http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/pfriendly_new.php

"Having this money reinstated will fulfill the promise that we've made to all of these men and women that we're not going to forget them," Clinton said on the Senate floor.

White House and congressional budget hawks, arguing that New York had no plans to use the unspent funds, pulled back the cash in their proposals, launching the New York congressional delegation into high alert to save it.

New York lawmakers contend that thousands of Ground Zero workers are still suffering from lingering physical and mental health problems from their time working on the toxic debris pile and more physical and psychological health symptoms may develop years down the road.

WASHINGTON

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the deal on the Senate floor, offering an amendment with Sen. Charles Schumer to restore the $125 million in unspent workers compensation money.

"This is a righting of an inadvertent wrong," said Clinton, D-N.Y. "We have a number of our colleagues who understand completely the need for these funds to be reinstated."

White House budget officials and House leaders had sought to take back the unspent money under a budget proposed earlier this year, arguing that New York had not spent it in years and apparently had no plans to spend it.

That prompted immediate complaints from New York officials that thousands of ground zero workers are still suffering lingering physical and mental health problems from their time working on the toxic debris pile, and more health problems may develop over time.

The unspent $125 million was part of a $20 billion aid package Congress gave to New York following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Schumer said the restoration of the money erased "the only mark where there has been a waiver in the commitment made to New York."

The restoration of the workers' funding must still clear one final step: negotiations between budget leaders in the Senate and the House, who will forge a compromise bill between versions of the larger spending bill.

But proponents consider its chances to be good. Rep. Vito Fossella, R-Staten Island, crafted a compromise in June that left open the possibility for the Senate to restore the money.

Congress originally gave $175 million to New York state for the expected costs of settling workers compensation claims for those killed or injured at ground zero.

Of that sum, $125 million was earmarked to help pay administrative costs of handling claims from construction and recovery workers.

Michael Haberman, community liaison for L.M.D.C., the agency vested with the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan, was dramatically interrupted as he explained the evenings agenda. Protestors with blue tape covering their mouths wielding yellow signs that blasted "L.M.D.C. wants to silence the Lower Manhattan community" shouted questions and accusations through Habermans introduction.

The Oct. 24 event at the Marriott Financial Center on West St. was intended to serve as an information session about the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank, a building at 130 Liberty St. that was badly damaged and contaminated with debris on Sept. 11.

L.M.D.C. purchased the 40-story structure more than a year ago from Deutsche Bank so it could dismantle it and expand the World Trade Center site. The Environmental Protection Agency approved the corporations deconstruction plan three days before the fourth anniversary of Sept. 11, bringing the protracted approval process to a close. Contractors began erecting scaffolding in September. The floor-by-floor demolition will begin in early 2006.

Critics protested the meeting not for its content so much as its format. In lieu of the traditional "open mic" format where speakers ask their questions publicly, L.M.D.C. opted for an "open table" setup where members of the public individually approach various experts and agencies seated at tables and ask their questions privately. L.M.D.C. would then publicly answer a selection of the questions.

L.M.D.C. first used this format at a 130 Liberty St. presentation last spring and chose to use it again on Monday in the hopes it might draw people who dont attend Community Board 1 meetings on the Deutsche deconstruction.

But critics blasted the arrangement as undemocratic, saying the format would allow the agency to cherry pick questions. Last week, C.B. 1, the events co-sponsor, withdrew its sponsorship in protest. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and New York State Senator Martin Connor sent a joint letter rebuking the agency, calling the format "unacceptable and inappropriate."

"The people who have questions are not going to have a full opportunity to ask them in a proper venue," Linda Rosenthal, an aide to Nadler, told Downtown Express shortly before the meeting.

Many local residents worry the current deconstruction plan does not include an adequate community action plan if an emergency were to occur at the site. Several residential buildings lie within 100 feet of the shrouded tower. Others worry about the possibility of recontamination to the neighborhood and workers should some of the toxins escape the structure.

Monday nights outburst is the latest example of escalating friction between the development corporation and the community board. C.B. 1 members hammered Haberman at a recent board meeting about the demise of the International Freedom Center, a museum planned for the new World Trade Center. The following night, the board passed two resolutions scolding L.M.D.C. for the slow pace of the redevelopment and the lack of public input in the process.

"This is a broader issue of a lack of community input. We, as a community, cannot sit idly by and let our voices not be heard," C.B. 1 chairperson Julie Menin said in a telephone interview. "It goes to the selection of the cultural institutions, it goes to the issue of retail. The community must have a voice at the table."

Evidence of tension between the agency and the board began this summer, after Menin was elected C.B. 1 chairperson in June. She filled a vacancy left by Madelyn Wils, who sits on the L.M.D.C. board.

Monday nights debacle points to a larger question haunting L.M.D.C.: What, exactly, is going on in there?

Governor George Pataki removed the International Freedom Center last month before L.M.D.C. or the public could weigh in on the museums content. Patakis decision a response to calls from some victims family members to limit cultural activities in the memorial quadrant evoked the resignation of L.M.D.C. board member Roland Betts.

Betts, one of the original and most influential members of L.M.D.C. board and a close friend of President George W. Bush, quietly handed in his resignation letter last week. At his final L.M.D.C. board meeting, Betts told fellow board members, "Theres no question that L.M.D.C. has been deeply wounded here," according to the New York Times.

L.M.D.C. has been hemorrhaging employees since president Kevin Rampe resigned last May. The new L.M.D.C. president, Stefan Pryor, wields far less power than Rampe because on the day Pryor was promoted, Pataki appointed his right hand man, John Cahill, as Downtown redevelopment czar, a position that reports directly to the governor.

Since the spring, many of the key staffers surrounding the 130 Liberty St. deconstruction have bowed out, including Amy Peterson, who directed the deconstruction plans, L.M.D.C. spokesperson Joanna Rose, who took a post as Patakis spokesperson and Kate Millea, who developed the controversial community action plan.

At Monday nights meeting, L.M.D.C. president Pryor was nowhere to be seen, leaving Haberman and two L.M.D.C. press officers to steer the meeting, which quickly devolved into near mutiny.

"We didnt necessarily anticipate it being a heated meeting," L.M.D.C. spokesperson John Gallagher told Downtown Express the following day. "We thought this was really going to be an open house where people get information in a different setting."

L.M.D.C. might not have "anticipated" the outcome, but it was aware of the criticism. Pryor "blew a gasket" when he received the critical letter from U.S. Rep. Nadler and Senator Conner, according to one source close to the conflict. Menin told Downtown Express Pryor was also angry when she told him C.B. 1 was withdrawing its support.

During the 45-minute table session, L.M.D.C. officials nervously milled about the Marriott lobby, whispering amongst themselves. City and construction officials staffing the tables stood idly by while the majority of audience members sat inside, refusing to participate in the table session and making impromptu speeches of their own at the abandoned podium.

"You might be shocked to know that the questions at the table were fewer than we expected," a beleaguered and sarcastic Haberman told the audience at the end of the boycotted table session.

With that, L.M.D.C. acquiesced, opening the floor up to the public.

Although Pat Evangelista, W.T.C. coordinator for E.P.A., refused to answer questions directed toward him, government and construction officials answered most questions. Evangelista told Downtown Express after the meeting that he declined to answer questions because of the protest.

Many of the questions circled around E.P.A.s September approval of L.M.D.C.s deconstruction plan. Last summer, E.P.A. responded to L.M.D.C.s revised planthe original plan was summarily rejected by E.P.A. last Januarywith extensive written comments. By September, the agency had approved the plan, with no public paper trail in sight.

Critics wonder if the sudden Sept. 11-anniversary approval was more than a coincidence, a theory Evangelista did not reject. The two agencies decided to hammer out an agreement through a series of meetings over the summer, Evangelista told Downtown Express. "It was a result of a lot of frustration related to all of those involved in that process," he said. "We decided that it was important to get down to business."

In the end, the questions the public asked of L.M.D.C. differed little from those asked at most 130 Liberty St. presentations. The remaining audience members nearly half of the audience left early on in the evening asked questions about evacuation plans, environmental safety and dissemination of information. The meeting was ultimately "productive," L.M.D.C.s Gallagher told Downtown Express.

REPORTER: So far the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site can be summed up by a regular NYC rant--it's always something. This week an impatient Mayor Bloomberg challenged the parties involved to get moving. His vision for the site--a mixed use concept which adds housing to the commercial plans in place. He didn't shy away from naming names-- including developer Larry Silverstein.

BLOOMBERG: The more people down there the easier it would be for Larry Silverstein. I hope that Larry Silverstein rents his building and makes a lot of money. That is in eveybody's interest here. I just want to make sure that we are developing those properties on the eastern side of the site right now when we need them and we are not restricted to just commercial space.

REPORTER: The Mayor specifically went through all the different World Trade building addresses posing potential uses for each.

BLOOMBERG: You can have have mixed use. Five for example I think will wind up being residential. Five is the existing Deutsche bank site.

REPORTER: But before anything can go up at that site a 42 story contaminated office building has to come down in one of the most complicated deconstruction projects in history. The toxic building contains asbestos, metals and other hazerdous materials. The Lower Manhattan Developmnt Corporation paid over $90 million for the building after it was made unusable when the Twin Towers collapsed.

At last night's LMDC's public briefing session on the deconstruction, there was not an empty seat to be had. LMDC Vice President Michael Haberman, Vice President for Community Development set the ground rules for public participation but quickly lost control of the room as the audience made up mostly of neighborhood residents errupted.

CROWD: You'll have the opportunity to ask all the questions you want to ask at the tables! Why are you censoring the victims! Why do you get to pick the questions we ask!

REPORTER: Dozens of activists removed blue painters tape they had put over their mouths to protest the way the LMDC has set up the public participation.

Robert Gullack a shop steward for some of the federal workers who work downtown was one of the more forceful.

GULLACK: Why is it your job to the ask the people who live here how and when they can answer their questions.

REPORTER: Local residents are concerned that not enough care being taken with the site's environmental remediation. They are demanding that the EPA be the lead agency. And they're angry that one of the firms on the job, Safeway Environmental is currently under criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The firm was also sited by the City for violations related to a Supermarket wall collapse in Manhattan this summer. Safeway did not return calls for comment.

Julie Menin, chairperson of Community Board Number one says despite EPA's history downtown they remain the most qualified agency to run the show.

MENIN: We have had a very diffcult road with EPA. They have had a very poor track record in our community with not being forth coming. And with this type of building that is the most contaminated building in the city it is vitally important that we make sure that EPA have responsibility and also that we make sure LMDC listens to the community and listens to their concerns.

Officials at the meeting, including representatives from Bovis Lend Lease, the contractor for the project, discussed details of the three stages of deconstruction, the environmental precautions in place, and emergency action plans. Prior to the deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street, which the LMDC acquired in August 2004, a detailed deconstruction plan was approved by city, state, and federal agencies to ensure safe and effective abatement, removal, and disposal of contaminants.

The plan incorporates results and recommendations from the "Initial Building Characterization Study Report" that was released for public comment in September 2004. Based on feedback from regulators and the public, the plan was updated in June 2005 and approved on September 8, 2005.

Preparatory work on the project began this fall to put up scaffolding and three elevator hoists around the exterior, construct interior hoist vestibules, erect sidewalk sheds and perimeter fencing, and construct exterior negative-pressure tent enclosures. The existing netting around the building will be removed and new netting installed once the building is wiped down. This preparatory phase will last until the end of 2005.

In the meantime, Phase I of the project, which includes environmental cleaning and removal of all interior surfaces and non-structural elements in the building, will also get underway, beginning on the lower floors in mid-November. This phase is expected to continue through the end of 2006.

In March, Phase II, the actual floor-by-floor deconstruction, will commence. The anticipated completion date for this work is spring 2007. It will include removing the exterior curtain wall, roof, concrete deck, mechanical equipment components, and structural steel components. A buffer zone and an abatement zone will be established beneath each floor as it is deconstructed, and all materials removed from the building will be bagged, rinsed, and bagged a second time. The double-bagged materials will be stored in a sealed-off room until being sent off in sealed trucks using approved truck routes. Most of the hauling will take place on the west side of Ground Zero.

Responding to the public's concern about the release of contaminants as the building is broken down, officials at the meeting emphasized the importance of ensuring that the deconstruction is done in a safe manner to protect the health of the people who live and work in the community. One component of the safety measures being taken is daily air monitoring to check for such materials as asbestos, dioxins, and metals. Currently, the program includes hourly air sampling seven days a week at 12 locations -- four on the ground, four on the building, and four on surrounding buildings. Results from the monitoring can be found on the LMDC website. If there are any concerns with the recorded levels, the regulatory agencies and the LMDC will take the appropriate actions.

Safety drills for the workers will take place monthly, and updates on the progress of the deconstruction will be available on the LMDC website. In case of an emergency, the Contractor Emergency Coordinator will contact 911. Concerned community members can call a hotline at (212) 587-9337 during business hours or (347) 234-4418 after hours.

Once cleared, the site will allow for the creation of a fifth office tower as part of the master plan for the WTC site and the addition of approximately 30,000 square feet of open space. It will also provide room for ramps that will allow vehicle security and bus parking to be located below ground and away from the area dedicated to the memorial. Gov. George Pataki also has announced that St. Nicholas Hellenic Orthodox Church will be rebuilt on the site of 130 Liberty Street. The church, formerly located on Liberty Street between Washington and West Streets, was destroyed on September 11.

Members of the community were upset that Lower Manhattan Development Corporation officials would not hold a public question and answer session about the demolition project. Some of the neighbors fear contaminants will be released when the building is torn down.

"The community needs to be given an opportunity to continue to ask questions and hard questions about this very difficult subject," said Julie Menin of Community Board 1.

"Following a total decontamination, a responsible program for deconstruction is then undertaken, answering the public questions of the entire community," said protester Robert Gulack.

Bravest Fume at FDNY: 30 to File Suit over 9/11 Pension Woes, by John Marzulli, Daily News, October 25, 2005

A group of 30 active and retired firefighters are now preparing a class-action lawsuit to force the Fire Department to make up its mind - restore them to active duty or let them retire on disability.

The firefighters were designated for light duty by FDNY doctors who found them disabled by asthma or other lung-related problems. But in late 2003, the medical board of the pension fund changed the standard for lung disability, according to the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

"The rules changed after the Fire Department realized how many firefighters were affected by 9/11," said lawyer Jeffrey Goldberg of Lake Success, L.I., who is preparing the lawsuit.

"There's no logic to keep them on the payroll. I think there's a political agenda to protect the pension fund."

Prior to the change, firefighters who flunked a breathing test - called the Methacholine challenge - were generally granted a tax-free disability pension by the trustees on the pension board. Now they're being sent out by the medical board for a pulmonary function test that the union charges doesn't check for the "reactive airway condition" that afflicts many of these firefighters.

"These firefighters are stuck in career limbo and need resolution," said UFA vice president James Slevin. "They have been found to be disabled by Fire Department doctors and would like to go on with their lives if they cannot go back to firefighting duty."

Fire Lt. Brendan Whalen retired from Engine 35 in Harlem in July after pushing pencils in an office for nearly two years so that he could qualify for a less lucrative 20-year service retirement. He balked at going off his meds in order to take another pulmonary function test.

"They want me to go in distress and see the fluid build up in my lungs," said Whalen, 42, who was outside the North Tower when it fell. "Do you take a diabetic off insulin to see if they're still diabetic? I sat and cried in that doctor's office because I saw my career go out the window."

The original plan for this meeting, developed several weeks ago, grew out of a desire to provide information to the general public once the Deconstruction Plan had been approved by the various government regulators. (The plan was approved on September 8th.) We expected that some attendees would want to ask very brief questions, while others might want to ask detailed, intricate questions. Similarly, some individuals might have questions for the construction supervisors, perhaps about work hours, while others might have questions about environmental issues. Therefore, we will set up tables that will be staffed by experts where people can ask the questions of interest to them. This table format will provide people, at all levels of interest, the best opportunity to ask their questions and have them answered in a timely manner.

In the last few days, some questions about the format of the session have been raised. We would like to be responsive to those concerns, while at the same time continuing to provide an open table forum for those who will find that format more comfortable and useful. This amended format will maintain the use of tables, enabling those who want to ask a brief question and leave the opportunity to do so. But now, as an addition, questions asked at the tables will be noted and we will reconvene for a group discussion regarding frequently asked questions. At that point, frequently asked questions will be presented to our experts and answered for everyone’s benefit.

We believe this amended format will be even more productive for all of those interested in the project. Of course, we will continue to update the CB 1 WTC Redevelopment Committee on a regular basis, participating in CB1’s traditional public meeting format. Thank you for your ongoing interest and participation in the public process regarding 130 Liberty St.

Almost entirely unnoticed by anyone who is not personally active in the effort to remove 9/11 contamination from Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas, the EPA and New York State government stopped cooperating with the community and elected officials in August.

The EPA shifted course shortly after a July 12 meeting of its Expert Technical Review Panel, which has been working with EPA to develop a testing and cleanup plan over the last two years. EPA had been forced to create the panel to review unmet public health needs in Lower Manhattan by Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, after it was revealed that the agency had intentionally misled the public about the hazardousness of the air after 9/11.

At the panels July meeting, panel members Jeanne Stellman, Professor of Clinical Public Health at the Columbia University School of Public Health and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety, and David Prezant, Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the New York City Fire Department, put a proposal on the table to try and break the impasse that had been reached between EPA and the community. In doing so, they demonstrated conclusively that the sampling methodology proposed by EPA scientists was based on a completely inappropriate model.

At that point, the 2-year effort to develop a scientifically valid and effective sampling and cleanup plan stalled. The panel usually meets monthly, but in the three months since the presentation by Stellman and Prezent, EPA has not convened or scheduled a meeting, with the result that there is no public forum where the WTC Community-Labor Coalition and others can exchange views with EPA. Senator Clintons office continues to try to engage EPA on this crucial issue.

A CLOAK OF SECRECY

At about the same time that EPA gave up cooperating with the community and elected officials over plans for a cleanup, the EPA and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) drew a cloak of secrecy over the planning for demolishing 130 Liberty Street, a 40-story office building across the street from the World Trade Center site.

"It is completely unacceptable for EPA and LMDC to conduct business about both the sampling plan and the demolition plan behind closed doors," said U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), whose district includes Lower Manhattan.

"The best interests of the residents and workers of the area must be considered the highest priority, Nadler told NYCOSH, and those groups have shown a great deal of knowledge and expertise in 9/11 contamination issues. By making deals and plans in secret without their involvement, however, the agencies demonstrate their greater commitment to expediency than to an open public process and the input of those who are most severely impacted by these plans."

LMDC is a state government entity that owns 130 Liberty, which was heavily damaged on 9/11 and contaminated so badly that it could not be re-occupied. Many of the hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in the vicinity of 130 Liberty (which is less than a quarter mile from the New York Stock Exchange and the center of New Yorks skyscraper-filled financial district) are concerned that the toxic contents of 130 Liberty could be released into the air during the demolition, exposing the area once more to some of the same contaminants that were contained in the caustic, carcinogenic cloud that blanketed the area for weeks after 9/11.

When LMDC first proposed to demolish 130 Liberty, it made public a detailed plan about how the demolition would take place and how to prevent the release of toxic materials. That plan was so incomplete and ill-conceived that it was immediately rejected by members of the effected community and outside experts, who explained in detail what was wrong with the plan.

LMDC submitted the plan to EPA and to the New York State Department of Labor for approval. Instead of approving the plan, the two agencies wrote to LMDC that the plan was completely unacceptable, and would need to be redone from scratch. The agencies included a detailed criticism, which made many of the same points that the community had made. The EPA and DOL letters to LMDC were made public on the same day they were delivered to LMDC.

Following that exchange, LMDC and EPA/DOL engaged in a series of public exchanges of plans and criticisms. Each revised plan was made public when submitted, and each official critique was made public on the day it was delivered. As a result, the community and outside experts could examine and publically criticize each revision and note how many of their criticisms were shared by EPA/DOL.

It was a sensible way to proceed, and it had a very good effect, said Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist with NYCOSH and one of the leaders of the WTC Community-Labor Coalition. The plan was very poorly conceived in the beginning, and each time it was revised in response to criticisms it got better, until now many aspects of the plan are close to what we called for.

But in August, LMDC and EPA apparently agreed that they would no longer make their plans and criticisms public. To the community's great surprise, on September 10 EPA approved an LMDC plan that had never been made public, after having given LMDC secret criticisms of an earlier revision.

THE MISSING NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

"Its easy to see why LMDC and EPA were dealing in secret," said Kimberly Flynn, co-coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action. "While some aspects of the approved plan are excellent, this plan is by no means complete. And some of the aspects, including those EPA previously told LMDC to correct, remain dangerous and completely unacceptable. Nonetheless, EPA appears to have just caved in and signed off."

Flynn continued, "for instance, EPA has told LMDC that it must have a workable system of alerting people who live near 130 Liberty in the event of an emergency, so they can take action to protect themselves, depending on what the danger is. The first element of the LMDC community notification plan that EPA approved is a 'mass notification system' that would alert everyone to a hazardous situation.

But LMDC has not followed through and put a proper mass notification system in place. The demolition has now been going on for three weeks, there is no mass notification system, and EPA isn't doing anything about it. If something goes badly wrong, the neighborhood could be contaminated before anyone had any idea what was happening."

In a letter sent on October 6, 2005, to every member of Congress, the group which includes the nations top experts in the fields of occupational and environmental medicine and industrial hygiene -- warned that "thousands of disaster responders, workers and volunteers in the Gulf Coast areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita remain inadequately protected against exposure to environmental health hazards."

The letter to Congress was signed by more than 120 organizations and 150 leaders in the fields of occupational, environmental and public health. The letter and signatures were coordinated by NYCOSH and the Western New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (WNYCOSH) on behalf of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

The letter outlined the urgent need for action to protect the cleanup workers, many of whom are vulnerable because of extreme poverty or their immigration status. "We're seeing who gets hurt when you ignore safety and health protections," said Juan Alvarez, Director, Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights in Houston. "Contractors are hiring immigrant workers right here in Houston and taking them to New Orleans to do cleanup. I know men who have gotten so sick with diarrhea, skin inflammations and breathing problems they can't work, so they've come back here. The contractors just hire more. Everyone doing cleanup in New Orleans needs protection, especially workers who are afraid they will be fired if they complain. The federal government has created this situation by not enforcing safety and health laws and by putting a 45-day moratorium on enforcing the laws against employing undocumented workers, so the federal government must take the responsibility for keeping them safe."

Three weeks after floodwaters filled New Orleans, televised images of recovery workers there and elsewhere on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast showed them working with no equipment to protect them from the heavily contaminated water and mud or the air that contained any of the volatile substances in the water.

"Of course, we couldn't tell exactly what was in the water or the air, but we knew that very large quantities of toxic substances had been spilled, and no one in New Orleans was doing enough testing to say how much of what was in the water and the air," said Roger Cook, Executive Director of Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health (WNYCOSH). "We were very concerned because we had heard that some cleanup workers were developing terrible rashes and coughs, so it seemed reasonable that they needed protection, but no one was doing anything about it."

Occupational safety and health advocates have been particularly alert to the potential hazards for workers responding to a catastrophe as a result of the experience in New York City after 9/11, when government officials allowed tens of thousands of workers and residents to be exposed to dangerous levels of toxic materials, with the result that at least 7,000 people have respiratory inflammations that have resisted treatment.

"This is an issue that is clearly understood by a very wide spectrum of people and organizations, from national religious organizations and labor unions to organizations that advocate for health, for immigrants, and for the environment, including half a dozen labor and environmental organizations located in the Gulf Coast." Shufro said.

"While the Bush Administration is using the catastrophe to roll back worker rights and environmental protections, it is clear that there is a broad-based coalition of unions, public health, environmental, and community-based organizations and individuals who are willing to stand up and demand that worker and community health is a priority and must not be compromised," Shufro continued.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/politics/16homeland.html

 WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 - At the Department of Homeland Security, the main government agency responsible for protecting the country against terrorism and responding to natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, only 12 percent of the more than 10,000 employees who returned a government questionnaire said they felt strongly that they were "encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things."

Only 3 percent said they were confident that in their department, personnel decisions were "based on merit." Fewer than 18 percent said they felt strongly that they were "held accountable for achieving results." And just 4 percent said they were sure that "creativity and innovation are rewarded."

In each of these instances and many others, the responses of the Homeland Security employees were less favorable than those of all the other departments and large agencies surveyed by the federal Office of Personnel Management, according to a new study by an outside research organization.

Experts in human resources said the morale problems indicated in the survey should be of serious concern to the top officials at the department.

"It shows there is something fundamentally wrong at the organization," said Peter Cappelli, professor of management and director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

"If you were on the board of directors of a company and you got results like this," Professor Cappelli said, "you would lean on the managers to fix the problem or get rid of them."

The department was created by law in 2002 and was not fully in operation until late 2003. It brought together workers from established agencies with widely varying histories, missions and cultures, including the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Customs Service and the Transportation Security Administration.

Asked about the survey, Russ Knocke, the press secretary for the department, said the morale problems occurred because "the Department of Homeland Security was a merger of 22 agencies, a start-up all at once, and a number of the agencies experienced some growing pains the first couple of years."

"This is a unique circumstance," Mr. Knocke said. "This is not like a business in the private sector or even other departments in the federal government. It's a unique department with a great sense of urgency for fulfilling its responsibility."

The survey was taken by the Office of Personnel Management between August and December 2004. Forms with 88 multiple-choice questions about workers' attitudes toward their jobs were sent to 276,424 federal employees selected at random, and 147,914, including 10,473 from the Department of Homeland Security, returned completed questionnaires. The department employs 180,000 workers.

The purpose of the survey, the personnel office said, was to allow managers to measure "employees' perceptions of whether, and to what extent, conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in their agencies."

In June, the personnel office posted agency-by-agency answers to 78 of the questions, at www.fhcs2004.opm.gov/published.htm.

This month, Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research institute, published the first comparison of how employee attitudes in various agencies compared with one another on all those questions.

Of 30 cabinet departments and large independent agencies, the employees at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation had the highest morale, Mr. Lilly found.

The morale at the Department of Homeland Security was far worse than that at the agency where the survey showed morale to be next lowest, the Small Business Administration.

In terms of positive answers, by Mr. Lilly's calculations, the department ranked dead last on half the questions.

The department finished in the top half of the 30 departments and agencies on only one question. More than 56 percent strongly agreed with the statement "The work I do is important." That placed Homeland Security employees second only to those at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

On the other hand, in answer to the question "How would you rate the overall quality of work done by your workgroup?" only 22 percent of Homeland Security employees answered "very good."

Only 20 percent strongly agreed that "My work gives me a sense of personal accomplishment."

Only 27 percent strongly agreed that "people I work with cooperate to get their job done," and 13 percent strongly agreed that "my job makes good use of my skills and abilities."

In each of these instances, the department's employees were less positive about their jobs than were workers at any other department or agency in the study.

Mr. Knoke, the Homeland Security spokesman, pointed to the long hours and weekends put in and the dangerous situations faced by many workers in his department, and said, "I really don't think our employees come to work every day and make the sacrifices they make in their personal lives because they're looking for the kind of workplace environment that is necessarily going to be the easiest or the simplest."

But Professor Cappelli of the Wharton School said a poor work environment "rarely drives morale into the floor like this." What usually causes bad morale, he said, are "questions about the overall mission of the organization."

Indeed, fewer than one-quarter of the Homeland Security employees said they knew for sure "how my work relates to the agency's goals and priorities."

Samuel B. Bacharach, a professor at Cornell and the director of the Institute of Workplace Studies there, said that what should be most worrisome to top officials about the employees' attitudes at the Department of Homeland Security was the sense that creativity and initiative were not rewarded.

If these questions were asked of employees at a private company, said Carl E. Van Horn, a professor at Rutgers and director of the university's John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, the executives "would be happy with 85 percent" positive responses.

MONTCLAIR, N.J. (AP) - The dust and debris that billowed into the air when the World Trade Center towers collapsed after the 9/11 terror attacks has had long-reaching detrimental health effects, most notably on firefighters, experts said.

At a conference Thursday at Montclair State University, health experts discussed the effects of air quality after 9/11, specifically on firefighters working in the area and children born to pregnant women living nearby.

Firefighters have had serious, long-term respiratory problems from the particles of pulverized concrete or glass they inhaled, according to Dr. David Prezant, who has been leading a program to study the health effects of 9/11 on New York City firefighters.

"This isn't just 'Oh, I have a cough,'" said Prezant. Prezant said the study of approximately 14,000 firefighters and emergency medical personnel is looking at "who was ill and who continues to be ill."

Prezant's work and the other studies discussed - most of which have already been published - focused on the immediate days and weeks after the buildings' collapse when fine particles of dust and debris were thick in the air.

The researchers said the biggest area of concern was the effects of inhaling or ingesting the particulate matter as opposed to having it touch the skin.

According to Prezant, the firefighters are a good group to study because so many were affected and because they had pre-9/11 health data with which to compare.

According to the researchers, the rescuers often only had basic face masks, which didn't keep out most of the dust particles. This was partly because the firefighters quickly went through the air in their breathing tanks, designed for short trips into burning buildings. The rescuers also needed to be able to communicate in the dangerous situation, often impossible while wearing a bigger mask.

Prezant said the result has been a dramatic increase in the number of firefighters receiving respiratory disability after 9/11, a classification he said is extremely difficult to get.

According to Prezant, the department would average less than 30 people per year out on respiratory disability before 9/11. After Sept. 11, at least 450 people have met the classification.

Prezant said it's too early to tell whether the bad air quality and respiratory problems might lead to increased instances of malignancies or growths.

Another researcher, Dr. Sally Ann Lederman from Columbia University, studied pregnant women living within two miles of the World Trade Center in the four weeks immediately following the 9/11 attacks.

There were about 300 women in the group, many in their first or second trimester. Lederman found that the babies tended to be lighter and shorter than other babies.

While Lederman said lower birth weight can sometimes translate into health problems, it's impossible to know whether those post-9/11 children would be more likely to have lower IQ's or development problems - questions she often receives from mothers who gave birth after the terrorist attacks.

"They look like perfectly normal children," said Lederman about the babies in the study.

According to the experts, people in New Jersey would not necessarily be affected by the air quality following 9/11 unless they were rescue workers on or near the "pile," as the remains of the World Trade Center are often called.

The experts said one of the problems with measuring the air quality effects after 9/11 is that most of the testing mechanisms are designed to test air quality over a long period of time and not from a catastrophic event like the towers' collapse.

The experts also said while gases like fumes from the burning jet fuel may have affected health, there was no way to measure it.