Three weeks after Emergency Medical Technician Tim Keller passed away from an illness his family and friends believe to be related to his work at Ground Zero, a 39-year-old female EMT underwent lung surgery for mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure.

Like Mr. Keller, her Workers Compensation claim was denied by the city. The EMT, who asked that her name be withheld while she recuperated, was also denied the line-of-duty pension that would have given her a paycheck until she recovered.

Wrenching Choices

Thomas Eppinger, president of District Council 37 Emergency Medical Service Officers Local 3621, called the citys handling of medical claims a train wreck.

"It puts people between a rock and a hard place. Theyve got to make difficult choices Do I pay my rent, or buy medicine? Feed my family, or get that x-ray?" he said. "Who ever thought four years ago when we were heroes that wed be reduced to this?"

Marianne Pizzitola, pension coordinator for DC 37 Local 2507, which represents EMTs and Paramedics, and Local 3621, said 25 to 35 EMS workers were in similar situations.

Unlike firefighters, whose claims for pension, disability and work-related injuries are handled by the Fire Department and the Fire Pension Fund, EMS workers must go through the Law Department for Workers Compensation and the New York City Employees Retirement System for pension and disability awards.

City: Most Approved

John Sweeney, Chief of the Law Departments Workers Compensation division, said that post-9/11, the unit received approximately 150 claims from the FDNY, and almost all of them were from EMS workers. About 96 percent of them were accepted, he said.

"After 9/11, we went out of our way to accept those claims and get people what they needed. The overwhelming majority of the cases related to Sept. 11 were accepted immediately," he stressed. "A small number were contested for legitimate reasons, such as lack of medical evidence, no description of injury, or filing too late."

Mr. Eppinger said he believes different standards are being applied to Workers Compensation claims filed by EMS workers than to those of other uniformed employees, although in many cases the pathologies presented are the same.

"All these cases are fully documented by Workers Compensation physicians, because state law says you have to go to specific doctors if youre going to file a claim," he said. "But when it comes to NYCERS and the Law Department, for some reason, even when they approve a claim, they seem to withhold paperwork on medication and treatment."

Flawed Comparison?

The Law Department, noting that firefighters follow their own system, said comparing the FDNY responses to those given to EMS workers by the city was like comparing apples and oranges. Mr. Sweeney said the department handles more than 17,000 claims a year and strives for timely assistance on them all.

New York’s Workers Compensation law mandates that claims must be filed within a two-year time-frame. In many cases where 9/11-related claims werent accepted, Mr. Sweeney noted, the time limit was to blame.

"If you’ve passed the two-year-limit, even if you have a meritorious case, we dont have a choice we cant accept the claim," he said. "The original 9/11 cases that were filed within the correct time-frame were almost universally accepted."

Ms. Pizzitola said the Law Departments interpretation was a little vague. "Its two years from the date of diagnosis," she insisted. "Who knew that we were going to see clusters of breathing problems, cancers and other strange illnesses? We had doctors in New Jersey, Long Island, upstate who were unfamiliar with what they saw. It took a long time for people to start comparing information notes and finding that the common factor was World Trade Center exposure."

Must Update System

Ms. Pizzitola credited the Mt. Sinai Screening Program for WTC Responders with being among the first medical groups to document and publish what was occurring among uniformed workers and others.

"To prove a Workers Compensation claim, we have to have a link to 9/11," she acknowledged. "So did it take the medical community some time to really understand the scope of what were dealing with now? Yes, it did. Does that mean these peoples claims should be denied? I don't think so, and I think its time to update the system."

William Dahl, 41, a senior Paramedic, is among the four percent of claimants who got rejected. He was one of many off-duty uniformed workers who showed up on 9/11 to search for survivors, and was assigned to the World Trade Center ruins known as "The Pit" for three months straight.

He quickly developed the trademark WTC cough, a persistent affliction that brought up phlegmy gray matter from his lungs.

Breathing Compromised

Mr. Dahl, like many other EMS members, firefighters, sanitation workers, transit workers, and volunteers, has since been diagnosed with RADS Reactive Airway Disease Syndrome and esophageal reflux. His breathing capacity is severely limited. His personal pulmonologist said its indisputably related to 9/11. FDNY doctors, after seeing him for a year, eventually admitted he was "permanently partially disabled due to work-related illness."

Mr. Dahl is on medical leave and has applied for a disability pension worth three-quarters of his final average salary, tax-free. His Workers Compensation claim wasn't accepted by the city, however, and hes currently arguing his case in front of an Administrative Law Judge.

"I’ve learned to keep a log of all the details," he said. "Im on a dozen medications, but I cant get prescriptions filled because the bills don't get paid. I'm waiting for authorization on a CAT Scan and everything takes forever."

In January 2003, doctors found Synovial Sarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer, in his throat. They operated a week later and successfully removed the growth. Its a type of cancer, Mr. Dahl was informed, mostly seen in clusters among residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wasn't part of his claim to the city because his physician told him that unless other workers contracted the cancer, it couldn't be linked to 9/11 exposure. Mr. Dahl used his private insurance to pay for the surgery.

Thinking of My Family

"For a long time I didn't want to leave the job, because I love it. But Im a trained medic, and I know what my chances are. I have to start thinking about my family," he said, referring to his wife and two daughters, ages 10 and 8. "All these nodules I have on my lungs that weren't there before, you think I don't know that in four or five years theyll turn cancerous? And you know what the city’s going to tell me? Oh, you had throat cancer, so that's a pre-existing condition. Its time to start looking out for myself."

John Vinciguerra, a Lieutenant EMT who was recently denied Workers Compensation, is taking the same approach. He and his wife, currently pregnant with their fourth child, just put their home up for sale.

"We decided to move to a smaller place and try to cut expenses, because Im out on medical leave while I appeal the compensation decision," he said. "But if the situation isn't resolved by December, Ill have to go off payroll. Once Im off payroll 30 days, I lose my health benefits because Im out of the system. And then I don't know what well do."

Mr. Vinciguerra was diagnosed with light asthma as a child, but had no serious respiratory problems until April this year. On 9/11 he was assigned to a Brooklyn firehouse, where he cleaned out the various first responder rigs that came in with windows blown out, full of ash.

Familiar Symptoms

Later he was assigned to search and rescue work and occasionally sent to the Staten Island landfill. He developed the signature cough, started spitting up material at night, and then in April was hospitalized with a serious lung infection. Since then hes been unable to work, and has between one-quarter and one-half of his previous lung capacity.

He’s also been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, another common side-effect among 9/11 workers. His heart has to work so hard to get oxygen from the lungs that its given him high blood pressure, his pulmonologist told him.

"I never had high blood pressure before, but the FDNY doctors say they aren't sure its from 9/11," he said. "I take seven different medications a day, including steroids, to help me breathe. Ill never be able to work again, and at least all the doctors agree about that. I was told that this will only get worse and maybe if Im lucky stay about the same."

Lobby Congress

Mr. Vinciguerra was one of several first responders who traveled to Washington July 21 to press Congress to restore $125 million in Federal aid to the city. The workers said it could be used to help 9/11 responders like Mr. Vinciguerra who have been denied Workers Compensation and potentially have no source of income.

The list of ill workers grows every day, said Ms. Pizzitola, and union officials fear theres more to come. But under existing Workers Compensation law, theres no way to circumvent the two-year statute of limitations on claims. For EMS workers who develop diseases with long latency periods mesothelioma, for example, usually takes anywhere from six to 20 years to manifest Workers Compensation probably wont be an option.

The illnesses appearing range from the diagnosable sarcoidosis, various types of cancer to the unidentifiable, many of which are simply labeled Reactive Airway Disease Syndrome by doctors.

Due to legal privacy constraints, Mr. Sweeney and fellow Law Department staff members are prohibited from discussing individual cases with the media. But they noted that every worker gets a chance to argue his or her case in front of an Administrative Law Judge, and then a Workers Compensation panel comprised of members appointed by Governor Pataki. Ultimately, cases can be taken to the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Albany.

New Pension Help

Under the recently created 9/11 Disability Pension program, administered by NYCERS, EMS members denied Workers Compensation could receive a tax-free pension, said Peter D. Meringolo, chair of the Public Employee Conference that gained passage of the legislation. He encouraged them to start applying for aid as soon as the program is up and running, which he expected would be in a few months.

But at least one sick EMT worker would be ineligible for that pension because she didn't accrue the requisite 40 hours at Ground Zero. Lynette Colbert, 48, diagnosed with sarcoidosis, has already been denied an FDNY line-of-duty pension and Workers Compensation. She’s living off her personal disability insurance while on medical leave.

When her medical leave runs out, shell either have to go back to work or risk going without pay, which could drop her out of the health care system after 30 days.

"Its hard, you know, because I have seven grandchildren and the medications and the disease, they change you a lot. I get real scatterbrained and short-tempered, and that's not really who I am," she said. "All those years that I cared for people with no strings attached, because I loved this job, and now I cant get help from the city. Im on the outside looking in. Why cant those people who have the power just check Yes on their forms and let me go see the doctor?"

http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=2739#more

NEW YORK CITY (July 28, 2005) For Carmen Calderon, the recent news of the death of a Sept. 11 emergency worker is a sad reminder of the challenges ahead for thousands of other workers in New York City.

The 39-year-old emergency medical technician died due to illnesses his friends and family believed were caused by his work at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Calderon is finding more and more workers around the city that are also suffering ailments caused by the dust from Ground Zero.

"Most of the health problems are respiratory, thats the big issue," said Calderon, immigrant project coordinator for the New York Committee for Occupation Safety and Health (NYCOSH). "There are sinus problems, throat problems, breathing problems and a lot of them have developed asthma."

Calderon has been meeting with unions and immigrant worker communities for several months now to spread the word about resources available to them. She also spends time finding organizations still providing assistance to Sept. 11 cases, such as New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS), the United Church of Christ, the American Red Cross, and many others.

Many of the immigrants she meets are not aware that medical screenings are being done through the Mt. Sinai World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program or that other assistance is available to them via the NYDIS Sept. 11 Unmet Needs Roundtable.

At both meetings Calderon has had with unions this spring and summer, many showed up but only a few had taken advantage of services offered to them. "It was amazing to see that out of 100 there, some had done the initial (medical) screening but did not follow up and the rest had not been screened," explained Calderon. "At our June meeting, only two had been screened, but most of them said they were having health problems.

"Were encouraging people to take advantage of (the services) while its still here."

And that’s a current hot button issue for those still involved in the Sept. 11 recovery. A group of Ground Zero recovery workers made a trip down to Washington, D.C., last week to lobby Congress about the $125 million that is slated to be taken away from the New York Workers Compensation Fund. The money had been earmarked for Sept. 11 claims, and workers blame the state for dragging its feet in distributing the money.

The funds are still being debated as part of the 2006 federal budget a move which angers and surprises many Sept. 11 responders. "This is something I cant comprehend as a person of faith," said Joann Hale, a member of the United Church of Christ one of the denominations that has actively funded and participated in the Sept. 11 recovery.

"Its amazing that these were the people who were risking their lives trying to save others and keep the area safe just trying to help their fellow person. I dont quite understand why they have to be penalized for that."

Hale, who also serves as a Church World Service disaster response and recovery liaison, met with representatives from Mt. Sinai and NYCOSH last week to discuss further ways the organizations can work together. She said without funding like the $125 million, the pressure just increases on the faith community and the non-profit community to come up with the funds.

Another task for Calderon is establishing a workers council aimed at making the workers compensation claim process easier. She said at this point, many workers have become so ill that they are unable to work leaving them without any health insurance.

That problem does not relate only to workers in the city, either, she added, noting that rescue workers from across the country came to help at Ground Zero after Sept. 11. "I have people from other states who have called with problems," Calderon said. "Im sure there are people throughout the country like this."

The problem also does not just apply to workers who helped clean up at Ground Zero. An ongoing battle rages between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and New York City residents and current employees around the Ground Zero site over whether toxic dust lingers in offices, apartments, and maintenance areas where many service employees spend their time.

A similar contentious issue is the demolition of other Manhattan buildings damaged on Sept. 11. On Tuesday, the EPA released its comments on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporations revised demolition plan for the heavily damaged skyscraper at 130 Liberty Street. Residents and lower Manhattan workers worry that if the demolitions are not properly coordinated and monitored by the EPA, the World Trade Center toxins within the buildings will once again be spread throughout their neighborhoods.

Calderon and Hale agree that the health effects from the initial cleanup and the lingering dust will continue to surface as time passes. One hope for Calderon is that this message of a continuing Sept. 11 recovery gets out to the entire country especially to those in the federal government.

"People have to realize that the Sept. 11 disaster wasn’t just that day," said Calderon. "It was a tragic disaster on Sept. 11, but the effects of it are going to be felt for so much longer. Recovery and cleanup workers cannot be forgotten, it would be a real shame if we turned our backs on them.

    Back to Top

On Thursday, July 14, 2005, LMDC selected a joint venture composed of Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting Co., Inc. and Safeway Environmental Corporation for the installation of the exterior scaffolding system for 130 Liberty Street. This team was selected through the New York State competitive bidding procurement process.

Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting, one of the largest and most experienced hoisting companies in the Metropolitan New York area, will be responsible for the engineering and structural work including installation of sidewalk bridges, catch platforms, scaffolding tie-ins and the dual car hoist. Safeway Environmental Corp., a well established company with extensive experience in environmental remediation, will provide all the environmental remediation necessary for Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting’s installations. Safeway’s role in the scaffolding installation will include environmental work only, such as controlled netting removal, and cleaning and removal of materials from tie-in locations, while all structural work is being performed by Regional.

LMDC requires all work at 130 Liberty to include a safety plan and site safety manager. The contract with Regional Scaffolding and Safeway Environmental requires an independent site safety consultant to provide an added layer of site safety personnel, ensuring the scaffolding erection meets the highest safety standards. In addition, LMDC’s construction manager has a site safety manager on-site full-time to ensure compliance on a daily basis.

Information regarding the scaffolding installation, including the project approach and methodology, will be posted to the 130 Liberty Street section of the LMDC website at www.renewnyc.com/130Liberty.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/331016p-282736c.html

To Karen Lane, the collapse of a supermarket on an infant and four other New Yorkers on July 14 was not that big a surprise - especially when she learned what company was involved. That's because Lane, 62, once found herself pinned under a construction barrier set up by Safeway Environmental, the same company involved in the supermarket collapse.

As Lane strode down W. 33rd St. in Manhattan in February 2002, a construction barrier at a Safeway site - which Lane contends should have been secured - flew on top of her. Her companions had to find help to get it off, and she suffered neck injury as a result.

"It was so avoidable," she said Friday. "I was so angry that a few months later I started doing some research."

What she learned upset her and inspired her to file suit against Safeway and a related company, Big Apple Wrecking. She said she was ecstatic that the 7-month-old girl pinned under the supermarket collapse had survived, but she hopes some good may come of that near-tragedy.

"People will never forget that," said Lane, whose suit is still pending. "Now maybe they'll shine a light on that company."

Safeway already had been under scrutiny from authorities, and the supermarket collapse has intensified that. Safeway is the subject of multiple investigations, from the Manhattan district attorney to the city's Department of Investigation.

The Buildings Department slapped Safeway with three violations and is looking into whether the upper West Side supermarket was overloaded when a Safeway Bobcat began working on the roof minutes before the July 14 collapse.

The Daily News has learned that the DOI is probing Safeway's ties to a mob-connected felon, Harold Greenberg, according to two sources familiar with the probe.

Greenberg, identified by the FBI as a Gambino crime family associate, owns Big Apple Wrecking on Commerce Ave. in the Bronx.

Safeway is located at the same address as Big Apple, and leases its equipment from a Greenberg-controlled firm, Dynamic Leasing, sources say. The Safeway Bobcat involved in the supermarket collapse belongs to Dynamic Equipment.

Greenberg also has loaned Safeway money, which is still being repaid, sources told The News. That's an issue because the city hired Safeway to take down two incinerators under the promise that Greenberg would receive no financial benefit, sources said.

Safeway officials did not return calls seeking comment. Safeway's lawyer also did not return calls.

Before the supermarket collapse, Safeway seemed to be a company on the rise.

In Brooklyn, Safeway was awarded $7 million in city contracts taking down abandoned Sanitation Department incinerators.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. supervising Ground Zero cleanup had voted the very morning of the collapse to hire Safeway for a $3 million cleanup of the Deutsche Bank building.

And Safeway was plugging away on several projects for Extell Development, a megadeveloper that had just announced it would compete against Nets owner Bruce Ratner for development of the Brooklyn railyards.

Since the supermarket collapse, DOI probers have gone back to reexamine Safeway's arrangement with the Sanitation Department, sources say.

On Friday, DOI spokeswoman Emily Gest confirmed the agency was looking into whether Safeway was adhering to its agreement with sanitation officials. She declined further comment.

As a result of the collapse, some public officials have questioned whether Safeway should have been hired for work at Ground Zero.

"Any company performing work on the Deutsche Bank building must do so with exquisite care," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan). "Is hiring a firm that has a record of serious violations, including its most recent one involving a building collapse, the most prudent choice for this project?"

LMDC spokeswoman Joanna Rose said Safeway will not be doing structural work and added that the contract has not been finalized.

Extell spokesman Bob Liff said it was too early to say whether Extell would hire Safeway for the Brooklyn railyards project, if it wins the bid.

Among the most contentious issues is the EPAs ongoing insistence that testing for toxic dust in targeted buildings be a voluntary process. Labor leaders and residents fear that policy will result in incomplete clean-ups, and increase the risk for workers and residents whose landlords dont give the agency access.

Need Enforcement

Paul Stein, chair of the Health and Safety Committee of the Public Employees Federation, said this third version of the EPAs proposed plan weakened some worker protections.

"Were talking about thousands of people," he said. "For their sake, we need to come up with a better plan for testing for contaminants and enforcing safe clean-up."

The EPA hoped to begin implementing its plan as early as September, but new feedback from panel members, coupled with ongoing community concerns, will likely delay proceedings.

Approximately 2,000 PEF members work in buildings within a two-block radius of Ground Zero, and all but two are privately owned. The EPA is also overseeing the demolition of four contaminated buildings in lower Manhattan, two of which flank a fully-staffed firehouse.

Or, he added, buildings that have invested in major decontamination work might deny further testing in order to avoid discovering that some toxins still linger. Fears of liability, disruption of services or difficulty with worker recruitment and retention could also keep employers from participating in the EPA plan, he said.

Some PEF members who work for the state Department of Health inspect and investigate complaints at health-care facilities in lower Manhattan, which requires some of them to enter areas that the EPA’s plan deems "inaccessible" or "infrequently used," such as ceiling plenums, electrical closets and air vents.

The agency wants inaccessible areas exempted from testing and clean-up, even if toxins are found elsewhere on the site. PEF said imposing a different standard for different parts of the same workplace is dangerous and misleading.

"Any testing plan that effectively excludes our sanitarians and others who accompany them from the protection that all workers are entitled to is fatally flawed," Mr. Stein charged.

The EPA has said that any worker who thinks toxins may be present at the work site can call on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or New Yorks office of Public Employee Safety and Health.

But Mr. Stein said those agencies were designed to deal with health threats stemming from the employers actions or activities, not environmental contamination of the kind that resulted from 9/11.

' use of insulation material that was present in the Twin Towers as a "signature" for testing. In the current plan, if the material shows up in dust being screened for toxins, then the EPA will decontaminate. If its absent, the building or residence gets a good bill of health.

Some union officials at the hearing charged that the EPA was looking for ways to limit the number of buildings it would have to clean up. A few scientists argued that the insulation material, known as slag wool, might not have floated as far and wide as lighter toxins, such as asbestos. Slag wool could be missing where mercury, silica and dioxin are present, they said, but the EPA’s current plan wouldn’t clean up those toxins.

David Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health who also sits on the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, worried about how much time had already passed since the first toxins were released.

"A comprehensive, systematic testing and cleaning program should have been done in the weeks and months after 9/11. Thats when it would have been most effective in terms of finding out what was present, what was toxic, and what areas, if warranted, needed to be cleaned," he said. "Were still not in a position where we can characterize, with certainly, what people were exposed to, how much exposure they got, and how much they are still exposed to."

Micki Siegel de Hernandez, safety and health director for Communications Workers of America District 1, raised issues concerning residents and workers, citing their requests that the EPA submit to rigorous, public, peer review of its proposal concerning the "signature" of WTC contamination.

Ms. Hernandez, who sits on the Expert Technical Review panel, also supported the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalitions request for a task force to find ways to maximize the involvement of people living and working in lower Manhattan.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/330388p-282354c.html

"The bottom line is nobody cares," said Mike McCormick, a paramedic who found the U.S. flag in the smoldering rubble that later flew over Yankee Stadium and was carried by the U.S. Olympic team.

McCormick, who blames his respiratory and vision problems on the toxic fumes from The Pit at Ground Zero, was denied workmen's compensation by bureaucrats who said he couldn't verify his presence at the site - despite personal letters of thanks from President Bush and Gov. Pataki.

"They had the audacity to say I wasn't there - what a kick in the teeth," McCormick said.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) ushered more than 30 Pit veterans through a series of meetings with congressional members and aides from both sides of the aisle. Even though the White House supports restoring the funds, it has failed to muster lawmaker support.

House appropriators claim that the state waited too long to divvy up the money, but Maloney said that 10,000 New York claimants shouldn't be penalized for that.

"It's just plain completely wrong," Maloney said. "This is a lasting insult to the heroes of 9/11. The President and Congress need to do the right thing."

Respiratory problems called RADS (Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome) were the most common complaint of the workers, but John Feal, a construction supervisor, lost half a foot to infection.

"Shame on everybody who opposes helping us," said Feal, of Nesconcet, L.I.

Fire Lt. John Vinciguerra, 37, of Staten Island, had to sell his home to pay the medical bills from his breathing problems after being denied compensation by the New York State Labor Department.

Brooklyn ironworker Joe Libretti, 48, of union Local 580, rushed to the site as the towers came down to join the rescue effort and search for his firefighter brother, Daniel, of Rescue 2, who was killed.

"I worked 18 hours a day looking for my brother," Libretti said. "I can't tell you how many body parts I found - they started calling me the mortician."

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1122039189120380.xml

"It was eerie. ... It was very eerie," said Porazzo, in an interview here yesterday. "And it was evil. The smell of burning plastic was overwhelming, and hot vapors seemed to go right through your body."

Porazzo was among several dozen former Ground Zero rescue volunteers who traveled here yesterday to lobby House members for support of the restoration of $125 million in unspent federal aid meant to cover Sept. 11-related workers compensation claims.

At the urging of the Bush administration, the House voted last month to rescind the money.

"It is not just about us. It is about all the people who need help out there," said Porazzo, at a press conference here staged by members of New York City's congressional delegation.

Porazzo said his experience at Ground Zero was all the more uncanny because he had done electrical work at the World Trade Center on numerous occasions. "There I was, looking down and picking up the pieces of some of the tallest buildings in the world," he said.

The 44-year-old had watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center on television at the methane plant at Fresh Kills, where he was on a job. He volunteered to go to Ground Zero after union officials announced that high-voltage experts were needed there.

But after working three days at Ground Zero and doing another month of clean-up duty at the World Trade Center debris site at the former Fresh Kills landfill, Porazzo knew something was terribly wrong. "I was having headaches and nosebleeds," he said. "I couldn't eat and I was losing weight."

On Oct. 18, 2001, he was rushed to Staten Island University Hospital. "My lungs were on fire and I couldn't breathe," he explained.

The diagnosis: A severe case of emphysema, apparently caused by exposure to the fumes at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills. He returned to work on light duty in January, but his symptoms, including violent stomach cramps and difficulty breathing, forced him to quit and apply for disability earlier this month.

His expenses have been covered by his union, but Porazzo said, "I'm here for the people who cannot get here to speak for themselves."

"We have got to straighten this out," he said of the rescission. "It is not right."

To head off a floor fight over the issue, House Republican leaders pledged last month to restore the funding when they meet in conference with the Senate this fall to negotiate a final version of the Department of Labor spending bill.

In the meantime, lawmakers from the city have been trying to keep the issue alive.

"There is no question this aid is needed and that these heroes deserve it," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) at the press conference.

Later, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) met with Porazzo and several of the other rescue workers at his office. Fossella also arranged for another group of workers to make their case for restoration of aid to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

"It is important that we remain involved," Fossella said yesterday. "The door is not shut."

Terence J. Kivlan is Washington correspondent for the Advance. He may be reached at terence.kivlan@newhouse.com.

2005 Staten Island Advance

The Borough of Manhattan Community College, a CUNY school, owns the 15-story structure, a classroom building on the corner of West Broadway and Barclay St. When CUNY secured the entire $185 million needed to dismantle the epistle and rebuild a replacement structure, Governor George Pataki announced in May that work would begin on what he described as an "eye sore" as soon as October. It now seems that it will take much longer than that, CUNY officials say.

CUNY hopes to submit a cleaning and demolition plan to the Environmental Protection Agency in the fall and then await approval from the regulatory agencies and the community sometime after that.

"Its a work in progress and we have a conceptual idea about our timeframe," Peter Paden, a lawyer for the university told Downtown Express. "Things evolve. Our aspiration is to have [the cleanup and demolition plan] out at the fall."

Paden was reluctant to speculate on exactly how long it would take to secure approval from the regulatory agencies. Work on the building cannot begin until the agencies approve a plan.

Although there are two nearby examples of 9/11-contaminated buildings that underwent an E.P.A. review process before they were demolished, it is difficult to gauge how long a review process might actually take.

Nearby 130 Liberty St., a 40-story tower that was also badly contaminated in the disaster, has endured a protracted review process. Nearly year after the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation purchased it with the intention of beginning to demolish it by the end of 2004, it is only now approaching the end of an E.P.A. approval process. However, a much smaller building, the 10-story 4 Albany St., was cleaned and demolished with much less fanfare.

"Were looking to model this after 4 Albany St.," said Andrew Bachman, a vice president for Tishman, the construction company handling the demolition, at a recent Community Board 1 meeting. "Hopefully this will go swiftly and smoothly and you wont even know were there."

The university anticipates it will take six months to clean the building of the asbestos, mercury, dioxin, P.C.B.s and mold that contaminated it when 7 W.T.C. collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. The building, which was in the final stages of a $62 million renovation when the disaster occurred, was only partly occupied at the time of event. Only 35 of its 70 classrooms were furnished and in use at the time. No one has set foot in the brick structure since shortly after the disaster. At this point, the university is relying on information from 2001 to gauge the extent of the contamination. But now, with the financing secured, CUNY expects to assess Fiterman Hall shortly to determine the extent of the contamination and damage.

Ronda@DowntownExpress.com

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2114

Nearly four years on, activists say the federal government has not properly determined and handled contaminants left over from attacks.

Jul 20 - A New York City-based coalition of labor, community and environmental groups is renewing its call for a more comprehensive testing and cleanup plan for hazardous contaminants still lingering in Lower Manhattan as a result of the collapse of the World Trade Center in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

For over a year, the coalition has negotiated and clashed with the Environmental Protection Agency over the scope and logistics of a plan to address potential indoor contamination from pollutants released in the disaster, which include lead, asbestos and other harmful substances.

The EPA's most recent draft of the sampling plan, finalized on June 30, provides a blueprint for sampling the dust in buildings to determine the need for more extensive testing and cleaning procedures. But it faces criticism from the community for falling short in both assessing the contamination and allowing for public input in the process.

Under the proposed plan, a building would warrant full cleanup only if it met criteria for contamination according to a complex formula based on the average contamination level for the entire building. The coalition has warned that if contamination is unevenly distributed within a particular building, this method could "water down" the assessment by averaging out individual test results.

In the coalition's public statement following the release of the preliminary draft sampling plan in May, Lisa Baum, a safety and health representative of the District Council 37 union, said: "There is no public health reason to ignore the risk indicated by heavy contamination in one dwelling unit, just because another dwelling unit does not contain harmful levels …The whole building should be cleaned if significant contamination is found."

The coalition has furthermore criticized the EPA's decision not to consider test results from so-called "inaccessible areas," including spaces "behind refrigerators and rarely moved furniture," in determining whether a site warrants cleanup.

Another point of contention is the EPA's proposal to base plans for testing and cleanup largely on whether the contamination is certified to be from the World Trade Center, matching a set of pre-defined characteristics.

The coalition questioned the science behind these criteria. "EPA is proposing to define [World Trade Center] dust so narrowly that much of the contamination may slip through its fingers," stated Stanley Mark, an attorney with the immigrant advocacy group Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Labor advocates have warned that because program participation would be "voluntary," employers could override the concerns of workers and simply refuse to grant EPA agents access to their properties. In response, the EPA has stated that it would consider "using persuasion and enlisting the support of the community leadership to gain access to buildings."

Since 9/11, the Lower Manhattan community has condemned the EPA for ignoring health threats linked to the Ground Zero site, which exposed workers and residents to inordinate levels of pulverized debris and industrial chemicals. The current planning process is intended to address environmental hazards overlooked in an earlier cleanup program in 2002, which the community denounced as inadequate.

In the summary report of an EPA technical review panel meeting in May, panel member Morton Lippmann, an environmental scientist, commented that "EPA is making a good faith effort" and, with limited resources, "cannot possibly do everything that the community would like it to do."

The action underscored the Police Department's concerns about the tunnels, but it also exposed this reality: For most of the time since 9/11, nearly half of the tunnels have not been continuously guarded by the police.

The chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the department staffed the tunnels' fixed guard posts as needed, on the basis of threat assessments and other forms of intelligence.

The question of how best to safeguard the tunnels is among the most vexing for the police and transportation officials struggling to address the many security challenges posed by the country's busiest mass transit system. It involves decisions about money, personnel and technology.

The reasons for concern are straightforward. One vulnerability assessment after another conducted since Sept. 11, 2001, by or on behalf of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has placed the underwater tunnels at the top of the list of critical infrastructure.

The 14 tunnels form a vital network and are the product of varied construction methods spanning decades. The tunnels link four of the city's five boroughs under three bodies of water - the East River, the Harlem River and Newtown Creek - and range in length from 650 to 5,489 feet.

The authorities have so far focused their efforts on trying to control access to the tunnels, while exploring longer-term improvements like using new synthetic materials to buffer tunnels against an attack.

A major problem is that hundreds of people - from transit workers to outside contractors - regularly enter the tunnels to fix everything from track ties to train signals, without being asked for so much as an identification card.

In 2002 and 2003, the authority and an Army research center discussed a counterterrorism plan that would have included electronic access cards to enter the tunnels and sensors that use sound, heat or motion to detect the presence of an intruder. The plan fell apart because of disagreements over the scope of the Army's control.

Meanwhile, shortly after 9/11, New York City Transit, an authority subsidiary that operates the subways, erected simple booths at tunnel entrances to house police officers. By 2003, at a cost of nearly $7 million, the booths had been upgraded to include intercoms, telephone lines and video monitors linked to closed-circuit television cameras.

But the new booths were not entirely satisfactory. Although heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems were installed, police officers complained of foul odors and poor air circulation.

And although the police officers were assigned to serve as antiterror sentries at the tunnels, there has been pressure for them to respond to regular crimes underground.

After Sept. 11, the department assigned officers to guard the entrances to all 14 tunnels at all times. It also did so after the Moscow subway explosions in February 2004 and the Madrid commuter train bombings in March 2004.

But for most of the time since early 2002, the police have kept a permanent presence at only eight of the tunnels, Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, said in a statement.

At the other six tunnels, officers were posted round the clock to ride back and forth, standing in the first car so they could observe any intruder trying to enter a tunnel. When the officers reached the station at the other side of a tunnel, they exited and crossed over to the opposite platform for the return ride.

"We evaluate threats against the city every day," Mr. Browne said. "Obviously, there are periods when the collective intelligence judgment is to add resources and to provide fixed coverage to certain sensitive locations. Ideally, you'd want to have all things covered at all time, but we can't do that."

The current 24-hour coverage at all 14 tunnels will continue at least as long as the country's mass transit systems remain in a state of high alert, Mr. Browne said. The transportation authority plans to reimburse the police for much of the overtime duty, which has cost more than $1.9 million a week, he said.

In addition, officers from a special operations division, attached to the Police Department's Transportation Bureau, regularly inspect, on foot, the underwater tunnels and emergency exits for intruders. None have been detected since Sept. 11, Mr. Browne said.

While there have been no intruders found in the underwater tunnels, homeless people and others have been found wandering onto the tracks and into regular subway tunnels underneath the streets and have been arrested or ejected from the system.

Experts said that a constant police presence around the tunnels may be necessary, no matter the expense.

"At its root, while the immediate purpose of terrorism is to kill or harm people, its ultimate purpose is to frighten or demoralize," said Arnold M. Howitt, the executive director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard, who has written extensively about domestic preparedness. "Having people die in a tunnel, particularly if it were flooded, would be a dramatic statement and a propaganda victory for terrorists."

Dr. Howitt quickly added that he did not believe such a calamity was likely, and indeed, civil engineers said it would be enormously difficult to rupture the outer wall of an underwater tunnel.

"It would take just an enormous explosion to breach the lining," said Jack K. Lemley, a civil engineer who, from 1989 to 1993, oversaw the design and construction of the Eurotunnel, the world's longest underwater tunnel, which connects Britain and France under the English Channel.

Mr. Lemley, who runs an engineering firm in Boise, Idaho, has worked on major tunneling projects in New York City, including reconstruction of the Holland Tunnel and the East Side Access project, which will eventually connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal.

Because many of the city's subway tunnels were bored into solid rock, an explosion would "tend to relieve itself up and down the tunnel" rather than cause a break in the tunnel itself, Mr. Lemley said.

"The difficulty, obviously, would be the people that were in the tunnel at the time of an explosion or some other kind of attack, and how to extract them," he said.

Most of the subway system's underwater tunnels were excavated in rock. The major exception is the 63rd Street tunnel, which is used by the F train and connects Manhattan and Queens via Roosevelt Island. An immersed-tube tunnel, it was prefabricated and then carefully submerged, section by section, into a trench dug into the bed of the East River. In partial use since 1989, the tunnel was completed in 2001.

[The complete 3.5 minute report is, at the time, still available on the WABC website. Click on "Eyewitness News Video"]

FDNY medic Tim Keller saved many lives during his career, including his partners' during the World Trade Center attack. But when his life was threatened by lungs damaged during 9/11, no one, it seems, was watching his back.

FDNY medic Tim Keller loved to help people. His life is a testament to that: Rushing into a smoke filled apartment to save families, resuscitating a police officer who had stopped breathing, delivering his 26th baby - selfless acts that even caught the attention of powerful people.

It's no surprise that on 9/11, paramedic Keller nearly lost his life trying to rescue people at ground zero. He was right here when it all came down and Keller survived and spent weeks on the toxic pile at ground zero looking for any signs of life.

As Tim Keller's son David explains, about a year after 9/11, his father got real sick.

David Keller, Son: "He just got slower and slower and more tired, and always sleeping, for days at a time."

He was diagnosed as having severe chronic asthmatic bronchitis. A lung specialist found the likely cause exposure to the World Trade Center disaster. But the city that so often benefited from Keller's bravery refused to recognize the connection and denied him workman's compensation and any 9/11 benefits.

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL – Yolanda Hernandez lives along the FDR Drive near Houston Street, miles away from the World Trade Center. Even so, on Sept. 11, 2001, the 51-yearold mother of three said she saw dust from the plume of toxic smoke created by the collapsing towers settle in her apartment.

In the months following the attack, emotional trauma started to give way to physical ailments, she said.

"I had trouble sleeping," Hernandez said, "I had trouble breathing and my doctor told me I had asthma, but couldn’t tell me where it came from."

And she wasn’t the only one. Her youngest daughter, Jasmine Lopez, 23, also developed asthma after 9-11. And neighbors were suffering, too.

Eventually, the National Mobilization Against Sweat- Shops, a labor advocacy group, began to notice that many of their members ­ mostly garment workers ­ were suffering from rashes, asthma and bronchitis of mysterious origin. That provoked them to begin a process to provide health screenings and treatment for these workers, which grew to a collaborative effort with other groups.

Yesterday, they kicked off the start of the new program here, thanks to a two-year $2.4 million grant from the American Red Cross.

Background

"It was not just about jobs or the economic downturn," said Karah Newton, an NMASS organizer, about why her group began outreach for the screening program. "We saw a potential health crisis that cut across boundaries no matter who you were."

So they opened a storefront and began assessing community health needs by knocking on doors and hosting town hall meetings. They approached Bellevue to develop an unfunded pilot program last year.

"We saw people who were breathing in this toxic air in their apartments, in schools, in community centers," Newton said. "We knew of parents bringing their kids in the middle of the night to emergency rooms for asthma attacks. We knew elderly people stuck in their homes because breathing made it too difficult to walk far."