March 2004 News Stories

March 2004 News Stories (Back to Archived News Stories) (Back to Main News Page)


EPA Panel Discusses Cleanup Of Apartments, Offices Post-9/11, by Amanda Farinacci, NY1.com, March 31, 2004

EPA Panel Discusses Cleanup Of Apartments, Offices Post-9/11, by Amanda Farinacci, NY1.com, March 31, 2004

http//www.ny1.com/ny/Search/SubTopic/index.html?&contentintid=38579&search_result=1#

They came with a laundry list of complaints about the Environmental Protection Agency and the way it handled its post-9/11 clean-up. Residents and downtown works voiced their concerns Wednesday about air quality downtown in front of a special EPA panel designed to make improvements on the way the follow-up is handled. NY1's Amanda Farinacci has more in the following report.

Kelly Colangelo used to live on John Street. She moved after developing respiratory problems her doctor attributes to poor air quality. She says the EPA didn't clean her apartment properly.

When she rented a new apartment downtown she had it professionally cleaned before moving in, and now she's worried about her neighbors.

"My belief is that the apartments are probably still contaminated," says Colangelo. "I moved into an apartment that overlooked the barge operation, but I knew it; I knew what I was moving into. That's why I decided to get it cleaned. But I can't say that other people who were urged to move downtown, particularly with the residential grant program waving $500 or $250 in people's faces - they probably didn't even ask."

Colangelo is one of dozens of downtown residents who showed up at the first meeting of the EPA's Expert Review Panel. The agency created the panel in response to criticism about the way it handled the 9/11-related cleanup.

Among its many tasks, the panel is charged with tracking people's health, analyzing exposure risks, and suggesting ways to keep the public better informed, as well as looking at lessons learned.

The panel has already begun thinking about how it can answer Colangelo and other residents’ concerns.

"How do you work with landlords and companies who may have already taken data and have it? We'd like to avail ourselves of those data," says Paul Gilman, the chairman of the panel.

That should come as good news to Robert Gulack, a lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission who is one of a dozen plaintiffs suing the EPA for what he says was the improper handling of the cleanup. Formerly located in 7 World Trade, his office moved to the Woolworth Building, only one block from the site, and he's since suffered asthma attacks and bronchitis.

"The office buildings have not even been tested - incredible as it is to say that," says Gulack. "Two and a half years after this disaster, we do not know the scope of the effect on the office buildings."

Another concern is the possibility apartments that have already been cleaned may still not be safe.

"The initial EPA mandated cleaning did not abate the soot and ash in my building," says Heather Swagart, a Lower Manhattan resident who testified at the hearing.

"Were apartments re-contaminated; what might the nature of that be? So our first step is to try to get a re-sampling of apartments that have already been cleaned," says Gilman.

The panel will meet several times over the next two years, with the next public hearing scheduled for April 12th.

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Emergency Plans Found Lacking, by Christopher Lee, Staff Writer, Washington Post, March 30, 2004

http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34337-2004Mar29.html

GAO Essential Services at Risk

Federal agencies have not developed adequate plans to ensure the continuation of essential government services during emergencies such as terrorist attacks, bad weather or unexpected building closures, a new study has found.

The report released yesterday by the General Accounting Office found that none of 23 major departments and agencies studied had fully complied with a six-year-old presidential directive to develop emergency plans in accordance with guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Agencies often omitted vital programs in compiling their lists of essential functions for their "continuity of operations" plans (COOP), according to the 26-page report. For instance, agencies did not list 20 of the 38 federal programs that were identified as "high impact" during efforts to shore up computer systems before the year 2000, the report's authors found.

While the authors of the GAO report did not name the omitted programs, the high-impact list includes such efforts as food stamps, unemployment insurance, Social Security benefits and the National Weather Service.

Moreover, no agency fully met all FEMA guidelines for the emergency plans, such as requirements for tests and training exercises, preservation of vital records, provisions for alternate facilities, and coordination with partner agencies in providing some services, the report found.

It apparantly was not all the agencies' fault. The study found that FEMA, which is now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, fell short on oversight of the plans and that its guidance for agencies lacked detail.

"If FEMA does not address these shortcomings, agency . . . plans may not be effective in ensuring that the most vital government services can be maintained in an emergency," the report said.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said in a statement yesterday that he was concerned by the report and would hold a hearing after the April congressional recess.

"In the last few years in Washington, we have seen enough events, both big and small, interrupt government operations to know the importance of continuity-of-operations plans," said Davis, who requested the GAO study.

In written comments to the GAO, Michael D. Brown, the undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response at Homeland Security, argued that the government was poised to deliver services in an emergency. Nevertheless, he agreed that FEMA needed to do more.

He wrote that the agency has already taken a number of steps, including plans for a government-wide exercise to test emergency plans in May, more outreach to smaller agencies and a fiscal 2005 budget proposal that would increase by $27 million funding for continuity-of-government programs.

"All of these FEMA efforts and activities are specifically designed to improve planning and to further ensure the delivery of essential government services during an emergency," Brown wrote in a two-page memo dated Feb. 18.

� 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Distinct air of disregard, by Dennis Duggan, New York Newsday, March 30, 2004

http//www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/ny-nydugg303729623mar30,0,5608683.column

Christie Whitman wasn't at City Hall yesterday. She was out among the horse set in Somerset County, behind the neatly trimmed hedges of her wealthy estate.

The people visiting City Hall yesterday were the walking wounded, the ones who believed her when she declared that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe just days after the Twin Towers were toppled.

Most of the people who believed her in September 2001 were numbed by attack. They wanted life to be as normal as possible.

So the apartment dwellers went in and cleaned up their homes, the kids went back to school, the Wall Streeters returned to work and the rescuers came down by the thousands to search for the living and the dead.

Whitman wasn't one of those at Ground Zero. At the time, she was in Washington, issuing her statement. "Our tests show that it is safe for New Yorkers to go back to work in New York's financial district," she said.

Then last year, a report by the inspector general said the Environmental Protection Agency, which Whitman headed, behaved reprehensibly when it declared the air safe. The EPA's findings on air quality had been "manipulated" because of competing considerations, the inspector general concluded.

What were those competing considerations?

"National security concerns and the desire to reopen Wall Street played a role in the EPA's air quality statement," the inspector general said.

Whitman didn't even flinch.

The former New Jersey governor instead moved on, heading to Montclair State University to teach about women in politics.

"Apparently she's teaching a class on nonenvironmental policy," said New Jersey State Sen. John Adler, a Camden County Democrat.

That's probably why she wasn't at City Hall yesterday when Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) and Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, announced that they would introduce federal legislation to help the walking wounded pay their medical bills.

Even if Whitman had attended, what would she have said? How could she explain her sunny-side claim?

As of today, Richard Clarke is still the only person in the Bush administration who has apologized for the debacle on Sept. 11, and he is likely to retain that distinction for a long time.

Whitman is still the loyal Bush soldier, a good ol' gal who chairs his re-election effort in New Jersey.

Yesterday, I talked to many of the iron workers, carpenters, rescue workers and downtown residents who went to Ground Zero feeling safe in Whitman's assurances.

Many of them had contracted the World Trade Center Cough, which I first heard of when I walked into Engine Co. 10, Ladder Co. 10 in the summer of 2003.

"Everyone knows about the cough," Capt. Gene Kelty told me that summer day. "Two of my men are on medical leave. One of them has bronchitis and the other pneumonia."

I asked Firefighter Joseph Sardo why firefighters weren't wearing masks when they worked in the hole.

"You know what those masks stop," he laughed. "Golfballs!"

But there wasn't much laughing yesterday. For good reason.

Dr. Stephen Levine, medical director of Mt. Sinai's Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, said thousands of New Yorker suffer some kind of respiratory problem because of exposure to air around Ground Zero.

"This is a huge failure," he said, adding that Mt. Sinai was treating about 4,000 people left ill by the fallout of Sept. 11.

I spotted some of those people, as well as the relatives of many people who died on Sept. 11, at City Hall yesterday. They, like Levine, had come to support Maloney and Shays.

One of those people was Gerard Baptiste, 69, whose firefighter son, Gerard Jr., was killed on Sept. 11 and whose body was never found.

"That was my only son," Baptiste said, "and when you love a son and lose him it's tough."

Joan Molinaro of Staten Island was also at City Hall. She said she was there to show support for the workers who recovered the body of her son Carl.

None of that abiding grief or thankfulness seems to inhabit Whitman's life of wealth among New Jersey's horse set.

That's because the echo of the World Trade Center Cough never gets past her neatly trimmed hedges.

Copyright � 2004, Newsday, Inc.

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Post-9/11 screenings increase , by Heather Moyer, Disaster News Network, New York, March 29, 2004

http//www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=2188#more

The last two weeks have been busy for Sept. 11 recovery workers, lower Manhattan residents, and the organizations doing their health screenings.

Early last week, the Department Health and Human Services (DHHS) awarded $81 million in grants to organizations helping Sept. 11 rescue workers determine if the air they breathed around Ground Zero was toxic.

Today, a bill will be introduced in Congress that could help residents and office workers in Manhattan undergo health screenings in relation to the Ground Zero air quality. The bill would also make funds available for medicines and treatments.

And this Wednesday is the first meeting of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new panel on cleaning apartments around Ground Zero.

The eight grants will go toward a five-year health-screening plan of those Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers. The DHHS awarded the grants to the New York City Fire Department, Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, City University of New York's, Queens College, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Diane Stein, Director of Outreach and Education for Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, said this new grant allows them to continue their screening work. After Sept. 11, she said, many local relief workers showed up at Mt. Sinai's occupational health clinic because of health issues.

"The clinic realized right away that only four doctors were not enough," said Stein. "They were going to need more help with the screenings, so they applied for this funding."

Florence Coppola, executive of the United Church of Christ's (UCC) National Disaster Ministries, said the UCC, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine have been working together since 9-11 on the technological disaster of Ground Zero air quality.

They set up a registry of screened workers. Coppola added that Mt. Sinai had an initial grant for screening but it wasn't enough money for any medicine or treatments for the workers.

"We realized that the feds wouldn't fund treatment, and we knew we couldn't leave it like that," said Stein. "So we sought out private funding."

According to Coppola, the UCC 'Hope from the Rubble' campaign gave Mt. Sinai $100,000 to help with the medications and treatment.

Coppola's reactions to the grant news are mixed. "I'm glad to hear that there is this additional funding to help," she said. "But I think what's most important should be an acknowledgement from the Environmental Protection Agency that its research on Ground Zero air quality was faulty from the beginning."

Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) also sees problems with this new plan. "We think these grants are great – but it pays only for screenings," he said. "This does not pay for medicine or treatment, and there is still a whole group of people not covered by these screenings residents."

Mt. Sinai's Stein agrees with Shufro and Coppola. "The details of the grant aren't entirely worked out yet," she said. "But it does leave out residents and does not include treatments, which is unfortunate."

The new Congressional bill being introduced Monday focuses on those issues. Rep. Carolyn Mahoney of Manhattan and Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays cosponsored it.

"The bill would be great," said Stein. "We're supportive of it because it makes sense – our director is out there now at a press conference rallying for it."

The coalition of NYCOSH, UCC, and Mt. Sinai also challenged the EPA on its early statements that the air around Ground Zero was safe and on its methods of cleaning homes and offices in the area.

"People didn't know how to clean their offices and residences properly," said Coppola. She said people weren't equipped to remove the toxic dust on their own. The panel meeting Wednesday formed in response to that criticism.

The pressure is on that panel to determine new testing and cleaning procedures for the residences in lower Manhattan.

Posted March 29, 2004 257 PM

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Feds ripped over Ground Zero workers, by Derek Rose, Staff Writer, New York Daily News, March 29th, 2004

http//www.nydailynews.com/front/story/178403p-155093c.html

Hundreds of Ground Zero workers have lingering illnesses, but the government isn't paying for their care, said a leading doctor and two federal lawmakers.

Of 700 workers in a treatment program at Mount Sinai Medical Center, three-quarters still suffer from upper-respiratory problems brought on by work at the World Trade Center site, said Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the hospital's Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. More than 40% suffer post-traumatic stress, said Herbert.

"The rates of symptoms we're seeing do not seem to be decreasing much," Herbert said. "The health problems we're seeing are serious and persistent."

The Ground Zero workers in the treatment program include rescue and cleanup workers, Herbert said.

The federal government would pay for their treatment under legislation scheduled to be introduced today by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) and Christopher Shays (R-Conn.).

"The lack of federal coordination, delays in funding, and total absence of aid for treatment shows a shameful neglect of 9/11 health issues in Washington," Maloney said. "We hope to change that with this legislation."

Herbert said that without government aid, many of the workers have no way of paying for their treatment.

"Many of our patients have become disabled," Herbert said. "They have no income, no health insurance and, in the absence of a philanthropically funded program, no way to get any care."

Herbert said the center is still analyzing data from its health screening of 9,229 workers, but an initial sampling of 250 showed half still have health issues.

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Legislation introduced to protect health of ground zero workers, by Timothy Williams, Associated Press Writer, New York Newsday, March 29, 2004

http//www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--attacks-healthcar0329mar29,0,1674284.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

NEW YORK -- More than two and a half years after the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center, federal officials introduced legislation Monday to provide long-term health care for emergency workers who toiled at the recovery site.

The Remember 9/11 Health Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, would provide federal health insurance to workers who were injured or suffered ill health related to the Sept. 11 attack and cleanup of the 1.6 million tons of trade center rubble.

A study being conducted by Mount Sinai Medical Center has found that of 9,229 recovery workers tested so far, about half had long-term respiratory illnesses or other injuries related to their work at the site. More than 300 firefighters have filed for early retirement because of illnesses related to the attack.

At a news conference Monday on the steps of City Hall, Maloney and Shays were joined by dozens of workers who complained that the trade center site cleanup caused respiratory problems and depression.

"We need to send a strong message to rescue workers that you were there for us on 9-11, we need to be there for any treatment you need," said Maloney.

"Any time you have over 4,000 people sick from one event it should be treated as a national health emergency, but the lack of federal coordination, delays in funding and total absence of aid for treatment shows a shameful neglect of 9-11 health issues in Washington."

Jimmy Willis, a truck driver who hauled debris from the site, said dust and ash from the fires that burned at ground zero in the weeks after the attack led to respiratory problems that have been diagnosed as reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, or RADS.

Willis said he takes medication for a persistent cough that started three to four weeks after he began working at ground zero.

"We need to know in the future that the health care will be there for us," he said.

The federal legislation would excuse recipients from paying for health care, including for prescription drugs. Physical and psychological problems would be covered.

The bill also calls for expanding the number of people monitored to cover at least 40,000 civilians over 20 years, an increase from the current program designed to track some 12,000 civilians for five years.

The legislation would establish the 9/11 Health Emergency Coordinating Council, which would help coordinate federal and local initiatives and follow the care and compensation for victims and the federal tracking. The cost of the legislation was unclear.

Earlier this month, residents and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn sued the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the federal agency improperly let thousands of people return to their homes and businesses after the trade center collapsed. The lawsuit said the EPA left people "unnecessarily exposed to potentially hazardous levels of asbestos and possibly other carcinogens and toxic substances."

The EPA has said it provided thousands of respirators for response workers, conducted studies of indoor cleaning methods and cleaned and tested thousands of homes in lower Manhattan.

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Asbestos Left From 1990 Cleanup Closes L.I. High School for Week, by Patrick Healy, New York Times, March 30, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/30/nyregion/30asbestos.html

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., March 29 - A sprinkling of asbestos left over from a botched cleanup 14 years ago forced a 1,500-student high school on Long Island to shut down Monday for a week as crews collect the toxic dust and scour the air.

Some parents fumed over the sudden closure, saying their children were the latest victims of a problem-ridden asbestos cleanup at Hempstead High School that has cost $1.9 million and brought allegations of fraud and mismanagement.

Dust from that cleanup was exposed Wednesday night after a large panel fell from the wall of a social-studies classroom.

No one was exposed to the asbestos, school officials said.

The high school will be closed until Monday, and students may have to make up for the lost days in June.

"The parents are just ridiculously upset," said Ron Mazile, the president of the Hempstead High School Parent Teacher Association. "It was done 14 years ago, and apparently it was not done right. Our kids are suffering. I would like to a full investigation going on."

But in this case, assigning blame seems as difficult as vacuuming up every microscopic particle of asbestos.

On Monday, school officials said they had not been around during the first cleanup, so they could not take responsibility for what went wrong. The founder of the contracting company that was criticized for bungling the original cleanup in 1990 has died, according to public records, and the current owner of the company, now called Philson Limited, did not return phone calls Monday.

"We have no recourse whatsoever," said Nathaniel Clay, superintendent of the Hempstead Union Free School District.

The exposed asbestos was found in Room A214 of the school after a panel glued to the wall fell down about 645 p.m. on Wednesday, school officials said. Although white powder containing asbestos fell to the floor from behind the panel, school officials said no students were in the classroom at the time, and none of the substance became airborne.

School officials said the powder had apparently accumulated behind the panel during the 1990 cleanup, which left asbestos dust on floors, walls and desks. As the school district rushed to clean up the visible dust, no one checked behind the panels, and the dust remained there until this past week.

After the powder was discovered, the district quarantined the classroom, called state officials and set about testing air quality and making sure similar panels in 50 other classrooms were secure. George Lawrence, vice president of the contracting firm Environmental and Construction Group, said workers had bolted the other panels to the wall and sealed their edges with caulking.

Dr. Clay said on Monday that he could not estimate what this cleanup would cost.

The asbestos at Hempstead High School is only one of the physical problems facing this financially troubled Nassau school district. The district closed Prospect School, an elementary school, in September after a fire inspector's report found leaking sewage, mold and a broken alarm system.

In December, voters rejected a $177 million bond referendum that would have paid to replace Prospect School and Marguerite G. Rhodes School and repair other buildings throughout the district, Dr. Clay said.

"You can see the issues that we're facing," Dr. Clay said. "It's not going to go away."

While the district cleans Hempstead High, teachers and secretaries will work off campus in Westbury, cobbling together lesson plans to make up for lost time and holding staff development sessions, said Don Miller, a spokesman for the school.

Beatriz Braxton, whose son is a sophomore at the school, said her first priority was taking her son to the doctor for a checkup. He will be at Hempstead High, the district's only high school, for another two years, and "it's better to be safe," Ms. Braxton said.

"We don't know what to do," she said. "It's pretty upsetting. Somebody was negligent and didn't do their job, and somebody should be held accountable."

In 1990, the situation was even worse. The district tried to remove asbestos that summer, but school officials and parents were concerned about the quality of the job, and people reported headaches after walking through the school, according to news reports from the time.

A consultant hired by parents found that traces of asbestos remained, so the school was shut down for four months and recleaned; students were forced to attend classes at the middle school at odd hours ranging from 730 a.m. to 630 p.m.

A 1990 article in Newsday found that workers hired by the district had done sloppy work and finished the job late. The article also noted that one contractor, Philson, was being sued by the federal government for failing to notify the Environmental Protection Agency that it was removing asbestos from New York City schools.

This time, district officials said, they contracted with J.B.H. Environmental Inc., a company that has already done work in the district that school officials have deemed satisfactory. But a review of state Labor Department records shows that J.B.H. was cited for at least four violations of asbestos-removal codes over the past four years.

In one incident, on July 15, 2002, workers removing asbestos from a Freeport Elementary School were cited for gaps in the barrier between the decontaminated area and the work area, according to a report from the Department of Labor.

Officials from J.B.H. would not comment for this article.

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EPA Critics Air Gripes About WTC Tests, by Sam Smith, New York Post, March 28, 2004

http//www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/17699.htm

The first meeting of the Environmental Protection Agency's panel on cleaning apartments around Ground Zero isn't until Wednesday, but criticism is already swirling around its proposal for retesting residences.

Last week, the agency released to panel members the draft plan, which proposes using a "modified aggressive" air-sampling technique to test for contamination in a portion of the 4,167 apartments it has already tested or cleaned.

This technique was used before and criticized because it detected far lower levels of asbestos than more aggressive testing.

"They should not be repeating their past mistakes," said Jenna Orkin, a member of a local EPA watchdog group and a plaintiff in a potential class-action suit against the agency.

The 17-member advisory panel, made up of government officials, private experts and one lower Manhattan resident, was formed in response to criticism that the EPA was lax in cleaning up contaminated apartments around Ground Zero.

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Pollution and the Slippery Meaning of 'Clean', by Anthony DePalma, The New York Times, March 28, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/weekinreview/28tony.html?ex=1081656713&ei=1&en=19859ed953fd8bd3

WHEN the outrage over Love Canal was at its height, more than 20 years ago, hundreds of families had to be evacuated from their homes after 21,000 tons of chemicals buried beneath them started oozing into their basements and contaminating their groundwater.

Today, families are once again settled in the same neighborhood in upstate New York, now rechristened Black Creek Village. They live in neat, new ranch houses and federal officials recently announced that they now consider this notorious symbol of industrial pollution clean.

But what does clean mean when the pollutants that rendered Love Canal dangerous to humans remain exactly where they were? In fact, there is no accepted standard, and clean, in practical terms, often means still polluted - but in a different and less dangerous way.

The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has deleted 278 sites from the 1,200 on the Superfund national priorities list (the fund itself was created partly in reaction to Love Canal). Each has been defined as clean in a different way, and with few exceptions the offending pollutants were never removed.

What makes the notion of clean so slippery is the relative newness of the idea of decontaminating industrial sites and the unpalatable truth that treating pollution, even rendering it harmless, almost never means getting rid of it. The sin, once committed, cannot be entirely undone, and this is something no one really wants to hear.

Politicians "can't politically make the jump to telling the public that they have to accept a certain amount of contamination," said Michael B. Moore, an environmental consultant from Vermont who is chairman of the Superfund task force of the National Ground Water Association, a professional group with a special interest in cleaning up contaminated sites.

When federal officials put Love Canal on the Superfund list, some residents thought they knew what clean meant.

"We were led to believe that they were going to go in with bulldozers, take 20,000 tons of waste out of Love Canal and clean up the neighborhood so we could live there," said Lois Marie Gibbs, whose home had to be demolished because the ground beneath it dripped with chemicals.

Never having undertaken a project like Love Canal, federal officials had no idea how much contamination was buried there until they started testing the soil. They quickly realized that the volume of hazardous waste was enormous, and that removing the rusting and dented chemical drums was riskier than leaving them there.

Then, in a pattern followed at many other sites, the government and the Hooker Chemical Company (now the Occidental Chemical Corporation), capped the chemical swamp with a thick layer of clay, installed pumps and drains to control runoff and ripped up miles of contaminated sewer pipe. The chemicals themselves were left in the ground, surrounded by a cyclone fence.

Jane M. Kenny, the E.P.A. regional administrator, insisted that no standards were lowered in removing Love Canal from the Superfund list. Even though the chemicals haven't been removed, she said, the $400 million cleanup has contained the pollution and reduced the health risks, which is the cleanup standard the agency aims for.

"I know that saying clean makes people crazy," she said, "but in terms of Love Canal, the area is now protective of the environment, the site is contained and we believe that we have eliminated the exposure."

The chasm between the government's definition of clean and community expectations hasn't narrowed in 20 years.

"If she says Love Canal's cleaned up, that's just a blatant lie," said Ms. Gibbs, now executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which works with communities facing environmental problems."

When Congress established the Superfund in 1980, it deliberately refrained from setting a single standard, insisting only that the E.P.A. protect health and the environment in a cost-effective way.

The gold standard was a level of cleanliness where there was only a one in a million chance that there would be more cancer in the area than normal. But that was not a practical goal at many cleanup sites, including Love Canal, where the level of risk of additional cancers is now reckoned at one in 10,000.

The E.P.A. will not certify a site as clean in which the risk of additional cancers exceeds one in 10,000.

The term brownfields is another way of defining clean and saying the politically unspeakable - that a certain amount of contamination will always be with us.

Brownfields are former industrial sites that are cleaned just enough so the remaining risk is compatible with the way the land will be reused. Owners get to define clean one way if they intend to build, say, a parking lot, and another if they plan to build homes.

It is yet another way of saying clean, and still polluted.

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Bill Would Help Thousands Exposed to 9/11 Dust Plume, by Anthony DePalma, New York Times, March 27, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/27/nyregion/27workers.html

Thousands of people who live or work in Lower Manhattan and were exposed to the dust plume after the World Trade Center attack would be eligible to undergo health screening under a bill expected to be introduced in Congress on Monday.

The legislation would greatly expand an existing health monitoring program that covers New York City firefighters and about 12,000 others who responded to the attacks.

Residents, office workers and federal employees who are not now eligible would be able to undergo screening and then enter the long-term health-monitoring program.

And for the first time, money would be made available to pay for health care expenses and prescription drugs for people without health insurance.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, is cosponsoring the bill with Christopher Shays, Republican of Stamford, Conn., who has conducted hearings on the aftermath of 9/11.

Ms. Maloney said the expanded screening was needed because so much was still not known about the health impact of the dust cloud and the hazards it contained.

"Right now, the only people coming forward are people who think they are sick," Ms. Maloney said. "The point of screening is that we don't know what is going to develop."

Questions about the health risks posed by the dust cloud have been raised since federal environmental officials said, a few days after the attacks, that the air in Lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. Officials have since conceded that this declaration had been too broad.

Efforts to set up health screening programs were at first resisted by the federal government, and money was made available only after substantial pressure from New York's Congressional delegation.

An existing program at Mount Sinai Medical Center has already screened more than 9,200 people, and thousands more are waiting to be seen. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was instrumental in getting the federal government to establish the program and to provide $90 million to continue monitoring the health of people who have been screened.

But the release of that money was delayed for several months; it did not become available until last week.

More than 40,000 people exposed to the dust could end up being screened and monitored. The sponsors do not have an estimate of its cost.

Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program at Mt. Sinai, said that half of those screened had shown signs of respiratory ailments.

However, with few exceptions, the screening program has not been able to provide treatment for ailing workers. Some have filed claims with the workers' compensation system, while others covered by health insurance have gone to family doctors.

For those without health insurance or union benefits, there has been almost no help, Ms. Maloney said.

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Bill Would Expand 9/11 Health Screening Program, wnbc.com news, March 27, 2004

http//www.wnbc.com/news/2954579/detail.html

Program Would Help With Medical Costs

NEW YORK -- A bill set to be introduced in Congress on Monday would increase the number of people eligible to undergo health screening for exposure to dust after the attack on the World Trade Center.

The New York Times reports that the bill would allow thousands of additional residents, office workers and government employees to enter an existing program that monitors city firefighters and other responders to the attack.

The legislation is co-sponsored by U.S. Representatives Carolyn Maloney, of Manhattan, and Christopher Shays, of Stamford, Connecticut.

It would also provide funding to help people without health insurance pay for medical costs and prescriptions.

Maloney and Shays did not have an estimate of the cost of expanding the program.

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Bill Would Expand 9/11 Health Screening, 1010 WINS, March 27, 2004

http//1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_087073704.html

A bill set to be introduced in Congress on Monday would increase the number of people eligible to undergo health screening for exposure to dust after the attack on the World Trade Center.

Under the bill, thousands of additional residents, office workers and government employees would be able to enter an existing program that monitors city firefighters and about 12,000 other responders to the attack, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The legislation, co-sponsored by U.S. Representatives Carolyn Maloney, of Manhattan, and Christopher Shays, of Stamford, Conn., would also provide funding to help people without health insurance pay for medical costs and prescriptions, the Times said.

"Right now, the only people coming forward are people who think they are sick," Maloney told the Times. "The point of screening is that we don't know what is going to develop."

Maloney and Shays did not have an estimate of the cost of expanding the program, the Times said.

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Increase Seen in Treatment for Firefighters, by Michelle O'Donnell, New York TImes, March 20, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/nyregion/20fire.html

The number of New York City firefighters and emergency medical service workers being treated for alcohol and drug abuse this year is more than 50 percent higher than it was last year, the Fire Department said yesterday.

Between Jan. 1 and March 12, the department's counseling unit handled 102 cases of alcohol and drug abuse, Malachy Corrigan, the unit's director said. During the same period last year, it handled 63 cases.

"This year, we're treating more cases of substance abuse in any two-month period since Sept. 11 or during any two-month period in my career with the Fire Department," said Mr. Corrigan, a 22-year department veteran.

In addition, he said, the department opened 31 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder during the same period this year. As the department classifies cases according to a client's primary diagnosis, those cases are not included in the alcohol or drug treatment figures.

That means that in addition to the drug and alcohol cases, a number of people whose primary diagnosis is post-traumatic stress disorder are also being treated for drug and alcohol problems.

And, firefighters say, some colleagues are seeking treatment outside of the department - in some cases, out of fear of reporting their problems to a department unit. The counseling unit has treated almost half the firefighters and E.M.S. workers in a work force of 14,000. The sudden rise in firefighters seeking treatment in substance abuse - as well as treatment for other conditions - could result from delayed reaction to Sept. 11, Mr. Corrigan said.

The counseling unit of the Fire Department has seen an increase in every diagnostic category since Jan. 1, Mr. Corrigan said. After Sept. 11, the department's caseload went from an annual average of 600 cases over all to 3,600. Most of those cases are for anxiety and bereavement after the terrorist attack, Mr. Corrigan said. The alcohol and drug treatment cases represent 4 percent of the counseling unit's total caseload.

The increase in treatment for substance abuse coincides with a rash of embarrassing incidents involving firefighters drinking while on duty.

In one, a Staten Island firefighter smashed a colleague's face with a chair on New Year's Eve, critically injuring him. A captain of that firehouse later admitted that he had allowed firefighters to drink beer that afternoon after fighting a fire.

In February, a lieutenant and a captain assigned to an inspection unit were found drinking in a Manhattan karaoke bar while on duty. And a firefighter who crashed his fire engine into another as he raced to a fire on Feb. 21 was high on cocaine at the time of the crash, the department said. "Clearly with the events that have taken place, there's a greater need to take a look at substance abuse in the Fire Department," said Capt. Peter Gorman of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

The increase also coincides with news, reported Thursday night on WNBC-TV, that Cornell University researchers have found a risk of alcoholism among New York City firefighters that is twice the national workplace average.

The study, which is being done for the two unions that represent firefighters and officers, has not yet been released, and a researcher on the study, William J. Sonnenstuhl, said it was premature to comment on the study since the data was still being analyzed.

Nicholas Scoppetta, the Fire Department commissioner, said he had invited the leaders of the two fire unions to meet with him on Monday to discuss the study and possible courses of action.

Although he could not comment on New York City firefighters in particular - and what effect Sept. 11 has had on their substance abuse - Professor Sonnenstuhl said that past studies had shown that workers in dangerous professions, like construction workers, railroad engineers and firefighters, frequently had higher rates of alcoholism.

Before Sept. 11, the department's counseling unit typically treated 180 cases of alcoholism annually, Mr. Corrigan said. After Sept. 11, that number remained roughly the same - until this year, that is. Mr. Corrigan said it is possible that the sudden increase in firefighters seeking substance abuse treatment could be a delayed reaction to Sept. 11.

Indeed, among the cases of post-traumatic stress disorder that the counseling unit has treated, almost all of them have shown a delayed onset of symptoms.

From Sept. 11, 2001, through June 30, 2002, counselors treated only three cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Corrigan said. Mr. Corrigan said he believed that having the chance to work at the World Trade Center site in the months after the attack gave many rescuers a sense of mission and delayed any onset of traumatic symptoms.

In July 2002, after the site was closed, 15 more firefighters and E.M.S. workers sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Corrigan, who said he was a practitioner and not a researcher, said he could not draw any direct correlation between Sept. 11 and the sudden increase in cases of substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. But he said that the counseling unit had assembled a team of researchers from around the country who planned to analyze the department's data.

Drinking, which was only banned from city firehouses 35 years ago, was not uncommon in the Fire Department, retired firefighters said. Recent reports of cocaine use by firefighters have surprised some department veterans. But mental health experts say that it is the nature of substance abuse among younger generations that they are likely to use drugs as well as alcohol, after recreational drug use became more acceptable in recent decades.

One commander in an elite unit that suffered heavy losses on Sept. 11 said while he had not seen drinking or drug abuse among his firefighters, there had been more risky behavior, including the number of risks they were willing to take while working, which is recognized as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Counting the ways to spend $1.2 billion, by Elizabeth O’Brien with Josh Rogers, Downtown Express, Volume 16 • Issue 42 | March 19 - 25, 2004

http//www.downtownexpress.com/de_45/countingtheways.html

Many local residents don’t want to take the train to the plane—at least not if creating a rail link from Lower Manhattan to J.F.K. International Airport comes at the expense of affordable housing and other priorities.

That was the conclusion of 150 community members who met March 16 at 222 Broadway to decide how they as individuals would allocate the $1.2 billion that remains in Lower Manhattan Development Corporation funds.

Participants in Tuesday’s event, presented by the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Regional Plan Association, were given 12 plastic gold coins worth $100 million each. After a panel discussion, they dropped their $1.2 billion in coins into glass cylinders signifying the competing priorities of housing, the J.F.K./Long Island Rail Road tunnel, community services and facilities, local economic development, and arts and culture.

Lorraine Speghts allocated $600 million for housing and $600 million for local economic development.

"Those are the two most important," Speghts said. "If you don’t have food and rent, how can you go to a park or ride the train?"

The $1.2 billion remains out of the more than $2 billion in federal funds the joint city-state agency received when it was created in response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Unlike Liberty Bonds, federal 9/11 aid that amounts to a low-cost loan, this amount takes the form of cash.

The L.M.D.C. has not made any final decisions on how to allocate its remaining funds. At a breakfast meeting of the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association on Wednesday, L.M.D.C. president Kevin Rampe said a decision would be made on the four rail link options at he end of next month. At that point, Rampe said, "We’ll have a lot of pieces in place to have that discussion" on how best to spend the $1.2 billion.

Rampe and other business leaders at the breakfast did say the rail link was important to Downtown’s economic development by making it more attractive to international firms and companies with employees commuting from Long Island.

But at Tuesday’s event, one panelist said the best way to justify the cost of the rail link project, estimated at as much as $5 billion, would be to connect it to the proposed Second Ave. subway and create continuing service to the rest of the city.

"Our concern here is if the L.M.D.C. continues to think about only Lower Manhattan, they’re going to be thinking about building a project that is too constrained in its advantages and therefore won’t be cost effective," said Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association.

Participants at Tuesday’s event decided collectively to allocate only six percent, or $72 million of the remaining $1.2 billion toward the J.F.K. rail link; some said that it was not practical to drag suitcases on the train. According to a Pace University poll released on Wednesday, 51 percent of Lower Manhattan residents oppose the rail link. The survey only asked respondents about the link to J.F.K., without mentioning that all proposals would also link to the Long Island Rail Road.

The biggest priority among Tuesday’s participants was creating and maintaining affordable housing, with 39 percent ($468 million) of the funds allocated towards that goal; 23 percent of the funds went to local economic development ($276 million), 17 percent to community services and facilities ($204 million), and 15 percent to arts and culture ($180 million).

Organizers of Tuesday’s event said they would present the community feedback to the L.M.D.C. Many participants, including Jeff Galloway, a member of Community Board 1 and a panelist, said the rail link is a good idea, but that it would be better to use the $900 million in 9/11 aid slated to build a West St. tunnel rather than the block grant money.

"$1.2 billion seems like a lot of money, but it’s not a lot of money," Galloway said.

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Poll Downtown’s on the right track, but distrust of E.P.A. soars, by Josh Rogers, Downtown Express, Volume 16 • Issue 42 | March 19 - 25, 2004

http//www.downtownexpress.com/de_45/polldowntonsonthe.html

Things are looking up Downtown, according to a new poll of Downtown residents, but the distrust of the Environmental Protection Agency has climbed to 72 percent.

Lolly Sullivan, 82, a Southbridge Towers resident, said since it took over a year for E.P.A. contractors to come and clean her apartment, she was not surprised to hear that few people in Lower Manhattan trust the agency.

"Who does," she asked. "Why come to my apartment a year and a half later? If I’m alive, I’m O.K."

The poll, conducted by Pace University from Feb. 29 –March 4, surveyed 646 residents living in a broad Downtown area, south of W. 14th St., and is available online at www.Pace.edu/pacepoll. Jonathan Trichter, director of the poll, said on most questions, people living in the neighborhoods closer to the World Trade Center site answered the same way as other Downtowners.

"I was hyperconscious – superconscious looking for neighborhood differences," Trichter said in a telephone interview.

One difference he saw was that in Battery Park City, the Financial District and the South Street Seaport, 84 percent of the respondents said they spoke about rebuilding issues with neighbors, compared to 65 percent for the rest of Downtown. Thirty-four percent of those polled were from one of the three neighborhoods. Trichter did not have specific numbers for Tribeca, also close to gound zero, since it was grouped with other parts of Downtown.

Overall, 56 percent of the respondents said rebuilding efforts were headed in the right direction, an increase of six percent from when Pace asked the same question last July; 20 percent said things were headed in the wrong direction, which was down from 25 percent in the summer. Trichter said it looked like there was more optimism in B.P.C., the Seaport and the Financial District where 63 percent said they liked the rebuilding direction.

Seventy-six percent of the respondents said they expect to be living Downtown five years from now. A similar poll showed that only 58 percent of the city’s population expected to be living in the same neighborhood in 2009. In the three southern neighborhoods, where many people are beginning to face steep rent hikes because the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. residential incentive grants are ending, 73 percent still said they plan to stay for at least five more years.

The poll had a +/-4 % margin of error overall, but it is a little higher for answers limited to the three neighborhoods. This smaller group said they were a little more trusting of the E.P.A., or more accurately, not as distrustful, with 63 percent saying they did trust the agency that managed the testing and cleaning of apartments below Canal St. compared to 72 percent of the broader group.

In July 2003, around the time most of the E.P.A. testing and cleaning had been completed, 61 percent of Downtowners said the cleanup and monitoring of air was going very or somewhat well, compared to 31 percent who said it was not going well.

Later in the summer, the E.P.A.’s independent inspector general released a report charging that in Sept. 2001 Christie Whitman, then the agency’s administrator, declared that the air was safe to breathe for Downtown workers and residents without having enough data to reach that conclusion. Whitman also acknowledged in an interview that White House officials influenced E.P.A. news releases about Downtown air quality.

Mary Mears, an E.P.A. spokesperson, said Thursday the agency accepted the poll results but that officials were clear that Whitman’s statement in 2001was based on the available tests.

"People are entitled to their opinion, but every statement we ever made was backed up by the data we had," she said.

Mears said the agency was proud of the work it did after the World Trade Center collapse. Downtown Manhattan and even parts of Brooklyn was covered with dust containing lead and asbestos on 9/11.

When pressed, she did say there was some concern about how Downtowners rated the agency’s work.

"Of course what the public feels is of great interest and concern to us at the same time we are confident we did a great job responding to the attack on the World Trade Center."

Michael Kaufman, a 33-year-old architect who lives in Battery Park City, said he always was skeptical of the E.P.A. and he and his wife had their Gateway Plaza apartment cleaned twice before he moved back in – long before the E.P.A. cleanup program began. He did have the E.P.A. test his apartment, but he said he couldn’t understand the technical letter with the results – a common complaint from other Downtowners.

Kaufman said by the time the testers came to his apartment he felt it was "too little too late." His reactions to last year’s news revelations "My fears [about the E.P.A] – I won’t say they were proven, but they were justified."

Other residents called on the E.P.A. to warn residents living near apartments contaminated with dangerous chemicals, but the agency cited privacy concerns.

The E.P.A. program did achieve some success since they were able to get rid of dangerous levels of lead in nearly every apartment, and they removed asbestos, a problem throughout the city, in about 99 percent of the homes.

Kaufman, who has followed the rebuilding efforts closely, said he was surprised so many said rebuilding was going well, but he stopped short of saying things were moving on the wrong track. He does think there is a confusing set of agencies competing for power.

"I think we’re moving in the right direction, but I don’t think anyone is driving the bus," he said.

One of his biggest concerns is that the selected W.T.C. memorial design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker has a wall along West St., which will block street-level access to the site from his neighborhood. Andrew Winters, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s vice president of planning, said the agency is currently looking for ways to provide access on part of West St.

Kaufman, like many who answered the poll, raved about the proposed W.T.C. train center design by Santiago Calatrava, and also liked David Childs’ Freedom Tower, which is to be built at the site beginning in September.

"I love the station It’s going to be wonderful," he said. "The tower – something of that kind has to be there—an icon."

Twice as many respondents said they were very satisfied with the station as compared to the memorial and tower, but all three designs were rated highly.

Almost 60 percent were very or somewhat satisfied with the station with only five somewhat or very unsatisfied; 58 percent had a favorable view of the memorial and 22 percent had a negative view; 52 percent liked the tower and 22 percent were somewhat or very unsatisfied with the design.

Like most of the respondents, Kaufman and his wife plan to stay in Lower Manhattan, although he said if the W.T.C.construction is too disruptive, he may rethink that.

"Our current plan is to have our family here," he said. "We couldn’t think of a better place to raise a family I love this neighborhood – absolutely, but we’re in for another long haul."

Josh@DowntownExpress.com

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Chinatown residents hear traffic plan changes, by Janel Bladow, Downtown Express, Volume 16 • Issue 42 | March 19 - 25, 2004

http//www.downtownexpress.com/de_45/chinatownresidentshear.html

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EPA Slapped with Lawsuit by Lower Manhattan Residents, by Leigh Ann Caldwell, NYC Independent Media Center, March 20, 2004

http//nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/89517/index.php

"For some living in lower Manhattan, the possibility that dust lingering from the collapse of the WTC has raised some concerns. You have the option of getting your home professionally cleaned and/or tested for airborne asbestos free of charge. While scientific data does not point to any significant long term health risk, people should not have to live with the uncertainty of the future." That is an advertisement by the Environmental Protection Agency. They placed it on subways and street corners around lower Manhattan eight months following the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The vague and dismissive wording of the advertisement represents the lack of involvement of the EPA in the clean up after September 11th.

Days following September 11th, the EPA told New Yorkers it was safe to return to lower Manhattan.

Actions such as these, caused residents and workers to file a lawsuit against the EPA. The class action lawsuit claims the EPA failed to give proper warning to families of toxic inhalants in the interior of buildings and failed to provide proper clean up of those buildings.

Sherrie Savet is one of the attorney’s filing the suit. She says there are "very dangerous dust particles, highly pulverized, containing asbestos and other toxic materials still in most of the homes and businesses in lower Manhattan." Lower Manhattan houses 15,000 resident units, the EPA professionally cleaned 3,425. Zero businesses were cleaned under the scope of the EPA.

Reports conducted by the EPA and Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York both found high levels of asbestos and other toxic chemicals in numerous buildings. The EPA gave warnings to rescue workers who breathed outside air. But failed to acknowledge the dangers breathing the behind closed doors and windows.

Richard Shandall, another attorney filing suit says asbestos poisoning can have a twenty-year dormant period, yet, health problems are beginning to arise.

Innumerable residents are coming forward with respiratory problems.

Suzanne Mattei, Executive for the Sierra Club’s New York office, said this lawsuit "is very much a public interest law suit." The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary compensation; rather they are suing for a thorough clean up and medical monitoring.

Twelve residents of the lawsuit represent the population of those affected. They include students, residents, and workers whose lives incorporate lower Manhattan or areas hit by the down wind.

The EPA did not begin offering clean up until May of 2002. For the eight months following the collapse of the World Trade Center, they directed people to the New York City’s Department of Health, which told people to wipe the dust off their windows and floors with a wet rag.

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Federal Hall Is Uplifted, First by Steel, Then by Art, by David W. Dunlap, New York Times, March 18, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/nyregion/18federal.html

Birthplace of the Republic. Cynosure of Wall Street. Cradle of the Renaissance?

Federal Hall National Memorial marks the spot on which George Washington was inaugurated. It sheltered 300 people on Sept. 11, 2001, an event that literally shook the building to its foundation. And more recently, it has provided a civic forum for World Trade Center plans and designs.

Beginning in October, it will also become the downtown branch of the Uffizi.

As part of the Splendor of Florence festival that is to be staged throughout Lower Manhattan, the Uffizi Gallery will lend 22 paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. All but one will be portraits of the Medici family. The lone exception and star of the show - perhaps set by itself in the column-bordered rotunda of Federal Hall - will be the newly restored "Madonna della Gatta," by Federico Barocci.

"I believe this is the blockbuster that will open peoples' eyes to the glory of Federal Hall," said Debra Simon, executive director of the arts and events program at the World Financial Center at Battery Park City. The center's principal owner, Brookfield Properties, is a sponsor and host of the festival.

Federal Hall, a 162-year-old Greek Revival landmark at Wall and Broad Streets, is undergoing a renaissance of its own. Last summer, a dangerously undermined corner was shored up. Later this year, two other corners and part of the east wall will be shored up. Cracks will be stabilized and patched. And a new heating, ventilating and air-conditioning system will be installed.

The $16 million rehabilitation can be traced directly to the attack on New York.

"We have severe cracks in the infrastructure, which had existed prior to 9/11, but 9/11 exacerbated the cracking" of interior and exterior walls, said Joseph T. Avery, superintendent of Manhattan sites for the National Park Service, which runs Federal Hall. One of those fissures, in a basement storage room, had grown ominously in the wake of the attack. "What had been a pinhole was big enough that you could put your thumb in," Mr. Avery recalled.

The park service called in the architectural and engineering firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. One of the attention-grabbing exterior cracks was at the corner near Pine Street. Formerly a hairline, it was now closer to a quarter-inch wide.

"It seems to have been the seismic event of the collapses that triggered the cracking," said Marie Ennis, an engineer and the firm's principal in charge of the project.

Because the building is rigid masonry and is surrounded by subway and utility lines, it had been threatened by vibrations and settling soil for many decades. Indeed, the rumbling of passing trains can be felt through the hall. Ms. Ennis said the investigation of attack-related damage afforded the chance "to figure out, once and for all, what all the problems were at Federal Hall."

Working with Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, the architects brought in ground-penetrating radar. What they found at one corner shocked them.

"There was no soil, but 24 inches of air, under one of the columns," Ms. Ennis recalled. "I lost a lot of sleep when we found that air void." The solution was to insert four steel pilings about 60 feet deep down to rock.

The next round of underpinnings will take the form of mini-caissons made of a concretelike grout that is injected in cavities drilled by a special rig.

"Once that's done, we'll work our way up the building," Ms. Ennis said. Parts of the marble facade may be cleaned. Depending on conditions, the project is expected to take about a year. At times, Federal Hall may have to be closed to the public.

Built on the site of the Federal Hall in which Washington was inaugurated, the current building served originally as the Custom House and then as the United States Sub-Treasury. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has used it in recent years to unveil plans for the overall trade center site, as well as the final designs for the Freedom Tower and the "Reflecting Absence" memorial.

"It has, in many ways, re-established itself as the center of Lower Manhattan," said Kevin M. Rampe, president of the development corporation, which contributed $250,000 toward the $1.2 million cost of the festival.

As for day-to-day events at Federal Hall, a treasure that many New Yorkers still manage to overlook, Mr. Avery said, "We're thinking about a broad range of enhancements and a broadening of programs." The park service, he said, is searching for a curator "because we'd like to fill the place" with exhibitions.

For six weeks this fall, that will not be a problem.

Twenty-two paintings from the Uffizi will go on view on Oct. 1 and remain until Nov. 15. "We consider this an extraordinary event, because the Uffizi doesn't lend easily," said Ms. Simon of the World Financial Center.

The centerpiece of the loan is a sweet and tender work by Barocci, who died in 1612, having "enjoyed a greater popularity and exerted a more profound influence on the art of his time than any of his contemporaries," said The Dictionary of Art (Grove, 1996).

In the painting, a very sleepy-eyed infant Jesus is being rocked in a cradle by Mary. Within the folds of her robe, a mother cat nurses a kitten. Joseph stands before them at left. On the right is the young John the Baptist, with his parents, Elizabeth and Zachary.

Other works coming from the Uffizi include portraits of members of the Medici family by Frans Pourbus the Younger, Justus Sustermans and Tiberio Titi.

The Medici portraits are meant to emphasize the tradition of art patronage and craftsmanship in the Splendor of Florence festival, which will run for 10 days beginning Oct. 1. Seven artisans - ceramicists, carvers, jewelers, lacemakers - will set up shop around the Winter Garden, in the World Financial Center, with exhibits and demonstrations. There will be tastings of Tuscan food, performances, concerts and a series of films set in Florence.

The festival, founded by Joyce Acciaioli Rudge, was first presented in Providence, R.I., in 1999 and then in Philadelphia in 2001, an event delayed by the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fund-raising for the New York festival is about $200,000 shy of the final goal, Ms. Simon said, an amount that corresponds roughly to the cost of shipping, insuring and guarding the paintings. That works out to $10,000 each and sponsors are being sought to adopt the artworks.

"It's a wonderful, specific thing that people can do," Ms. Simon said. "Someone can say, 'I brought that painting over.' "

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Asbestos bill heads for showdown, by Greg Gordon, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 17, 2004

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4668236.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Although labor negotiators say the funding is "grossly deficient," Senate Republicans are vowing to bring a proposed $114 billion settlement of the nation's asbestos-injury claims to a floor vote by early April.

Leaders of the AFL-CIO and trial attorneys are cranking up lobbying efforts to block the measure, which would create an industry-financed trust fund to compensate nearly all asbestos victims.

The plaintiffs' attorneys, who make their livelihoods by suing asbestos companies, plan to bring as many as 50 disabled victims and family members before senators next week.

"This is not a fire drill," Linda Lipsen, a vice president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, said in a March 8 e-mail urging asbestos attorneys to bring victims from at least 15 key states to Washington. She said the senators need to "see the faces of the victims of the asbestos diseases before they vote on the bill."

Among those expected to come from Minnesota is Susan Vento, widow of Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento, who died in 2000 of asbestos-related mesothelioma.

Senators also have been receiving Capitol Hill visits for months from top officers of defendant companies attempting to get enough support from key Democrats to achieve a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

People close to the months-long negotiations say so many issues remain unresolved that it's hard to visualize the bill passing.

U.S. Sens. Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman of Minnesota have said they support the concept of an asbestos trust fund but are waiting to see the details of the plan before committing.

Julie Rochman, a spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association, said "This bill does not move if labor is not on board."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's deadline for floor consideration of the first week in April has triggered a scramble of activity on both sides that underscores bitterness among both victims and business people over the effects of the nation's asbestos disaster.

As many as 500,000 workers are projected to die and as many as 2 million more to suffer lung diseases from breathing asbestos fibers over the century ending in about 2030. The waves of illness triggered a flood of liability suits against companies that used the fire-retardant mineral in about 3,000 products, driving about 60 firms into bankruptcy.

Victims, some of whom have recovered little or no money through the courts, want to be assured that they will be compensated fairly and in timely fashion by an absestos trust fund. Businesses want certainty and fairness, too, some contending they have been hit with more suits because many of the worst offenders have already gone bankrupt.

The proposed trust fund would compensate present and future asbestos claimants under 10 categories ranging from $20,000 for those with minor lung impairments to $1 million for people with mesothelioma, a rare and deadly cancer of the lining of the lungs.

Deal breaker

The Senate Judiciary Committee last summer narrowly approved a bill calling for the creation of a $108 billion, 27-year trust fund. But inclusion of a provision requiring businesses and insurers to boost the fund as high as $153 billion if it runs out of money has prompted many companies to withdraw their support.

When the industry last fall set a limit of $114 billion on the fund, AFL-CIO leaders balked.

Rochman said insurers will put up "not a penny more" than the $46 billion they have pledged to date.

Last week, William Samuel, the AFL-CIO's legislative director, complained in a letter to Democratic senators that

• Victims' compensation for many illnesses would be too skimpy.

• Insurers and businesses would not be required to pay enough to cover the likely number of claims.

• Businesses and insurers have refused to identify many of the thousands of companies that would contribute to the fund.

• Without a contingency commitment covering higher-than-projected numbers of claims, some victims could be shorted.

Mark Peterson, a Thousand Oaks, Calif., lawyer who has done actuarial studies for parties on all sides of asbestos litigation and for five federal judges, called the bill "a terrible piece of legislation."

He said creation of a trust fund would probably mean 10 percent more people would file claims than under the current system. Counting the more than 600,000 suits filed to date, he predicted that 1.5 million to 1.7 million victims ultimately would seek compensation, making coverage of all clams with $114 billion in the current bill "a pipe dream."

Greg Gordon is at ggordon@mcclatchydc.com.

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Environment Heads the List of Trade Center Concerns, by David W. Dunlap, New York Times, March 17, 2004

http//www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/nyregion/17rebuild.html

It is hard to imagine a 2,000-page document missing anything. But critical comments on the draft environmental impact statement for the World Trade Center rebuilding project generally fault it more for what it does not say than for what it does.

The comments, which were due Monday but kept trickling in yesterday to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, urged officials to assess more carefully and comprehensively the cumulative effects of several big projects - the office towers and memorial, the PATH terminal, the Fulton Street Transit Center and the reconstruction of West Street-Route 9A - that have been separated for public review.

They also asked for a more detailed examination of what may be at least a decade's worth of diminished air quality, increased noise and aggravated traffic.

"The failure to consider the cumulative impact on air quality of all related Lower Manhattan construction projects may constitute a segmentation of the project and expose the project to litigation," said a comment from the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a group of 27 planning, environmental, civic, neighborhood and other groups.

Verizon raised a related concern. That company has an enormous stake in the future of the trade center site because of its central office and switching center at 140 West Street, one block to the north, which was heavily damaged on Sept. 11, 2001.

"While Verizon is supportive of the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, the most troubling aspect of the proposed construction is the lack of coordination among the respective New York State and New York City agencies," the company said in its comments. "The absence of synchronization with respect to the proposed projects will undoubtedly have severe impacts on Verizon and the residents and businesses of Lower Manhattan."

In its comments, the federal Environmental Protection Agency gave the draft document a rating of EC-2, meaning both that the agency has "environmental concerns" and that the document does not yet contain enough information for a full assessment.

Among other points, the agency asked for further analysis of nitrogen oxide and ozone levels, more information on the potential impact of pollutants in storm-water runoff and a discussion of the effect on air quality of buses idling on Greenwich Street.

The city's Environmental Protection Department submitted 12 suggestions and questions, asking where the water in the memorial pools would come from. "If the city is the water source, is there a plan in place to deal with drought emergencies?" wrote Darryl H. Cabbagestalk, the agency's director of project management for New York City projects.

Rather than respond point by point, Kevin M. Rampe, the president of the development corporation, said yesterday "We've really exhibited all along a willingness to expose our drafts and have a conversation and take in comments and incorporate them in meaningful ways. And we look forward to doing that here." The final document is expected to be submitted next month for a vote by the corporation board.

Noting that there were already plans to establish coordination among the construction projects by various agencies, Mr. Rampe said, "It's critical that we all take into account the cumulative impacts and take steps to mitigate those impacts."

Physically, the bulk of the comments came from Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City, opposing the possible construction of a tunnel under West Street, even though it is not technically part of the development corporation's impact statement. Some 120 tenants signed their names to form letters describing the tunnel project as a "multiyear construction purgatory" that "will be a disaster for downtown residents and workers."

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EPA Appoints Expert Technical Review Panel to Study Health Effects of 9/11, NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health, Vol. VIII, No. 9, Tuesday, March 16, 2004

http//www.nycosh.org/Update20_Jan-Mar_2004.html

On March 1 the Environmental Protection Agency bowed to pressure from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, backed by organizations of residents and workers, and appointed a technical review panel that will advise the agency on the adequacy of its actions to clean up Lower Manhattan and recommend programs to protect the health of those who live or work in the area.

The 17-member panel will not have the authority to give EPA directions, but all of the panel members recommendations to EPA will be made public, with the expectation that EPA will need to respond to public concerns and provide persuasive explanations for not accepting any of the panel's recommendations.

The panel includes at least three experts who have a history of working with unions and other workers organizations. One is NYCOSH industrial hygienist Dave Newman, who is director of NYCOSH's World Trade Center Project. Another is Dr. Steven Markowitz, executive director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College. The third is Jeanne Stellman, PhD, professor of public health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Markowitz and Stellman has each been the recipient of an award from NYCOSH for his or her committed efforts to promote occupational safety and health.

All of the panel's meetings will be open to the public, and each meeting will include a period of time for public discussion. NYCOSH is going to encourage unions and workers who have been affected by 9/11 to attend the meetings and to make their members interests known to the panel, said NYCOSH Executive Director Joel Shufro.

In addition to naming the panel, EPA announced that it would retest one-fifth of the apartments that had previously been declared clean.

The chair of the advisory panel is Paul Gilman, EPA Science Advisor and Assistant Administrator for Research and Development. The panel was set up at the initiative of Senator Clinton in response to the August 2003 release of a report by the EPA Inspector General, which concluded that the Lower Manhattan cleanup was inadequate.

Immediately after the release of the IG's report, EPA officials rejected its conclusions. We stand by the job we managed in testing and cleaning up people's apartments, said acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko. But Sen. Clinton said that the EPA's response was not acceptable. I pushed the White House to respond to concerns about indoor air quality in New York raised in the Inspector General report, said the senator..

The scope of the expert panel's work is still being defined. According to EPA, at least one of its responsibilities will be to characterize any remaining exposures and risks, identify unmet public health needs, and recommend any steps to further minimize the risks associated with the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.

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Class-Action Lawsuit Charges EPA with A Shockingly Deliberate Indifference to Human Health, NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health, Vol. VIII, No. 9, Tuesday, March 16, 2004

http//www.nycosh.org/Update20_Jan-Mar_2004.html

Last week a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal District Court charged EPA and its former head, Christie Whitman, with a shockingly deliberate indifference to human health when she issued reassuring statements about air quality downtown that proved to be misleading. As a result, according to the lawsuit, a large group of New Yorkers exposed to hazardous substances for over two years is left with the expense of full and proper cleanup of their residences and workplaces, and is faced with potentially serious long-term health effects.

The suit asks the court to compel EPA to test for hazardous substances in workplaces, schools and residences and clean up any hazardous substances that are discovered (previously, EPA tested only in residences where the resident requested testing). The suit also asks that EPA reimburse anyone for testing and cleaning that should have been done by EPA. And it asks that the federal government fund an independent medical monitoring program for anyone exposed to the air in Lower Manhattan.

The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed by a dozen people who live, work, or go to school in Lower Manhattan or nearby Brooklyn. Six of the plaintiffs are residents, four have workplaces or businesses in Lower Manhattan and two were students at Stuyvesant high school, which is four blocks from Ground Zero.

One of the plaintiffs, Robert Gulack, is Steward for National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 293, which represents about 350 employee of the Securities and Exchange Commission in Manhattan. The SEC's offices in New York City were destroyed on September 11, but a month later the SEC opened offices two blocks from the World Trade Center site, where the smoke and fumes from the fires burning at Ground Zero were very obvious. When we reported to our new offices a month after the attack . . . you could see yellow smoke in the air inside the SEC's office space, said Gulack. Almost immediately, about half of us fell ill.

In an interview with NYCOSH before the suit was filed, Gulack said, It's EPA's responsibility to protect everyone from exposure to 9/11 debris. They ought to have ensured that all buildings were professionally abated, inside and out. Instead, they provided only inadequate assistance for personal residences, and arbitrarily declared that office buildings were none of their concern. It's an outrage that EPA has been leaving landlords and employers to clean up as much or as little as they want to, without any official oversight.

As a class-action, the lawsuit is filed on behalf of everyone who was exposed to the air as a result of EPA's actions or whose residence or workplace was contaminated. People who believe that they are members of the class do not need to do anything at this time to benefit from the suit if it succeeds.

The lead attorneys for the suit are with the Philadelphia law firm Berger & Montague, which has a long history of successful class-actions involving environmental issues. Other law firms working on the suit are the New York Environmental Law & Justice Project and Shandell, Blitz, Blitz & Bookson, both of Manhattan.

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‘A False Sense of Security’, by Jennifer Barrett, Newsweek Web Exclusive, March 13, 2004

http//msnbc.msn.com/id/4521812/

A new class-action lawsuit accuses the Environmental Protection Agency of encouraging residents to return to the area near the World Trade Center site too soon, putting them at risk of serious health problems

March 13 - Jim Gilroy and his daughter live a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. Like thousands of others, they left their apartment after the September 11 attacks, staying with friends for about three weeks. But when then-Environmental Protection Agency director Christine Whitman and other officials announced that the air was again safe to breathe in their neighborhood, they moved back home. Though Gilroy cleaned up the dust that coated everything in their apartment, he soon began suffering from severe headaches and sinus problems and his daughter developed chronic rashes.

Robert Gulack, a senior attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission, was in his office in the 7 World Trade Center building when terrorists hijacked the two commercial airlines and flew them into the Twin Towers. Gulack got out before his building collapsed. Just over a month later, he returned to the neighborhood to work in the SEC’s new offices in the Woolworth building, a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, after being told it was safe. But two days later, he developed asthma; then he fell ill with bronchitis and pneumonia.

Testing showed abnormally high levels of asbestos in his office building and on the outside walls. By the time he was granted federal compensation last month for "an upper respiratory inflammation due to fumes and vapors" at the building, an X-ray showed he had already developed permanent scars on his lungs.

Now Gilroy and Gulack are serving as plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the EPA, claiming that the agency exposed them and thousands of others to health risks by prematurely announcing that it was safe to return to the buildings located near the World Trade Center site or in the path of the plume of dust that escaped from the rubble. "The EPA absolutely misled and misrepresented the conditions to people and lulled them into a false sense of security. And some of the information that was endorsed by the EPA has been extremely harmful to people," says Sherrie Savett, one of the lawyers who filed the suit. "Part of the relief we asked for is dictated under legal doctrine. We are looking for them to do their job."

The 113-page lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan Federal Court on March 10, alleges that residents, workers and students were allowed to return to the area before proper testing and cleaning had been completed. It also accuses the agency of using inadequate asbestos testing measures, distributing ineffective—and in some cases, harmful—self-cleaning instructions to residents, and failing to provide professional cleaning for contaminated offices and residences. The filing lists 12 plaintiffs, including Gulack, and Gilroy and his daughter, and asks for unspecified damages, reimbursement for cleaning expenses and the establishment of a medical monitoring program for those who were exposed to the contaminated dust to examine both the physical and emotional effects.

The agency would not comment specifically on the lawsuit, but in a statement released Thursday, EPA regional administrator Jane Kenny said, "The suggestion that the EPA has not done everything within its power to protect people’s health in the face of this terrible disaster is preposterous."

The agency released a report last May that concluded that the cleaning methods used in its indoor cleanup program and recommended to residents who cleaned their own places were "extremely effective." Last week, the EPA announced the formation of a panel of experts chaired by EPA science advisor Dr. Paul Gilman, which will review the EPA’s indoor air clean-up efforts and determine any remaining risks to residents and workers in the area. In her statement, Kenny said the panel—"not a lawsu