employees Association said, "It is a primary goal of the Civil Service Employees Association and the NYS Public Employees Fed to ensure the health and safety of their members in lower Manhattan. We are pleased to be working with the Sierra Club and other community organizations and unions on a campaign to obtain environmental testing and a cleanup of all downtown buildings. Through this vigil, we hope to publicize the issues and obtain additional support. Every worker has a right to a safe and healthy workplace."
"Thousands of workers are sick today as a result of the respiratory hazards caused by the attack on the World Trade Center. The government agencies that had the responsibility of protecting them failed to do so. We must make certain that such a failure never occurs again," said Jonathan Bennett, spokesperson for NYCOSH (New York Committee for Occupational Safety & Health).
On August 18th, the Sierra Club released a hard-hitting report titled, "Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero: How the Bush Administration's Reckless Disregard of 9/11 Toxic Hazards Poses Long-term Threats for New York City and the Nation." Spokespeople are available to talk about the local and national impacts of the report's findings. The report can be found at www.sierraclub.org/groundzero
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August 24, 2004: 14 dogs died after exposure to WTC rubble, but scientists doubt link
BY HEIDI EVANS
New York Daily News
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9479484.htm
NEW YORK - (KRT) - Fourteen search and rescue dogs have died since their exposure to toxic rubble from the Sept. 11 terrorist attack - including eight from cancer, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. But researchers believe there is no connection between the deaths and the chemicals they were exposed to.
Despite the study's findings, some of the owners whose dogs have died still blame the toxic brew the dogs immersed themselves in during the hunt for survivors and remains.
"We can't find any link at this point that ties the 14 deaths to events of Sept. 11," said Dr. Cynthia Otto, the study's lead researcher. "Some have passed away, but the causes of death are no different than in the control group. That is good news."
Otto's team, which has been monitoring the health of 97 dogs who worked at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, did find "significantly higher" antibodies in the search dogs in the first year after the terrorist attack.
The elevated presence of antibodies, she explained, showed the dogs had been exposed to foreign substances that pressed their immune systems into higher gear.
Although Otto was heartened to find the vast majority of dogs were in good health, given the exposure and the blood changes in the first year, questions remain about possible long-term effects.
"I don't think these dogs are completely out of the woods," she said. "That is why we need to monitor these dogs until the end of their lives - for the dogs' sake and for people's sake. If there is a problem in the dogs down the line, there is a good chance a similar problem could be found in people."
Among the canine deaths was Servus, a 12-year-old Belgian Malinois police dog, who had to be carried out on a stretcher from Ground Zero after he fell into a hole face down, his snout and lungs filled with concrete dust and ash. He died of pancreatitis, Otto said.
And Anna, a 4-year-old German shepherd who spent three days crawling on her belly trying to scent any survivors, was put down Aug. 2, 2002, ravaged by an unusual bone-eating fungal infection.
"Anna had been to the vet two months before she was deployed, and her blood work and X-rays were fine," said Sarah Atlas, a New Jersey emergency medical technician and Anna's handler. "I know the university did everything they could to help her, and they say that Anna was probably genetically predisposed to the disease, but in my heart I know what I feel."
John Gilkey, a Maryland firefighter, lost his 10-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever, Bear, to hepatitis last September. The dog's liver tests were not normal before the eight nights he spent on the World Trade Center pile, and blood tests and a biopsy showed disease soon afterward.
"I was surprised," Gilkey said, when he got the medical results. "But to be perfectly honest, I don't think Bear was made sick by the World Trade Center." Fighting back emotion, Gilkey added, "Bear and I had 21 months together after the diagnosis. I miss him terribly."
Dr. Philip Fox of Manhattan's Animal Medical Center, who has been monitoring the health of 30 New York City police dogs who worked at the World Trade Center, agreed with Otto's findings.
"These dogs have not been inundated by suspicious or debilitating diseases that we were afraid might occur," Fox said.
"They all had lung irritation, eye irritation and coughing in the first few weeks, but they seem to be clinically healthy almost three years later, except for a couple of animals who died of cancer that would be expected, given their age and breed."
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August 19, 2004: Read Suzanne Mattei's Report "Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero" HERE: (download in PDF, 2MB, 200 pages)
Below are some of the press releases regarding the report:
1. New Report Examines Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero. Common Dreams Progressive Newswire - August 18, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0818-03.htm
On the steps of City Hall, the Sierra Club today released a new, hard-hitting report titled, "Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero: How the Bush Administration's Reckless Disregard of 9/11 Toxic Hazards Poses Long-Term Threats for New York City and the Nation."
Picking up where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General's report left off, this report takes the most comprehensive look at well-known, and little-known, health impacts of the attacks of 9/11 and, most importantly, how the Bush administration's mistakes in the aftermath are in danger of being institutionalized as policy for the handling of any future attacks on Americans.
"The Bush administration has learned nothing from the illnesses and hardships suffered by the Ground Zero community. Rather, it plans to perpetuate them in any future national disaster anywhere else in the United States," said Suzanne Mattei, author of the report, and Sierra Club New York City Executive. "The Bush administration must restore trust in federal agencies charged with protecting health and safety, and take action to mitigate the consequences of its own failure to provide proper warning about the health hazards from Ground Zero."
The report finds that, most disturbingly, the Bush administration apparently plans to turn its missteps at Ground Zero into standard policy for any future national emergency with new emergency planning documents and weaker cleanup standards. Among those missteps:
-- The Bush administration knew the health risks and ignored its own long-standing body of knowledge about the harmful products of incineration and demolition. It should have issued a health warning immediately on that basis.
-- EPA failed to find toxic hazards because it did not look for them, or did not look for them properly. And EPA failed at least a dozen times to change its safety assurances as new information arose -- even after it became clear that people were getting sick.
-- Many workers at and near Ground Zero did not have proper health and safety protections. And the Bush administration refused to enforce worker safety requirements at Ground Zero.
-- Both EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assured families they could clean up contaminated dust themselves with wet rags and discouraged them from wearing safety masks.
The people affected by Ground Zero pollution include not only those who worked directly on "the pile", but also workers who restored cable and electricity, fixed windows in area buildings, cleaned up debris in the streets and buildings, as well as residents, employees, schoolchildren and business owners.
The Sierra Club report calls on President Bush to:
-- Take action now to prevent more harm by properly cleaning up WTC dust in residences, businesses, firehouses and emergency vehicles and equipment.
-- Fund long-term medical monitoring, treatment and assistance.
-- Issue a retraction of false safety assurances and hold those responsible accountable.
-- Work with Ground Zero-affected communities, labor unions, and environmental health advocacy groups to develop effective national policies and practices that promote truthfulness in the communication of health hazards and effective response actions.
" Abandon plans to eliminate enforcement of federal safety standards for response workers, and institutionalize political control of communications without providing strong policies to prevent issuance of false assurances of safety.
"President Bush is on his way to New York. Now would be the perfect time for him to correct the mistakes made after 9/11 and make sure that if the once unthinkable were to happen again, we do not make those same, far-reaching errors," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.
The full report, as well as executive summary, is available online at www.sierraclub.org/groundzero
STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT
From Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY-8):
"The Sierra Club's report is an incisive appraisal of the harmful actions committed by the EPA and other federal agencies that have resulted in serious damage to the lives of first responders, residents and workers of Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the World Trade Center Attack. The report details how both by design and by neglect, the EPA responded in a contemptible and irresponsible manner to the unfolding environmental crisis, and how it continues to do so to this day. "
From Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14):
"The heroes who gave of themselves so willingly in the aftermath of 9/11 have been given so little in return from the federal government. Many are suffering from severe health problems, but this report shows the lack of a coordinated federal response. They deserve more than limited health monitoring and no medical treatment - they deserve more than just token concern. The 'Remember 9/11 Health Act' I introduced will help remedy the shortcomings outlined in this report."
From Philip McArdle, Health and Safety Officer, Uniformed Firefighters Association:
"It's important that people realize the seriousness of the report in terms of the hazards that occurred and the health care that is now necessary, not only for firefighters but for the public at large. Government has to be more responsible in honest reporting to the public and in taking actions to protect Americans both during and after an event such as this."
From Frank Goldsmith, Dr. P.H., Director, Occupational Health, Local 100, Transport Workers Union:
"We hoped that the mistakes that EPA, OSHA and our federal officials made during the first days and months following the WTC disaster would have been corrected by better policy since. Sad to say, this has not been the case. Our union, along with other unions and community residents are still struggling with federal officials to do the right thing,"
From Jo Polett, spokesperson, 9/11 Environmental Action:
In 1967, when Hannah Arendt wrote: "The chances of factual truth surviving the onslaught of power are very slim indeed," she could well have been referring to the Bush administration's coverup of 9/11pollution. Because the government refused to conduct comprehensive testing inside area buildings following the collapse of the World Trade Center, we will never know the extent and nature of the contaminants to which people were exposed as they heeded false safety assurances and returned to their homes and offices. But the fact that significant health effects resulted from many of those exposures is irrefutable.
From Susan O'Brien, M.A. Assoc Director, NY Committee for Occupational Safety and Health:
OSHA made the decision not to enforce federal safety and health regulations and thousands of Ground Zero workers are suffering from respiratory illnesses. Is there a connection? We believe so. And we don't want to see this situation repeated, should another disaster occur."
From Alan Jay Gerson (D-WFP, NY City Council, 1st District, Lower Manhattan)
"As the 3rd Anniversary of the September 11 attack approaches, there are still thousands of residents and workers whose health may be at risk due to the lack of a proper clean up. The EPA technical advisory panel is step in the right direction, but much work remains to be done and more environmental and health studies are desperately needed. I salute the Sierra Club for this outstanding document and hope that it helps us further discussion and debate, as well as awareness around these important issues."
2. Sierra Club: Bush Endangered Lives of New Yorkers After 9/11 By Lying About Dangers of Toxic Fallout, Democracy Now, August 19, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/1354251
A new Sierra Club report raises new questions about the Bush administration's handling of the cleanup of downtown Manhattan in the days after 9/11. We'll speak with the author of the report and a downtown Manhattan resident who suffers respiratory illness from World Trade Center dust.
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As Republicans prepare to descend on New York City for their party Convention in less than two weeks, a leading environmental group is raising new questions about the Bush administration's handling of the cleanup of downtown Manhattan in the days after 9/11.
A new report by the Sierra Club charges that the Bush administration was guilty of reckless disregard by failing to inform Ground Zero area workers, residents and rescuers of health risks from toxic air after the collapse of the World Trade Center.
The report titled "Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero" blames the thousands of cases of long-term respiratory illness among New Yorkers on the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency, saying they downplayed health risks, shirked their regulatory oversight roles and even urged financial district workers to return to their jobs prematurely.
The EPA called the report "a blatant attempt to use this tragedy for political gain."
In addition to misleading the public about the health hazards of the smoke and dust at Ground Zero, the report finds that the Bush administration's mistakes are now in danger of becoming policy for handling future disasters.
Suzanne Mattei, an attorney who heads the national field office of the Sierra Club in New York. She is the author of the Sierra Club's new report "Air Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero."
Jo Polett, downtown Manhattan resident who lives near Ground Zero. She has was been diagnosed with reactive airways disease and GERDS from World Trade Center dust in her apartment.
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3 . Dust must clear on veil of deceit, by Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News
August 19, 2004
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/223498p-192024c.html
It's worse than anyone thought.
Nearly three years after 9/11, the scandal keeps growing over the federal government's handling of the massive pollution released by the twin towers collapse.
With the Republicans coming to town, President Bush and Christie Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, should answer questions about their own roles at Ground Zero.
An investigation last year by the EPA's inspector general blasted the agency for claiming after the terrorist attacks that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe.
EPA did not conduct sufficient testing during the first few days to back up those claims, the IG reported, and White House aides then rewrote agency press releases to minimize possible dangers.
Now a new report by the Sierra Club, the nation's oldest environmental organization, charges that the EPA covered up results of federal tests that pointed to more widespread health threats to rescue workers, downtown residents and office employees.
The Sierra Club report claims the Bush administration showed a "reckless disregard" for public health.
It's based on EPA records and several recent scientific studies about Ground Zero. Among the findings:
The EPA claimed as late as April 2002 that it had found no traces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a family of organic chemicals that can cause cancer. But in the weeks after the twin towers' collapse EPA's own scientists found significant levels of PAHs in the air several blocks north of Ground Zero. The agency did not disclose those results until two years later, when they were published in an obscure scientific journal.
Eight weeks after 9/11, a survey by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that government employees at a federal building several blocks north of Ground Zero were battling an amazing array of physical ailments. NIOSH compared the workers with a control group of federal employees in Dallas.
It found those in lower Manhattan showed a much higher incidence of shortness of breath, chest tightness, nausea, severe headaches, rashes, and coughs.
Childhood clinic visits for asthma jumped sharply at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center in Chinatown in the year after 9/11; new cases jumped from 306 the previous year to 510.
While health officials routinely track such spikes, the Chinatown increase was not made public until this year, when an article appeared in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
An EPA statement called the report a "blatant attempt to use this tragedy for political gain."
Which brings us to Whitman, who garnered much attention this week when she called for Gov. Jim McGreevey of New Jersey to resign immediately for giving an alleged lover a government job.
So when will Whitman answer for her own role in the far more serious EPA coverup at Ground Zero?
As for Bush, the Sierra Club report is the first to connect some important dots to him as well.
The report points out that former White House anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, in his book "Against All Enemies," claims that on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush told several staff members, Clarke among them: "I want the economy back, open for business right away, banks, the stock market, everything tomorrow."
According to Clarke, when the President was told there was "physical damage to the Wall Street infrastructure," he responded: "As soon as we get the rescue operations done up there, shift everything to fixing that damage so we can reopen."
Clarke's recollection is echoed by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. In his tell-all book, O'Neill recalls that on Sept. 12, one of his aides told him, "The President wants to open the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow."
Of course, there's nothing wrong with Bush's wanting to return Manhattan to normal as soon as possible. But what did Whitman, as this nation's top environmental official, tell the President about the health risks of sending thousands of people back to lower Manhattan so quickly?
Did she just follow orders when she gave New Yorkers the "all clear"? Did White House aides rewrite EPA press releases just to please the boss?
Only she and Bush can answer those questions. It's about time they do.
All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P.
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3. Greens rip W on 9/11 air, by Frank Lombardi and Tamer El-Ghobashy, New York Daily News, August 19, 2004
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/223495p-192021c.html
The Bush administration repeatedly misled New Yorkers on air quality around Ground Zero and played down the health problems suffered by residents and workers after the 9/11 attacks, an environmental group charged yesterday.
A report by the Sierra Club cites dozens of studies that show hundreds of people were sickened after the attacks on the World Trade Center because the government made mistakes during the cleanup effort.
"The federal government should have a duty to protect the public from the aftermath of an attack such as this," said Suzanne Mattei, the author of the 185-page report. "What happened instead is that the harm was prolonged."
Mattei accused the Bush administration of ignoring evidence that the air around Ground Zero may have been toxic and wrongly encouraging people to continue to work and live there after the attacks.
According to a study cited in the report, a Chinatown clinic saw a 67% spike in asthma-related visits among children after 9/11.
The Sierra Club also cited a 2002 study of Health and Human Services Department workers showing that those working at 290 Broadway, several blocks from Ground Zero, suffered worsened symptoms of coughing, shortness of breath and severe headaches than their counterparts in Dallas.
The Environmental Protection Agency called the Sierra Club report a "scare tactic."
"The American public should see this report for what it is: a blatant attempt to use this tragedy for political gain," an EPA statement said.
But Mattei said the EPA failed to publicly disclose the hazards and was under direct orders from the Bush administration to play down the risks.
All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P.
News Coverage of the July 26 WTC Panel Meeting
1. WTC air quality stirs controversy : DISASTER NEWS, July 28, 2004 (Extensive Coverage!)
Environmental experts and residents alike wrestled Monday - sometimes with fervor - over toxic dust problems that have plagued New York City since Sept. 11, 2001. --> read full story here
2. U.S. Agency to Expand Air Tests at NYC's Ground Zero, by Patrick Cole, Bloomberg News, July 26, 2004
July 26 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. government-led committee of experts studying air quality after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack said it would expand testing for toxins and contaminants north of Canal Street in lower Manhattan.
The 18-member panel, formed in March by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, also said it would broaden its investigation to include public and private buildings such as firehouses and schools, with testing to begin as early as year-end, said Paul Gilman, the chairman of the group. The committee initially offered testing and cleaning only to 35,000 residents living south of Canal Street, of which about 4,100 enrolled.
"We want to be able to gather information on commercial buildings as well as residential -- the full range including public buildings -- to ultimately determine the geographical extent of contamination,'' Gilman, the EPA's science adviser and
assistant administrator for research and development, said at a public meeting at St. John's University Campus in Manhattan.
The decision to expand its testing area as far north as Houston Street in Manhattan and include more buildings comes amid entreaties by lower Manhattan residents to speed air testing in the area. Since its formation, the group has been determining which chemicals and particles make up the "signature'' of the dust caused by the collapse of the trade center's twin towers and subsequent fires.
Preliminary Findings
Preliminary EPA studies have already found hazardous chemicals in the air. Samples taken two years ago in neighborhoods near Ground Zero found more than 20 dioxins and minerals in the area, including mercury, copper and aluminum.
Another study released today in the latest issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' showed that cancer-causing substances known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were 65 times higher than normal within six months after the trade center attack. Since the compounds' levels were high for a short time, the study concluded that there was "little increase in lifetime cancer risk'' in people living
near the trade center.
While the levels decreased as the fires were contained at Ground Zero, there is concern that the chemicals in the air might have affected the offspring of women living near the site who were or became pregnant at the time the substances were present, the study said. The hydrocarbons have been associated with intrauterine growth restriction, which results in babies being born smaller than normal, the study said.
Deutsche Bank Building
The panel also said it will investigate potential environmental and health risks at the Deutsche Bank building across the street from Ground Zero, which is to be demolished by the state agency overseeing development at the trade center site. A study of the 40-story tower, commissioned as part of a law suit against two of Deutsche Bank's insurers showed the building had levels of asbestos, lead, mercury and other
substances a thousand times higher than Environmental Protection Agency standards.
"It is definitely within our mission statement to help with this,'' said David Prezant, the New York Fire Department's chief medical officer and a member of the EPA panel of experts.
Mary Perillo, a resident of 125 Cedar Street next to the Deutsche Bank building, said she was "thrilled and floored'' by the panel's decision to take a closer look at contamination of the Deutsche Bank building.
Revised Plan
Under its revised proposal, the EPA would ask owners and managers of private and public buildings including firehouses and police stations for access to the properties for testing.
Buildings as far north as Houston Street in Manhattan would be eligible for EPA screening, said Matthew Lorber, a senior scientist at the EPA's office of research and development.
"The intent is to characterize the entire building, not just a single unit,'' Lorber said.
Gilman said the panel couldn't provide details about its plans to study the Deutsche Bank building. Irene Chang, the general counsel for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is in charge of redeveloping the trade center site, said it has hired consultants to assess the level of contaminants in the building before it is dismantled.
"The building is not going to be imploded,'' Chang said at the meeting. The development agency agreed earlier this year agreed to purchase the Deutsche Bank building for $90 million and take over a $45 million contract to take it down. It has
said it intends to take building apart piece by piece to minimize the release of contaminants, and awarded the demolition contract to Gilbane Building Co.
Brooklyn?
Gilman also said the EPA may look for evidence of contamination in Brooklyn. Residents have said that dust and debris from the trade center attack spread from Ground Zero across the East River to neighborhoods there.
"We know there was dust in Brooklyn, the question has been at what levels, and the thinking has always been not nearly the levels as seen in Manhattan,'' Gilman said. "This is a phase one proposal and we want to look and see what are the extremes, what the contamination levels look like and then we will ask ourselves, ' Should we be going to Brooklyn as well?'''
To contact the reporter on this story:
Patrick Cole in New York at (212) 318-2072 or
pcole3@Bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Edward DeMarco in Washington at (1) (202) 624-1935 or
edemarco1@bloomberg.net.
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Statements by LMDC re: Deutsche Bank Records
Listen to an excerpt of statements by Amy Peterson, LMDC Project Manager for the dismantling of the Deutsche Bank building at the Community Board One: Combined WTC Redevelopment Committee and Arts & Entertainment Task Force meeting on July 21, 2004 (listen in mp3 format) The test results mentioned refers to the data collected by Deutsche Bank in preparation for its litigation against the insurance companies. These environmental test results, according to the Deutsche Bank court statement, show that "a combination of contaminants known to be hazardous to human health, in quantities and concentrations unparalleled in any other building designed for office use, permeate the entire structure at levels which exceed by up to thousands of times the levels considered appropriate."
Transcript:
Marc Amaruso (CB1 member) : Are you in possession of the results?
Amy Peterson: No, not yet
M: Who’s in possession of (those results)?
A: The results are not done.
M: No not yours , the ones that were done on July 02 to May 03
A: We’re not relying on those.. and I..
M: No that’s not my question. Who? Do you have possession? Does LMDC have those results?
A: Deutsche Bank has those results.
M: And you do not have them?
A: I do not have those results.
M: So can we get those results so we can compare your tests to those tests?
A: I… I can talk to people about them.
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Intent To Sue Letter July 19, 2004
Dear Madams and Sirs:
The New York Environmental Law and Justice Project (“NYELJP”), on its own behalf, hereby gives notice, in accordance with the citizen suit provision of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B), of intent to file suit against Taunus Corporation, Deutsche Bank Company, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Empire State Develop Corporation, Bankers Trust Company, and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (“Parties”). In its suit, NYELJP will allege that the Parties have and are contributing to past and present handling, storage, transportation and disposal of the solid wastes, which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. See 42 U.S.C § 6972(a)(1)(B). Parties are also in violation of the Clean Air Act – National Emissions for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for improper notification and handling of asbestos materials.
Solid wastes present at 130 Liberty Street include, inter alia, asbestos, lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/polychlorinated dibenzofunas (PCDDs/PCDFs). Such materials have already been transported from 130 Liberty Street and as deconstruction begins, more toxic materials will be removed. To our knowledge the process utilized for the handing, storage, transportation and disposal of these solid wastes is insufficient to protect human health and the environment.
After ninety days have elapsed, NYELJP will file suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking an order requiring that all necessary precautions be taken to halt endangerment to human health and the environment, including the following measures. First, the results of all existing air monitoring and environmental testing conducted in or around the Deutsche Bank building should be immediately published. Second, the results of all air monitoring tests conducted during deconstruction should be publicized immediately upon verification. Third, an emergency plan must be prepared in the event that air monitoring does detect fugitive toxic particulate matter. Fourth, during the entire reconstruction process, the EPA must ensure that it strictly complies with its duties as se forth in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan and in Presidential Decision Directive 62. Fifth, the deconstruction health and safety plan must be designed under the assumption that toxic contamination is present in the building.
Yours,
Joel R. Kupferman, Esq.
Executive Director
New York Environmental Law & Justice Project
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1. 9/11 building a loss: Nadler, by Lisa L. Colangelo, Letter to the Editor, New York Daily News, July 20, 2004
2. Extraordinary Contamination in Deutsche Bank Building; Nadler Calls on EPA to Ensure Safety of Residents & Workers in Lower Manhattan, Press Release, July 19, 2004
3. Nadler says Deutsche Bank building at WTC site highly contaminated, calls for EPA intervention, New York Newsday, July 19, 2004, 10:04 PM EDT
4. Lawmakers Want EPA To Supervise Demolition Of Deutsche Bank Building New York 1, July 19, 2004
5. Furor over WTC Lies, by Sam Smith, New York Post, July 18, 2004
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1. 9/11 building a loss: Nadler,
by Lisa L. Colangelo, Letter to the Editor, New York Daily News, July 20, 2004
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/213801p-184114c.html
The Deutsche Bank building is far more contaminated than the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. wants to admit, Rep. Jerrold Nadler charged yesterday. The 40-story Liberty St. building, severely damaged in the World Trade Center attacks, could be demolished this year. Nadler (D-Manhattan) said the LMDC has underplayed the quantity of asbestos and other contaminants in the structure. LMDC officials said they are still conducting their own tests. "It is clear that the LMDC cannot be trusted to supervise the demolition of the building and to safeguard the public's health," Nadler said yesterday at a City Hall press conference. He pointed to data, pulled from a legal battle between the owners of the building and its insurance company, that shows high levels of contaminants. "This is nothing more than political grandstanding," LMDC spokeswoman Joanna Rose fired back. "It is fascinating how the congressman can predict results of testing that has yet to be completed and plans to deconstruct that have not yet been conceived." She said the LMDC will "ensure this building is deconstructed in an environmentally sensitive manner."
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2. Extraordinary Contamination in Deutsche Bank Building; Nadler Calls on EPA to Ensure Safety of Residents & Workers in Lower Manhattan,
Press Release, July 19, 2004
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ny08_nadler/EPA_071904.html
Contact: Jennie McCue 202-225-5635
New York -- Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) today released documents showing extraordinary levels of contamination present in the Deutsche Bank building as a result of the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC). The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), which has purchased the Deutsche Bank building and has charged itself with the oversight of the imminent teardown, has stated that there is no contamination despite striking evidence to the contrary. In light of this information, Nadler renewed his call for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fulfill its responsibility under the law as the lead agency accountable for the environmental response to 9/11, and ensure that the surrounding community is not exposed to hazardous substances when the Deutsche Bank building is torn down. The extraordinary levels of contamination highlight again the need for the EPA to conduct comprehensive testing and cleanup of all buildings, including commercial buildings, which the EPA continues to ignore. Furthermore, the LMDC does not have the expertise to handle the contamination or oversee demolition of the building, and it has a conflict of interest as a building owner that would seek to minimize the cost of the operation. "The EPA must stop ignoring its responsibility for all buildings contaminated in a terrorist attack, including commercial buildings like the Deutsche Bank. It must protect people living and working in Lower Manhattan who could be exposed, once again, to hazardous substances when the building is torn down, and when hazardous waste is transported from the site. The public has a right to know what hazardous substances are present in their neighborhood. Furthermore, the LMDC's half-baked plan to demolish the Deutsche Bank building presupposes that there is no contamination present in the building. This is ludicrous," said Nadler. The Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street was severely damaged on September 11th, when a section of 2 World Trade Center collapsed through 15 stories of the building. Massive quantities of WTC dust penetrated the entire structure. To assess the extent of damage and contamination, $33 million worth of engineering and environmental studies were conducted throughout the 40-story building. During the study, 60,000 samples were taken over the ten-month period. The results were documented and analyzed in thirty expert reports, which have not been released to the public. According to the Deutsche Bank court documents, "Environmental test results show that a combination of contaminants known to be hazardous to human health, in quantities and concentrations unparalleled in any other building designed for office use, permeate the entire structure at levels which exceed by up to thousands of times the levels considered appropriate... For example, the concentration of asbestos present at certain locations in the building is almost 150,000 times the level considered appropriate." This level of contamination is reflective of conditions in the surrounding area. In the federally owned building at 90 Church Street, U.S. Government industrial hygienists found lead and other heavy metals, even after the building was cleaned. The LMDC, which charged itself with the tear down of the building, has been ignoring the concerns of residents and workers and the real threat of contamination present in the building. The LMDC declared itself the lead agency, and says it will demolish the building under the presumption that it is not contaminated, even though it has these test results that document otherwise -- test results that it has not made public. "The reality is that LMDC has no real plan for how to handle this environmental contamination, nor does it have the expertise to develop such a plan," said Nadler. "As the owner of the building, LMDC also has a conflict of interest in managing the project. On its website, LMDC claims to be 'committed to an open, inclusive, and transparent planning process in which the public has a central role in shaping the future of Lower Manhattan.' For those words to be true, LMDC must release all 52 volumes of data generated by the testing of Deutsche Bank, and all subsequent data showing what is inside the building." Given the unprecedented level of contamination present in the Deutsche Bank Building, residents and workers in Lower Manhattan are concerned that their health will be once again put at risk when the building is torn down. Phil McArdle, the Health and Safety officer of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, has expressed concern for the safety of firefighters at neighboring Firehouse 1010. There are also concerns that people throughout New York will again be exposed to the contamination as materials removed from the building are transported through neighborhoods on the way to landfills. "During the original WTC clean up effort, the EPA failed to protect public health or enforce applicable environmental and counter terrorism public safety standards. Residents and workers are now sick because EPA failed to do its job. The people of New York are still waiting for a comprehensive and effective environmental testing and clean up program. A class action lawsuit has even been filed in federal court to get the EPA to do its job, and do it right," said Nadler. Nadler recommends that the following measures must be taken to protect people living and working in Lower Manhattan: All test results from the building, unfiltered by government agencies, must be made public, for example on a website updated daily. Additional real-time testing of all contaminants known to be present in the building must be conducted in the surrounding area to detect any contamination released during the demolition. A disinterested, independent party must monitor the entire operation. Contingency plans must be put in place, and enforced, in the event that any of these contaminants escape during demolition. The hazardous waste from the site must be properly handled so that there is no release into the community during transport, and it must be disposed of in a legally licensed hazardous waste facility. In short, the site must be handled in a public and transparent manner, consistent with all applicable federal environmental and counterterrorism public safety laws. The EPA must also conduct comprehensive testing of all buildings contaminated by the collapse of the World Trade Center, and it must test for all substances known to present, such as those documented at the Deutsche Bank. "We know thousands of firefighters who were present at the World Trade Center on 9/11 have already become sick. Because we have this unfortunate advance notice of the disastrous effects of the exposure to World Trade Center contaminants, the government would be knowingly poisoning people if it did not make certain that this tear down is done correctly. "The EPA has over 30 years of experience in carrying out and supervising hazardous material control activities, which is why it has been designated by President Clinton and President Bush as the lead agency for protecting the public from hazardous materials in a terrorist attack. The EPA must finally fulfill this responsibility at the World Trade Center site and protect the people of New York," said Nadler. ###
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3. Nadler says Deutsche Bank building at WTC site highly contaminated, calls for EPA intervention,
New York Newsday, July 19, 2004, 10:04 PM EDT
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--attacks-deutscheb0719jul19, 0,5531730.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
NEW YORK (AP) _ U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler on Monday released test results he said showed 150,000 times the acceptable level of asbestos in the vacant Deutsche Bank building at the World Trade Center site and said the federal government needed to intervene to make sure the planned dismantling of the building doesn't put nearby residents at risk. Nadler mentioned documents that Deutsche Bank cited in litigation with its insurers over who should be responsible for the cleanup, before a settlement brokered by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell left the building to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to dismantle. The LMDC, the agency supervising rebuilding at the World Trade Center site, agreed to buy the 40-story office tower for $90 million and pay $45 million to remove it. The building was heavily damaged when a section of the trade center's south tower collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, tearing through 15 stories of it. The LMDC has begun testing the building for contaminants and is preparing to begin taking it down this fall. Nadler, D-N.Y., cited a report commissioned by Deutsche Bank during its litigation that said tests show "a combination of contaminants known to be hazardous to human health, in quantities and concentrations unparalleled in any other building designed for office uses, permeate the entire structure at levels which exceed by up to thousands of times the levels considered appropriate." In some parts of the building, the concentration of asbestos is nearly 150,000 times the acceptable levels, the report said. Nadler said the LMDC is not equipped to handle the building's cleanup, and he called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take over the project. "The EPA must finally fulfill this responsibility at the World Trade Center site and protect the people of New York," Nadler said. LMDC president Kevin Rampe called Nadler's remarks "political grandstanding" and said the agency is still trying to determine what substances are in the building and what needs to be done to safely dismantle it. "We'd like to get the facts first," Rampe said. "We are not going to be rushed by the congressman into making decisions that could ultimately harm the public." EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow said the building's owner is obligated to comply with federal, state and city laws involving hazardous materials. "We'll work with our partners with the city and the state to make sure that that happens," she said. The EPA has not tested the building for hazardous materials, she said. Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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4. Lawmakers Want EPA To Supervise Demolition Of Deutsche Bank Building
New York 1, July 19, 2004
http://www.ny1.com/ny/TopStories/SubTopic/index.html?topicintid=1 <http://www.ny1.com/ny/TopStories/SubTopic/index.html?topicintid=1&subtopici ntid=1&contentintid=41701> &subtopicintid=1&contentintid=41701#
Local officials say the Deutsche Bank building near the World Trade Center site is a health danger, and they want federal authorities to supervise its demolition. The 40-story building was badly damaged in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and later by mold. Lawmakers say tests show the building is full of extremely harmful contaminants, including asbestos levels 150,000 times above normal, and lead levels 1,500 times above normal. The shrouded office building located just south of the WTC site is now owned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is responsible for tearing it down. However, city and state officials say they want the Environmental Protection Agency to supervise the project. "It is clear the LMDC cannot be trusted to supervise the demolition of this building and to safeguard the public's health,” Manhattan Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Monday. “The LMDC does not have the expertise necessary to handle the contamination or to oversee the demolition of the building, and is inappropriately managing the situation. In fact, as they have stated, the LMDC's half-baked plan to demolish the building pre-supposes that there is no contamination present in the building." In response, the LMDC released a statement saying: "This is nothing more than political grandstanding. It is fascinating how the Congressman can predict results of testing that has yet to be completed and plans to deconstruct that have not yet been conceived. The LMDC is committed to conducting comprehensive testing and working with our consultants and environmental regulators to ensure this building is deconstructed in an environmental sensitive manner. As with all of the LMDC efforts, the public will be consulted on the deconstruction plan." Copyright © 2004. NY1 News. All rights reserved NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
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5. Furor over WTC Lies, by Sam Smith,
New York Post, July 18, 2004
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/27437.htm
Robert Gulack returned to work downtown after 9/11 because federal officials said it was safe to go back. He woke up two days later choking with asthma. Now, after a blistering memo from an Environmental Protection Agency scientist claiming the city and the EPA withheld data showing the area was actually clogged with asbestos, Gulack is fuming and demanding reparations. "If these allegations are true, it confirms how reckless the EPA was during this period," he said. "There has to be some kind of compensation. People have been horribly hurt, including innocent children." Gulack, 50, of Fair Lawn, N.J., a plaintiff in a class-action suit against the EPA, was joined by a chorus of lawyers, federal lawmakers and city officials scrambling to either bolster or discredit the EPA memo. The memo, distributed within the agency Thursday and reported by The Post Friday, claims the city Department of Environmental Protection, in coordination with the EPA, withheld from the public results from 17 air tests. "None of this is surprising," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan). "I've been saying the EPA and the city are lying through their teeth about this for years." "These are serious charges, and New Yorkers deserve a full and immediate response from the administration," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who recently established a review panel to look at the EPA's work post-9/11. Attorneys representing cases brought by sick workers and residents say the allegations could have a monetary impact on their litigation. "This could support a claim for increased punitive damages," said Jeanne Markey, an attorney in the class-action suit against the EPA. The federal agency says the allegations raised in the memo are "unfounded and absurd." "The agency had one goal," said spokeswoman Mary Mears, "to see if there was a pattern of consistently high levels of asbestos. EPA's public statements were based on this data, which showed relatively infrequent exceedance." Mears also says the memo is in error claiming "overloaded" test results many of which, the memo says, were not reported mean the filters were so clogged with asbestos, they couldn't be read. It means, according to Mears, the filter was clogged, but not necessarily with asbestos. The city DEP, meanwhile, admitted it did not post some data on its Web site because they were gathered prior to the establishment of 20 sites routinely tested and reported online. It also said the agency had found two examples so far of inaccuracies in the data reported online that were consistent with the memo's accusations. "But to say all this adds up to a grand scheme to conceal information is just false," said the DEP's Charles Sturcken. "We regularly reported exceedances. We never hid that."
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| SADDEST OF WORDS: NEWS TOLD YOU SO
BY JUAN GONZALEZ
Daily News (New York) May 25, 2004 Tuesday
Copyright 2004 Daily News, L.P.
Daily News (New York)
May 25, 2004 Tuesday
SPORTS FINAL EDITION; Pg. 8
With the city facing heat from cops and firefighters who say they became sick working at Ground Zero or the Fresh Kills landfill, we would do well to remember the warnings.
More than two years ago, on Oct. 26, 2001, the Daily News published a front-page story, "Toxic Zone," by this reporter that created a furor in our town.
The story began: "Toxic chemicals and metals are being released into the environment around lower Manhattan by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and by the fires still burning at Ground Zero."
It was based on hundreds of pages of environmental tests taken by our own federal government - tests that were not made public until The News obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project.
Those tests showed that, in addition to asbestos, dangerous substances like benzene, heavy metals, dioxins and PCBs were being released into the environment, sometimes at amounts far exceeding federal safety levels.
The city's political and business leaders immediately tried to kill the messenger.
William Muszynski, then a regional administrator at the federal Environmental Protection Agency, called it "one of the worst kind [of stories] you can write." There were only a few "spikes" of high readings for some contaminants - nothing to worry about, Muszynski said.
Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City, accused me in a letter to The News of engaging in "a sick Halloween prank" that only scared the residents and workers of downtown Manhattan.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Health Commissioner Neal Cohen also tried to knock down the story.
"The short-term irritation of eyes, nose and throat that some people . . . may feel does not translate into significant or any long-term health effects," Cohen said.
Former EPA administrator Christie Whitman, then the nation's top public health guardian, chimed in with a personal rebuttal that The News published.
Our story would make New Yorkers believe "the situation at Ground Zero presents a major environmental health hazard to area residents and employees," Whitman wrote, and "that would be inaccurate."
As for any danger to the thousands of workers on the rubble pile, "respirators, when used properly, protect workers from exposure to contaminants," Whitman wrote.
Amazingly, the same week The News published our Toxic Zone article, another federal safety agency issued a report blasting officials at Ground Zero because many workers at the site were not using proper respirators and safety equipment.
Today, our city is dealing with more than 1,000 firefighters and cops who assert they became sick while working at Ground Zero or the Fresh Kills landfill.
Several cops and firefighters have developed cancer, which they believe is connected to their time on The Pile. Tests done of city workers at Ground Zero show many were contaminated with heavy metals like chromium, mercury and arsenic.
Most experts say they would normally expect many more years to pass before cancer developed from toxic exposures, but everyone realizes that the combination of toxic exposures at Ground Zero was unprecedented.
Earlier this month, a summary report of dozens of scientific studies on Ground Zero pollution was published.
The summary begins with these ominous words:
"The destruction of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 caused the largest acute environmental disaster that ever has befallen New York City."
The federal government itself has now admitted that the World Trade Center collapse represented the largest dioxin release ever recorded. Another group of scientists has calculated that between 100 and 1,000 tons of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), many of them cancer-causing, were dumped onto lower Manhattan by the burning fires.
Giuliani, Cohen, Whitman and Muszynski all are out of office now. The cops, firefighters, recovery workers and downtown residents who believed their assurances are left to cope with the aftermath.
Sometimes it takes a while for the facts to come clear.
1,700 SUE OVER 9-11 SICKNESS Bravest, Finest cite work at WTC and Fresh Kills
BY MICHELE McPHEE
Daily News (New York) May 24, 2004 Monday
Copyright 2004 Daily News, L.P.
Daily News (New York)
May 24, 2004 Monday
SPORTS FINAL EDITION; Pg. 4
BY MICHELE MCPHEE
In a dramatic sign of escalating health problems stemming from 9/11, more than 1,700 cops and firefighters have filed lawsuits against the city claiming they were sickened by work at Ground Zero or the Fresh Kills landfill.
To handle the unprecedented legal overload, the city's Law Department set up a special division to tackle 9/11 claims and appointed attorney Kenneth Becker as chief of the World Trade Center unit.
Underscoring the problem's severity, a police officer was awarded a tax-free disability pension after a judge issued a landmark ruling that 9/11 work was a contributing factor in the cop's cancer.
Richard Lahm, 49, who retired from the 46th Precinct in the Bronx this year, is battling terminal tonsil cancer - a condition his doctor claims was caused by the toxins released at Ground Zero.
Last month, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Kibbie Payne ruled that Lahm's cancer "was exacerbated" by his work after the terrorist attacks and ordered the city to pay him a tax-free disability pension.
While most medical experts doubt any cancer clusters would emerge so soon after 9/11, there is extensive evidence of other ailments among those who worked at Ground Zero or Fresh Kills - where nearly 2 million tons of Trade Center debris was taken to be sifted through.
The illnesses include sarcoidosis, a permanent lung condition; asthma; reactive airway disorders; chronic coughs, and emergency workers with glass lodged in their lung tissue, according to medical records reviewed by the Daily News.
"If I got a cancer after working in the terrible conditions cops, firefighters, construction workers did and developed a cancer a few years later, of course my first thought would be I got it there," said Dr. Stephen Levin, the medical director of the center for occupational and environmental medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
But, he added, "It's too soon. It's impossible to say definitively there is an increase in cancer until we get a better sense of the people whose faces were in the plume there."
Dr. Kerry Kelly, chief medical officer for the FDNY, has been monitoring the health problems of firefighters since Sept. 11 and said while respiratory issues are the most prevalent problem, cancer is a major concern.
"We've had so many different reports from the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] we don't know what people were exposed to. The synergy of all those substances mixed together . . . we never had an exposure such as this," Kelly said. "Our concern is, what will be the long-term consequence. Cancer tends to be something that develops after years - but it's very hard to say the cancers we are seeing weren't caused by what happened on 9/11."
Kelly and FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said firefighters tend to develop cancer at a higher rate than civilians because of the toxins they are exposed to. From 1999 to the World Trade Center attacks, 104 firefighters were diagnosed with cancer. From Sept. 11, 2001, until today, that number dropped to 71.
More than 300 firefighters have retired with disabilities related to injuries and illnesses related to their work at Ground Zero, Gribbon said. There are an additional 300 disability pension cases pending, meaning that 600 firefighters are on track to retire with three-quarter pensions.
"The Fire Department is concerned about health risks. We gave medicals to every one of our people since 9/11 - active and retired firefighters," Gribbon said.
The FDNY received a $25 million federal grant to monitor health issues with firefighters. The NYPD was denied a similar grant.
NYPD Supervising Chief Surgeon Eli Kleinman, a hematologist and consultant to the city's Trade Center health registry, said the department is "very concerned" about cops developing cancer but has not seen a spike in cases since the terror attacks.
"There are many unknowns here," Kleinman said. "There is no evidence of date of clusters of cancer or malignancies related to 9/11. One cannot rule anything in or out."
Detective John Walcott is one of those cops who has filed a notice of claim against the city seeking financial compensation after he was diagnosed with cancer last May.
The rugged, athletic 39-year-old narcotics detective and hockey coach is living with deadly acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) - a cancer his doctors believe was caused by a toxic mix of pulverized compounds he breathed in while sifting through the rubble at Ground Zero or the Fresh Kills landfill.
AML is often caused by exposure to chemicals and radiation, primarily benzene, a toxin found in airline fuel, his doctors and lawyers said. Walcott said he never smoked, rarely drinks and lives in upstate New York where he says he's never been exposed to any carcinogens.
"I've never been sick a day in my life, except for a sore throat or a common cold," Walcott told The News with his attorney, David Worby, at his side. "I've had friends of mine who were stationed with me [at the landfill] visit me in the hospital and panic, asking me, 'Am I next?' "
This year, Walcott has undergone bone marrow transplants and a series of chemotherapy treatments, and he often wakes up in the middle of the night with blood coming out of his eyes. But the worst pain is not physical, he said.
"I missed the first year of my daughter's life," said Walcott, whose only daughter, Colleen, recently turned 2.
"The hardest part is each day I spend with her, I think . . . is this going to be the last one?" he added, before his shoulders began to shake with tears.
NYPD street crime Detective Robert Williamson, 43, became sick with pancreatic cancer in March 2003, a year after he retired from the force. Williamson, his doctors and his attorney, Michael Barach, insist he became sick inhaling carcinogens at Ground Zero 16 hours a day for five months. He never smoked and has no family history of cancer.
"It's been a nightmare. My doctors are telling me basically to go home and die," said Williamson, a married father of three children, ages 12, 9 and 7.
"Did I know the air was not safe? Yes. Would I go down there again today knowing that? Yes. A lot of people made sacrifices," he said. "I might be a casualty of 9/11, but at least I had a few more years with my family."
Williamson is not the only potential casualty associated with the health risks of the Trade Center aftermath.
Union leaders for the police and firefighters say they've seen too many cases:
Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, had his members fill out a medical survey. He was disturbed by the findings.
"I have a lot of active detectives who are extremely sick. I have retired detectives, healthy people, coming down with all kinds of strange illnesses, cancers and diseases they never had before."
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steven Cassidy said three Brooklyn firefighters have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer since working at Ground Zero. Another has leukemia. Hundreds more have retired with asthma and other respiratory issues, he said.
"All these guys with cancer worked extensively at Ground Zero. How can anyone draw a conclusion that the cancer is not related to their work there?" Cassidy said.
Port Authority Patrolman's Benevolent Association President Gus Danese said his members are complaining of lung ailments, mouth sores and chronic coughs. He is bracing himself for worse.
"We lost 37 members on 9/11. Could that number go higher because of the air quality at Ground Zero and the landfill? Absolutely," Danese said. "Now the question is, what do we do?"
Patrolman's Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch predicted Lahm's case would be the first of many similar ones. "Richie Lahm is just the beginning," Lynch said.
Barach, Williamson's lawyer, has six retired city cops and six city firefighters as clients, all of whom have developed cancer since 9/11.
"I fear that a lot of guys who worked in the rescue effort were given a death sentence," Barach said. "A lot of them don't even know it yet."
A Survivor Faces A Slow Death, Piece by Piece
Building Endured 9/11, Badly Contaminated
By David W. Dunlap
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
April 16, 2004 Friday
Section B; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1;
One Bankers Trust Plaza has been dressed for its own funeral since 2001. Now the time is at hand.
On Tuesday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board authorized a contract with the Gilbane Building Company to dismantle 1 Bankers Trust Plaza at 130 Liberty Street, also known as the Deutsche Bank building.
Later this year, if all goes according to plan, the monolithic 40-story office tower immediately south of ground zero -- shrouded in black netting and far too like a 536-foot-high tombstone for many New Yorkers' tastes -- will be coming down.
Piece by piece.
While 130 Liberty Street will not be the tallest building ever dismantled in New York (the 612-foot Singer Building claims that distinction), it may be the most polluted.
''A combination of contaminants known to be hazardous to human health, unparalleled in any other building designed for office use, permeates the entire structure,'' said a damage report prepared last year for Deutsche Bank, the owner. These include asbestos, lead, mercury, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and World Trade Center dust.
For many reasons -- the presence of contaminants, the nearness of other buildings and utility lines, and the trauma that would surely result from the sight of another dust plume downtown -- there is no talk of imploding 130 Liberty Street.
Instead, the 1.4 million-square-foot structure, unused since Sept. 11, 2001, is to be cocooned and taken down painstakingly. One engineer likened the process to a videotape of construction, run in reverse.
Interiors and machinery will be removed. The aluminum and glass facade will be stripped off. The steel and concrete skeleton will be bared. Beams and columns will be cut by workers with torches to be lowered by crane to the ground. And then the floor slabs will be broken apart until nothing remains.
Some of what will be dismantled is almost new. Late last year, to stabilize the structure against heavy winds, Deutsche Bank filled in an enormous gash between the eighth and 24th floors in the north facade that had been created by falling debris from 2 World Trade Center.
Another team will now take apart this remedial work. And much more.
Among the challenges faced by the wrecking crews will be enclosing the structure and removing potentially toxic materials. They will also have to grapple with the fact that 130 Liberty Street, like the trade center, sits in a concrete bathtub in landfill. As the load of the structure is lessened during demolition, some counterweight or fill will be needed to relieve the pressure from the surrounding water table.
But the basic dismantling process will be familiar to anyone who recalls the razing of the Singer Building at Liberty Street and Broadway 36 years ago or the New York Coliseum four years ago.
Like the Singer Building and the Coliseum, 130 Liberty Street does not have to be demolished; at least, not in the eyes of some engineers familiar with the structure and not in the eyes of two of Deutsche Bank's insurers, the Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Company and the AXA Corporate Solutions Insurance Company.
''It was remarkable the way it survived,'' said Guy J.P. Nordenson of the structural engineering firm Guy Nordenson & Associates. ''It's a shame that it isn't recognized and acknowledged and the thing actually rehabilitated.''
Deutsche Bank, however, regards the property as a total loss. In a lawsuit against Allianz and AXA, it said the structure was embedded with ''a unique cocktail of highly hazardous substances'' that would defy attempts at cleaning and imperil future occupants.
Planning, psychology and politics also dictate demolition. State officials call the building a blight and a grisly memento, an impediment to progress. They envision a 1.6 million-square-foot replacement under the master plan by Studio Daniel Libeskind, fronting a half-acre of new landscaped open space called Liberty Park.
''Looming over us, over the entire site, is a painful reminder of what happened Sept. 11,'' Gov. George E. Pataki said on Feb. 27 as he announced a settlement brokered by former Senator George J. Mitchell between Deutsche Bank and the insurers. ''It was extremely important, both for the long-term vision of the Libeskind plan, and for today, to get rid of that painful reminder; that the Deutsche Bank building come down.''
This, after only three decades of existence.
One Bankers Trust Plaza was developed by Fisher Brothers, engineered by the Office of James Ruderman and designed by Peterson & Brickbauer, in association with Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the firm responsible for the Empire State Building. It was built from 1973 to 1974, just after the trade center, to which it was joined by a pedestrian bridge. It remained an operations center after Deutsche Bank acquired the Bankers Trust Corporation in 1999 and had what the bank called a sophisticated trading floor.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the building was buffeted mercilessly. An entire section of 2 World Trade Center fell into the building, opening a 15-story gash, severing one of the column lines and almost instantly destroying 158,000 square feet of floor space.
Two bank employees, Sebastian Gorki and Francisco Bourdier, were killed. Mr. Gorki was at the trade center. Mr. Bourdier was last seen at 130 Liberty Street.
A 20,000-gallon diesel fuel tank in the basement ruptured and burned. Falling debris crushed the plaza and fountain at 130 Liberty Street, which had been the setting of Ophelia's drowning in a version of ''Hamlet'' released a year earlier by Miramax Films.
Subjected to earthquakelike shaking and tornado-force winds, 130 Liberty Street lost 1,700 windows. In poured clouds of dust, penetrating the structure through ventilating ducts, elevator shafts, stairwells and wall cavities. Damage continued for months, as mold grew throughout the building. In 2003, working with the structural engineering firm Cantor Seinuk, the Tishman Construction Corporation and Helmark Steel, the bank filled in the gash with new columns, beams and floor decks.
''The building was not in danger of collapsing,'' said Rohini Pragasam, a spokeswoman for the bank. ''However there was a concern how the damaged structure would perform in high-wind conditions. Regardless of the building's future, it needed to be stabilized.''
The bank is now disposing of computers, other electronic equipment and furniture, Ms. Pragasam said, and expects to complete this work by the end of June. Materials are placed in sealed containers, decontaminated and removed. Ms. Pragasam said the air quality around the building was being monitored around the clock.
Cleaning and contaminant removal at 130 Liberty Street is expected to begin as early as summer, said a spokeswoman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Demolition -- or deconstruction, as state officials call it, to distinguish it from implosion -- is to begin as early as the fall and be completed in mid-2005.
''Taking down the building is an important symbol of Lower Manhattan's rebirth,'' said Kevin M. Rampe, president of the development corporation. It expects to pay up to $164 million to acquire and clear the site, using a grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Of that, $90 million is being paid to Deutsche Bank, which is also to get $140 million from Allianz and AXA, and up to $45 million to the Gilbane Building Company of Providence, R.I. The corporation expects to spend up to $29 million for pollution liability insurance, community outreach, a contingency for litigation, a demolition manager and additional environmental review, testing and monitoring. Controlled Demolition Inc., which was responsible for tearing down the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, is working with Gilbane. The Louis Berger Group is an environmental consultant.
Among those watching warily are residents of 125 Cedar Street, a block away, who have asked the development corporation to provide assurances that buildings as large as 130 Liberty Street have been torn down safely with neighbors in place and to inform the public what would happen if dust or contaminants exceeded safe levels. The corporation responded in the environmental statement that the cleaning and deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street would be ''subject to all applicable laws and regulations'' and that the corporation ''would keep the community, including area residents and businesses, informed.''
Acknowledging the testing performed for Deutsche Bank, the corporation said in the environmental statement that it had been ''advised that such testing was not sufficient to determine whether any of such contaminants were present at levels that would render them hazardous.''
Steps to isolate contaminants would include the use of air pumps to create negative air pressure within the enclosed areas; installing barriers at windows, doors, elevator shafts and stairways; and cleaning surfaces with high-efficiency particulate air-filter vacuums.
Taking down a 40-story building is unusual but not unique, said Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Several of that size have been razed in Hong Kong in recent years, he said, and replaced with larger towers.
Perhaps the most monumental demolition in New York was that of Pennsylvania Station in the early 60's, but the pinnacle was reached in 1968 at the Singer Building, which was the world's tallest 60 years earlier. It was replaced by 1 Liberty Plaza, where the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation now has its office.
Because it was dismantled, the Singer Building did not so much disappear as simply pass from the scene. And that may not be a bad precedent. ''The sense of this departure is that of a steamship slowly slipping away down the river,'' said Fredric M. Bell, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. ''Something eroding rather than being instantaneously removed is probably what's needed.''
BE SAFE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ALLIANCE
For Monday, October 20, 2003
NEWS ADVISORY
Residents and Advocates Urge White House to Use 'Be Safe' Approach for Cleanup of World Trade Center Dust -- and to Comply with Nadler FOIA Request
Who: Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Council Member Alan Gerson join with NYC residents and environmental health advocates in launching the national BE SAFE Environmental Health Alliance (urging government and industry to heed early warning signs about risks). Instead of asking "What level of harm is acceptable"? -- the Be Safe approach asks, "How can we prevent harm"?
What: Participants urge Federal action based on the common sense 'Be Safe' precautionary approach ('better safe than sorry') to protect children and adults in NYC from remaining World Trade Center dust. They also express strong support for Congressman Nadler's Freedom of Information request to federal agencies for data and information about hazards related to the September 11th attack. Many children as well as adults live in areas affected by the "World Trade Center dust" (over 2,700 under age ten in Community Board 1 alone). The participants will urge:
- Federal EPA testing and cleanup of remaining WTC dust in residences and workplaces; Federal assistance for safety equipment and monitoring to protect the workers and the community during WTC site reconstruction, with enforcement of proper standards; and,
- A strong Federal policy to ensure that people receive accurate, complete information on health risks in future emergencies and that agencies' roles and duties are clearly defined.
Date: Monday, October 20, 2003 Time: 1:00 p.m.
Location: Steps of City Hall
Speakers:
Hon. Jerrold Nadler, Congressional Representative, Dist. 8
Hon. Alan Gerson, City Council Member, Dist. 1
Joel Shufro, N.Y. Committee for Occupational & Safety Health
Concerned |