The 40-story tower, which faces the World Trade Center site, must be razed to make room for an $11 billion office tower, memorial and transit hub under plans by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a New York state agency overseeing Ground Zero redevelopment.

Proposals to strip the tower of its internal materials behind double plastic sheeting, to contain contaminants, must be bolstered to prevent ``an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and the environment,'' Pat Evangelista, the EPA's World Trade Center coordinator, said in a letter today to the development agency.

"It is evident that there is significant potential for releases of contamination,'' the letter said.

The EPA decision won't affect the 2009 completion of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower and a Sept. 11 memorial, redevelopment agency spokeswoman Joanna Rose said in an interview. The agency had told lower Manhattan residents that it expected demolition to start this month.

"We're working with all the regulatory agencies, and as soon as we have an approved plan, we will move forward with the deconstruction,'' Rose said. A response to the EPA should be ready in "a few weeks,'' she said.

15-Story Gash

The tower, once the headquarters of Bankers Trust Corp., suffered a 15-story gash across its front facade when girders fell from the trade center's collapsing south tower. The opening exposed the interior to a blast of toxic dust, which investigators found laden with asbestos, lead, dioxin and other hazardous substances, and rain that introduced mold and bacterial contamination.

The development agency's plan for separate air monitoring procedures for the cleanup of the interior and the stripping of building materials from the skeleton was unacceptable, the EPA said. It called for the monitoring plans to be merged and resubmitted for review.

The EPA said the development agency must tighten its sampling of particulates, such as dust, to as small as 2.5 microns. A human hair is 70 microns in diameter, according to Mary Mears, an EPA spokeswoman. The agency must also monitor for mercury, a poisonous metal, in addition to scans for asbestos and other toxic metals, the EPA said.

Recommendations

The EPA also directed the development agency to expand its air testing sites to include nearby Battery Park City, a neighborhood of high-rise apartments next to the World Financial Center, plus schools at Chambers and West streets, and shopping areas east and south of the site.

Evangelista, in an interview, said the development agency's consultant, TRC Solutions, is working on plans that incorporate the EPA's concerns.

I don't think we're looking at major surgery or small refinements,'' he said. ``I think it's somewhere in between.''

David Newman of the labor-backed New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, who has criticized the EPA over Ground Zero issues, praised the government's decision.

"This is not tinkering around the edges,'' he said. "This goes to the essence of the plans.''

The development corporation bought the tower from Deutsche Bank AG in August for $90 million and at the same time took over a $45 million contract to demolish it.

Timeline

New York Governor George Pataki has said construction of the Freedom Tower and the Sept. 11 memorial would be completed by 2009, and the site would be fully restored by 2015. Pataki has said he considers redevelopment of the World Trade Center site the key to downtown's economic future.

     Back to Top

Caught in the Smoke Employees, Residents Cope With 9/11 Fallout, by Michelle Chen, The NewStandard.com, January 31, 2005

New York City , Jan 31 - Today, like the eerie pit marking the former site of the Twin Towers, the environmental imprint of the collapse still haunts the surrounding communities -- and, many say, continues to threaten their health.

Three years after the initial impact, advocates remain determined not to let the issue fade from public view under the second Bush administration. On Tuesday, a citywide coalition of health, environmental, community and labor organizations, including the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and the New York State Public Employees Federation, will head to Washington, DC to attend the President's State of the Union address and demand that the White House and Congress finally act on the public health needs of the "Ground Zero Community." The mission is the latest marker in a protracted struggle between government authorities and concerned residents and workers.

Rushing into the Aftermath

In the panic that enveloped the city after September 11, 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moved swiftly to reopen lower Manhattan's financial district. But when a strange affliction began to sweep through the community, people questioned whether Washington's eagerness to revive downtown Manhattan came at the expense of public safety.

Since then, official probes into the health dangers posed by the collapse, along with reports from local communities and the press, have revealed that people were encouraged to return to the area before the contamination had been thoroughly cleaned or even assessed.

Just after the disaster, even though only limited environmental testing had been conducted, the EPA issued public safety reassurances about air quality. On September 21, then-EPA Chair Christine Todd Whitman, with the backing of the city government, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Federal Emergency and Management Agency, declared, "New Yorkers and New Jerseyans need not be concerned about environmental issues as they return to their homes and workplaces."

Two years later, an investigative report of the EPA Inspector General's office charged that the White House Council on Environmental Quality intervened in the EPA's outreach effort and edited the language of public safety statements to downplay the dangers of contamination.

Responding to the Inspector General's comments, EPA Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko wrote that the EPA's statements about the supposed safety of the air were necessitated by public pressure "The public sometimes wants information that is not scientifically available, or is not available quickly."

Critics observe that the government's response to another urgent matter was evidently more rapid just one week after a national catastrophe of unprecedented scale, the New York Stock Exchange was back in businesses.

Caught in the Smoke Screen

Mavis Gordon, who was on her way to class at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) when the Towers crumbled to dust just a few blocks away, wishes the EPA had offered the truth rather than what critics say were deceptive reassurances.

Nowadays, the 49 year-old does not need to knock when she returns at night to her Brooklyn apartment. Her son, she said, knows when to open the door because he recognizes his mother's footsteps over the past two years, her once-easy ascent has acquired a pained, belabored rhythm.

Gordon said she often finds herself struggling to breathe and is easily exhausted "Whenever I go outside, I cannot walk … half a block; I'm out of breath." She has trouble sleeping at night because she wakes up coughing and wheezing. "It's really horrible," she said, "and it just continues."

Since Gordon was evacuated from the campus that morning, her transformation has been both physical and psychological. She abandoned her coursework in human services at the end of the semester because the trauma had left her too disoriented to concentrate on her studies. Over the next few months, she said, her respiratory health began to deteriorate steadily, and by the middle of 2002, she had developed a persistent, inexplicable cough.

Now, she relies every day on a rescue inhaler whenever her lungs start acting up. Her doctor has tried unsuccessfully to diagnose her for two years, suspecting allergies and then heart trouble. She alerted her doctor after watching a news report on World Trade Center-related sickness, and now awaits the results of a new set of tests.

The cause of her health problems, Gordon now believes, is simply that "I breathed in the air that day … and I breathed [it] when I went back to school." Though she noticed the change in air quality, she said, she believed the official safety messages. She recalled, "The government said that the air was clean. … If I knew that it wasn't clean, I wouldn't have gone back to school."

Robert Gulack, a 51-year-old attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was one of the thousands of area employees who streamed into lower Manhattan shortly after it was deemed safe again. On October 17, 2001, he entered the new SEC regional office in the Woolworth Building, overlooking Ground Zero. Though Gulack had never experienced breathing problems, after two days in the new space, his lungs began seizing up.

Doctors have since diagnosed Gulack with Reactive Airway Disorder, for which he takes several asthma medications. He has repeatedly battled bronchitis and pneumonia and suffered permanent lung damage.

"In my life, I have never had this kind of continuous asthmatic condition," said Gulack. He stressed that his symptoms worsened significantly when he was in the office. In 2003, the SEC administration allowed him to work at home three days a week, but when the arrangement was terminated later that year, he fell ill again upon returning to his office. He has stayed home on workers' compensation benefits since early 2003.

Gulack is convinced it was not the collapse itself that caused these problems. On September 11, he noted, after being evacuated from his workplace in 7 World Trade Center, he says he avoided exposing himself to the smoke plume by walking opposite the direction of the wind. Gulack claimed he "wasn't exposed to anything on September 11 or during the month that followed," when he worked from home in New Jersey.

The source of his asthma, he said, is dust from Ground Zero trapped inside the Woolworth Building -- circulating through the central ventilation system and open spaces, and settling in the offices. Scientists have determined that the extreme alkalinity of the dust -- in combination with other contaminants -- probably caused the airway burning and irritation Gulack and many of his co-workers experienced when they began working in the space.

In addition to the immediate effects of the dust, the threat of airborne asbestos has also surfaced. Tests commissioned by SEC management in 2001 and 2002 detected extremely high levels of asbestos, a long-term, carcinogenic contaminant, both inside and on the exterior of the building. The management eventually had the six floors it leased professionally cleaned. But since other floors were not treated, said Gulack, recontamination was inevitable as people circulated between floors and as asbestos caking the building's exterior blew in through the windows.

Both the landlord and the SEC, said Gulack, have repeatedly ignored employees' demands for a building-wide clean-up, even though in January 2003, independent testing on the elevators and air systems, specially sponsored by the employee union, uncovered asbestos concentrations of up to 850 times the laboratory-defined "clean" level.

Since then, Gulack, a union steward, has campaigned on behalf of employees for thorough testing and cleaning of not only his workplace, but of all potentially contaminated buildings in surrounding areas.

"We are not soldiers," he said. "We did not volunteer to risk our lives. … And we're supposed to have -- according to the federal law -- a clean, safe worksite."

Science Breaks the Silence on Ground Zero Illnesses

The dimensions of the pollution's long-term impact on community members are just beginning to take shape through public health investigations, which indicate that the worst effects may have yet to emerge.

In a survey of respiratory health patterns in residents living near Ground Zero, conducted by the New York University Medical Center in mid-2002, over half of 2,520 respondents reported experiencing at least one new respiratory symptom, such as coughing or wheezing, compared to only one-fifth of an unexposed control group. Over 25 percent said they were still experiencing "persistent" symptoms until the time of the survey -- three times the rate in the control group. High rates of post-9/11 respiratory and mental health symptoms were also found in the preliminary results from the World Trade Center Health Registry, a less formal, government-sponsored survey of over 70,000 people exposed to Ground Zero dust.

Studies on younger exposed populations suggest that the adverse health effects may extend well into the next generation.

A study by the State University of New York at Stonybrook on pediatric asthma among Chinese American children in Chinatown, just blocks from Ground Zero, found that cases of asthma, along with asthma-related clinic visits and prescriptions, increased significantly in the year after September 11. The number of children with asthma in the area increased 66 percent, while the number in a control group actually decreased by 11 percent.

New York City's Mount Sinai Medical Center examined the effects of contamination on pregnant women and discovered that while there was no significant discrepancy in birth weights, mothers who were at or near Ground Zero on September 11 were twice as likely as unexposed mothers to have babies with low weight for their gestational age -- potential evidence of restricted growth due to exposure to carcinogenic chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The collapse released an estimated 100 to 1,000 tons of PAHs. Follow-up studies on these mothers will determine what impact the contaminants might have on the physical and mental development of the babies.

Philip Alcabes, an epidemiologist at Hunter College who served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the World Trade Center Health Registry, thinks the work of parsing the health issues emerging from Ground Zero has barely begun. "It's impossible to say ten years down the road what's going to turn out to be the most important health consequence," he said.

Activists Say Politics and Money Hold Public Health Hostage

Activists contend that the EPA -- not private businesses, workers or community members -- must assume responsibility for dealing with Ground Zero contamination and consequent health issues.

The dilemma, said Robert Gulack, "is that individual landlords have a financial interest in minimizing the problem," and "employers have a vested interest in keeping everything quiet, so that employees will be productive and not frightened." A brewing public health crisis, he argued, must be resolved through public institutions.

While mounting scientific evidence has shed light on the magnitude of the quandary, it has not-yet stimulated policy solutions. An investigative report by the national environmental group Sierra Club noted that despite the federal government's "compelling duty to respond to the adverse health effects of the WTC pollution," no special health treatment resources exist for local residents and employees, or for clean-up workers and volunteers who did not meet the rigid criteria for a federal Victim Compensation Fund award.

Labor representatives like Jimmy Willis of the Transport Workers Union, who advocates on 9/11-related health issues, argue that the government's economic priorities have consistently trumped public health concerns.

"Everything that has gone wrong with this process from day one … all comes down to one thing money," said Willis, specifically citing rejection of pension claims for emergency responders, conflicts over workers' compensation, and medical care burdens as the bureaucratic hazards stemming from Ground Zero's ecological fallout. "Follow the money, and you'll find out where the problem is."

Community and labor advocates claim that since conventional health institutions like private insurance and workers' compensation have proven inadequate for addressing the health effects of the September 11 attacks, the government must launch special public programs to provide compensation and redress. But three years on, both public and private resources for 9/11-related medical assistance are drying up faster than public concerns are dissipating.

Some members of Congress are working to move money out of federal coffers into the hands of workers and residents. Last March, Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-New York) and Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) proposed the Remember 9/11 Bill, which would fund medical monitoring and treatment of all residents and workers affected by the disaster, coordinated by a special federal authority.

The bill was stalled in Congress last year, but Maloney has moved to reintroduce it in 2005. She told TNS, "The shockingly high levels of respiratory illness and other emerging sickness" among people made ill by Ground Zero "constitutes a national health emergency, but so far the federal response has been tragically inadequate."

Still, past experiences campaigning for federal assistance have left activists pessimistic. In 2002, the White House used a line-item veto to block Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) $90 million proposal to support the health monitoring of rescue and recovery workers. In approving the budget bill, the president refused to include the health initiative in a "national emergency" funding package.

Though current federal funding for the major health monitoring programs -- mostly through the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health -- will last until 2009, the work will probably require more sustained support. At a 2004 congressional hearing on 9/11-related health issues, Dr. Steven Levin, co-director of Mount Sinai's WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, testified, "This group of responders has to be followed for at least another 20-plus years, since [related] cancers most often occur 20 or more years after the onset of exposure."

The American Red Cross, through a private donation pool known as the Liberty Fund, has supported a number of community-based programs for Ground Zero-related health issues, including limited medical insurance subsidies and a $1.5 million grant to Mount Sinai for a treatment program serving about 1,300 workers screened by the hospital.

Nevertheless, Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the screening program, told members of Congress, "philanthropic funding simply cannot provide all the resources necessary to provide care to all who need it," noting that patients seeking treatment must wait two to three months just to see a doctor. She added that 40 percent of the first 350 patients treated were uninsured, and one-third unemployed. Current funds for the treatment program, which receives no federal support, will run out in the middle of this year.

There are signs that the severely ill are so burdened with medical costs that they have difficulty covering basic living expenses. This winter, the nonprofit New York Disaster Interfaith Services established a program to provide food and clothing vouchers to recovery workers struggling with health care costs.

Labor and community advocates have also criticized the distribution of federal funds, arguing that the $20 million WTC Health Registry project, basically a large-scale phone questionnaire, merely saps funds that could be spent on more in-depth scientific studies or treatment programs.

Israel Miranda, health and safety coordinator for the local EMT and paramedics union, expressed impatience with programs that treat workers as research subjects but not people in need "We were monitored after 9/11, and they want to continue monitoring us for years and years to come. … But what are they doing aggressively to treat the people and get these toxins out of these people's bodies? They're not doing much."

"The public just hasn't grasped onto it yet," reflected Willis of the Transport Workers Union. The Bush administration, he fears, will continue burying the issue of Ground Zero contamination until it develops into a full-blown crisis.

UM study links Libby asbestos, immune disease risks, by Mea Andrews, the Missoulian, Jauary 31, 2005

The study looked at blood samples from 50 residents of Libby - a town contaminated by decades of vermiculite mining and asbestos - and compared them to samples from a control group, matched by age and sex, of 50 people living in Missoula.

What the study found, said UM researcher Jean Pfau, is that the Libby residents were much more likely to have certain proteins in their blood - autoantibodies known as antinuclear antibodies, or ANAs - that the body mistakenly sends out and which attack tissues, organs and cells.

Those antinuclear antibodies occurred 28.6 percent more frequently in the Libby group than in the Missoula group, said Pfau, a researcher with UM's Center for Environmental Health Sciences.

It is one step toward understanding the role that environmental exposures may play in triggering autoimmune diseases such as the joint-attacking rheumatoid arthritis, the skin-and-connective-tissue disease scleroderma, and lupus, which can affect the whole body, from skin to organs to joints.

Does this mean more bad news for Libby?

It could mean that Libby residents' long exposure to asbestos may, in some people, trigger diseases in which the immune system makes a mistake and begins attacking itself.

More study is needed to be certain, Pfau said.

For Libby residents, the more information available, the better. Understanding potential problems means that people can begin treating and managing illnesses earlier, slowing or stopping the progression, Pfau noted.

UM's study is small, but researchers intend to embark on a larger-scale study to determine whether higher ANA levels translate into actual autoimmune diseases.

Libby residents sense they have a higher incidence of such diseases, but that needs to be studied and documented, Pfau said.

A registry of Libby residents collected years ago includes more than 7,000 people, about 500 of whom said they've been diagnosed with autoimmune diseases.

UM is applying for grants from the National Institutes of Health to follow up with those residents. Results could take four or five years to publish, Pfau said.

UM's findings for this first study are printed in the January 2005 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Verizon has warned public officials that telephone service downtown and the development timetable at the World Trade Center site may be in jeopardy unless government agencies better coordinate rebuilding efforts.

"There is a significant risk that the restoration projects planned for Lower Manhattan may be delayed and that telecommunications services, including emergency E-911 services to Lower Manhattan, may be again disrupted," said Stephen Lefkowitz of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, lawyers for Verizon, at a hearing on Wednesday before the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. (E-911 refers to the enhanced 911 system.)

He said a coordinated approach to tearing up and replacing streets was needed. "This is a request that Verizon has made for several years that still does not seem to have been acted upon," Mr. Lefkowitz added.

At stake, he said, was service to about 150 buildings from the Battery to the civic center. A map provided by Verizon of the 37-block area shows that it would include the Federal Reserve Bank, the American Stock Exchange, the Bank of New York headquarters, 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, 1 Liberty Plaza and Trinity Church.

One of the greatest difficulties, Mr. Lefkowitz said, was not knowing whether a bypass tunnel for through traffic would be built by the State Department of Transportation along West Street-Route 9A, nor where the tunnel would begin or end.

It was the second time this week that an influential business interest took to the microphone at a public forum to urge better coordination of rebuilding efforts.

On Monday, Jennifer Hensley, an assistant vice president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, called for the appointment of an executive director for the newly created Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, which she said was "at risk of becoming obsolete before it is even operational."

The appearances were striking because businesses typically try to settle problems with public agencies behind closed doors. And both Verizon and the Downtown Alliance have voices at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Paul A. Crotty, Verizon's group president for New York and Connecticut, sits on the corporation board, as does Carl Weisbrod, president of the Downtown Alliance.

Responding to the statements, Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for Gov. George E. Pataki, said in an e-mail message "The governor has always considered it a priority to coordinate the public and private sector on all projects. We expect to name a Construction Command Center executive director in the very near future who will lead our coordination efforts and limit disruption for the Lower Manhattan community. In the meantime, coordination amongst the agencies is already taking place."

As to West Street-Route 9A, Ms. Rasic said "The governor directed D.O.T. to explore alternatives that will protect the sanctity of the memorial and satisfy the safety needs of the surrounding community. D.O.T. is currently evaluating these alternatives and completing the environmental review."

John Bonomo, a spokesman for Verizon, said in an e-mail message that the company "in no way wishes to disrupt or impede" the trade center redevelopment.

Verizon's public criticism was occasioned by a hearing on the state's plan to acquire, by condemnation, most of a small city block south of the trade center site, bounded by Liberty, West, Cedar and Washington Streets. The property is owned by the Milstein family; no one from the family testified at the hearing on Wednesday.

The block would be used for the ramps leading from street level to the underground roadway system beneath the new trade center. Above the ramps would be a landscaped berm or hillock serving as the western half of a new park extending to Greenwich Street. A new foundation wall would be constructed south of Liberty Street.

Verizon said that this plan would require it to move its Liberty Street network of cables and conduits. This would take two years and could not begin until a new underground route is approved, Verizon said. In turn, the trade center redevelopment south of Liberty Street could not be completed until Verizon's cables and conduits are moved.

Complicating matters is that moving the Liberty Street network depends in part on the West Street-Route 9A project. Verizon estimated it would have to spend about $50 million, and even more if it must also move the network under Route 9A.

The company asked that permanent - and inalterable - new routes be approved for its underground infrastructure and that it be reimbursed for the work.

Verizon is simultaneously discussing with city officials a plan to move its headquarters from 1095 Avenue of the Americas, at 42nd Street, to 140 West Street, a landmark building across Vesey Street from the trade center site.

Despite the toxic plume that blanketed Brooklyn after the Sept. 11 attacks, the borough is not included in a federal plan to clean up contaminated debris.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency's plan will first test downtown Manhattan homes and offices for asbestos, silica, lead and other toxins, an EPA official said.

"The EPA fully recognizes some people would like us to go to Brooklyn now, but it's really just a practical matter of, 'We had to start somewhere,'" the official said, adding Brooklyn may be included in a later cleanup.

Critics said Brooklyn should be in the first round of voluntary cleanups, expected to start in Manhattan as early as June.

"It's essential to investigate the possibility of remaining contamination in Brooklyn," said David Newman, an environmental scientist on a World Trade Center community advisory panel.

"It's just as probable that contaminants found their way to Brooklyn as it has to parts of lower Manhattan."

Satellite photos taken after the attacks showed a murky cloud crossing the East River to downtown Brooklyn, he said.

In November, the EPA released a draft of its extended cleanup plan, which would include Manhattan up to Houston St. In 2002, the EPA cleaned 4000 apartments in Battery Park City and Tribeca.

Under pressure from the panel, the EPA has now agreed to the expanded Manhattan cleanup - but so far not in Brooklyn.

"Everyone in Brooklyn knows since Sept. 11 that the cloud of debris and toxins went directly over Brooklyn, and the health impact in Brooklyn is just as great as in Manhattan," said Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights).

Rep. Major Owens blasted the EPA for ignoring the possible 9/11 contamination of Brooklyn residents "because they have the wrong zip code."

If toxins are found in Manhattan, then the cleanup will be expanded to Brooklyn, the EPA official insisted.

But officials from the panel were concerned that the EPA would never reach the second phase.

"It's taken so long to get to where we are today, who knows if phase two will ever happen," asked Catherine Hughes, a member of the WTC community panel.

http//www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/38917.htm

Pataki's best moment on rebuilding came in April 2003, when he set out a firm timetable for Ground Zero and took steps to improve Downtown's abominable street and sidewalk conditions at once.

However belated, Pataki's decisiveness rescued the area ­ at least for a time ­ from the anti-commercial, post-9/11 clamor for a dubious paradise of "24/7" uses, "moderate-income" housing and a 16-acre shrine to America's sins. But now, nearly two years later, all the progress shows signs of unraveling.

The speeches, slide-shows and endless televised press conferences should fool no one. Despite last summer's cornerstone-laying, significant issues of infrastructure, financing and engineering must be resolved before the Freedom Tower can rise. The New York Times reported yesterday that the tower's broadcast-antenna spire ­ an integral part of the design unveiled a year ago ­ might not work as positioned at the building's corner.

In fact, sources tell The Post, it will likely need to be centered if it is not to tear the tower's roof off. (The currently-planned-but-untenable off-center antenna is a vestige of Daniel Libeskind's original design ­ a holdover included by Freedom Tower architect David Childs at Pataki's insistence.)

Until the problem is solved, Larry Silverstein can't build, no matter how much insurance money he has. Nor is there a hint of when work might start on the memorial. But until both projects are under way, no one will believe Ground Zero is going anywhere.

Consider, too, Pataki's failure to break the logjam over Fiterman Hall. With no agreement on a cleanup plan, the college building will remain a blackened hulk near Ground Zero on the fourth anniversary of 9/11.

Fixing or rebuilding Fiterman Hall will cost under $200 million ­ peanuts for Downtown. Yet, while Pataki dawdles on it, he is putting his clout behind a billion-dollar scheme that has nothing to do with 9/11 the West Street tunnel, a dream come true for the forces still hoping to sabotage Downtown's recovery.

Supposedly meant to ensure the "sanctity" of the Ground Zero memorial, the project might well do what terrorists couldn't Chase business out of Downtown for good.

It guarantees years of traffic and transit paralysis ­ plus a carnival of cost overruns. (For a taste of what's in store, ask any Bostonian about the "Big Dig," a highway project that ruptured their city, ran five years late and cost $10 billion more than its $2.6 billion estimate.)

Nor will the tunnel even deliver the promised insulation from vehicular traffic Cars will still buzz by the memorial on three sides ­ on Liberty Street and on newly extended Greenwich and Fulton Streets.

Pataki's push for the project is doubly galling because, if the memorial is too close to West Street, he has only himself to blame. He chose the Libeskind master site plan, which shunted the memorial to Ground Zero's southwest quadrant.

In any event, if Pataki still insists on a buffer, one already exists the wide, unused, two-lane service road just outside Ground Zero's western boundary. It provides plenty of elbow room to insulate the memorial from traffic.

(Also up in the air where to place the tunnel's northern portal ­ and the ensuing traffic havoc. At Vesey Street, plunking impassable incisions on the doorstep of Goldman Sachs' new headquarters? A few blocks north, placing them in front of planned new apartment towers? )

The MTA's new Fulton Street Transit Center ­ the "Grand Central of Downtown" ­ promises subway riders years of inconvenience far worse than any posed by the existing station's shortcomings. Yet that disruption may seem pleasant compared with the job (perhaps a decade long) of depressing six-lane West Street under a landscaped median.

It's hard to imagine how a tunnel could be built without closing West Street during construction or, at best, reducing traffic to a trickle. That means rerouting cars and trucks east onto Church Street and Broadway. Both, of course, are already likely to be snarled for years ­ Church Street by construction of the new PATH terminal and Broadway by work on the Transit Center.

And has everyone forgotten that tunneling must also be done beneath Broadway and Church Street to link the PATH and transit centers underground, with unpredictable effects at street level?

We're told the tunnel will link Battery Park City with Ground Zero and the rest of Downtown. Where's the demand for that? Battery Park City's apartments are full, and the World Financial Center's commercial space, half-vacated after 9/11, is fast being re-absorbed.

So why is the tunnel scheme on the table? One interpretation is that certain powerful interests see windfall profits ­ a boondoggle that will batten on labor payoffs, concrete-cost overruns and pork-barrel procurement.

Beware public-private influence-peddling of the sort epitomized by Alfonse D'Amato's infamous $500,000 phone call to expedite an MTA contract.

We may yet be spared. The state is also considering an option simply to retain and spruce up the West Street surface road for a mere $175 million. It isn't too late for Pataki to do the right thing and save us from a tunnel with no light at either end.

The removal of the shrouded Deutsche Bank building will replace the blight on downtown’s skyline with new open spaces for visitors, workers, and residents to enjoy.

LMDC’s foremost priority in this project is the health and safety of the community and the workforce.

A recent amNewYork article inaccurately stated some of the relevant facts surrounding the deconstruction. The LMDC cannot and will not move forward with the deconstruction until we have a final plan that has been approved by all the applicable regulators.

LMDC will comply with all applicable OSHA, NYS DOL asbestos regulations, EPA, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and NYC Buildings Department, and otherwise applicable regulations. We will be consistently monitoring the surrounding air quality and we will do so in a transparent fashion.

As with all projects embarked on by the LMDC, we are conducting this process openly. All information about the project has been ­ and will continue to be ­ shared with the public and the regulatory agencies as it becomes available. This public engagement will continue until the deconstruction is completed.

Just over a year ago, lower Manhattan faced a future where this scarred building would become a permanent part of the downtown landscape. Seeking to remove this eyesore and environmental hazard, Gov. Pataki named Senator George Mitchell to mediate the dispute. Mitchell’s efforts resulted in the LMDC taking possession of the building on Aug. 31, 2004. We took immediate steps to undertake comprehensive environmental testing of the building. We formulated an advisory committee of residents, businesses, and elected officials, met with the community board and held public information sessions to share our testing results and solicit public comments on how to take this building down. We also set up an emergency hotline and a process for the public to reach out to us directly with individual questions.

We have developed a comprehensive website www.renewnyc.com/130liberty to post all of the information regarding the project, including background information, consultant and contractor bios, answers to frequently asked questions, all publicly released documents, and an online comment form with the opportunity for members of the public to sign up for regular e-mail updates regarding the project.

9/11 Cleanup Continues, by Julie Scelfo, MSNBC.com/Newsweek, January 27, 2005

Jan. 27 - For New Yorkers living in lower Manhattan, the abandoned, black-shrouded 40-story building across from Ground Zero has for years been a reminder of how the collapsing twin towers emitted a vast blanket of environmental contamination that may still affect nearby residents and workers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, a falling section of 2 World Trade Center ripped open a 15-story hole in the Deutsche Bank Building, which allowed toxic dust and ashes to pour in. According to a damage report prepared for Deutsche Bank in 2003, asbestos, lead, mercury, dioxins and carcinogenic PCBs penetrated the building, snaking their way into interior stairwells, elevator shafts, wall cavities and ventilation systems. In the months that followed, mold also proliferated, contributing to what the report described as "a combination of contaminants … unparalleled in any other building designed for office use."

After a lengthy battle involving insurers and downtown-rebuilding officials, Deutsche Bank last year sold the building to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), which plans to begin demolishing the structure as soon as possible. Although business officials are eager to remove what many view as a tombstonelike reminder of 9/11, residents and visitors alike are concerned that the demolition will only add to the woes of the neighborhood, where hundreds of thousands of people work and live, including a legion of Wall Street employees who are vital to the nation's economy. To understand the environmental impact, NEWSWEEK’s Julie Scelfo spoke with Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist who coordinates the World Trade Center Health and Safety Project for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH). Excerpts

Dave Newman Actually, they’re about to take down three buildings the Deutsche Bank Building, which is now owned by the [LMDC], a building at 4 Albany Street that is still owned by Deutsche Bank and a building called Fiterman Hall, which is part of the Borough of Manhattan Community College. One reason it took so long to deal with them is that there are, and there have been, disputes as to the efficacy of cleaning them up versus taking them down. In all three of these cases, the buildings are heavily contaminated.

Would you be concerned about the demolition if you lived in lower Manhattan?

There are actually three populations I have concerns about one is residents in the area; two would be workers in the area, who are residents during the time of their workday, and third would be workers involved in the demolition process itself.

Why the demolition workers?

There are an array of contaminants including asbestos; lead; mercury and other heavy metals; PAH’s, which are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (combustion byproducts); silica; dioxin­I guess those are the heavy hitters. The workers have the highest potential for exposure, and if they are exposed, they will be exposed in higher concentration than anyone else in the community. In some ways, [those] workers are the canaries for the community.

The demolition of any high-rise building in and of itself is a cause for concern because of the potential for unintended releases­which means anything that’s contained in the building can ultimately make its way outside if it’s not properly controlled. When you add to the mix the World Trade Center contamination … if I lived or worked downtown, I’d want to know this demolition is proceeding with the most stringent controls possible to prevent any emissions to the outside of potentially harmful substances.

Are you saying the demolitions are a bad idea?

No, the demolitions are manageable if they’re done right. My concern is not that they can’t be done, but that they be done right.

Who is overseeing them?

There are a variety of agencies involved at the state, local and federal level, including [New York City’s] Department of Buildings, New York City’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], and OSHA [the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration]. As of yet, unfortunately, there’s no coordinated effort on the part of government agencies to oversee these demolitions on a proactive basis.

It seems like there's been a lack of leadership for dealing with most post-September 11 environmental concerns. Overall, we still don’t have a lot of clear answers about the extent of contamination or which agencies are in charge of cleaning it up.

I think the response after 9/11, while it was sincere and heroic and extensive, it was not coordinated between government agencies and not necessarily well thought out, although well intentioned. This kind of event was not really anticipated and as a result we had agencies either fighting over jurisdiction or fighting to avoid responsibility. The result was a vacuum of information.

Where do you think the leadership should have come from?

I don’t think there’s a lot that an individual resident or worker can do. I think the burden should be appropriately on government agencies like EPA, like OSHA, like the Department of Health, to be prepared to conduct an aggressive and transparent outreach effort so that people will be informed appropriately and honestly of what the health risks could be. They need to inform people about the appropriate way to deal with dust or debris in their apartments. That information was not conveyed at all, or when it was conveyed, it was conveyed incorrectly. The EPA should have taken responsibility as the lead agency for the entire post-September 11 cleanup. And again with these demolitions, they have an opportunity to assert clear leadership.

In 2002, the EPA began addressing indoor residential spaces. Now, the contaminated buildings are an issue. Are there still more environmental hazards that haven’t yet been dealt with?

We don’t know. There’s been no effort on the part of the EPA or the part of other government agencies to coordinate, centralize and evaluate their sampling results. That means we don’t have a good characterization of what was in the outdoor air. And because most of the indoor sampling and cleanup was done privately, we don’t have complete records of that either. So the best information or the most information that was available was in private hands, and there’s been no attempt to collect that.

What lessons have we learned­or should we have learned­in terms of being prepared for future disasters?

Using published private and government sources, MARF's report demonstrates that the air was heavily contaminated with asbestos after the collapse. It shows further that many local residents, rescue workers, and tower survivors were exposed to dangerously high doses of asbestos and are thus at risk for developing mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is an aggressive, usually-lethal cancer against which current standard treatments have little or no effect.

Evidence of the dangerously high asbestos levels was confirmed yesterday by the New York Times. The Times reported on the findings of environmental consultants involved with the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building on 130 Liberty Street, across the street from Ground Zero. In a comprehensive, detailed study requested by Deutsche Bank to document the extent of contamination in the building, the R.J. Lee Company in 2003 found extremely high levels of asbestos. This study, together with documents from the EPA and New York health authorities, clearly supports MARF's conclusion that thousands of 911 heroic rescue workers and other innocents are now at risk for developing mesothelioma in the next ten to 50 years.

MARF is therefore recommending that Congress take action now to prevent further suffering and death from the terrorists' despicable act. To spur development of effective mesothelioma treatments, MARF is calling on Congress to establish a National Mesothelioma Research and Treatment Program with funding of $28 million per year. MARF's Science Advisory Board and other experts believe that recent developments in experimental treatments and protocols demonstrate that with adequate funding, a cure for this cruel disease is within reach.

MARF's 911 research report is available for free at www.marf.org/911report.pdf

NEW YORK -- High levels of asbestos, lead and other contaminants have been found in a vacant skyscraper badly damaged during the 2001 terror attacks, potentially complicating the rebuilding of ground zero.

A consultant to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. revealed the findings at a public hearing where neighbors, environmental advocates and union representatives talked about their concerns over plans to dismantle the 40-story Deutsche Bank building.

The consultant said concentrations of asbestos, lead and silica on the building's exterior and in elevator shafts, conduits and ductwork exceeded benchmarks set by the Environmental Protection Agency, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Critics of the plan fear the demolition will kick contaminants into the air and that workers inside the building would not be adequately protected.

"Workers are essentially, and unfortunately, the canaries for the community," said David M. Newman of the nonprofit New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

Government permits are needed before the plan can proceed.

EPA officials say they are not opposed to the dismantling, but support steps to reduce the environmental impact.

At the Deutsche Bank building opposite ground zero, a new look at hard-to-reach spaces -shafts, ducts, conduits and upper elevations of the exterior - has confirmed the presence of high levels of asbestos, lead and other contaminants, a consultant to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said Monday night.

The findings were disclosed at a public information session where neighbors, union representatives and environmental advocates expressed concerns about a plan to dismantle the 40-story bank building, which is at 130 Liberty Street and was badly damaged on Sept. 11, 2001.

Federal, state and city regulators have not yet responded to the plan, issued a month ago by the development corporation, which will need government permits before it can demolish the building. It is not clear when exactly that work will begin.

Critics said they worried that workers inside the building would not be sufficiently protected. "Workers are essentially, and unfortunately, the canaries for the community," said David M. Newman of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a nonprofit coalition including labor unions.

Paul Stein of the New York State Public Employees Federation was one of several speakers who questioned the efficiency of the emergency warning system. "If you're not at your computer or phone, you may not get the information," he said, suggesting the need for sirens, Klaxons or loudspeakers around the demolition site.

Speakers also complained about the lack of coordination for demolition projects, including another Deutsche Bank building at 4 Albany Street. Jennifer Hensley of the Alliance for Downtown New York called on the governor and the mayor to name a leader for the new Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.

"Without the timely appointment of an executive director," she said, "the command center is at risk of becoming obsolete before it is even operational."

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about the lack of information on air monitoring and contaminant levels in the building's interstices, said Mary Mears, chief of public outreach in the agency's regional office.

That is not to say the agency opposes the dismantling. "There are steps that can be taken to reduce the environmental impacts from taking this building down," Ms. Mears said.

She said the E.P.A. hoped to submit its comments with those of other agencies by the end of the month.

Development corporation officials said that the "deconstruction" - a term they use to emphasize the project's painstaking nature - would be done in a safe and environmentally responsible manner, and that the final version of the plan would reflect the concerns and comments of regulators and the public.

"People griping is better than people having no voice at all," said Kevin M. Rampe, president of the corporation. The Monday session drew about 60 people to St. John's University on Murray Street.

At the session, Edward Gerdts, a vice president at TRC, an environmental consultant to the corporation, discussed a detailed new study of the building, which the corporation acquired from Deutsche Bank in August for the purpose of razing it.

He compared contaminant levels with benchmarks set by the E.P.A., based either on the estimated levels of contaminants before the 9/11 attack or on health-based cleanup targets for residences. Though the benchmarks are not directly applicable to a commercial demolition project, Mr. Gerdts said, they do provide some context.

Average concentrations of asbestos, lead and silica on the exterior were found to exceed the benchmarks. Asbestos and lead exceeded the benchmarks in the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning ductwork; in elevator and pipe shafts; and in conduits through the floors.

Lead and silica exceeded the benchmarks in cavities behind the curtain wall. Silica exceeded the benchmarks in cavities between interior walls. Asbestos and silica exceeded the benchmarks in the fireproofing.

Generally, Mr. Gerdts said, contaminant levels were either consistent with or lower than those found in an earlier study of surface areas around the building.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation presented its draft plan at St. Johns University.

The first phase will include cleaning and removing material from the inside the building, which was contaminated by the September 11 attacks. Some people are concerned about air quality when the building comes down and about who is accountable if something goes wrong.

"There’s nowhere in the entire emergency action plan or in the documentation that says we are the agency accountable to the community to make sure nothing happens, and if it does we will notify them, protect them and clean things up," said Lower Manhattan resident Kelly Colangelo.

Officials are awaiting review from regulatory agencies, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Deconstruction was originally set to start this month.

Copyright © 2005 NY1 News. All rights reserved.

 

     Back to Top

 

The Defense Department has drafted its first policy for preventing munitions waste from polluting groundwater supplies outside training sites, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate a willingness to voluntarily meet federal and state cleanup standards to bolster a legislative plan for granting the military certain environmental exemptions.

The draft range assessment policy details a process the military services should follow to "prevent or respond to a release or substantial threat of a release" of munitions constituents that migrate off range, according to a copy of the draft policy obtained by Inside EPA's Defense Environment Alert.

If adopted, the policy would likely be signed by either DOD’s acquisition under secretary or the deputy defense secretary. Such instructions are generally considered to be the highest level of DOD policymaking.

The draft policy follows through on a plan touted by the military over the past year to show it can voluntarily respond to existing EPA and state requirements regarding contamination that migrates from operational ranges where training and readiness activities take place.

Military officials have touted the plan as a way to bolster a controversial legislative plan that would excuse military DOD arguments for eliminating state and EPA cleanup authority under RPPI. Under the legislation, which has failed to gain congressional approval over the past several but is expected to be reintroduced this year, military munitions that land on operational ranges would no longer be regulated as a "solid waste" under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act or as a "release" under Superfund law. DOD has said these exemptions would not apply to munitions that migrate off range.

But state officials have opposed the idea, arguing that such legislation would prevent regulators from requiring the military to construct source controls for on-range pollution that migrates off range. EPA last year unsuccessfully sought to convince DOD to include a provision in the legislative plan, known as the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative (RRPI), that would have allowed EPA to conduct pollutant monitoring and sampling activities on operational ranges.

DOD’s deputy environment official is now seeking state input on the plan, providing the draft to a group of state environment commissioners late last month. "Our goal is for a collaborative effort on a variety of issues facing the military," DOD Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Alex Beehler says in a Dec. 22 letter to states about the draft policy.

Officials from DOD and the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) are expected to discuss the draft policy at a meeting Feb. 2-3.

The new draft policy calls on the services to develop plans to conduct operational range assessments to determine if releases of munitions constituents on operational ranges are causing unacceptable off-range impacts. It appears to task the services and other DOD components with determining whether such a release "poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment."

The draft policy gives the military services several options -- using Superfund law and existing DOD, Army Corps of Engineers, and EPA policy -- to determine how to respond to releases of munitions constituents that migrate off range. It augments an existing DOD policy directive that provided the services with some guidance on the issue (Defense Environment Alert, June 1, 2004, p3).

"Rather than develop our assessment tools from scratch, the Department chose to adopt the specific regulations and procedures already widely used and accepted by the regulatory community and industry," Beehler says in the letter to states.

The instruction’s purpose, according to the draft, is to aid DOD components in determining whether a release from an operational range to an off-range area has occurred, evaluating whether that release "poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment," and enhancing a component’s "ability to prevent or respond" to such releases.

If a release does pose an unacceptable risk, the draft policy directs the components to respond under existing law and policies, including Superfund law and the National Contingency Plan, DOD environmental restoration law, EPA guidance on the data quality objectives (DQO) process, DOD policy on explosives safety, Army Corps policy on ordnance and explosives and hazardous waste projects, and industry standards.

Further, it outlines general procedures, mainly based on the Army Corps’ Conceptual Site Model, to follow when developing a range assessment strategy. This process calls for identifying "munitions constituents of concern," such as RDX, HMX, TNT, perchlorate and other constituents, that may migrate in sufficient quantities off range. It calls for identifying and evaluating sources of these constituents and pathways and receptors. If a potential source-receptor interaction poses an unacceptable risk, "sampling, as dictated by the DQO Process, shall be conducted," it says. Sampling should follow methods approved by EPA, states, DOD or industry.

And it calls for re-evaluations of potential releases from ranges at least every five years.

Beehler’s decision to release the document prior to DOD finalization was unique, one informed source says, given DOD’s traditional practice of refusing input from outsiders until a policy is finalized. The move was controversial within the Pentagon and the services -- with traditionalists arguing for continuation of the "decide, act, defend" approach and more forward-leaning staff wanting to work with states, the source says.

© Inside Washington Publishers