September 2002 Articles (Back to Relevant Articles by Month)
Click Here For Bird's Eye Pictures of the Plume
City
Struggles to Contend with Widespread WTC Cough,
FEMA Extends
Air Filter Program,
Best Analysis Of WTC Collapse May Never Be Made Public, NY1, 9/30/2
Vast
Detail on Towers Collapse May Be Sealed,
After
Demolition of Diner, Owner Vows Hell Return,
You Should
Have Seen the Air in 53,
Seen
as Safety Net, 9/11 Program Is Anything But,
Pataki
Orders Strict Controls on Pollution in Rebuilding,
Episcopal
Charities Helps Downtown Intern With Medical Bills,
A Green Ground Zero,
Agencies
Say Crisis Plan at A-Plant Is Adequate,
NY1 For You: Engineer Injured In WTC Attacks Still Needs Help With Surgery Costs, NY1, Susan Jhun, 9/25/2
NY1
For You: Fortune Small Business: Struggling Businesses Face Taxes On 9/11 Aid,
Downtowners
request more time for aid,
EPA
Says Toxins Near WTC Low, But Emissions Persist: EPA,
Feds taxing WTC grants,
FBI scorned terror
tips,
Few
of Those Eligible Register for Cleanup Help Near 9/11 Site,
New vision downtown, by Greg Gittrich, NY Daily News, Tuesday, September 24th, 2002
City grants chief now a disaster-aid broker, By Greg Gittrich, NY Daily News, Tuesday, September 24th, 2002
Feds stiff city on 9/11 loans, By Douglas Feiden, NY Daily News, September 21st, 2002
(Better treatment in CT) -- Asbestos costs to rise by $100,000, High school must replace auditorium upholstery, carpeting, By Heather Barr , The News-Times, 9/20/2
Stop the Presses - Just Asking... by Eric Alterman, The Nation, 9/19/2
9/11 Contractors Near Agreement on Insurance, by Steven Greenhouse, NY Times, 9/21/2
Respiratory Ills Plague Ground Zero Workers, Many Who Breathed Fumes Face Disability, Grim Recovery Rates, By Christine Haughney, Washington Post, 9/16/2
GEORGIA-PACIFIC'S ASBESTOS NIGHTMARE: ASBESTOS DISASTER: An asbestos backgrounder, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sunday, 9/ 15/2
GEORGIA-PACIFIC'S ASBESTOS NIGHTMARE: PART I, 'Miracle mineral' exacts painful, long-term price, By Patti Bond, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer, 9/15/2
9/11 environmental impact unresolved, Health risks from asbestos, other released contaminants near site still being assessed, By Dina Cappiello, TimesUnion.com, 9/11/2
9/11/01 - 02: An Unprecedented Attack On New York's Environment, by Eric Goldstein, GothamGazette.com, 9/11/2
9/11 Dust Sickens New York Firefighters, Residents, Environment News Services, 9/10/2
Red Cross Offers To Help Residents Clean Up Their Apartments, NY1 For You, Susan Jhun, 9/9/2
Chinatown asthma survey by local group shows high rate, By Mary Reinholz; Downtown Express, (Corky Lee-photo), 9/4/2
A Toxic Legacy Lingers as Cleanup Efforts Fall Short,
City
Struggles to Contend with Widespread WTC Cough, By Laurie Garrett, NY
Newsday, 9/30/2
First of two stories
Physicians in the city have made it clear: The malady now officially called World Trade
Center cough is like nothing they've ever seen, and hundreds - perhaps thousands - of
people are experiencing it.
The extent of this lung disease is not known, and for a combination of bureaucratic
reasons, the extent of the human health impact may be understated. Moreover, cleanup
efforts may be inappropriately focused on a single element of the debris: asbestos.
The ailment, as described recently by Dr. Kerry Kelly, the New York Fire Department's
chief medical officer, is characterized by a reduced lung capacity and a hyper-reactivity
of the airways to inhaled particles, bacteria and viruses. The cough is dry and
nonproductive and can leave the sufferer gasping for air.
As physicians sought to pin down the ailment's causes, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency was monitoring Ground Zero and lower Manhattan for chemicals and substances that
violate the Clean Air Act. It has become clear, though, that the cough's causes have
little if anything to do with those substances. Rather, the culprit appears to be
microscopic bits of glass.
Satellite images shot by NASA throughout Sept. 11, 2001, depict the plume of dust, toxins
and debris drifting directly from Ground Zero southeastward, blanketing a portion of
Brooklyn. Hospitals there have reported increases in respiratory complaints.
In Brooklyn Heights, Dr. Tucker Woods was running the emergency room of Long Island
College Hospital on Sept. 11 when, he recalls, the staff handled a "huge influx"
of respiratory cases. "And I personally this year have seen a real increase in asthma
complaints and chronic bronchitis," Woods said. "It's World Trade Center cough;
absolutely new cases. And it's also a worsening of old, chronic respiratory cases."
Even mild forms of the cough can severely aggravate existing conditions. Anne, 33, a
Broadway actress who asked that her last name not be used for fear of endangering her
roles in musical theater, was home in Park Slope on Sept. 11. Three years ago, she was
diagnosed with a mild case of asthma, which, she said, had been controlled with the
aerosol medication albuterol.
On the morning after the terrorist attack, she awoke "feeling my chest was tight,
sort of heavy. So I stood up to cross the room and get my albuterol, and I passed
out." She hobbled to her neighborhood emergency room for treatment to clear her air
passages.
In November, she found herself gasping for air when she contracted the flu. At New York
Methodist Hospital, the otherwise healthy actress required several hours' treatment to
restore normal breathing.
In its more extreme form, WTC cough has debilitated otherwise healthy men and women,
according to physicians who have treated them.
Like sea anemones that ball up when touched, the airways of these patients recoil from
microscopic foreign objects and constrict. It is possible, Kelly and other physicians
said, that these people are permanently injured and will suffer more respiratory problems.
At the Sept. 9 New York Academy of Medicine conference, where authorities confirmed the
cough's existence, Mount Sinai School of Medicine occupational health specialist Dr.
Steven Levin said he has treated more than 1,000 people who worked in the Ground Zero area
last fall. "It is our impression that many have developed inflammatory responses, and
that not so many are really fully well," Levin said. "I have very few patients
who in fact have returned to pre-9/11 levels of lung function."
Levin's clinic has identified sinusitis, laryngitis and new-onset asthma in the workers,
in addition to the extreme World Trade Center cough.
"What you have downwind [in southeastern Manhattan and Brooklyn] are people with
variable susceptibility. And we can't predict who the susceptibles will be," Levin
said in an interview. It is predictable, he argued, that vulnerable people - workers,
residents and commuters - who inhaled Ground Zero air last fall will suffer health
problems.
The New York City Department of Health has found little in its air and home sampling to
explain the syndrome, Assistant Commissioner of Health Dr. Jessica Leighton said. Only 1
percent of sample sites in lower Manhattan were "above EPA standards" for
asbestos or other legally controlled air pollutants.
Indeed, EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow said even in the hours after the Twin Towers
collapsed, New York City air "did not exceed national air-quality standards." On
only one late September day did the city's air appear unhealthy, according to the EPA's
legal criteria.
"That's not at all to suggest there wasn't a huge amount of dust," added Mary
Mears, another EPA spokeswoman.
That may be the point, according to scientists: The chemicals or asbestos for which air is
tested may not be to blame.
Environmental health expert Lung Chi Chen of the New York University School of Medicine
is a member of a team analyzing dust, debris and air samples collected last fall. Chen
agrees with the EPA that there was very little asbestos in the debris; indeed, the city
Department of Health stopped asbestos installation in the very earliest stages of trade
center construction. However, the clouds contained microscopic shards of glass, much of it
coated with contaminants such as soot, bacteria, mold and human cells. Additionally,
pulverized concrete was highly alkaline or rife with metallic elements.
Normally, the human lung tends to be an acidic environment, with a pH of around 5 to 7.
The debris on Sept. 11 had a pH ranging from 9.2 to 11.5. Even a hyperventilating
individual suffering from severe anxiety, the normal cause of alkalosis of the lung,
rarely runs a pH of higher than 7.7.
The human lung has a mechanism called the "mucous escalator," in which
irritating particles trigger a response called complement, which releases large amounts of
mucous. The mucous surrounds the troubling particles, which are then coughed up. In
response to extreme pH, coupled with glass and other irritants, airways constrict and the
mucous that usually encases toxins and allows them to be expelled isn't effective. A dry,
nonproductive cough is the result.
Dr. Sonia Buist of Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Ore., has studied the
impact of the 1981 eruption of Mount St. Helens on the lungs of Oregon loggers who worked
seasonally in the area in the next five years. The ash they inhaled, like the World Trade
Center debris, was high in ground glass. They experienced lung irritation, and symptoms
varied according to the content of the ash breathed, Buist said. Most were restored to
full health because the particles were cleared from their lungs.
The Mount St. Helens analogy has its limitations, however. Volcanos produce very acidic,
not alkaline, material. Further, Buist found that glass fibers coated with contaminants,
as in World Trade Center debris, were harder to clear from the lungs.
Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld of the Columbia University Health Sciences Division said he believes
the WTC debris was "frankly corrosive" and may have damaged human lung cells in
a more direct fashion. He noted that a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
study of city firefighters found that most WTC cough victims also suffered
gastrointestinal tract irritation, the result of swallowing airborne debris. That finding,
he argued, is a sign of corrosive damage to the gastrointestinal tract.
All of this puts health officials in a tough position. Within days of Sept. 11, EPA
Director Christie Whitman said the city's air was safe - a position a spokesman later
clarified to mean that the air did not contain dangerous levels of asbestos or other
normally tested toxins. The EPA has maintained that position, and all testing and cleanup
operations have focused on a small part of Manhattan, below Canal Street, and a short list
of substances, chiefly asbestos.
If testing this fall in lower Manhattan shows "there is anything to indicate we
should go outside that area," Bellow said, then residents from other parts of the
city who place their names on an EPA list before Oct. 3 may be notified. Residents outside
that zone can call 877-796-5471.
So far, no residents above Canal Street or in Brooklyn have been ruled eligible for such
federal services as apartment cleaning as a result of residential or occupational
exposure, Columbia's Wilkenfeld said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), who has criticized the EPA's response to air-quality
concerns, said the agency's focus on lower Manhattan is "entirely, completely
arbitrary. There's no scientific basis to it."
Nadler said starting last fall, he asked the EPA to expand its testing so the area of
focus could be based on scientific criteria.
"In January, I said, 'Get a satellite photo. See where the plume went.' And the EPA
said, 'There are no satellite photos,'" Nadler said in an interview. "And when I
saw the NASA photos in Newsday [Aug. 23], I was livid, because I was lied to."
"That is not true," the EPA's Bellow said. "He was not told that. We would
have no reason to tell the congressman that they didn't exist when they did."
TOMORROW, in Health & Discovery:
The Scope of WTC Respiratory Ailments
FEMA Extends Air Filter Program, by Grahan Rayman, NY Newsday, 9/30/2
The FEMA program that reimburses for air
filters, purifiers, vacuums and air conditioners purchased by those affected by the World
Trade Center attack was scheduled to end today but has been extended to the end of
January.
While the city's 3.2 million households are eligible to seek reimbursements for $1,600 in
such expenses, just 1,744 air conditioners, 2,821 air purifiers, 1,680 vacuum cleaners and
2,128 air filters have been purchased through the program, the largest portion in
Manhattan, officials said.
Facing a backlog of more than 35,000 pending applications, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency program was extended at the recommendation of the state, which covers
one-quarter of the cost, officials said.
It began as a response to concerns about dust contamination in homes and businesses as a
result of the collapse of the Twin Towers.
Reimbursement for the household items is only one piece of the broad assistance available.
The larger program covers expenses for transportation, housing, personal belongings,
medical or dental costs and funerals.
As of Sept. 18, the state Department of Labor said 65,741 people had applied for aid
available under the program, with 8,233 receiving $10.1 million in all.
The average grant was $1,227, but figures show the reimbursement for household items was
not widely tapped. But that could change, given the extension.
"We have to go through a vetting process, but we're trying to reduce the caseload as
quickly as possible," said Robert Lillpopp, a Labor Department spokesman. "We
feel that in the end, the percentage of people who are approved will be greater than at
the beginning of the process."
Some observers blame the program for the low participation rate.
"The whole idea that people had to go out and buy a vacuum cleaner first and bring in
a receipt was a bureaucratic labyrinth," said Joel Kupferman of the New York
Environmental Law and Justice Project. "The problem was a maldistribution of
benefits, and they overlooked the most important needs."
LaVerna Bradley, 71, of Alfred E. Smith Houses on the Lower East Side, could not readily
leave her apartment to buy the equipment, as she has nagging pain in her arms and legs,
and her husband, Arthur, has Parkinson's disease.
"I got the filters and it took two months, but I didn't get the vacuum and I didn't
get a new air conditioner," she said. "Someone delivered the filters. I'm just
not able to get out to get those other things. I still have dust in the apartment. I think
that's what's bothering my throat."
Lillpopp said the program has been well advertised, and up-front grants are available to
hardship cases. He noted that the Labor Department distributed 500,000 palm cards and put
up 10,000 posters in English, Chinese and Spanish, informing residents of how to apply. It
also ran full-page ads, he said.
Top Stories
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Best Analysis Of WTC
Collapse May Never Be Made Public, NY1, 9/30/2
The most sophisticated and detailed
analysis of how and why the World Trade Center towers collapsed may never made public,
according to a published report.
The New York Times reports engineering experts have created three-dimensional computer
models and assembled rare photographs and videos as part of an insurance lawsuit. The
Times says the evidence for the trial far exceeds the efforts of government agencies to
explain why the twin towers succumbed.
Larry Silverstein, the lease-holder of the trade center, commissioned the study as part of
his federal suit against his insurers that seeks double payouts worth $7 billion by
arguing the impact of the two hijacked airliners counts as two separate terrorist attacks.
The information is covered by a confidentiality agreement, as is typical during the
discovery phase of litigation. And if the case is settled before trial, the analysis may
be sealed indefinitely or even destroyed.
Vast Detail on Towers' Collapse May Be Sealed, by James Glanz and Eric Lipton, NY Times, 9/30/2
hat is almost certainly the most sophisticated and
complete understanding of exactly how and why the twin towers of the World Trade Center
fell has been compiled as part of a largely secret proceeding in federal court in Lower
Manhattan.
Amassed during the initial stages of a complicated insurance lawsuit involving the trade center, the confidential material contains data and expert analysis developed by some of the nation's most respected engineering minds. It includes computer calculations that have produced a series of three-dimensional images of the crumpled insides of the towers after the planes hit, helping to identify the sequence of failures that led to the collapses.
An immense body of documentary evidence, like maps of the debris piles, rare photos and videos, has also been accumulated in a collection that far outstrips what government analysts have been able to put together as they struggle to answer the scientifically complex and emotionally charged questions surrounding the deadly failures of the buildings.
But everyone from structural engineers to relatives of victims fear that the closely held information, which includes the analysis and the possible answers that families and engineers around the world have craved, may remain buried in sealed files, or even destroyed.
Bound by confidentiality agreements with their clients, the experts cannot disclose their findings publicly as they wait for the case to play out. Such restrictions are typical during the discovery phase of litigation. And as it now stands, the judge in the case who has agreed that certain material can remain secret for the time being has approved standard legal arrangements that, should the lawsuit be settled before trial, could cause crucial material generated by the competing sides to be withheld.
"We're obviously in favor of releasing the information, but we can't until we're told what to do," said Matthys Levy, an engineer and founding partner at Weidlinger Associates, who is a consultant in the case and the author of "Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail" (Norton, 2nd edition, 2002).
"Let's just say we understand the mechanics of the whole process" of the collapse, Mr. Levy said.
Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, when the south tower fell and who is a member of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, said the information should be disclosed. "If they have answers and are not going to share them, I would be devastated," Mrs. Gabrielle said. "They have a moral obligation."
The lawsuit that has generated the information involves Larry A. Silverstein, whose companies own a lease on the trade center property, and a consortium of insurance companies. Mr. Silverstein maintains that each jetliner that hit the towers constituted a separate terrorist attack, entitling him to some $7 billion, rather than half that amount, as the insurance companies say.
As both sides have prepared their arguments, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring expert opinion about exactly what happened to the towers.
Dean Davison, a spokesman for Industrial Risk Insurers of Hartford, one of the insurance companies in the suit, said of the findings, "There are some confidentiality agreements that are keeping those out of the public domain today." He conceded that differing opinions among the more than 20 insurers on his side of the case could complicate any release of the material.
As for his own company, whose consultants alone have produced more than 1,700 pages of analysis and thousands of diagrams and photographs, Mr. Davison said every attempt would be made to give the material eventually to "public authorities and investigative teams."
Still, some of that analysis relies on information like blueprints and building records from other sources, like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which built and owned the trade center and supports Mr. Silverstein in the suit. Mr. Davison said he was uncertain how the differing origins of the material would influence his company's ability to release information.
In a statement, the Port Authority said access to documents would be "decided on a case-by-case basis consistent with applicable law and policy," adding that it would cooperate with "federal investigations."
The fate of the research is particularly critical to resolve unanswered questions about why the towers fell, given the dissatisfaction with the first major inquiry into the buildings' collapse. That investigation, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was plagued by few resources, a lack of access to crucial information like building plans, and infighting among experts and officials. A new federal investigation intended to remedy those failings has just begun at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, an agency that has studied many building disasters.
Officials with NIST have said it could take years to make final determinations and recommendations for other buildings, a process they now acknowledge might be speeded up with access to the analysis done by the consultants on the lawsuit.
Gerald McKelvey, a spokesman for Mr. Silverstein, said of the real estate executive's own heavily financed investigative work, "We decline to comment other than to say that Silverstein is cooperating fully with the NIST investigation." A spokesman for the agency confirmed it was in discussions with Mr. Silverstein on the material, but said no transfer had taken place.
With no shortage of money or expertise, investigations by both sides in the legal case have produced a startling body of science and theory, some of it relevant not only to the trade center disaster but to other skyscrapers as well.
"The work should be available to other investigators," said Ramon Gilsanz, a structural engineer and managing partner at Gilsanz Murray Steficek, who was a member of the earlier inquiry. "It could be used to build better buildings in the future."
Legal experts say confidentiality arrangements like the one governing the material can
lead to a variety of outcomes, from full or partial disclosure to destruction of such
information. In some cases, litigants who paid for the reports may make them public
themselves. Or they may ask to have them sealed forever.
"It is not unusual for one party or another to try to keep some of those documents
secret for one reason or another, some legitimate, some not," said Lee Levine, a
First Amendment lawyer at Levine Sullivan & Koch in Washington.
Mr. Levine said that because of the presumed value of the information, the court might look favorably on requests to make it public. But the uncertainty over the fate of the material is unnerving to many people, especially experts who believe that only a complete review of the evidence not piecemeal disclosures by litigants eager to protect their own interests could lead to an advance in the federal investigation of the trade center.
"It's important for this to get presented and published and subjected to some scrutiny," said Dr. John Osteraas, director of civil engineering practice at Exponent Failure Analysis in Menlo Park, Calif., and a consultant on the case, "because then the general engineering community can sort it out."
The scope of the investigation behind the scenes is vast by any measure. Mr. Levy and his colleagues at Weidlinger Associates, hired by Silverstein Properties, have called upon powerful computer programs, originally developed with the Pentagon for classified research, to create a model of the Sept. 11 attack from beginning to end.
The result is a compilation of three-dimensional images of the severed exterior columns, smashed floor and damaged core of the towers, beginning with the impacts and proceeding up to the moments of collapse. Those images which Mr. Levy is not allowed to release have helped pinpoint the structural failures.
The FEMA investigators did not have access to such computer modeling. Nor did the FEMA team have unfettered access to the trade center site, with all its evidence, in the weeks immediately after the attacks. But no such constraints hampered engineers at LZA/Thornton-Tomasetti, brought to the site for emergency work beginning on the afternoon of Sept. 11. Daniel A. Cuoco, the company president and a consultant to Silverstein Properties on the case, said he had assembled detailed maps of the blazing debris at ground zero in models that perhaps contain further clues about how the towers fell.
Though the FEMA team could not determine "where things actually fell," Mr. Cuoco said, "we've indicated the specific locations."
Mr. Cuoco said he could not reveal any additional details of the findings. Nor would Mr. Osteraas discuss the details of computer calculations his company has done on the spread of fires in large buildings like the twin towers. Mr. Osteraas has also compiled an extensive archive of photographs and videos of the towers that day, some of which he believes have not been available to other investigators.
And the investigation has not limited itself to computers and documentary evidence. For months, experiments in wind tunnels in the United States and Canada have been examining the aerodynamics that fed the flames that day and stressed the weakening structures.
Jack Cermak, president of Cermak Peterka Peterson in Fort Collins, Colo., was retained by the insurance companies but had previously performed wind-tunnel studies for the original design of the twin towers nearly 40 years ago. For the legal case, Dr. Cermak said, "we've done probably more detailed measurements than in the original design."
"The data that have been acquired are very valuable in themselves for understanding how wind and buildings interact," Dr. Cermak said. "Some of the information may be valuable for the litigation," he said, adding, "I think I've told you all I can."
After
Demolition of Diner, Owner Vows He'll Return,
fter the World Trade Center buildings collapsed just
four blocks from George Koulmentas's diner, he was back slinging hash browns as soon as
the authorities allowed. When business in Lower Manhattan slowed after the attack, he had
to stop keeping the place open 24 hours a day but still, he kept it open.
But after he noticed a crack in an exterior wall on Saturday morning and called the Fire Department, the building, at 89 Greenwich Street, was torn down within 24 hours, and the diner Mr. Koulmentas had owned for 22 years was no more.
In any other part of town, Mr. Koulmentas's plight might warrant only a passing mention, but the sight of his building in wreckage, all twisted steel and rubble, took on an eerie quality so near ground zero.
"I am not quitting here," Mr. Koulmentas said as he watched insurance agents, contractors and subway engineers scurry around the diner in the hours before the wrecking crews arrived. "We are here to stay."
Mr. Koulmentas said that while he had owned the diner for years, he bought the building only a couple of weeks ago. Amid soaring office towers, his little two-story brick building sat inconspicuously on the corner of Rector and Greenwich Streets.
While the cause of the structural damage is unknown, Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, said the site was inspected after Sept. 11, just like all the other buildings in the neighborhood. No problems were found. But when the department was alerted Saturday to the condition of Mr. Koulmentas's building, they inspected it and deemed it structurally unsound. As a precaution, she said, they checked nearby buildings but found no problems.
Subway service on the 1 and 9 lines, from the Chambers Street to the South Ferry station, which resumed only two weeks ago, was suspended for part of the weekend as a precaution against further damaging the building. There was no way to know if the vibrations from the subway, which runs nearby, caused the damage, transit agency and city officials said. There is also a lot of construction on the surrounding streets that could have played a role.
"I noticed the crack for the first time this morning," Maria Koulmentas, 25, said on Saturday as she stood outside her father's condemned diner. She said that when they noticed the problem, they cleared the restaurant of customers and waited for the Fire Department. "Seconds after they got here, they told us to get out," she said.
Ms. Koulmentas said that while she was sad to see the diner torn down, it was a blessing that no one was hurt. "It is better they take care of it and are safe," she said.
The Koulmentas family is from Kalamata, Greece. Ms. Koulmentas said her father came to America when he was a child and loved his restaurant. The operation was a family affair, with Ms. Koulmentas and her brothers all working in the diner, called George's and Sons.
Eleni Koulmentas, 30, who married into the family, said the diner was like a second home. "It's so sad," she said.
Tourists visiting ground zero wandered by the building after it was torn down, and some snapped pictures. Neighbors, meanwhile, recalled the diner fondly but did not express any concern about their own buildings' safety.
"I'm not worried," said Robin Bourlon, who lives just across Greenwich Street from the diner. She said she got a fabulous deal on her apartment, which she moved into only a month ago, and had no intention of leaving.
Anastasia Boboris, 25, said she would drive in from Long Island to eat at George's and visit with the Koulmentases, with whom she was friendly. "They had the best hamburgers in the whole city," she said.
If Mr. Koulmentas has his way, he will soon be cooking hamburgers on the same spot. He said he could take the money and leave, since he was insured, but felt a sense of duty to rebuild downtown. "This is my city, my home," he said. "I want to pass it on to my kids."
You Should
Have Seen the Air in '53
dry, wheezing, watery-eyed cough became common. The
number of emergency room visits climbed, and the theaters in Times Square went dark for
lack of business. Smoke and haze drifted across the region.
Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11? No. It was November 1953, in the middle of a six-day siege of air pollution that fouled the region with a ferocity unimaginable by the standards of today's far cleaner air. Through one bad week, a stagnant stew of soot and lead and who knows what else killed or hastened the death of 25 or 30 New Yorkers a day, according to an analysis conducted years later.
Many people have probably forgotten how bad the good old days really were. But some historians, environmentalists and public health experts say that in thinking about Sept. 11 and the broad consequences that are emerging for public health, government regulation and the science of air pollution monitoring turning back the clock can be a revealing exercise.
November 1953 was a very important moment, in part and here's where the apt comparison to Sept. 11 comes in, the experts say because it illuminated in full fumbling glory how little science knew. Air researchers in those days were not even sure what to call the stuff that had descended on the city, let alone what health impact it had. (They tried the word "smaze," to describe the combination of smoke and haze, but it never caught on; smog had more punch.)
But within a generation of those first smog crises in New York and Los Angeles, the federal Clean Air Act had encoded into law not only the standards about what was safe to breathe, but how government could enforce the rules on the public's behalf.
Similarly, scientists after Sept. 11 have come up with a huge array of evidence suggesting that most residents of Lower Manhattan who were not directly involved in the rescue or recovery work at ground zero have little reason for long-term concern about their health. But the same doctors and researchers have been forced to acknowledge that because Sept. 11 was so starkly different from any past event, their reassurances are approximate, based on standards and comparisons that do not provide an exact fit.
Most of the horrors of New York's environmental past, they say, like the grim air episodes in 1953, 1962 and 1966, were chronic and cumulative. Sept. 11 was sharp and sudden, but for most residents at least, relatively brief. Most past events had a thousand sources and causes a vague diffusion of responsibility that made no one responsible. Sept. 11 had one source and one cause: the smoking, reeking, dust-blown ruins of the World Trade Center.
"There are chronic disasters that dwarf 9/11, but this is the largest acute environmental disaster to ever befall New York City," said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, chairman of the department of community and preventive medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan.
Dr. Landrigan and other experts say that because most pollution research has focused on chronic day-after-day exposure, hard knowledge about the health consequences of intense brief pollution encounters is a hole in the medical library. Before Sept. 11, it never really came up. He and other experts stress, however, that the anecdotal evidence is very strong for things like asbestos that brief exposures hardly ever result in disease, and that, judging by air test results, most residents were probably only minimally exposed, if at all.
But the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, told a Senate committee this week that her agency was still, a year later, trying to come up with indoor residential air quality standards so that contractors who began testing apartments in Lower Manhattan this month could know how to interpret what they found.
The pattern, public health historians say, is unmistakable watch for those moments when knowledge hits the wall, then stand back. Things will change.
"We are constantly building worlds that end up being dangerous, and all the turning points in public health are the times when we realize that," said David Rosner, a professor of history and public health at Columbia University. "This is one of those moments."
Just this week, for example, state environmental regulators in New York announced that the construction vehicles involved in rebuilding Lower Manhattan would be retrofitted to burn low sulfur diesel fuel to reduce air emissions. The idea, which had been pushed for months by groups like Environmental Defense and the American Lung Association, arose in part from a scientific fumble last fall by researchers who attributed some high pollution levels downtown to the smoldering ruins at the trade center. Reworking through the data, they found that the ordinary diesel trucks idling in the street waiting to haul away the debris were the real cause.
But not just science hit a bumpy patch after Sept. 11. Many Lower Manhattan residents have simply refused to believe the results from the hundreds of thousands of air samples that were taken in the months after the attack. The vast majority of the tests showed that even as close as a few blocks from ground zero and within a few days of the attack, things like asbestos were barely detectable.
One resident of Little Italy who came to a public hearing earlier this month at Borough of Manhattan Community College to listen to the medical community talk about the disaster's aftermath cheerfully said she did not believe a word of it. The doctors, she said, had been corrupted by pressure from property owners who feared a collapse in real estate values. And so another wall emerged, and perhaps another cycle of history: If the air pollution victims in 1953 were in the dark because they couldn't know, some Manhattan residents now are perhaps just as in the dark because of what they cannot accept.
Some environmentalists say that people are right to disbelieve not because science failed them, but because government officials did in communicating what scientists did not and could not know.
"The public would have understood the inability to answer health questions with certainty if it had been openly and fully discussed," said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based conservation group. "But the response after Sept. 11 was more of the Soviet style, to deny there was a problem."
Mr. Goldstein said that he definitely saw a wave of environmental reforms emerging from the disaster. A crucial one that his group will work for is to make sure that independent scientists are included from the beginning in the assessment of any future disasters not because government scientists will lie or are incompetent, he said, but because their conclusions will not matter if no one believes them.
Other researchers say that broad shifts in how society thinks about the environment are unlikely to emerge from one event even one of the magnitude of Sept. 11. The beginnings of the environmental movement in the 1960's and 1970's, they say, were tied to a whole raft of forces, as was the general decline of the issue as a social and political force in the 1980's and 1990's.
"Generally during times of wealth and security, environmental concerns tend to drop," said Michael D. Mehta, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada who studies environmental attitudes.
Wealth and security are hardly the words that most people would use to describe the world after Sept. 11, and Professor Mehta thinks the end of the 1990's culture in lifestyles and economics and the awakened connections between the environment and public health that have emerged after Sept. 11 in New York will eventually mark a turning point.
"I don't think it's quite arrived yet," he said. "But Sept. 11 contains the seed."
he financial assistance program in New York State that
officials described as a kind of ultimate safety net for those who lost their jobs or had
their property damaged because of the World Trade Center disaster has given grants to only
a small fraction of the people who applied. Indeed, program officials admit they have not
even reviewed more than half of the nearly 73,000 requests for aid that they received in
recent months.
Officials involved in the effort, known as the Individual and Family Grant program, said they had approved only 10,100 grants, and had yet to examine about 37,000 applications for emergency help. The average grant they had made was roughly $1,040 far short of the nearly $15,000 apiece that state officials had said would be available to applicants.
Both those figures the number of approvals and the money distributed fall below the rate and size of awards made by other states that have run similar joint programs to address emergencies in recent years, according to federal government statistics.
And in a measure of the program's troubles, seven members of New York's Congressional delegation this week beseeched officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrators that they have criticized for months, calling them slow and incompetent in their relief efforts to take over the grant program's effort because the state is "ill-equipped" and "ill-prepared" to continue. FEMA finances 75 percent of the grants that the state approves.
State officials yesterday defended their performance, saying many of the backlogged requests had come in over the summer. Robert M. Lillpopp, a spokesman for the State Department of Labor, which administers the program, said that it was vital that the department verify the legitimacy of claims. He said the department had reviewed the applications more speedily at first and before the deluge of summer requests. Mr. Lillpopp suggested the criticism from Democratic lawmakers in Washington concerning the program was politically motivated.
A spokesman for Gov. George E. Pataki, who had announced the creation of the program in the weeks after the attack, did not return several calls for comment.
Some people who applied to the state program, however, said they experienced a mix of near-comic confusion and even hostility.
David Katzoff, who lost his personal computer in the collapse of the trade center, said he was erroneously offered a free steam cleaning of his apartment on the Upper East Side. When he pointed out the mistake to officials, he said, his application was rejected two weeks later.
Ilona Kloupte, a business analyst who designs software for fixed-income trading operations, received little of what she requested, even though she submitted photographs and receipts of all the personal property that had been destroyed in her Battery Park City apartment.
She said she cut short her search for help after she was asked for a letter from a doctor stating that she wore glasses, as well as a letter from her employer stating that she needed a computer for business.
"I said, `This is not Bangladesh; this is the United States of America,' " said Ms. Kloupte, recalling a conversation with a Labor Department caseworker. "You are asking people who are financial professionals, who live in New York, who work on Wall Street, to provide written documents that you use your computers for work? What century are they living in?"
The response to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, including government programs and private charitable efforts, has for a year produced a blend of great generosity, extraordinary effort and repeated problems with inefficiency and duplication.
In a certain sense, the state's program was offered as a kind of antidote to the confusion and frustration wrought by other efforts. Mr. Pataki, in announcing the program, said it was set up for those who felt abandoned, overwhelmed or excluded from the other relief efforts.
Initially, FEMA asked state officials to allow its administrators to run the program, said Brad Gair, FEMA's federal recovery officer in New York. But New York officials declined, confident of their experience handling upstate disasters.
In a Sept. 19, 2001, news release, Linda Angello, the state labor commissioner, said, "The State Labor Department is prepared to take whatever steps necessary to help New Yorkers recover as quickly as possible and return stability to their lives."
In the trade center disaster, the grant program was expected to cover home repairs and the replacement of personal property, along with reimbursement for air purifiers, vacuums and air-conditioners that needed replacing. It would also make grants to help people who had lost their jobs with transportation costs as they sought new employment.
But from the outset, the program had problems, according to applicants and lawmakers. Many applicants have questioned the state's insistence that they be rejected for a loan by the Small Business Administration in order to qualify. Others have complained that the documentation requirements are too onerous, since federal regulations say that "families do not have to provide real or property estimates or receipts."
"Our members have reported very spotty results, and a lot of confusion and miscommunication on the part of the administrators," said Kevin Curnin, a lawyer and co-founder of the From the Ground Up foundation, a coalition of nearly 300 small businesses in Lower Manhattan.
By April, seven months after the attack, the program had received 17,000 requests for assistance, but had granted only 3,500. Then came the summer, when a surge of applicants from Chinatown and other parts of Lower Manhattan sought reimbursement for air purifiers or the replacement of air-conditioners that coughed up dust. Many people were also given inaccurate information, via misleading advertising, that they would receive a new air-conditioner at no cost, Mr. Lillpopp, the Labor Department spokesman, said.
"They found themselves way behind in their ability to process," Mr. Gair, the FEMA official, said of the state's efforts.
As of yesterday, the New York program had offered $10.5 million to applicants, for an average of $1,039 per claim. By contrast, in the 27 different disasters in 23 states in the 2001 fiscal year, similar state-federal efforts averaged $16 million per disaster, and $2,586 per claim, according to federal statistics, with a 55 percent approval rating.
"Of all the problems we've seen in the delivery of aid, the failures of I.F.G. program are really the worst," said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat.
Recently, FEMA has pitched in to assist by taking over the state grant program's help line, contributing 150 employees and scanning 15,000 receipts and other documents to relieve the backlog of mail that had piled up in Albany. As a result, the grant program program processed 4,000 cases last week.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Pataki requested that the program's deadline of Sept. 30 be extended to Jan. 31. But on Thursday, state and federal officials announced that they had sliced two months off that request, to Nov. 30, because one year had been enough time to get reimbursed.
Pataki
Orders Strict Controls on Pollution in Rebuilding, by Richard
he Pataki administration said yesterday that it would
require the construction equipment at the World Trade Center site to adhere to strict air
pollution controls a move that environmentalists and Democrats had called for all
year.
Diesel-powered construction machinery like cranes, backhoes and bulldozers put out many times more pollution, per gallon of fuel burned, than diesel trucks or, in many cases, power plants that burn diesel oil. The State Department of Environmental Conservation said yesterday that it would order government agencies and private contractors to take steps to reduce some emissions by well over 99 percent, through the use of ultralow-sulfur diesel fuel, for example, and emission controls like particle traps and catalytic converters in exhaust systems.
"The steps that New York is committing to now are going to make the Lower Manhattan reconstruction a national model of clean construction techniques," said Andrew Darrell, New York regional director of Environmental Defense, one of the groups that had pushed Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, to adopt the rules. He said similar rules had been adopted for only a few other projects around the country.
Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Assembly speaker, said that he and others had asked the governor to take these steps at the beginning of the year, and that an opportunity had been missed to prevent significant pollution during the digging-out phase of the recovery. "While I am pleased that the governor has finally taken action, I cannot understand why it took him so long to take this step to protect the health of those who live, work and attend school in Lower Manhattan," Mr. Silver said.
The fuel requirement will be phased in over a few weeks, officials said, while the emission controls are likely to take a bit longer. Some construction is under way at the trade center site, particularly on transit lines, but other activity is at a lull now.
"These kinds of heavy diesels emit more fine particulate matter than cars, trucks and power plants combined," Mr. Darrell said.
Under federal regulations, the diesel fuel sold for vehicles used mostly on roads cannot contain more than 500 parts per million of sulfur. But the fuel for construction equipment and other nonroad diesels can be as high as 5,000 parts.
The Pataki administration will require that the machinery at the trade center site burn diesel with just 15 to 30 parts per million of sulfur.
Sulfur is the main source of particulate pollution, or soot, that contributes to asthma and other lung diseases, and it is a major contributor to acid rain. The smokestack controls will reduce both soot and nitrogen oxides, major sources of smog and acid rain.
NY1 For You
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NY1
For You: Episcopal Charities Helps Downtown Intern With Medical Bills, Susan Jhun, 9/27/2
Although there's a lot of
concern about the effect air quality has had on those in downtown Manhattan since
September 11, 2001, there's no way to tell whether it's caused certain health problems,
and that has left one woman in a bind. NY1s Susa Jhun tells us how "NY1 For
You" was able to help her.
After an eight-month internship downtown, Columbia University graduate student Romona
Jennings says she's come away with two things: experience, and a pile of medical bills.
I interned there three days a week, and the air quality for, I would say the first
month and a half, was pretty much smelling fires burning, Jennings says.
That's because Jennings internship started in September, 2001. And while she wasn't
on the job on September 11, she was back at work on Wall Street only a week after the
disaster.
Around mid-October, Jennings started to feel sick. Thinking she had a common virus, she
went to the school doctor, who gave her an antibiotic. She says she felt better for a few
weeks, but in November she became ill again.
I couldn't sleep because if I wasn't coughing up phlegm, she says. I had
this dry, hacking cough, and if I didn't have a dry, hacking cough I had a fever. There
were a couple of times in December where I would throw up and I couldn't keep my food
down.
Jennings says she went back to the school doctor twice, but couldn't get an appointment.
She says she contacted her internship advisor at Columbia to ask for advice and was simply
told to use her two sick days.
The intern continued to come down to her job on Wall Street, breathing the smoky air while
suffering from persistent respiratory pains. Eventually, after no luck getting an
appointment with the school doctor, Jennings went to a health clinic near her home. The
doctor treated her for a respiratory infection.
My health improved, and I got so much better, she says.
But her insurance only covered a portion of her medical bills. Recently graduated, with
large student loans and struggling to find work in a slow economy, Jennings couldn't pay
the remaining amount. She reached out to several charities for help, but came up dry. Then
she contacted "NY1 For You."
NY1 turned to Episcopal Charities, which offered to cover Jennings medical bills of
almost $400. Although Episcopal Charities doesn't have the financial resources of larger
charities, it continues to work with clients on a referral-only basis.
We're trying to make sure that those clients that fall through the gaps from other
charities are getting covered, when we can assume that they're being honest with us and
their medical caregiver is fairly certain that their injuries are related to September
11, says Peter Guidities of Episcopal Charities.
On top of helping with her medical bills, Episcopal Charities is meeting with Jennings,
who now has a Masters Degree in social work, about a possible job. NY1 will let you know
what happens.
A Green Ground Zero, by Amanda Griscom and Will Dana, The Nation, 9/23/2
The debate over how to redevelop the World Trade Center site has revolved around several key concerns: the commercial interests of the real estate industry, the publics desire to embolden Manhattans skyline with exciting architecture and the historic obligation to memorialize thousands of lost lives. As we continue to address and balance these concerns, lets also seize the chance to reclaim Ground Zero in the spirit of the twenty-first century, showcasing one of todays most inspiring and politically meaningful industrial movements: the revolution in clean energy.
Imagine for a moment that the structures surrounding the memorial will be sheathed in an invisible skin of electricity-producing solar cells. During the day, while electricity demand is peaking, the buildings will silently, automatically produce energy. No power plants or transmission lines necessary. No greenhouse emissions. No need for oil, coal, natural gas or nuclear energy. No risk of blackouts. No spiking electricity prices. Computer and phone networks, elevators, clocks, air conditioners and ATMs will all run simply, cleanly, like a crop of corn or a grove of trees, on sunlight. (The complex will be connected to the grid, drawing electricity when necessary at night or on cloudy days and pumping power back in when it creates a surplus.)
These high-tech buildings will supply all the services and comforts of a traditional commercial or residential complex but require less than half the electricity because of their green design features: super-insulated walls and windows; highly efficient appliances and lighting, heating and cooling systems; and a motion-sensing laser system that will automatically switch off lights and equipment when not in use. Whereas the original World Trade Center complex guzzled nearly 100 megawatts of electricity on peak days, with associated emissions, the new complex will be a net-zero-emission development. Moreover, this mini-El Dorado of energy independence and its surrounding neighborhood will be designed to have minimal need for cars and trucks. Once there, visitors will be in the greatest walking neighborhood in the world. The three airports, Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark, will be connected by train to the downtown terminal, making it an easy commute. An expanded network of ferries connecting lower Manhattan with Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey and uptown will provide a fast and pleasurable way to get around. The heart of lower Manhattan will be knitted together by a clean, quiet street grid restored for use by pedestrians alone.
From both a technological and cost standpoint, this scenario is entirely possible, says Ashok Gupta, an energy economist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Solar systems, fuel cells and energy-efficiency measure have already been implemented in the design of several skyscrapers in Manhattan, including the Condé Naste building at Times Square and the residential tower at Battery Park currently under construction. As clean-energy technologies become rapidly more sophisticated and affordable, a large-scale application at Ground Zero would galvanize their acceptance in the marketplace. As for transportation, fuel-cell-powered buses and taxis may be too expensive today, but already theyre technologically feasible. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the Port Authority have approved additional rail connections for commuters beneath the new complex; they are also considering plans to depress the West Side Highway for a more pedestrian-friendly environment, and to add new ferry lines at Battery Park and on the East River.
The opportunities are real, but they cant be realized without leaders. Yet neither Governor George Pataki, site developer Larry Silverstein nor Mayor Bloomberg has expressed much interest so far. Mr. Silverstein isnt really thinking about this, says his spokesperson. Its just too early to get bogged down in these kinds of details. Patakis office expressed a similar lack of initiative, saying the issues are important but not yet a priority. Alex Garvin, vice president of planning for the LMDC, was more assertive in his commitment: We plan to establish standards for sustainability and green technology that architects will be not only encouraged but required to meet. But we cant get started on this now; its too early to determine the details.
Prominent green architects disagree. Robert Fox, senior principal of Fox and Fowle, the architecture firm that designed the Condé Nast building, says planners should adopt the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, the gold standard for sustainable building practices. Now is the time to address this, at the beginning of the planning process, stresses Fox. Sustainability measures must be incorporated into every aspect of the design, from the infrastructure of the water, sewage and electricity systems to the external PV-integrated paneling.
Its a safe bet that the public will support much, if not all of the larger zero-energy vision. In addition to the LMDC, two coalitions Civic Alliance, representing more than 100 institutions, and New York New Visions, representing dozens of local architecture firms have endorsed principles for downtown re-development that promote sustainable design and clean energy. Furthermore, theres impressive evidence that supports the use of clean-energy systems: Richard Perez, a scientist at SUNY Albany whos been tracking sunlight in New York City for more than ten years, has found that the average amount of sun that hits the city annually is only 12 percent less than that in cloudless Tucson.
Right now the Pataki administration is considering a proposal to limit power-plant emissions of carbon dioxide 30-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Building a zero-energy complex and a state-of-the-art transportation system would advance these goals and address the mounting crisis of global warming, while making a clear statement about Americas commitment to energy independence. Since September 11 many energy experts have called for a massive, government-funded research project, a Manhattan Project of alternative energy to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil. The opportunity for such an initiative now lies at the foot of Manhattan. Nothing would be more appropriate for a memorial to a traumatic past than one that points us in the direction of a sustainable future.
ARRISON, N.Y., Sept. 27 Two federal agencies
identified weaknesses today in the emergency plan for the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant,
but concluded that the plan was more than adequate for protecting the public from a
nuclear accident.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission outlined their preliminary findings during a crowded public meeting at the Westchester County Airport here, three days after observing an elaborate drill in which scores of Indian Point workers, state and county agencies, police officers and radiation technicians in four counties responded to a mock leak of radioactivity.
Officials of the two agencies criticized a breakdown in communications among the drill participants that resulted in inaccurate and outdated information being released about the make-believe accident. At the Joint News Center, which was set up at the airport for press briefings, emergency officials mistakenly announced at one point during the drill that no radioactivity had been released when, according to the script, it had been. The officials corrected themselves later.
The federal officials also noted mistakes in some of the messages broadcast through the emergency public alert system, and raised questions about a variety of procedures and evacuation issues, including whether rail-freight service and toll collection would be suspended in an emergency.
But on the whole, the federal officials emphasized that state and county emergency workers were able to successfully order a simulated evacuation of residents within a 10-mile radius of the plant. "We are confident that all of the issues and problems identified at the Joint News Center can be fixed through planning, procedural changes and additional training," said Joe Picciano, FEMA's acting regional director in New York.
Today's findings are bound to fuel the opposition to the Indian Point plant, in Buchanan, about 40 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. Since the World Trade Center attack, many local officials and residents have called for the closing of the plant, saying that its emergency plan does not address the possibility of a terrorist attack and rapid dispersal of radioactive material, among other things.
The intense public scrutiny turned a routine drill, held every two years, into a larger test of whether Indian Point could operate safely. In August, Gov. George E. Pataki hired James Lee Witt, a former FEMA director, to review the safety of communities near Indian Point and other nuclear plants.
State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a frequent critic of Indian Point, accused the federal agencies today of bowing to political pressure and playing down the problems revealed by the drill. "There is a sort of genteel cover-up going on," he said. "They spoke with great clarity about the things that went well. On the things that went wrong, they shrugged, they winked, they grinned."
But Michael Beeman, a FEMA spokesman, said that federal officials were still in the process of evaluating the drill and would release a detailed report within 90 days with notes on areas needing improvement.
Larry Gottlieb, a spokesman for the
Federal officials have evaluated emergency drills at Indian Point and other nuclear plants since the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island. Besides the daylong drill, FEMA officials also conducted 40 interviews with bus drivers, hospital workers, school officials and others with roles in the Indian Point emergency plan.
Communication problems are hardly new for Indian Point. The first emergency drill for the site, in March 1982, was marred by a failure of several warning sirens and a telephone hot line. The nuclear commission even threatened to shut down the reactors unless emergency preparations were improved, but later dropped the threat.
The most recent emergency drill at Indian Point, in November 2000, involved the Indian Point 3 reactor. At the time, FEMA officials identified 26 minor weaknesses, among them not releasing information in a timely manner. Nearly all of those were later corrected, Mr. Beeman said.
The Red Cross -- what jerks !!
Top Stories
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NY1
For You: Engineer Injured In WTC Attacks Still Needs Help With Surgery Costs, Susan Jhun, 9/25/2
After a year out of work, engineer
Bobby Hall is struggling to make ends meet.
While working for ABM Engineering at the World Trade Center on September 11, Bobby was
injured in Tower One.
We were going to our shop to make a call and find out what the first explosion was
and the place just came apart on us, Bobby said. What we found out later was
the hot wind was the number 50 freight car falling from the 88th floor and it just came
into the area where we were and just blew us back out into the parking lot.
Hall returned home later that day in a state of shock. Realizing his right hand was
injured, his wife took him to a doctor.
They X-rayed it and they told me it would need surgery to be repaired, Bobby
said.
Bobby was operated on, but the nerve damage was so severe it was impossible for him to
return to work without further surgery. And while he waited for the second surgery, his
mortgage, homeowner's insurance, car and student loan bills were piling up.
I just don't know what we're going to do as far as our monthly bills, he said.
Do we start selling off the things we own that we worked so hard to get?
He said he did receive two cost of living gifts from the Red Cross' family gift program.
And in December, the Red Cross notified him it was extending the program for a full year.
Bobby thought this meant he'd be receiving a third gift, but when he called the Red Cross
to find out when it was coming, he was told he wasn't eligible.
The Red Cross criteria that needed to be met was a seriously injured person that
spent 24 hours in the hospital, he said. I didn't spend 24 hours in the
hospital.
Although he didn't spend the night, Hall did go to the hospital and he did receive major
surgery. But he says the Red Cross still doesn't consider him an injured applicant.
I don't understand why Bob would not meet the requirements, said Maryanne
McCann-Hall, Bobby's wife. He is, in my opinion, seriously injured. He's had one
major surgery and he's scheduled to have a second major surgery. He's been out of work for
a year and they still consider that not serious enough.
After the Halls contacted "NY1 For You, NY1 called the Red Cross and asked why
he didn't qualify, especially since he did qualify for the first two grants as a
"seriously injured" applicant. A spokesperson told NY1 that the criteria for the
first two was much more lenient and since Bobby was not in the hospital for 24 hours, he
doesn't qualify.
The spokesperson went on to say the Red Cross is continuing to work with the Halls to meet
their needs and has set up a meeting with them for next week. In the meantime, Bobby and
his wife say they are facing financial ruin.
I'm still out of work. I'm not looking to make any money off of them, I'm just
looking to survive, he said. I don't want to go into bankruptcy because I was
injured at the World Trade Center. I want to try and get on with my life here.
NY1 will keep you updated on this story.
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Fortune
Small Business: Struggling Businesses Face Taxes On 9/11 Aid, Rita Nissan, NY1, 9/25/2
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2002
Small businesses still
hurting from the World Trade Center attacks may take another financial hit as the IRS
decides whether to tax the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants given out
after September 11, 2001. NY1's Rita Nissan has reaction from the businesses still
struggling to survive.
The clock tells the story. It's just before noon. The pasta is cooked. The muffins are
baked. The chairs are empty.
No one is buying lunch at Charlys.
It's really devastating for me to come here and see lunchtime with no people,
said Steve Zamfotis. Nobody is here. It's heartbreaking.
Charlys, a deli right across from the World Trade Center, was badly damaged in the
September 11, 2001, attacks. It took nine months to re-open. Insurance money and a $14,000
federal grant helped a little. But now, the IRS said it's deciding whether the grant money
will be tax exempt.
That's absolutely ridiculous, Zamfotis said. They should've given us a
lot more and it should be non-taxable.
There are similar reactions across Lower Manhattan, where the government has given out
$772 million in aid to small businesses. As it stands, Downtown businesses will have to
pay federal income taxes on the assistance that has been doled out so far. Cash-strapped
business, many of which have already spent all their aid, could have to return nearly a
third of their grant.
We are just glad we are getting some grants, said Steve Wu of Chameleon
Comics. The tax thing is just another thing to worry about.
If you are going to give money to the businesses that suffered Downtown, said
Joel Kopel of William Barthman Jewelers, you need to give the money without any
strings attached.
Richard Cohn, of South West NY restaurant said that facing an additional tax burden
could make the difference between some business staying open and other businesses
going out of business.
The small businesses are getting some support from Washington. Senators Chuck Schumer,
Hillary Clinton and Rep. Carolyn Maloney have taken up the issue, lobbying the Treasury
Department to do away with the taxes. If that doesn't work, they say legislation may be
the next step.
They point out that other disaster aid is not taxed. Besides, the businesses who feel they
got too little money in the first place said this could force them to close.
I don't know how long we are going to keep going, said Zamfotis. We
can't keep losing money.
The IRS says it hopes to reach a decision soon.
Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he too wants the IRS to do away with the taxes and
will lobby the Treasury Department.
We'd like to do everything we can to help small businesses and keep taxes down. If
the federal government has to do it, they have to do it, said Mayor Michael
Bloomberg Wednesday. I don't think that's going to be a deciding thing as to whether
or not a small business comes to, stays in or succeeds in Lower Manhattan.
Downtowners
request more time for aid, By Timothy J Burger, NY Daily News, 9/25/2
WASHINGTON - People worried that their lower Manhattan homes are contaminated by dust from
the destruction of the twin towers pleaded with the feds yesterday for more time to apply
for a cleanup program.
"There is still a great deal of anxiety among residents regarding the type of pollutants that entered the atmosphere," Madelyn Wils, chairwoman of Community Board 1, told a panel headed by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Federal Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman told Clinton she may be willing to push back the Oct. 3 deadline - it has already been extended once - but said the city has not made a formal request.
City Environmental Protection Commissioner Christopher Ward would not say whether the Bloomberg administration would make that request.
In a written statement, he said the city would "continue to work with the EPA to ensure full participation in the cleanup program."
The EPA's office and residential dust cleanup program stretches from Canal St. to Manhattan's southern tip. This month, officials in Brooklyn also faulted the EPA for not expanding its testing to neighborhoods right across the river from downtown.
The agency created the program in May to help fund cleanup and testing of homes socked by the debris dust cloud. It assists in testing and even the purchase of heavy-duty vacuums. Information is available by calling (877) 796-5471 or by going to the Web (www.epa.gov/wtc).
Wils said that the concerns of people living in the neighborhood have gotten less attention because most officials outside of New York are more focused on firefighters and rescue workers. "Because we're more like bystanders or survivors, I don't think we've captured that same kind of respect," she said.
EPA Says Toxins Near WTC
Low, But Emissions Persist: EPA, By Pete Bowles, NY Newsday, 9/25/2
The amounts of toxins in cleaned apartments and offices near the World Trade Center site
are low and well within public health guidelines, according to a study released yesterday
by the American Lung Association of New York City.
But the study confirmed the fears of local residents that the concentration of diesel
emissions from construction trucks and backup generators in lower Manhattan is "quite
high."
"The equipment that was rolled in expressly to help this city rebuild and heal is, in
fact, contributing to long-term health concerns," said Peter Iwanowicz, the
association's director of environmental health. "The pollution from these engines is
poisoning us and contributing to the incidence of respiratory illness today and in future
generations," he added.
The association recommended that all equipment and vehicles running on diesel fuel be
supplied with low-sulfur fuel to reduce the diesel emissions. New York City Transit
currently runs all of its buses on low sulfur fuel and is installing filters as well.
Diesel exhaust particles are known to exacerbate allergies, trigger asthma episodes and
decrease lung function and can cause cancer with prolonged exposure, officials said.
The study, which tested air samples at two apartments and two offices in May, found little
evidence of very fine particles from the collapse of the trade center once the spaces had
been cleaned according to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines. The sites were
checked for particles of silicon, sulfur, vanadium, nickel and lead.
"We knew that large amounts of very fine particles, which can get deep into a
person's lungs and cause serious health problems, were released from the super-hot WTC
collapse piles," said Thomas Cahill, head of an air-quality research group at the
University of California, Davis, who took part in the study.
"Our new analysis shows that in the sites we tested, those very fine particles either
never penetrated the indoor spaces or were effectively removed by professional
cleaning," he said.
The EPA announced in May that it would clean the apartments of area residents worried
about lingering debris from the site.
Feds taxing WTC grants, By Greg Gittrich, 9/25/2
Cash-strapped businesses trying to hang on in lower Manhattan expect to take another
financial hit - this time from the IRS.
Every penny of the $772 million in federal grants being given to struggling small businesses near Ground Zero is taxable, the Daily News has learned.
"This will put more people out of business," said Meyer Feig, president of the World Trade Center Tenants Association, a coalition of 80 companies that were in the twin towers.
"They say here's a $20,000 grant, here's a $30,000 grant. It never entered into my mind that it would be taxable," said Feig, head of Intera Corp., an information technology firm.
The IRS has been reviewing the matter but has not declared the grants tax-free, agency spokesman Kevin McKeon said.
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, both New York Democrats, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney are furious about the hidden costs and have been lobbying the Treasury Department to do away with the taxes.
"This is Uncle Sam giving with one hand and taking away with other," said Schumer. "We are going to push the IRS to not tax them. If that doesn't work, we will introduce legislation."
Maloney (D-Manhattan) said it's "ridiculous to consider these recovery funds as taxable income."
"All sorts of disaster relief aid is exempted from taxation," she said. "So the argument that these funds might be any different makes no sense."
The tax hit varies significantly depending on how much grant money a business has received since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Feig used his situation as an example.
"Say you got about $70,000 in grants, which doesn't begin to cover all your losses. ... Now you have to pay back about 35% of that money in taxes," Feig said. "The bureaucratic machinery is so slow. I don't know if it's going to be fixed by March 15 when [businesses] have to pay taxes."
Kevin Curnin, legal counsel for From the Ground Up, a nonprofit group that helps small businesses, said taxing the grants violates the spirit of the federal aid.
"This makes recovery much more difficult," said Curnin, a lawyer with the firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.
The federal money is being distributed through the state and city economic development corporations. When asked, both agencies confirmed the money is taxable. But state officials said they have asked federal Treasury Department officials to make changes.
"We are hoping to get a favorable response. If not, I will take this up with senior officials at the Treasury," said Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp. "This is such an extraordinary situation, and hopefully the Treasury will take another look at it."
FBI scorned terror
tips, By Greg B.
Smith, NY Daily News, 9/25/2
The FBI received at least four warnings that terrorists were training in U.S. flight
schools, but the bureau repeatedly dismissed them, a congressional committee was told
yesterday.
The revelations were the latest evidence that the country's intelligence agencies failed to detect the airborne terror threat before Sept. 11 despite specific warnings.
The most striking example of field agents trying to alert Washington to the danger was an exasperated Minneapolis supervisor arguing in August 2001 that he wanted an investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui "to make sure Moussaoui didn't take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center."
A headquarters official responded, "That's not going to happen. We don't know he's a terrorist. You don't have enough to show he is a terrorist. You have a guy interested in this type of aircraft - that is it."
Two agents were sent to Moussaoui's Airman Flight School in Minnesota to investigate, including one who had been sent to the same school two years earlier to check on someone identified as Osama Bin Laden's personal pilot. The agent said he had forgotten about the connection.
In a fourth day of congressional hearings into the pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures, staff director Eleanor Hill said, "No one will ever know whether a greater focus on the connection between these events would have led to the unraveling of the Sept. 11 plot."
The Senate Intelligence Committee focused yesterday on the so-called Phoenix memo, a July 2001 memo from the FBI's Phoenix office that noted a large number of Middle Eastern men - some with terrorist ties - enrolling in local flight schools.
The FBI has been harshly criticized for ignoring that warning.
But the committee revealed yesterday that the FBI booted three other warnings between 1998 and 1999 about terrorists training in flight schools.
In 1998, an Oklahoma City agent noticed Middle Eastern men enrolled in local flight schools and wrote to a superior that the training might be linked to "planned terrorist activity."
"Light planes would be an ideal means of spreading chemical or biological agents," he wrote. His memo was sent to the bureau's Weapons of Mass Destruction unit and forgotten.
Later in 1998, the FBI received information "that a terrorist organization might be planning to bring students to the U.S. for training at a flight school."
And in 1999, the FBI was tipped again that a terrorist group was going to send recruits to U.S. flight schools for training.
When the 1999 warning arrived, FBI headquarters sent a communique to 24 field offices requesting an all-out investigation.
"To this point, there is no indication that the FBI field offices conducted any investigation after receiving this communication," Hill said in her report.
Until yesterday, U.S. officials said the FBI had no reason to connect the subjects of the Phoenix memo to any of the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
But the committee revealed that the FBI now believes one of the men the Phoenix FBI referred to was associated with hijacker Hani Hanjour, who flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
As senators heard the new disclosures about missed clues and lack of coordination by federal agents, they voted 90 to 8 for a wide-ranging independent commission to investigate other pre-Sept. 11 actions. The House of Representatives voted earlier to create such a commission, and President Bush has agreed to accept one.
Few of Those Eligible Register for Cleanup Help Near 9/11 Site,
ASHINGTON, Sept. 24 With just a week left to sign
up, only about a quarter of the New York City residents eligible to have their apartments
tested and cleaned to remove leftover World Trade Center dust have registered, federal
environmental officials said today.
They said that many residents perhaps deemed the cleanup unnecessary, and that some might have been discouraged by reports of fraudulent cleanup contractors posing as government representatives.
But the biggest problem may be that many people still do not know that the offer even exists. The first free cleanup and air-sampling work with contractors in the field started on Sept. 12, two months behind schedule.
"One of the things we're finding is that when we go in to clean up, other people see us in the building cleaning up and then come forward," said the Environmental Protection Agency's administrator, Christie Whitman, in testifying before the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works about her agency's response to the terrorist attack.
Mrs. Whitman told the panel that she was interested in pushing the sign-up period which was already extended once, by 30 days past the Oct. 3 deadline. But because of the complex chain of responsibility over indoor air, she said, the decision would have to be approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is paying for the cleanups, and the City of New York.
A spokesman for FEMA said that the agency would go along with any decision to extend the sign-up period if city officials decided that more time was necessary.
The commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection, Christopher O. Ward, noted that calls to the E.P.A.'s hot line were declining, but that the city was committed to seeking full participation in the cleanup program. He said that the city would discuss with FEMA the possibility of expanding the cleanup program to include businesses.
About 20,000 apartments south of Canal, Allen and Pike Streets in Lower Manhattan are covered by the plan. Residents may register by calling the E.P.A. at (877) 796-5471 or by signing on to www.epa.gov/wtc.
In signing up, residents are given two options: for a cleaning and testing, or a testing only.
As of today, 3,633 residents have registered for a clean-and-test, and 1,031 for a testing only, said a spokesman for the E.P.A. Most of the apartments are to be tested only for asbestos, but 250 of those initial apartments will also receive a broader spectrum of tests for dioxins, heavy metals and other pollutants under a separate pilot program.
The Environmental Protection Agency spokesman, Richard Stapleton, said that a decision on whether to expand the testing menu would be made on the basis of those initial 250 apartments, but that results were not yet available. Of the 80 asbestos-only apartment tests so far, he said, 2 contained asbestos in levels that suggested a need for further cleanup.
New vision downtown, by Greg Gittrich, NY Daily News,
Tuesday, September 24th, 2002
Downtown redevelopment honchos are looking beyond Ground Zero - studying ways to build
more housing in lower Manhattan and make Fulton St. a prime retail and entertainment
center, officials said yesterday.
The expanded mission grows out of suggestions made by Gov. Pataki in recent weeks on how to revitalize the area around the 16-acre disaster site.
The housing study will examine the market south of Houston St. Officials will emphasize the need to build more housing along the Fulton St. and John St. corridors, as well as south of Liberty St.
The Fulton St. study will look at the shops, arts and entertainment offerings currently along the strip and offer ways to lure more tenants to the street, which will be extended through the disaster site.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency overseeing rebuilding, is teaming with the city Department of Planning to conduct both studies.
City grants chief now a disaster-aid broker, By Greg Gittrich, NY Daily
News, Tuesday, September 24th, 2002
A former city official who dished out grants to downtown businesses hurt by the Sept. 11
attacks has left her post to run a consulting firm - advising businesses on how to apply
for the same federal aid.
But this go-round, Ann Kayman gets a cut of any disaster-relief money awarded to the struggling downtown businesses.
When asked about Kayman's new line of work, city and state economic development officials said businesses should not hire her outfit, New York Grant Co., and others like it.
"People should come to us," said city Economic Development Corp. spokesman Michael Sherman. "We have a staff of trained professionals that will walk people through the process efficiently and effectively. It's quick and simple. And the other advantage is it's free."
City officials were concerned by Kayman's job switch and have asked the Conflicts of Interest Board to investigate.
But Kayman, former senior vice president of the Economic Development Corp., said her move to the private sector is not unethical or exploitative.
"My real desire is to continue helping companies the best way I can," she said, arguing that her fees are lower than those of most lawyers and accountants offering similar services. She refused to say how much her company charges.
City ethics rules prohibit ex-officials from communicating with their former agency on behalf of their new firm for a year after leaving. Former employees also cannot work on anything they were involved in while with the city, said Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Mark Davies.
He would not comment on Kayman, who said she cleared her new job with the city.
Kayman resigned from the corporation two days after the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Sherman said.
Slice of 700M pie
Her controversial decision to become interim chairwoman and CEO of the recently formed New York Grant Co. comes as many businesses are fighting for a cut of $700 million in federal aid being doled out by the city and state.
Many have complained about confusing applications and capricious eligibility guidelines.
"It's too bad people need brokers, in effect, to help them access city assistance," said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a New York economic research group. "I might have a problem with the way the city hands out grants ... but you shouldn't have to pay some specialist in order to do that."
Julie Menin, president of Wall St. Rising, a nonprofit group that advises businesses for free on how to obtain disaster aid, said many can't afford to lose a portion of their grant money.
But Kayman said she's not to blame for the problems businesses confront when they attempt to get the federal aid.
"I did not design the grant program. I did not create the formulas or write the guidelines," she said. "I helped administer it."
The Web site for her new company boasts that its staff understands "the ins and outs of how grant applications are reviewed by the government."
Albert Capsouto, who owns the Tribeca restaurant Capsouto Freres and advises the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. on small-business concerns, supported Kayman. "Maybe she can do more help this way," he said.
Businesses can apply for federal aid at no charge by calling a city hotline - (866) 227-0458 - or going to the corporation's Web site, www.newyorkbiz.com. A walk-in center is located at 140 William St.
With Eric Herman
Feds stiff city on 9/11 loans
, By Douglas Feiden, NY Daily News, September 21st, 2002From the Hamptons to the Hollywood Hills, thousands of companies that offer pricey pleasures to the affluent have been larded with millions in taxpayer-subsidized loans because of Sept. 11-related economic woes.
If only Uncle Sam had been so generous to the hard-pressed small businesses of New York City.
The Small Business Administration's disaster loan program is ordinarily limited to companies in an immediate disaster area and nearby counties. But on Oct. 22, the SBA expanded the program for the first time in its half-century history to cover companies in all 50 states that could prove an inability to pay bills and meet operating expenses because of the terror attacks.
Companies across America rushed to cash in on quick, low-interest, federally guaranteed loans. With terms up to 30 years and no interest or principal payments for five months, the loans provided a helping hand for thousands of entrepreneurs.
Like Forrest Johnson, who runs off-the-blacktop Humvee tours of the desert and gold fields outside Las Vegas and borrowed from the feds so he could continue his quest for tourist dollars.
"After Sept. 11, it was the job of the SBA to help get America back on its feet again," Johnson said. "Mission accomplished."
Mounds of red tape
Unfortunately, the battered businesses in and around Ground Zero did not fare quite as well, according to a Daily News analysis of SBA data and dozens of interviews with struggling downtown proprietors.
Owners tell of arbitrary turndowns. Mysterious, lengthy delays. Language barriers that often trip up immigrants. Take-it-or-leave-it collateral demands. Inept functionaries who lose critical paperwork. And a bureaucratic mind-set that spawns thickets of red tape.
So daunting is the process that thousands of New Yorkers have withdrawn their applications or turned down the agency after a loan finally was offered.
Mendel Ciment, whose four-employee network-management company, Tower Computer Services, originally was located on the 21st floor of 1 World Trade Center, said he was horrified when the SBA demanded he put up his home as collateral for a $70,000 loan. He refused.
"My office was vaporized, my business was vaporized and now the federal government wanted my house in hock," Ciment said. "This was 9/11 not some flood on Main St. or an earthquake out West yet the SBA acted as if it couldn't tell the difference."
The bottom line: In the five boroughs, 54% of business loan applicants who claimed terror-related financial hardships got approval from the SBA. By contrast, more than 30 states and at least five U.S. territories had approval rates of 58%. "There are an awful lot of businesses in New York City that we tried real hard to help and gave every benefit of the doubt when it came to their ability to repay," said William Leggiero, the SBA area director for New York, New Jersey and 11 other Eastern states. "But these were businesses on the edge barely making it and unable to take on any more debt and much as we tried, we just couldn't help them."
He said local businesses that were marginal before 9/11 and less likely to make it after 9/11 wouldn't necessarily qualify for federal lending.
As a result, the approval rate in Manhattan 58% was identical to that in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains states. In other words, in the place where 2,801 innocents died, businesses seeking disaster relief were successful in the same percentages as were companies in Omaha, Wichita and Santa Fe.
The other boroughs fared even worse: In the Bronx, the approval rate stands at 34%, the lowest in the city. Queens hit 42%, and Staten Island, 57%. In Brooklyn, businesses were approved 39% of the time about the same as firms in California, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam.
"Why should a company in Honolulu get the same odds I got?" asked Marc Jacobs, co-owner of a family-run car service in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He said he was denied a loan because of a credit dispute that was resolved six years ago.
Perplexing loans
How did companies thousands of miles from the city qualify for 9/11-related loans?
They claimed, in the language of the SBA, to have "suffered substantial economic injury as a direct result" of the "destruction of the World Trade Center or damage to the Pentagon" and were able to prove it to the lender's satisfaction.
Among those who met that standard:
Renown Charters & Tours, an Anchorage operator of whale, wildlife and glacier cruises. It snared a $294,000 loan to meet fixed expenses. Owner Randy Becker said that with flights grounded, few travelers were in the mood to spot orcas, otters, porpoises, seals, sea lions and bald eagles in Kenai Fjords National Park. He used the cash to cover payroll, fuel and moorage costs for his boats.
Tan Your Buns, a Fargo, N.D., tanning salon. It borrowed $16,800 for working capital and loan repayment. Co-owner Caleb Hoag said the brutal Fargo winters had been prime tanning season for his customers, many of whom gave up this luxury after 9/11, costing him 37% of his normal revenue. The money helped him limp through the summer, when salon sessions are traditionally less frequent.
Dive Experience, a St. Croix, Virgin Islands, scuba diver training service. It got a $42,100 loan. Owner Michelle Pugh said the coral reef and marine life such as the moray eel and black-tipped shark lost their exotic appeal after the terror strikes. Cancellations were widespread, and the loan helped her company stay afloat.
New Stone Age, a Saipan-based import-and-trading concern in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands 8,084 miles from Ground Zero. It pocketed $35,700. Owner Jim Davies said that after 9/11, he needed cash because goods shipped from Indonesia and the Philippines never reached the Marianas.
Redi-Spuds, a Las Vegas purveyor of fresh hash brown breakfast potatoes. It got $50,000. Owner Pete Vescio said "decadence was out of fashion" in September, and the market for hash browns and onion rings quickly fizzled. The loan let him maintain staff, supplies and potato inventories until demand for spuds grew back.
Mixed signals
Out-of-town recipients tend to gush about their dealings with the SBA. Said Johnson, "They were amazingly helpful, efficient and reasonable."
Pugh said, "They're wonderful people to work with, the process was fabulously painless, and it restored my faith in government."
Vescio agreed. "It was simpler and easier than dealing with our banks," he said.
And in the argot of Fargo, Hoag summed up his experience as "cool beans."
Try telling that to Joshua Rockoff, president of Strike Eagle Graphics, an Internet consulting firm that was housed on the 29th floor of 2 World Trade Center and needed money to buy computers and reconstruct intellectual property.
"They lost my paperwork seven times," he said. "They never apologized; they kept blaming the post office. It was one of the worst experiences of my life."
Rockoff applied for a $150,000 loan in late October and needed a fast turnaround. But, he said, the SBA kept him waiting until June as revenues nosedived 53% and then arbitrarily slashed his loan to $57,000. By that time, he no longer was interested.
John Calder, owner of Steamer's Landing restaurant on the Battery Park City esplanade, got a quicker response. His Sept. 24 application for a $180,000 loan was approved Oct. 14 but there were strings attached.
He had to put up his co-op for collateral. He had to hand over any future grant monies to pay down principal. Loans from other sources also would go to the SBA, as would proceeds from damage and business interruption insurance.
"The loan would have been completely meaningless," Calder said. "So I turned down the SBA."
Still, for statistical purposes, the SBA is able to list the transaction as an approved loan.
The SBA's Leggiero said collateral requirements, usually a home, minimize taxpayer losses and the risk of default. He added that grant and insurance funds are often tapped to repay the loan because the federal law mandates "no duplication of benefits" for disaster loans.
Immigrant-owned businesses whose principals lack fluency in English often describe a long, nightmarish process before they get loans.
Waitim Ho, one of seven co-owners of the Win Hop restaurant at 51 Bayard St. in Chinatown, said he made at least five trips to the SBA's Worth St. office, spent more than 16 hours, talked to four loan officers through a Cantonese translator, produced hundreds of documents and still was turned down five times.
The two big sticking points: 1) The SBA kept asking Ho to identify Win Hop's majority shareholder, even though all seven co-owners hold equal 14.3% stakes. 2) The SBA kept asking Ho to produce all six of his partners even though that would mean closing the restaurant at a time sales already were down 50%.
Ho said through an interpreter, "I felt desperate and hopeless, and I cried with dry tears."
The ordeal ended in April, when Jack Chung, a business adviser at LaGuardia Community College's Small Business Development Center, read about Ho's plight in a Chinese newspaper and intervened with the SBA to help him secure a 13-year, $70,500 loan. Ho was one of the lucky ones.
Asbestos
costs to rise by $100,000, High school must replace auditorium upholstery, carpeting, By Heather Barr , The News-Times, 9/20/2
Contact Heather Barr at hbarr@newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3331.
BROOKFIELD The auditorium of Brookfield High School will remain closed until officials can arrange for more than $100,000 worth of work on seats and carpeting.
Officials said they must replace all the carpeting and the upholstery on 760 seats after two cleaning sessions failed to remove enough asbestos from the fabrics.
Superintendent James Chittum and First Selectman Martin J. Foncello Jr. said they will meet this month with the districts asbestos consultants and discuss how to proceed.
The bill for the seats could be $83,000, and new carpeting could run $21,000.
High levels of asbestos were found in all four of the districts schools in May and June, causing the schools to be closed before the end of the academic year.
Over the summer, the schools were cleaned by contractors. Everything was tested and declared safe by the first day of school, except the high school auditorium. The room has remained closed and some assemblies have been moved to high schools old gym.
Over the summer, the auditoriums seats were first steam cleaned and then tested. When significant levels of asbestos fibers were found, the seats got another industrial-strength cleaning.
Similarly, the carpet was cleaned, tested and cleaned again.
Mark Granville of Brooks Laboratories, an asbestos consultant for the school system, said the two cleanings simply did not remove as much asbestos as officials and experts had hoped.
There are no government standards for asbestos levels. Some experts say anything over 5,000 particles (called "structures) per square centimeter is questionable. Others say 45,000 structures per square centimeter is OK.
After the second cleaning, some auditorium seats still tested at 12,000 to 24,000 structures per square centimeter. Some spots on the carpet reached 36,000 structures per square centimeter.
All told, the asbestos problems are expected to cost the district about $4 million. Most of that money will go to pay for cleaning work. But the district will have to replace more than $200,000 worth of damaged items as well.
In addition to the auditorium seats and carpet, books, floor tiles and some rugs must be replaced, according to a list that the school superintendent gave to Foncello this week.
The Board of Education has also asked Foncello and Chittum to check the curtains, the stage, the sound acoustic tiles and the ceiling tiles in the auditorium for asbestos.
Stop the
Presses
Just Asking... - by
Eric Alterman, The Nation, 9/19/2
[from the October 7, 2002 issue]
Shortly after September 11, Dan Rather--or "El Diablo" as he is known to conservatives--appeared on Letterman and announced, "George Bush is the President, he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where." About a year later, Rather came to understand how misguided a sentiment this is for a journalist and took it back: "We haven't lived up to our responsibility," he admitted. "We haven't been patriotic enough to ask the tough questions."
The costs of the media acquiescence to the atmosphere of superpatriotism are all around us. We're fighting one war in Afghanistan and may be about to enter another in Iraq. And yet because of the Bush Administration's penchant for obsessive secrecy coupled with the media's misplaced deference, we're not much more knowledgeable about our path than thirty-eight years ago, when Lyndon Johnson sent US troops into combat in Vietnam by retaliating for an imaginary attack.
As a patriotic American, I'd like to offer up a few questions to which we might like answers related to the attacks of September 11, the war against Al Qaeda (which I support) and the proposed war against Iraq (which I don't). In addition to my own research, I have relied on recent reports by Patrick Tyler and Jim Dwyer of the New York Times, Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post, Eric Boehlert of Salon and Juan Gonzalez, author of the new book Fallout. Here goes:
Why did the Bush national security team ignore the Al Qaeda briefing it received from President Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, in the fall of 2000?
Why did the President ignore the August 2001 intelligence briefing warning him of the likelihood of an Al Qaeda hijacking?
Why, in August 2000, was the FBI unable to locate Al Qaeda operatives Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq al-Hazmi, both of whom had been placed at a terrorist planning meeting by Malaysian intelligence in December 1999? Hazmi was listed in the San Diego telephone directory and Midhar was using a credit card with his name on it. Both were active at the San Diego Islamic Center.
Why didn't the National Security Agency have foreign language expertise to translate the words "Tomorrow is zero hour," spoken by Al Qaeda operatives and picked up in real time on September 10, 2001?
Why can't the FBI afford a decent computer system and people who know how to run it? Can't they hire Microsoft?
Why can't the CIA and the FBI talk to each other? Why can't either talk to the NSA? Microsoft could probably handle this one, too.
Why has no one, apparently, been fired, anywhere, despite a clear systemwide breakdown?
What was really up with George Bush flying around the country on September 11? If they thought they had a "credible threat" to Air Force One, why the hell did he fly on Air Force One?
What's up with those "loose" and missing Soviet-era nukes in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere? Why is the White House cutting funding for the Nunn-Lugar program, designed to protect them and keep them away from bad guys?
Why couldn't the cops and firemen communicate during 9/11? How many lives will be lost next time if this problem isn't fixed? (Ahem, Mr. Gates? This too.)
Who besides Rudy Giuliani thought it was a smart idea to build a terrorism crisis control center inside an obvious terrorist target? How many people might have survived if it had been built in a halfway intelligent place?
Speaking of Ground Zero, anybody got any idea if it's safe to breathe the air down there? Anybody know how all those contaminants--mercury, asbestos, benzene, etc.--combining in unprecedented chemical cocktails, affect the long-term health of children, pregnant women, old people? Who is monitoring the health effects on the rescue workers? Who made the decision to reopen downtown so quickly, knowing so little?
Why is John Ashcroft arresting people who grow medical marijuana? Ditto New Orleans hookers? Isn't there a war on? Don't the terrorists win if we give up pot and hookers?
What about those detention camps Ashcroft wanted for the purposes of indefinitely incarcerating US citizens deemed to be "enemy combatants," while stripping them of all constitutional rights, including the right to trial? Is that still happening? That sounds kinda bad.
When did George Bush decide to appoint Ariel Sharon as de facto US representative to what used to be called the Middle East peace process? Isn't Marty Peretz supposed to be Gore's guru?
How did Bush decide on war with Iraq without consulting the uniformed military, the intelligence agencies, the UN, NATO, the Republican national security establishment--including both of his dad's secretaries of state and his National Security Adviser--the Republican Party in Congress, the Democratic majority or just about anyone who did not already want to go to war with Iraq?
Why was it OK for Iraq to use nerve gas when we were helping it fight the Iranians during the Reagan Administration? Wasn't Richard Perle in the Defense Department back then? Didn't Reagan send Rumsfeld over there to suck up to the guy? Well, what did they know and when did they know it?
Got any real evidence about those nukes Saddam is building? Got any real evidence regarding his CBW and WMD delivery capabilities? Why is he not deterrable again?
About this pre-emptive war stuff, who gets to go next? China against Taiwan? India against Pakistan? Or is it just a white guy thing?
What happens with Iran if Iraq collapses?
What happens with Kashmir if Musharraf is overthrown?
Does Israel go nuclear if Saddam unleashes a gas attack on Tel Aviv? What happens then?
Is anybody thinking about this stuff?
Who elected this guy anyway?
9/11 Contractors Near Agreement on Insurance, by Steven Greenhouse, NY Times, 9/21/2
he construction companies that excavated the debris from
ground zero were near agreement with the city yesterday on a deal to use federal emergency
money to buy $1 billion in insurance, which the companies would use to defend themselves
against any lawsuits from residents, property owners and workers connected with the
cleanup.
The agreement would protect the companies from a risk that haunted them throughout the cleanup: they did not have the basic liability coverage against injury that contractors typically have on every project, even a single-family house.
Ever since the construction companies began removing the tangled steel and smoking debris from the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, they feared that a flood of lawsuits over asthma, asbestos-related illnesses or other respiratory conditions could bankrupt them because they lacked basic insurance. Several construction officials said it was absurd that there was no basic insurance at a construction site widely seen as the most dangerous in the nation.
"I'm happy to say that there has been some movement," said Peter Davoren, senior vice president of Turner Construction Company, one of the four major contractors in the cleanup. "It's critical that we get this issue resolved. If we don't have this insurance in place, it could put us out of business. We don't have a place to go if these claims come in and we have to pay them out of pocket."
In the deal under negotiation, the city would set up a new insurance company to cover these potential claims. It is expected to use hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Administration to secure $1 billion in insurance coverage. That fund, officials in the negotiations said, might cover 20 or 25 years of claims for professional and pollution liability.
Claims covered by this insurance could come from different sources: from victims of respiratory problems, for example, who attribute them to the cleanup, or from owners of a building near the World Trade Center site who conclude that engineering mistakes in the cleanup weakened the building foundations.
In the four months after the Sept. 11 attack, the four major cleanup contractors Bovis, Tully, AMEC and Turner failed, despite intense efforts, to persuade insurance companies to provide coverage. The insurers refused to write a policy because they feared a mountain of claims that they said would be impossible to calculate.
When the contractors could not get insurance, several advisers told them they were unwise to continue the cleanup, but company officials said it was their patriotic duty to continue.
The four cleanup contractors and 20 subcontractors turned to Congress for help. In approving more than $20 billion in emergency aid for New York City after the attack, Congress anticipated that some of that money would be used to finance liability coverage for the contractors.
"Even when their own lawyers were telling them to leave, these contractors stayed at the site and continued to work," said Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat who pressed the federal government to help create the $1 billion insurance fund. "It's only right that they are getting the insurance protection they deserve and need."
The construction companies were considered particularly vulnerable to lawsuits because Congress had exempted New York City, New York State, the airlines and the Port Authority, which owned the World Trade Center, from any lawsuits stemming from the Sept. 11 attack.
"I don't think anyone is going to know for a long time what these claims are going to be," said one construction industry official. "I don't want to encourage people to make claims, but if there are justifiable claims caused by this work, they should have some place to go."
The main negotiators were Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, the four construction contractors and the General Contractors Association of New York.
The Bloomberg administration and the contractors association declined comment yesterday, saying it was too early to discuss an agreement because some details had yet to be worked out. Any deal must have FEMA's approval.
Under the agreement, several negotiators said, somewhere between $600 million and $900 million in federal money would be used to secure the insurance. The insurance is to be provided by an entity called a captive insurance company, which is essentially a nonprofit company created for this one purpose.
"FEMA has been prepared from early on to provide insurance for the debris contractors," said Brad Gair, federal recovery officer at FEMA. "That's normally done on all of our projects. What was unusual here was because of the potential size of the liability, that insurance wasn't available to the contractors through a traditional mechanism. Now they're relying on New York City to obtain the insurance on their behalf."
One issue still to be worked out, negotiators said, is whether an insurance company or a claims adjustment company would administer the fund to pay and defend against claims.
One official involved in the negotiations said it remained unclear whether the city or the federal government would keep any money that might be left over.
Insurance experts said the fund would not cover claims brought by construction workers because they were already covered by workers' compensation and were largely barred from suing their employers over construction-related injuries.
But several construction officials said they expected claims from firefighters, police officers and other city workers, who are expected to assert that the dust stirred up by the cleanup damaged their lungs.
Respiratory Ills Plague Ground Zero Workers
, Many Who Breathed Fumes Face Disability, Grim Recovery Rates, By Christine Haughney, Washington Post, 9/16/2NEW YORK -- Age never seemed to catch up with consummate New Yorker Michael Burke, 43. He flourished on little more than four hours of sleep a night, working as a carpenter and bartender, chauffeuring his four daughters to activities, jogging in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park four times a week and playing Gaelic football for his native County Sligo team.
That routine ended abruptly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and his six-week stint at Ground Zero, where he built ramps for firefighters so their hoses wouldn't be run over and helped reinstall blown-out windows in nearby buildings.
By early October, Burke couldn't stop wheezing and coughing. At the end of the month, doctors discovered he had airway dysfunction and dead muscle ringing the outer edges of his heart.
"They diagnosed me as disabled for the rest of my days," he said, before heading back to Ireland to recuperate at his parents' home. "You still think you're superman. But you just can't do it."
A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, medical studies are showing that hundreds of World Trade Center rescue workers are still struggling with respiratory problems. For firefighters, one of the better documented groups, illnesses have necessitated lengthy medical leaves.
With last year's collapse of the two 110-story towers came a toxic plume of dust and debris. In the weeks after the attacks, many New Yorkers pressed through their recovery efforts with little more protective gear than flimsy paper masks. As the fires burned for months, and workers and residents shared the same rackety cough, many New Yorkers speculated about the amount of asbestos, lead and mercury in the gray dust coating Lower Manhattan.
Initially the Environmental Protection Agency insisted that the air was clean enough to work and live in Lower Manhattan, releasing select results to confirm the assertions.
But reports in the New York Daily News and in The Washington Post found that residents and scientists had their own battery of tests showing that the air contained elevated levels of lead and asbestos.
While private Wall Street companies commissioned crews to professionally clean their offices, many downtown residents were left to clean the pulverized debris coating their homes themselves. On May 8, the EPA announced it would provide cleanup and testing to downtown residents.
Doctors see new cases of persistent respiratory problems among those who labored at Ground Zero every day. And the numbers of the afflicted could be much higher than reported -- union officials say not enough workers have sought out the federally funded screening programs.
"My main concern is for the membership to go out and get checked," said Angelo Scagnelli, a business agent for the Cement Masons Union Local 780.
Scagnelli spent 45 years working on the city's largest construction projects, including the World Trade Center. He now suffers from asbestosis and can count on his thick fingers the co-workers who have died from his condition and assorted cancers.
He encourages the younger masons who worked on the World Trade Center cleanup to get their lungs checked. But they are often reticent.
"They don't even want you to know sometimes how sick they are," he said. "They just go to work and they don't want you even to know."
For Ground Zero's firefighters, recovery rates are grimmer than physicians and researchers had expected.
About half of the 358 firefighters who developed the "World Trade Center cough" remain on medical leave or light duty, according to a study of 10,116 firefighters published in the New England Journal of Medicine's Sept. 12 issue.
Although no firefighters have retired from respiratory problems, nearly 500 firefighters may have to retire by year's end because of their failing health.
"We have had persistent symptoms and some people just not have improved at all," Kerry Kelly, chief medical officer of the New York City Fire Department, said at a Sept. 9 New York Academy of Medicine panel. "It's been discouraging."
Similar numbers of workers involved with the recovery and reconstruction have reported respiratory problems.
Mount Sinai Hospital's Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine has treated 600 patients, from office workers caught in the dust clouds to fire and construction workers. About 60 percent of them suffer persistent upper and lower respiratory problems.
Nearly 15 percent of the clinic's patients remain sensitive to bus exhaust, cigarette smoke and temperature changes after a year of treatment.
With six full-time physicians seeing patients five days a week, Mount Sinai's clinic has a two-month waiting list for new patients. But medical director Stephen M. Levin still encourages these people to come.
He said he has seen too many patients misdiagnosed by primary care doctors unfamiliar with treating serious chemical burns. "It doesn't leave us confident that they will get appropriate evaluation and care," Levin said.
Burke, whose union has about two dozen members complaining of respiratory problems, encourages his co-workers to get checked out. After visiting a handful of private doctors who misdiagnosed and mistreated his condition, Burke said he found help at the Mount Sinai clinic.
But his breathing and lung capacity are far from normal. Before Burke went to Ireland, he was devoting his days to filling out workmen's compensation forms, lingering in doctor's waiting rooms for appointments and following a daily regimen of four heart and lung medications.
He has realized that for now he no longer can bang nails, run the length of a soccer field or carry his daughter's desk up a flight of stairs. He is trying to find a new profession, writing and taking photographs for a local Irish newspaper. But how much he does each day is guided by his health.
"I was never sick in my life. I didn't even have any doctors," he said. "It has changed everything."
GEORGIA-PACIFIC'S ASBESTOS NIGHTMARE: ASBESTOS DISASTER: An asbestos backgrounder, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sunday, 9/ 15/2
What is it?
Asbestos is a generic name for a group of minerals that separate into strong, threadlike fibers and were prized for their insulating and fire-resistant properties. The largest asbestos mines are in Canada and South Africa.
Why is asbestos dangerous?
Exposure to asbestos fibers significantly boosts the risk of contracting certain cancers and respiratory diseases. In its raw state, asbestos can break easily into microscopic pieces that can be inhaled or swallowed. Asbestos embedded in building products such as ceiling tiles or wallboard is considered safe unless it is disturbed by scraping, sanding or other abrasions that release asbestos fibers into the air. Researchers don't know exactly how asbestos makes people sick, but they do know that the fibers can lodge in body tissue, leading to asbestos-related diseases decades later. It's estimated that between 1940 and 1980, 27 million Americans had significant occupational exposure to asbestos. Some people exposed to asbestos develop asbestos-related ailments; others do not. Smoking cigarettes greatly compounds the risk.
What are the most common asbestos-related illnesses?
> Asbestosis: Asbestosis is a progressive scarring of the lung tissue that makes the lungs dense so they don't fully expand, making it hard to breathe. The chronic disease typically is not fatal, although it can lead to cardiac failure in advanced stages.
> Cancers: Asbestos can cause lung and colon cancers and may play a role in cancers of the stomach and esophagus. The most lethal asbestos-related cancer is mesothelioma, which can show up as tumors in the outer lining of the lungs and in the ribs or around abdominal organs.
> Thickening of the pleura and peritoneum: Asbestos fibers in the pleura (membrane covering the lungs) and the peritoneum (lining of the stomach wall) can cause thickening. The thickening by itself seems benign, doctors say, but the condition may increase the risk of developing asbestosis or lung cancer.
Is asbestos still used today?
Asbestos is used in some pipeline wraps, automotive brake linings, floor and ceiling tiles, roofing shingles, gaskets, transmission components, roof coatings, and small appliances such as toasters and hair dryers. The Environmental Protection Agency says these products are safe as long as they aren't damaged in a way that releases the asbestos fibers into the air. The EPA tried to phase out asbestos in 1989, but a federal judge overturned the ban on grounds that the agency had not fully analyzed the risks of replacement products. As a result, the ban covered only "new uses" of asbestos plus a few categories of existing uses, including paper products and flooring felt. Various groups are still pushing for a total ban.
Sources: Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, staff research.
GEORGIA-PACIFIC'S
ASBESTOS NIGHTMARE: PART I, 'Miracle mineral' exacts painful, long-term price
By Patti Bond,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer, 9/15/2
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Decades after death and disease were connected to inhaling asbestos, Georgia-Pacific remains ensnarled in the biggest product liability disaster ever. Georgia-Pacific defends its use of the fiber in the 1960s and '70s, saying it never knowingly harmed anyone.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation shows that at the time the company: Told consumers its asbestos products were safe even as the federal government was moving to ban the products. Experimented with, but abandoned, asbestos substitutes because they didn't work as well. Frequently violated federal asbestos safety regulations in its manufacturing plants. Kept selling asbestos products despite growing evidence of the health hazards of asbestos.
During the spring of 1973, the dust at the Finkle house was nothing more than a necessary nuisance.
The remodeling job in the bare basement was dirty work for homeowner Norman Finkle, but it was exciting for his three young daughters. Amid the dust and disarray, a child's play room was taking shape in their suburban Maryland home.
After dinner, Finkle, a heating and air conditioner contractor, headed down the basement stairs to chip away at the project. Often, Lisa, the brown-haired middle child, tagged along, "helping" in the way third-graders do. Lisa watched her dad hang drywall and seal the cracks with a grayish-white paste.
The really messy part came when the goo dried and Finkle sanded it. He slathered and sanded a second time, and a third time in some places, to give the walls a smooth finish.
Lisa would have to wait four months for the fun stuff --- the pool table, the pinball machine, the juke box --- but in the meantime, the cleanup never seemed to end.
Each round of sanding kicked up dust that landed everywhere --- on the basement floor, on the clothes in the nearby laundry room, even on the sofa upstairs. Sometimes the air conditioning system sucked up the powdery particles and sprayed white specks throughout the house.
Lisa stood by and waited for the playroom to emerge, breathing that dust into her 8-year-old lungs.
Meanwhile, in an Oregon laboratory more than 2,000 miles away, chemists for building supply giant Georgia-Pacific Corp. were tinkering with a key ingredient in the company's product line of joint compounds, including the "Ready-Mix" paste Finkle used.
The ingredient was asbestos, a generic name for a half-dozen minerals that occur naturally in clumps of long, threadlike fibers that are incredibly strong and flexible.
Other manufacturers used asbestos for its fireproofing and insulating capabilities, but Georgia-Pacific, then based in Portland, Ore., used it as a binding agent in paste-like compounds used to finish walls and ceilings.
A little bit of asbestos, the company found, made a world of difference. Take asbestos out of the mix, and the compounds were either too thick or too thin, too rubbery or too watery. The paste fell off trowels and slid down walls.
The obvious solution was to keep the asbestos, but that posed a problem no chemist could get around.
Inhaled, asbestos could be deadly.
Strong as piano wire yet a fraction of the diameter of a human hair, asbestos fibers can get trapped in the walls and membranes of the lungs. The result: fatal cancers and respiratory diseases that sneak up on victims years later.
Georgia-Pacific managers never actually tested the company's asbestos products for safety. Asbestos itself may be highly toxic, but it composed such a small part of Georgia-Pacific's formulas --- less than 10 percent in most cases --- that it just wasn't enough, company executives speculated, to harm the home builders and handymen who used the products.
But a looming government crackdown ultimately forced Georgia-Pacific executives to reckon with asbestos.
By the time Finkle started smearing his walls and ceiling with Ready-Mix, Georgia-Pacific had been trying for three years to get rid of asbestos because federal safety officials were tightening the standards to protect workers in the plants where the products were made. It would take four more years for the company to abandon asbestos altogether.
By then, the damage had been done.
Asbestos, once considered a "miracle mineral," would turn into the biggest product liability disaster ever.
Georgia-Pacific was hit with its first asbestos-related lawsuit in the late 1970s, and the company has been in court ever since. So far, more than 314,000 people have claimed Georgia-Pacific's asbestos products made them sick, and there's another wave of victims waiting in the wings. Asbestos-related illnesses can take up to 50 years to surface, so people who were exposed in the late 1970s could be claiming injuries for years to come.
Today, most of the 41,000 people who sue Georgia-Pacific in an average year are construction workers who claim they got sick on job sites after breathing dust from joint compounds. Some are the wives of workers who brought asbestos home on dusty work clothes. And some are consumers who used the products in home remodeling projects.
But Georgia-Pacific's largest asbestos-related payment, paid this year after a lengthy appeals battle, went to someone who said she was sickened simply by being near dust from the joint compound. As a child, Lisa Finkle watched her father build a recreation room in the basement of their Rockville, Md., home.
As a young woman, she faced a life cut short by a 5-gallon pail of Ready-Mix.
An unhappy reunion
Lisa and Georgia-Pacific would meet again 25 years after the rec room project.
By then, Lisa had graduated from the University of Maryland, fallen in love and married her college sweetheart, Scott Pransky, a pilot who whisked her off to vacations in the Caribbean and spots around the world.
"We loved to pack the bags and hit the road," Scott Pransky recalled in a recent interview. "Lisa would be willing to travel in a moment's notice."
At work, Lisa built a reputation as a go-getter, selling "Cherished Teddies" figurines to Hallmark stores and department stores. It was a lot more fun than peddling vacuum cleaners, she joked, because no one could resist the cute collectibles.
The couple waited six years after marrying to have a baby, and Lisa was gung-ho about that, too. She scoured Consumer Reports for advice on the best car seats and painted birdhouses on the walls of the baby's room. Yet she hardly missed a beat at work when her baby girl was born. Right away, she was working the phone from home and lining up orders.
But a few months after her daughter's first birthday, Lisa's high-energy lifestyle crashed to a halt.
Around Thanksgiving of 1997, Lisa was carrying the baby upstairs and nearly collapsed because she was so out of breath. She bicycled and worked out regularly at the gym, so she knew something was wrong when it happened again at a friend's house.
Lisa thought she might have pneumonia, but doctors delivered a more devastating and mysterious diagnosis: mesothelioma, an incurable cancer almost always linked to asbestos exposure. The outlook was grim --- survival after diagnosis might be six to 18 months, and it would be agonizing as her own lung tissue slowly suffocated her.
"I was in shock, because the last thing I thought in the world . . . was that they were going to say I had cancer," Lisa later testified.
Just a few days after the bad news, surgeons removed her left lung and part of her diaphragm.
Underneath the shock lay a gnawing question: How did a 33-year-old suburban mom who didn't smoke end up with a cancer found mainly in aging industrial workers?
Dad remembers the Ready-Mix
Lisa traced what she believed to be the answer to the basement of her childhood home.
Her father, Norman Finkle, recalled that he used several 5-gallon pails of Georgia-Pacific Ready-Mix joint compound, which he later discovered contained asbestos. Lisa believed that asbestos fibers broke loose when her father sanded the walls and the dust lodged in her lungs as she watched him work. She also thought she continued to breathe asbestos long after the project was done.
Sometimes when Lisa and her sisters played pool in the basement rec room, they inadvertently hit the ceiling with the cues, sending chunks of plaster raining down on the green felt-covered table. They'd brush it off, sending a cloud of dust back into the air.
The only family member to become sick, Lisa sued Georgia-Pacific in 1998. Company attorneys decided to fight the case, and it went to a jury in Rockville, Md., a year later.
The crux of her case was that there was no label to warn Finkle that the Ready-Mix product he used in 1973 contained asbestos.
At that time, Georgia-Pacific and other joint compound manufacturers were only just beginning to put caution labels on products.
In early 1973, Georgia-Pacific was only labeling the powder compounds that kicked up dust when mixed with water. Using language dictated by new federal safety regulations, the labels stated that asbestos dust may cause "serious bodily harm."
Georgia-Pacific put caution labels on its Ready-Mix wet pastes the next year, after a federal safety inspector cited the company for not labeling the product.
Bittersweet victory
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For its part, one of Georgia-Pacific's main defenses was that even though mesothelioma almost always occurs in people who were exposed to asbestos, occasionally it occurs for no known reason.
Company attorneys also argued that Lisa couldn't prove that she, as a child, was actually in the dusty basement during the few times that her father sanded Georgia-Pacific's asbestos-containing compound.
But as the young woman struggled to the witness stand with an oxygen tank and a permanent port implant in her chest for her chemotherapy treatments, the nine-day trial backfired on the company.
After deliberating only three hours, the six-member jury found Georgia-Pacific negligent for making an "unreasonably dangerous product" and awarded Lisa $9.2 million, the largest award ever against Georgia-Pacific in an asbestos case.
Lisa was waiting for another injection of chemotherapy at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore when her lawyer called to tell her about the verdict.
"Lisa and I hugged, we didn't say much," her husband, Scott Pransky, recalled. "I could see in her eyes, 'But look at me,' as we looked around the room at the other two dozen dying people waiting for their treatments."
Even though Lisa had become so weak she couldn't pick up her daughter, she refused to talk about death. The chemo made her lose weight, but surprisingly, she kept most of her long, brown hair. Somehow, Scott thought, she might just beat the odds.
In the meantime, Georgia-Pacific fought the award for three years by taking the case to Maryland's highest appeals court. The award had been reduced to about $7.4 million because Maryland law limits damages, but more than $2 million in interest accrued while the case was on appeal.
The judgment prevailed this year in an appeals court ruling in June.
Lisa never knew the final outcome. She died in August of 2000, just two weeks after her 36th birthday.
Alarms ring elsewhere
The case was exceptional in its outcome --- Georgia-Pacific lawyers have gone to juries with only a dozen asbestos cases out of hundreds of thousands of claims that have been routinely settled.
By far, most of the claims come from construction workers who were exposed to dozens of asbestos products over the years. They typically sue Georgia-Pacific along with an array of other companies that once used asbestos.
In every case, plaintiffs' attorneys say the company put profit ahead of safety.
Georgia-Pacific estimates that joint compound sales averaged $1 million to $2 million a year during the time the company used asbestos. With less than 10 percent of the market in those products, the company lagged rivals such as National Gypsum and U.S. Gypsum.
"These products represented a very small percentage of the company's total sales," said Jim Kelley, executive vice president and general counsel for Georgia-Pacific.
"Had we known there was a health effect problem with this product, we would've pulled it off the market because it didn't amount to that much for the company in terms of sales," Kelley said in a recent interview. "We would not knowingly harm anyone."
As the company's lawyer since 1993, Kelley has a key role in managing Georgia-Pacific's asbestos litigation.
"It is always difficult defending cases involving facts and events that happened 30 and 40 years ago, but we believe that Georgia-Pacific's management at that time made the best decisions they could based on the information then available to them," Kelley said.
But a review of company documents from that time shows managers clearly struggled with their dependence on a product that the company now says was not that important.
Georgia-Pacific began using asbestos in April 1965 when it bought Bestwall Gypsum Co. of suburban Philadelphia. The deal, valued at about $94 million, was one more notch in Georgia-Pacific's bulging belt as it snatched up lumber companies, built plants and broke into the tissue business. For a company that started in an Augusta lumber yard two years before the Great Depression, the 1960s were a time of growth and excitement.
Bestwall added a lucrative line of gypsum building products to the lumber business. Bestwall's primary money-maker was wallboard, also known as drywall, and the product line included a range of compounds, plasters and textures used to finish walls and ceilings.
Like its rivals, Bestwall had been using asbestos in the compounds since the 1950s.
At the time, a major medical study had raised concern about the dangers of asbestos.
The year before the acquisition, researchers at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine found high rates of disease among workers who installed insulation made with asbestos, including lung cancer and asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs that impedes breathing.
The landmark research left no doubt that occupational exposure to asbestos is dangerous --- and it resulted in the first generation of asbestos warning labels on packages of insulation products.
Outside the United States, there were reports that a rare cancer known as mesothelioma was rampant among asbestos miners in South Africa.
But Georgia-Pacific didn't mine asbestos, and it wasn't in the business of making insulation, executives later said, so there was no reason to take note. Georgia-Pacific executives later testified they first realized that heavy exposure to asbestos was potentially dangerous from news reports in the late 1960s, but they said they didn't think those warnings applied to the small amounts of asbestos embedded in the company's products.
A flawed plan
By the spring of 1970, the threat of a government crackdown was beginning to trouble the Georgia-Pacific vice president who oversaw the gypsum division.
"The use of asbestos fibers is receiving more attention every day in the construction industry as it relates to both air pollution and potential health hazards," Glenn E. Wilson wrote in a May 7, 1970, memo to his product development manager. Although he viewed the dangers as "quite remote," Wilson said the company should start looking into alternatives.
Wilson's order that year had little to do with safety, though.
"We were recognizing that the use of asbestos was going to be legislated out of joint compound products," Wilson testified in a 1988 deposition. Despite growing concerns in related industries, Georgia-Pacific "had no indication and no information that there was a health hazard with any of the products we were manufacturing," he said.
But a trove of industry studies and internal memos suggests that executives could have reached a different conclusion.
Around the time of Wilson's 1970 memo, Georgia-Pacific officials knew that Mount Sinai researchers had turned their attention to drywall workers. Georgia-Pacific was concerned about a lung problem in a man who primarily sanded joint compounds.
In light of that study, Georgia-Pacific's safety manager suggested a strategy to head off future claims from drywallers.
"We realize that someone will be the whipping boy," safety supervisor M.F. Fink wrote in the 1970 letter. "It is our opinion that the entire blame can be placed on the contractor, for not insisting on respirators and dust masks when sanding."
That was a flawed plan, though. Georgia-Pacific and its rivals weren't putting asbestos caution labels on the joint compound products at the time.
"Lives . . . are at stake"
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The search for an asbestos substitute intensified in 1972, when employee safety became a major problem for the company. That year, a new federal agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), forced Georgia-Pacific and other manufacturers to protect plant workers who handled asbestos.
Stating that "lives of employees are at stake," federal safety officials limited the amount of asbestos dust workers could be exposed to. They also required companies to install ventilation systems and provide workers with respirators and annual chest X-rays. Asbestos was considered so dangerous at this point that Georgia-Pacific and other manufacturers had to provide changing rooms and laundries for workers so they wouldn't bring the dust home to their families.
Some Georgia-Pacific plants producing joint compound repeatedly ran afoul of regulators for failing to monitor asbestos dust, or failing to provide respirators or medical exams for employees.
One of the worst offenders was Georgia-Pacific's dust-filled Akron, N.Y., operation. The violations there were so widespread that company officials considered building a new plant, internal memos show, rather than making the repairs necessary to properly ventilate the plant.
Several workers there were later diagnosed with lung problems.
Asbestos-free products fail
Meanwhile, Georgia-Pacific had taken little action to investigate the safety of its customers.
Although Georgia-Pacific managers had begun to realize that asbestos in its raw form was dangerous, they said at the time they didn't think it posed a hazard once it was blended into products. Asbestos composed less than 10 percent of the company's joint compounds in the 1970s.
"As more and more knowledge became available . . ., we lived with the fact that in large concentrations asbestos could be a problem," Wilson testified in 1988. "When you are talking of a very minor constituent of a product . . . you have no reasonable reason to suspect that there is a problem."
In the early 1970s, OSHA was regulating manufacturing plants but not the construction sites or households where laborers and handymen used joint compounds.
In 1973, joint compound manufacturers had to confront the potential hazards of their products.
That year, an industry trade group ran tests at a suburban Denver townhouse development to see how much asbestos was released into the air when drywall workers mixed and sanded joint compounds. The asbestos fiber in some samples was far higher than concentrations that OSHA considered safe in manufacturing plants.
The test results provided Georgia-Pacific with its first proof that contractors and other consumers were being exposed to asbestos through the routine use of joint compounds. Georgia-Pacific attorneys soon recommended that the company add a line to caution labels telling users to use respirators when mixing or sanding the products.
Yet, even as company officials learned more about asbestos exposure, the issue only grew cloudier at Georgia-Pacific.
The company had begun marketing some compounds without asbestos, but the products posed other problems for Georgia-Pacific. On the same day of the Denver drywaller study, the manager of Georgia-Pacific's troubled Akron plant notified OSHA that he was pulling asbestos-free products off the market and putting the asbestos back in because of sliding sales.
Asbestos was the "glue" that made joint compounds work. In test after test, construction workers hated the asbestos-free compounds because they fell off tools and walls.
Some contractors even used paint remover to strip off asbestos caution labels to get around local bans on asbestos products, according to Georgia-Pacific memos.
"Even with the knowledge that there was some feeling that asbestos fibers might be harmful, [contractors] still wouldn't use the other material," Charles Lehnert, Georgia-Pacific's longtime product development manager, testified in 1999. "If we were going to sell Ready-Mix, we would have to sell it with asbestos in it."
But federal safety officials were unsympathetic to falling sales.
OSHA issued a warning in 1974, citing a study in which nine of 17 New York painters union members who used joint compounds showed signs of a lung fibrosis that can lead to cancer.
"This is the first time I've seen actual cases reported," Georgia-Pacific's general sales manager, Oliver E. Burch, wrote in a memo. But just a week later, in a memo to his sales staff about caution labels, he said the company was "not aware of any health problems in our industry."
The reversal illustrates Georgia-Pacific's failure to come to terms with the growing asbestos crisis. On the one hand, company officials stepped up efforts to get rid of asbestos. On the other hand, as long as it was legal, Georgia-Pacific would sell asbestos products.
Defensive to the end In 1975, though, OSHA proposed restrictions that would be tough to meet. Regulators proposed lower asbestos exposure standards for plant workers and a new warning label that branded asbestos products a "cancer hazard," a more alarming warning than previous "serious bodily harm" cautions.
The looming federal restrictions came as New York state officials started banning asbestos-containing joint compounds and even removing them from some construction sites.
The final blow came from concerns about a group that had not factored into the asbestos debate yet: the do-it-yourself handymen.
In April 1977, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission had seen enough research on asbestos-containing joint compounds to ban the products. The ban wouldn't go into effect until January 1978.
Even at the end, Georgia-Pacific executives seemed to think they were immune to the asbestos scourge. Around the time of the 1977 ban, at least two do-it-yourself customers wrote the company to ask if they were in danger using Georgia-Pacific's products.
Both were told not to worry.
"To our knowledge, there is no known case of harm from joint cement containing asbestos fiber, even after prolonged exposure, numbered in many years," read one response letter signed by Burch, the sales manager.
A flood of lawsuits, as it turned out, already was on its way.
The family left behind
With nearly 30 years of hindsight, Georgia-Pacific now acknowledges that its asbestos-containing products posed a hazard.
"We think our products may have caused health problems to a very small number of people," said Kelley, the Georgia-Pacific general counsel.
Company attorneys have resolved 250,000 claims so far. Only 5 percent of those claims, Kelley said, come from people who have cancers. Most of the people who sue Georgia-Pacific have noncancerous injuries such as asbestosis, and the company can settle the claims for "small amounts," he said.
Insurance covers most of the settlement cost, according to the company.
Very few asbestos cases make it to trial because defense attorneys don't want to take chances with juries. In the Lisa Finkle Pransky case, attorneys could not reach a settlement. The size of the verdict shocked both sides.
"Our hopes were modest," Scott Pransky said. ". . . perhaps an award to cover the medical bills, child care and the time that Lisa and I were off from work."
Pransky said no amount of money will heal the wounds of the man and the little girl left behind. Danielle turned 6 in July, her second birthday without her mother.
Pransky called the $9 million award a "daily reminder of lost love and canceled dreams."
"I have a daughter who won't know just how wonderful of a mom she really had, so there is no feeling of 'an eye for an eye,' and there is no consolation," he said.
"Every dollar has a ghost."
| HISTORY OF ASBESTOS USE
The ancient Greeks were the first to take note of the potent versatility of asbestos. They were also the first to observe its harmful health effects but ignored the hazards because asbestos was so useful. By the late 20th century, the mineral was in more than 3,000 products. Here are some key developments in asbestos history: 4000 B.C.: Asbestos used for wicks in lamps and candles. 2000-3000 B.C.: Egyptians wrapped the embalmed bodies of pharaohs in asbestos cloth. Early 1800s: Asbestos insulation used in U.S. steam engines. 1870s: First commercial asbestos mine opens in Canada. 1880: U.S. asbestos industry launches with asbestos paper and board. 1906: Asbestos brake linings made in United States . The same year, the first case of "asbestosis" is recorded by a British doctor. 1918: U.S. and Canadian insurers stop insuring asbestos workers. 1930s: Johns-Manville Corp., the biggest U.S. maker of asbestos products, conspires with Metropolitan Life Insurance and rival Raybestos-Manhattan to cover up the growing problem of lung disease and fatalities among employees for the next 40 years. 1950s: U.S. medical research on asbestos dust links it to cancer, but manufacturers continue to suppress the evidence. 1960: Mesothelioma, a rare cancer, is reported to be rampant among asbestos miners in South Africa. 1964: Dr. Irving Selikoff and colleagues at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine publish landmark research on insulation workers, showing widespread rates of asbestos-related diseases. This time, the evidence reaches a global audience. The same year, Johns-Manville places the first warning labels on some asbestos insulation products. 1965: Georgia-Pacific starts using asbestos in joint compounds through acquisition of Bestwall Gypsum. 1966: The first asbestos lawsuit is filed, in Beaumont, Texas. 1971: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is created, and the asbestos industry becomes one of the first regulatory targets. 1973: Asbestos consumption peaks in the U.S. at 795,000 metric tons. That year, an appeals court rules that companies that use asbestos have a duty to warn users of the dangers of their products --- and that they can be held liable for failing to warn. 1977: Lawyers discover asbestos cover-up dating back to the 1930s. That year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission bans drywall compounds that contain asbestos and Georgia-Pacific stops producing asbestos-containing products. Around the same time, the company faces its first asbestos injury lawsuits. 1982: Johns-Manville files for bankruptcy protection because of asbestos lawsuits. 1989: EPA tries to ban all uses of asbestos, but industry later gets the ban overturned. 1990s: Asbestos still used in automobile brake pads, roofing shingles and other products, mostly through imports. 2002: Sen. Patty Murphy (D-Wash.) sponsors a bill to ban all asbestos products by 2005 after reports about deaths in Libby, Mont., where lingering asbestos has been found in a closed W.R. Grace vermiculite mine. Source: Staff research |
9/11 environmental impact unresolved, Health risks from asbestos, other released contaminants near site still being assessed, By Dina Cappiello, Staff writer, TimesUnion.com, 9/11/2
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Twenty minutes after the first tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, federal environmental officials rushed to the scene, armed with every monitor, mask and pollution-measuring instrument they could get their hands on.
For them, the attack was not just a dark day in U.S. history. It was an environmental disaster.
As the jet fuel burned in fires deep within the piles of rubble, air monitors detected spikes of cancer-causing benzene and dioxin in the air. The 300 to 400 tons of asbestos that insulated 40 floors was released into the environment in a mushroom cloud of dust.
Along with the bodies retrieved from the site were 650,000 gallons of oily water and fuel, 5,000 containers filled with hazardous materials, and numerous freon tanks.
And a year later, the environmental cleanup still is not over.
Dust laced with asbestos and other possible contaminants may still lurk in corners and carpets of the 30,000 homes around lower Manhattan.
"If you were close in, you got this tremendous shock wave that forced the dust into every little nook and cranny," said Mary Mears, a spokesman with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had more than 20 monitors measuring the components of the air in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jersey City. Most were taken down in June, when the recovery efforts were completed.
And the health effects of exposure to chemicals and other contamination on everything from birth weights to the number of hospitalizations are still being studied, with millions of dollars in research money.
It could be many years before researchers know if there was any impact on the residents and rescuers who lived and tirelessly worked near ground zero.
The EPA contends that it found nothing during nine months of monitoring to suggest health problems would emerge down the road.
"In general, all of our monitoring results -- and we took tens of thousands of samples of air, dust, drinking water -- pointed to a very, very low risk of long-term impacts," Mears said.
But the federal agency has come under fire for its methods.
Paul Bartlett, an associate professor at Queens College, says the EPA did not do enough to measure air quality around ground zero, and the detection levels used to determine whether air quality was good or bad for some contaminants were too low.
"Of the thousands of samples they took, they don't have data to show the air was safe," Bartlett said.
At least a half-dozen members of the Capital District Urban Search and Rescue Team came back from lower Manhattan with respiratory problems. Many of the symptoms, which included bronchitis and dry cough, have subsided.
Next month, the EPA will start performing asbestos tests on 100 houses. Since July, the agency has been cleaning and testing apartments for the remnants of the insulating material that, when airborne, can be inhaled and lodge itself in the lungs.
The impact could have been worse, said Ken Demerjian, director of the University at Albany's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. If there was anything lucky about that day, it was the direction of the wind, which carried the plume out toward the ocean.
"If the winds were blowing toward the land," said Demerjian, "it would have been blown into Queens and other inlands."
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9/11/01 - 02: An Unprecedented Attack On New York's Environment, by Eric Goldstein, GothamGazette.com, 9/11/2
One year after September 11th, experts believe that the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and the ensuing fires triggered one of the worst air pollution episodes in New York City's history.
Of course, the pollution-induced respiratory impacts from the trade center terrorism have been rightly overshadowed by the horrific toll of more than 2,800 lives that were lost as a direct result of the attacks. Moreover, the contaminants released from the World Trade Center's collapse and fires did not create a disaster comparable to the 1984 toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, which killed over 3,000 and seriously injured 20,000 more. And significantly, outdoor air quality in Lower Manhattan has returned to pre-September 11th levels.
But the public health and environmental consequences from the September 11th attacks in New York have had disturbing short-term impacts for many thousands of New Yorkers. Concerns about indoor air pollutants remain among some who live and work in the area. And it is almost certain that a portion of those who have suffered sort-term health problems from inhaling pollutants on or after September 11th, or who were otherwise exposed to 9/11 contaminants, will experience mid-term or long-term respiratory conditions or disease.
The collapse of the two 110 story towers released an avalanche of debris and pollution that roared down adjacent streets in Lower Manhattan. Intense fires, fueled initially by thousands of gallons of jet fuel, sent billowing smoke over large areas of the financial district. Prevailing winds carried some of the pollution across the East River into Brooklyn. Huge volumes of pulverized cement, fiberglass and particulate matter of all sizes, along with hundreds of toxins (including asbestos, dioxins, and volatilized metals such as lead and mercury) were rocketed into the environment. The fires at Ground Zero, which continued for more than three months, emitted noxious gases; a sickening, acrid odor often pierced the air.
AT HIGHEST RISK
Public health risks from environmental assaults such as the one that began on September 11th are related directly to the intensity and duration of the pollution exposure.
Not surprisingly, then, the first short-term health impacts were seen among the first-responders, including thousands of hero firefighters who developed respiratory symptoms that were dubbed the "World Trade Center cough." Today, the New York City Fire Department reports, several hundred members are still suffering from significant respiratory problems. Indeed, some firefighters who came from across the country to assist in recovery efforts also returned to their homes with a variety of pulmonary and related symptoms.
Police, emergency personnel, construction workers and others who spent significant time at the pile are also among those who also may have received high exposures. More than one hundred ironworkers have been treated by occupational health physicians at Mt. Sinai's Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. And according to the Center's Director, Dr. Stephen Levin, two of three still have persistent coughs and other signs of respiratory distress.
The several thousand largely untrained workers who were hired to clean out dust and pollution inside commercial buildings in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero constitute another high risk group. A medicinal team headed by Dr. Steve Markowitz from the Center for Biology Systems at Queens College, supported by the September 11th Fund, set up a mobile van to provide free medicinal screening to such workers. In cooperation with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, the physicians saw 415 workers over a five week period. Almost all had persistent respiratory irritation and/or systemic symptoms such as headache, dizziness and poor appetite -- even though they had completed their work assignments four to six weeks prior to the medical examinations.
OTHER EXPOSED POPULATIONS
Another at risk group includes those office workers and others who were caught in the extraordinary cloud of pollution and debris on September 11th. Little information on the health impacts of this group has been developed to date.
Residents who returned several weeks later to their apartments faced lower risks than groups such as those mentioned above, most experts believe. Nevertheless, sensitive subpopulations, such as those with pre-existing lung diseases, are more likely to have suffered adverse respiratory reactions when they returned to their homes or offices. (And many of the returning residents have been understandably frustrated by the pace and scope of the long-delayed indoor clean-up program which is still -- one year later -- in the design stage.)
Lower Manhattan is also the home to a handful of public schools and other learning institutions, and some students also experienced short-term health problems in the aftermath of 9/11. At Stuyvesant High School, the first local school to reopen, some students (as well as faculty members and staff experienced a variety of adverse heath reactions, which were probably exacerbated by the debris-hauling barge operation that was located across from the school.
In total, approximately 10,000 to 30,000 people or more suffered some short-term respiratory problems associated with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, according to a forthcoming report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (where I work). (This estimate is limited to pollution-related illnesses and does not include those who have experienced or may still be experiencing mental health problems in the aftermath of September 11th.)
There is much we still do not know about the environmental health consequ ences of the trade center's collapse and the subsequent fires. And the synergistic impacts of exposure to multiple pollutants makes the September 11th exposures extremely difficult to assess. For such reasons, it is essential that on-going health studies such as those underway at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health (tracking pregnant women and their offspring), and at Mt. Sinai, New York University, Johns Hopkins medical schools be fully funded.
The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, in addition to their unspeakable loss of life and huge economic dislocations, also constituted an unprecedented attack on New York's environment. Thousands have suffered or are still suffering adverse health impacts. And much work still remains to be done to provide indoor clean-ups in residences and small businesses in the World Trade Center vicinity and to insure follow-up medical care to all those who were exposed.
But even as the recovery process continues, New Yorkers can once again stand outside in Lower Manhattan and breathe freely.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
How did government agencies perform in response to the environmental health challenges posed by the September 11th attacks?
What lessons can be learned from their actions?
And what steps should government take now to address remaining environmental health concerns and be better prepared to handle future environmental health emergencies in New York?
These questions will be addressed in Part II of this article, in October.
9/11 Dust Sickens New York Firefighters, Residents, Environment News Services, September 10, 2002
NEW YORK, New York, September 10, 2002 (ENS) - More than 90 percent of the New York City Fire Department rescue workers who responded to the collapse of the World Trade Center last September 11 have developed a severe cough," Dr. David Prezant of the New York City Fire Department told journalists Monday during a telebriefing organized by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Some 12,100 firefighters and medical services personnel were exposed to the dust, smoke and heat of the burning towers during the first week, and many were re-exposed in the following weeks. Some are coughing so badly that they have had to take four weeks or more of medical leave for a new condition that health officials are calling "the WTC related cough."
On that day one year ago, 2801 people died as two hijacked airplanes struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Over 343 New York City Fire Department (FDNY) rescue workers died during the collapse - 341 were firefighters and two were paramedics. Over the next 24 hours, another 240 FDNY rescue workers, firefighters and paramedics, sought emergency medical treatment.
"I think that we're never going to know the full scale of what firefighters were exposed to on that day," said Dr. Prezant.
Twenty-three New York City police officers were killed in the course of their duties related to the terrorist attacks. No figures on contamination related illnesses suffered by police personnel are immediately available.
Most environmental monitoring began on September 18, a full week after the event. But "the clear thing that every person knows," said the FDNY physician, "is that they were exposed to a massive dust cloud. There is visual evidence for that. And that massive dust cloud includes a respirable airborne particulate matter."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the dust was composed mainly of ground up construction materials, including concrete, glass, fiberglass and some asbestos.
Analysis of the Ground Zero air by the University of California Davis DELTA Group, an association of aerosol scientists at several universities and national laboratories, found unprecedented levels of mass and very fine particles containing sulfur, vanadium, nickel, lead and mercury, as well as silicon aerosols produced by the vaporization of soil and glass.
Dr. Prezant said, "Even if that respirable airborne particulate matter does not include a single chemical, it is incredibly toxic at that level of exposure. There are voluminous data in the literature saying that exposure to airborne particulates may induce increasing rates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, emphysema, and heart disease."
Many firefighters worked at the disaster scene without any respiratory protection at all. As standard equipment, they are issued what Dr. Prezant called "the best respirator on the Planet Earth," the Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA). Designed to fight fires, the air tank is heavy and contains only enough air for 15 minutes. In the rescue operation environment of the World Trade Center, the heavy tanks were discarded when they ran out of air.
"Our firefighters went in with the best respirator and the best intention for protection, but then did not have any respirator because of the resulting lack of ability to use the SCBA," Dr. Prezant said.
The EPA says that it and other federal agencies made thousands of respirators and other protective gear available to workers at the scene.
But Dr. Prezant says it took days to get them the half-face T100 respirators certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. "During that time they tried to use hardware, sawdust masks," said Dr. Prezand, "but even that was of very limited value."
As a result, during the six months following September 11, 332 firefighters and one ambulance worker developed WTC related coughs, defined as being severe enough to require at least four weeks of medical leave.
These people suffer from both upper and lower aerodigestive tract irritation, including sinusitis, gastro-esophageal acid reflux, and asthma. Fifty-two percent have shown only partial improvement and remain on either medical leave, light duty, or are filing for retirement injury/disability evaluations, the fire department physician said. The other 48 percent, with treatment, have recovered and have returned to full firefighting duty.
"We expect that over 500 firefighters will ultimately file and probably qualify for retirement injury/disability on the basis of WTC cough and other respiratory related problems," Dr. Prezant said, a "dramatic" increase from prior numbers.
Residents and office workers in buildings near Ground Zero were also exposed to the polluted dust cloud and continuing smoke and dust from the collapsed towers, which smoldered for weeks.
Dr. Rachel Kramer of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, says that her agency, in collaboration with the CDC, conducted a community needs assessment in Lower Manhattan six weeks after the attacks that found hundreds of residents were still feeling ill.
Between October 25 and November 2, a door-to-door survey was conducted in three residential neighborhoods covering about 50 percent of the Lower Manhattan residential population.
On September 11, 2001, an estimated 75 percent of the households were evacuated from their homes following the attacks. During the survey six weeks later, 66 percent of residents in the 1,400 households surveyed reported nose or throat irritations, half had eye irritation or infection, 47 percent were coughing.
About 60 percent of the population reported receiving information about proper cleaning procedures, yet only 45 percent reported that their apartments had been cleaned according to the recommended method.
As of June 3, the EPA offered Lower Manhattan residents cleaning and/or testing of their homes. On August 16, the EPA started the scheduling of testing for airborne asbestos in 100 residences in lower Manhattan.
Manhattan residents living below Canal, Allen and Pike Streets have until October 3 to ask to have their homes cleaned and tested for airborne asbestos by certified asbestos contractors, or they may ask for testing alone under EPA's Lower Manhattan Dust Cleanup Program.
Chinatown lies close to the World Trade Center, and residents experienced heightened rates of asthma after the terrorist attacks, suggests a survey conducted by the Chinese Progressive Association, a nonprofit community group. The survey, reported in the September 4 issue of the "Downtown Express" newspaper, was conducted by volunteers who received an orientation on air pollution in Chinatown.
They surveyed 580 households with 2,040 residents and found that about half the new cases of asthma reported were diagnosed during the first eight months of 2001, and half during the fall of 2001 and spring of 2002. Half the cases occurred in children under 17.
The survey found that the highest concentration of asthma was in northern Chinatown, but residents there are outside the boundary to receive the free EPA testing and cleaning of asbestos and contaminated dust.
Households north of Canal Street are not eligible for the EPA services, although many affected residents live there, said Mae Lee, Chinese Progressive Association's executive director. "If you live south of Canal, you're eligible to get free testing," she said. "If you live north of the boundary, you're not."
Across the East River, Brooklyn was covered with dust and debris from the disaster, but their borough is being left out of testing and cleanup programs, say New York Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and New York Council Member David Yassky and other Brooklyn elected officials.
On September 4, they decried the EPA's existing post September 11 testing and cleanup programs and insisted that the agency include Brooklyn in its efforts. Despite earlier complaints by elected officials and residents that the cloud of pollution not only passed over, but settled on Brooklyn's parks, streets, houses, businesses and citizens, the EPA has failed to extend its cleanup and testing efforts to the borough, the officials say.
NASA photos taken immediately following the attack and collapse of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and released on August 28, show in detail the heavy concentration of smoke and debris from the site traveling across the East River and over Brooklyn.
In response, Yassky and Velazquez drafted a letter last week to EPA Administrator Christine Whitman outlining their concerns. "We all watched the cloud of debris cross the river and descend on our neighborhoods in Brooklyn," Yassky said.
"Now, one year later, we have proof to show the federal government that we need its help just as much as Manhattan. My constituents are worried, with good reason, that their own health and the health of their families and neighbors have been in jeopardy since the tragedy. They are worried that the government isn't doing anything about it. So am I."
"On September 11, I watched debris fall on Carroll Gardens, while the dust cloud swept through Brooklyn," Congresswoman Velázquez said.
"Local, state and federal agencies have monitored the health of residents and recovery workers at and near Ground Zero. The same should have been done for Brooklyn.
"The NASA pictures and information from local health officials paint a very clear picture of what we already suspected - the toxic cloud of debris wasn't confined to Lower Manhattan but was carried over to Brooklyn," the Brooklyn officials wrote to Whitman. "It is time for the EPA to acknowledge they underestimated the environmental impact on our borough and take action immediately."
The EPA acknowledges that its greatest concern is "the potential long term health effects resulting from the release of a wide range of toxic contaminants."
The agency says that it began monitoring the smoke plume on September 11, 2001 and has since taken and analyzed nearly 20,000 samples of air, dust and water in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey. "All of this testing, as well as the sampling results from other federal, state and local agencies, shows that the risk for long term health effects is very low. This is reinforced by independent assessments conducted by area doctors, researchers and health professionals."
Cleaning or testing is available by logging on to the EPA's World Trade Center website at: http://www.epa.gov/wtc/ or by calling the EPA toll-free hotline at 1-877-796-5471.
NY1 For You
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NY1
For You Follow-Up: Red Cross Offers To Help Residents Clean Up Their Apartments, Susan Jhun, 9/9/2
Since last September, the
NY1 For You segment has brought viewers the stories of many individuals who
were adversely impacted by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. As we near the
one-year anniversary, NY1's Susan Jhun takes a look at one of the problems many Lower
Manhattan residents faced immediately following the disaster.
Sheila Rossi's Battery Park City apartment laid buried in a blanket of soot and ashes, an
ominous reminder of the tragedy that unfolded weeks before right outside her door.
I believe these ashes to be cremated people, asbestos, and PCBs," says
Rossi.
Jodi Cowen found her apartment covered in the same dust and debris.
When I walked in here I was like, Oh my God! says Cowen. I looked
at everything and I just couldn't believe it.
The cleanup task was enormous for the two tenants who lived in separate buildings at
Gateway Plaza. At the time, they said their landlord, the LeFrak Organization, offered to
pay for cleaning services, but only for the walls, ceilings and floors.
To me, that doesn't make any sense, because everything else still has to be
cleaned, says Cowen.
The cost of the cleanup ran into the thousands.
Like many renters, both Rossi and Cowen were uninsured. Since they couldn't afford the
cleaning expenses, they were forced to seek financial assistance. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency, told the two they didn't cover cleanup costs.
We can't provide direct assistance specifically targeted for cleanup for renters,
because that's really the responsibility of the landlord, says FEMAs Michael
Byrne.
Thats a notion some legal experts seemed to agree with.
Whether they have a legal obligation or not, part of it has to do with it is good
landlord-tenant relations, and part of it is if they leave whatever is there - the dust,
etc. - it may be causing harm to the tenant if the tenant moves back in, says Joseph
Burden, a landlord-tenant lawyer.
Not knowing where to turn for assistance, the two women contacted "NY1 For You."
First we called their landlord to ask them why they wouldn't cover full cleaning costs for
their own tenants. The LeFrak Organization refused to comment on any part of our story.
Then NY1 called the American Red Cross. Back when NY1 For You originally aired
the story, the Red Cross was offering partial cleaning costs on a case-by-case basis. In
Rossi's case, she said they offered to pay $1,000 of her almost $5,000 cleaning bill.
After we brought Rossi's and Cowen's case to their attention, the American Red Cross
agreed to cover both of the renters cleaning costs in full.
The American Red Cross was able to assist these two clients with cleaning expenses,
as we were able to assist thousands of other clients who lived in the downtown area and
the affected area, said Red Cross spokesperson Tracy Gary.
And the Red Cross says it hasn't stopped offering assistance to those downtown who still
have cleaning to be done.
According to Gary, We are working cooperatively with the Environmental Protection
Agency, which is now offering cleaning and testing, and we are providing ancillary
services in cooperation with the EPA. Housing people during cleaning would be one example
of those services, and if residents still require assistance we would encourage them to
call the Red Cross Call Center at 1-877-746-4987.
Chinatown asthma survey by local group shows high rate
, By Mary Reinholz; Downtown Express photo by Corky Lee, 9/4/2
A 2002 survey on asthma conducted by a Chinatown community group reported that one in five households in the neighborhood has at least one person suffering from the disease. |
The Chinese Progressive Association, a non-profit grass roots community group founded
more than 20 years ago, sponsored the survey and released its findings a week ago during
its Neighborhood Day at P.S. 124 to spur public awareness of health issues and activism by
advocacy groups.
"We went to many different locations in Chinatown - libraries, parks, senior centers
- and asked the people what they knew about asthma and whether or not they had it,"
Mae Lee, C.P.A.'s executive director, told a smattering of Asian adults and reporters
gathered in the school auditorium which also featured children holding brightly colored
balloons and participating in face painting. She did not identify the volunteers, but the
report said they consisted of high school and college students, retirees, parents and
other interested community members.
The volunteers underwent a two-part training that included an orientation on air pollution
in Chinatown. They surveyed 580 households with 2,040 residents. The report says that
Chinatown's poor air quality was exacerbated by the events of Sept. 11.
About half the new cases were diagnosed during the first eight months of 2001 and half
during the fall of 2001 and spring of 2002, presumably a six-month period although the
report did not specify. The report made no attempt to say to what extent the discrepancy
in the rate of new cases after September could be attributed to sampling error, heightened
awareness about asthma, or to a change in the air quality as a result of the collapse of
the World Trade Center.
Another finding indicates that children under 17 were at the highest risk, representing
51.1 percent of the people with asthma.
Survey participants held a wide range of occupations. Almost a quarter (23.6 percent) were
unemployed. The next largest groups were students (11 percent) and garment workers (10.2
percent).
The report notes that asthma is a complex respiratory ailment that can be caused by
environmental conditions, a genetic pre-disposition or some combination of the two.
Pollution, mold, smoke, pollen, dust, roaches, colds, seasonal changes, animal fur and
humidity are examples of some of these environmental triggers for an asthmatic attack.
Lee disclosed highlights of the survey findings in English while Chris Chan, a community
organizer for the Chinese Progressive Association, addressed the audience in Chinese.
Pointing to maps and charts included in the report, Lee said that the survey found that
the highest concentration of asthma was in northern Chinatown, represented by the zip code
10013. Canal Street runs through it, the "artificial boundary" that she said is
still being used by the federal government as a cut off point for which households can
receive "free testing" for environmental problems. "If you live south of
Canal, you're eligible to get free testing," she said, referring to a cleanup and
testing program initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency. "If you live north
of the boundary, you re not [eligible.] The boundary cuts our community in half; half of
the people with asthma live on one side and half live on the other side."
Steve Wellmeier, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which funds
the E.P.A. cleanup, said the latter agency had begun a Lower Manhattan cleanup and
environmental project this month with a phone line open since June. Wellmeier acknowledged
that Canal St. was the boundary that the E.P.A. had determined after spot testing had been
done in other parts of Manhattan. FEMA also supplies air purifiers under its Individual
and Family grant program, but applicants must first purchase the equipment and then apply
for reimbursement from the state of New York. The state labor department is administering
the program.
Long before 9/11, many suspected that asthma rates in Chinatown and other Lower Manhattan
neighborhoods were high because of pollution. The Chinese Progressive Association
developed its asthma survey because of the high concentration in Chinatown of diesel
particulates, a major cause of respiratory conditions, according to the report. In 1996,
the E.P.A. found that Canal St., Chinatown's main neighborhood thoroughfare, had the
highest levels of diesel particulates in the city. The report states that the E.P.A.
finding is no surprise since Canal St. is the "major thoroughfare for vehicles,"
including diesel trucks and buses, traveling between the Manhattan Bridge and the Holland
Tunnel.
More than half of the residents surveyed moved into their Chinatown homes in the last ten
years, the report said. Almost a quarter (24 percent) felt their respiratory health had
changed since then. A smaller group (12 percent) felt that work affected their health and
that the ailments they experienced included allergies, asthma, coughing and sinus
problems. Many residents felt that the dust and air pollution that always have been
present in Chinatown made breathing more difficult. Almost a third (28 percent) said they
were concerned about the effects of Sept. 11 on the Chinatown environment.
Lee said she was not sure what her group would do next. "We still need to talk to a
lot more people about it," she said. "There needs to be more outreach in the
community. The boundaries [for environmental testing] should be expanded. These are some
of the things we've been saying from the beginning and what we're thinking and talking
about. This [survey] is not like the final thing. It's a beginning."
The C.P.A. made several other recommendations, including calling on the government to
develop a public health education campaign with a more comprehensive knowledge of the
asthma problem in Chinatown. This would include "clearer data" about the quality
of care that asthma patients are getting. The report states that hospitalization rates do
not provide a complete representation of the problem in Chinatown because many asthma
sufferers may never be admitted to the hospital. There is a crucial need to know the full
scope of the asthma problem in Chinatown, not just those who have required emergency care.
A Toxic Legacy Lingers as Cleanup Efforts Fall Short
,Health: High levels of pollutants remain in buildings near the trade center site.
NEW YORK -- Almost a year after the World Trade Center's collapse shrouded New York in
inches of ash and debris, residents are still finding dust containing surprisingly high
levels of asbestos, lead and mercury in their homes, offices and schools.
A toxic cocktail containing many times the legal maximum levels of cancer-causing agents
lingers everywhere. It is embedded in school carpets, settled in office air vents and
stuck in the crevices of firetruckseven after extensive cleanups.
Under pressure from activists, local politicians and even its own scientists, the
Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to clean every residence in Lower Manhattan,
although top officials continue to insist that health risks are small.
The unprecedented cleanup is a grand gesture that still falls short, say such critics as
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who accuses the EPA of downplaying the risk in the early
days after the attacks to avoid a costly and politically unwelcome abatement. The planned
cleanup won't include small businesses, firehouses or the residences of hundreds of
thousands of people in Brooklyn who were directly in the path of the toxic plume. It
covers only the random apartment dwellers who specifically request it, leaving them open
to recontamination by units that have not been cleaned or common areas that share a
ventilation system.
"It's a major health catastrophe," Nadler said. "We're allowing it to
happen, and it's immoral because people are going to die from this."
Beginning this month, each of the 30,000 residences below Canal Street is eligible to have
a team wipe down every surface in the home, wet-vacuum the rugs and upholstery and check
the vent outlets for asbestos. So far, 3,205 people have applied for a full cleanup and
905 for testing only. The abatement could cost up to $7,000 per apartment, according to
the EPA.
"We know that the dust from the World Trade Center can contain asbestos and silica
and fibrous materials," said EPA spokeswoman Mary Mears.
"Science says that you need fairly high levels and long-term exposure, but we still
think there's a potential risk there. But we feel that what we're going to find here is
very low levels, and that there would be a very low risk, even if we did nothing."
Nina Lavin, a jeweler, is one of those convinced she's living in a poisoned building and
is angry that the EPA didn't do more to warn people of the hazards. Her apartment, seven
blocks north of the World Trade Center site, faced the towers, and her belongings were
coated with dust after the buildings fell.
Reassured by EPA chief Christie Whitman's claims two days after the disaster that
"there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos in the air in New York
City," Lavin followed the New York Department of Health's recommendations to clean up
with a mere wet mop and rags. Trusting the agency, she said, turned out to be a mistake.
Relocation Plea Rejected
Months later, Lavin couldn't stop coughing and developed chronic bronchitis, she said. The
building manager refused to pay for a professional cleanup. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency turned down her request to be relocated, insisting that her building was
"structurally sound." Certain that there was still something wrong, she paid to
have her apartment tested, and she found that it contained 12 times the maximum legal
level of asbestos.
Lavin is now living in a hotel until her apartment is thoroughly cleaned. But even then,
she risks recontamination from other tenants who share the air system in the 460-unit
building but who haven't signed up for the scrub-down.
"It's really distressing to learn that I've been living with these contamination
levels for all these months," Lavin said. "I have no idea what the long-term
prognosis is for me or for all of us."
Scientists aren't sure either. Experts differ on what the long-term health effects might
be, because no one has ever studied such a broad combination of contaminants dispersed on
such a wide scale before.
The immediate effects are clear. The characteristic "World Trade Center
cough"which Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the Department of Community and
Preventive Medicine at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine, has documented in
hundreds of rescue and construction workersis caused by corrosive concrete dust,
ground glass and other lung irritants.
But Landrigan is also worried about effects that will only show up years later. Asbestos
has microscopic, needle-like fibers that can lodge in the lungs and cause scarring and
eventually tumors. It is hazardous only when inhaled, Landrigan said, but lingering dust
can be circulated by a contaminated air system, stirred up by moving furniture, or raised
by children running through the house.
"We try to be cautiously reassuring," Landrigan said. "It's
fair to say that if someone has been exposed to asbestos indoors for a year, that they
have an increased risk of developing cancer."
The dust has proved much harder to detect and eliminate than experts had expected. The
force of the towers' collapse pulverized the buildings and their contents into particles
so fine, they were missed by standard testing techniques. In addition to the asbestos and
caustic concrete dust, the cloud contained benzene from jet fuel, lead from thousands of
computers, mercury from millions of fluorescent lights, and radioactive compounds from
smoke detectors. The haze blanketed the area for blocks, and residue is still being
discovered.
Just in the last few weeks, dangerous levels of asbestos-laden dust have been found in
building air shafts, school carpeting and in a dozen firetrucks.
Despite the EPA's claim that the level of asbestos poses no significant risk and that its
cleanup is designed mostly to allay residents' concerns, critics from within the agency
say that the EPA deliberately chose to use crude detection methods in a limited
areadecisions that significantly blunted the agency's findings.
"All the experienced people in the agency knew immediately it was a disaster and
would need massive remediation," said Hugh Kaufman, the former chief investigator for
the EPA ombudsman's office and now a policy analyst at the agency. "But decisions on
how to approach it were made from the White House down, rather than from the scientists on
the ground up. The message was to get downtown up and running as soon as possible and
worry about the rest later."
Cate Jenkins, a senior environmental scientist at the EPA, said the agency
refused offers from other EPA branches to provide more sensitive testing equipment the
week after the towers' fall.
"They were using the equivalent of a magnifying glass when they should have been
using an electron microscope," she said. "And now that they have the chance to
redeem themselves, the new cleanup plan is using methods that our own studies show fall
short. It's grossly inadequate."
Mears, the EPA spokeswoman, conceded that the HEPA vacuuming and wet extraction the agency
is offering will remove only 60% to 70% of asbestos fibers. And although there may be a
risk of recontamination through the air vents, they can't compel residents to open their
doors to the EPA cleaners, she said.
"In order for us to demand access to people's homes, it would have to be a public
health emergency," Mears said. "We don't think that is the situation we have
here at all."
At Stuyvesant High School, four blocks from ground zero, parents do consider the situation
an emergency. Because the school was a staging ground for rescue workers, parents and
teachers have been especially concerned about contamination.
The Board of Education assured them that the school was safe before students returned in
October. But after about 10% of the students and employees reported new-onset asthma,
persistent coughing and wheezing in a survey conducted by the parents' association, they
insisted on more testing.
In April, consultants found that the air quality was unacceptable by EPA standards,
discovered elevated lead levels and noted that the air ducts had not been cleaned.
With the help of Watergate lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste, a Stuyvesant alumnus, the parents'
association forced the board to agree to clean the ventilation system and retest before
students returned to school in September. The Department of Education said it has spent
$1.7 million since Sept. 11 on decontaminating the school.
In August, additional checks found asbestos levels 250 times the legal limit in the
auditorium carpet. One day late last month, workers were swabbing the ventilation
systemwithout protective gearand releasing more asbestos-laden dust into the
air, said Jenna Orkin, a parent who had stopped by the school during the cleanup. Now,
teachers and students are debating whether to return to the school.
"The Board of Education has an obligation to provide safe schools, and when they told
us it was OK to come back, I believed them," said Paul Edwards, whose son Brian is a
Stuyvesant student. "At this point, I feel totally betrayed."
Although homes are covered by the government plan, businesses are not. Many larger
companies can afford to have high-level decontaminations performed, but many small
businesses already struggling since Sept . 11 may simply forgo testing and hope for the
best.
Asbestos Dust Remains
Even after extensive cleanup, asbestos dust can still be found. Before the Wall Street
Journal moved back into its offices last month at the World Financial Center, across the
street from the World Trade Center site, the company wanted to be sure its workspace was
safe. Its dust-shrouded offices were often pictured to illustrate the depth of the
fallout, its computers and chairs blanketed with ash like a modern-day Pompeii.
Nearly 70% of respondents to an employee-driven survey cited health concerns about
returning.
The walls were stripped to the concrete and resurfaced, carpeting and furniture replaced,
and the air vents checked.
But even after parent company Dow Jones; the landlord, Brookfield Properties Corp., and
the newspaper union each hired an independent consultant to do the highest-level testing
and got the all-clear, a construction crew found a small amount of asbestos-laced dust
remaining in the ventilation system. It was cleaned out and the area retested.
But most residents don't have the deep pockets to pay for independent testing, or even the
awareness that the lingering dust poses a health risk.
Whether out of denial, privacy concerns or pragmatism, only about 10% of eligible
households have applied for the EPA cleanup. Many of those who were most concerned have
moved out of the neighborhood and have had their places taken by those more interested in
lower rents or subsidies than in fears about the long-term health effects.
More than half of the people who lived in the development closest to the World Trade
Center, Battery Park City, left the area last year. But because of deep rent cuts and a
federal grant program that offers as much as $12,000 for every resident who moves into the
area and stays for two years, occupancy is back up to more than 90% and sales and rental
prices are back to normal. The new tenants tend to be young singles, agents say.
Real-estate shoppers in trendy TriBeCa, just north of the site, are more aware of the
subsidies than of the EPA program, said Bruce Ehrmann, a senior vice president of the
Stribling and Associates real estate firm and a longtime TriBeCa resident who applied for
cleanup for his own apartment. "The air quality has not been a sales issue for
months."
Other worried residents are simply ineligible because the EPA's offer doesn't extend to
Brooklyn.
"They should do the cleaning in concentric circles radiating from ground zero,
building by building, until they don't find high levels," said Kaufman, the EPA
policy analyst. "We usually let science determine the area of contamination, not a
politician with a pin and a map."