While Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and other rock stars sing on a "Vote for Change" concert tour, another disgruntled group - this one of scientists - will crisscross the well-worn landscape of battleground states over the next month, giving lectures that will argue that the Bush administration has ignored and misused science.

The group, Scientists and Engineers for Change, another addition to the flood of so-called 527 advocacy groups that have filled this year's election discourse, announced its existence and plans yesterday in a telephone news conference. At least 25 scientists will give talks in 10 contested states Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Among the headlining lecturers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, including Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, a professor of physics at Stanford; Dr. Peter C. Agre, a professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins; and Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health.

Compared with more prominent 527's, like MoveOn PAC and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the scientists' group will operate on a modest budget of $100,000, which will mainly pay for lecturers' travel expenses.

The group has no direct ties to the campaign of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, but 9 members were among 48 Nobel laureates who signed a June 21 letter endorsing Mr. Kerry. Several of the scientists have also signed a statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists that accuses the Bush administration of manipulating scientific findings to support its policies. The union opposes the administration on numerous issues, including the environment and energy.

At the news conference, Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, one of the architects of the Internet in the 1960's and 1970's and current chairman of Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said, "Science counts, and it has not counted sufficiently in this administration."

Dr. Cerf said he was a registered Republican, but that he joined the group "in the hope that we bring debate, science and technology, into the political debate so that the electorate understands the importance that it has in our society."

Dr. Cerf said the United States was "at risk of losing the edge" in technology because the Bush administration was cutting basic research budgets at the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, disputed that opinion. "I don't know where their accounting is coming from," Mr. Hopkins said. "The president has been a strong and generous supporter of science, increasing federal R&D budgets 44 percent to a record $132 billion."

The administration's policies on energy and global warming prompted Dr. Osheroff to take part. "I am not a Democrat and I have never played a significant role in politics," he said. "We must begin to address climate change now. To do so, we must have an administration that listens to the scientific community, not one that manipulates and minimizes scientific input."

Dr. Osheroff, who is scheduled to give the first lecture tonight at the University of Oregon, said he did not plan to explicitly urge his audience to vote for Mr. Kerry.

"At the end of my talk,'' he said, "I think people hopefully will be convinced that this administration is not doing an adequate job, that they're just not listening to scientists on these issues, that it's basically business as usual. I think people can decide how important that issue is, by themselves."

Dr. Cerf interjected "Well, actually, Doug, let's be honest about this. The name of this group is Scientists and Engineers for Change. Now, what do you imagine we want to change?"

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - The federal government is preparing to publish advice for state and local governments on how to react if terrorists set off a "dirty bomb," including how much radiation exposure from such an attack is acceptable for the public.

The document is intended for the officials who would oversee public health and safety after such an attack, to help them decide when activity could return to normal.

"There's a lot of consternation over what the cleanup levels should be," Brooke Buddemeier, a radiation specialist for the Department of Homeland Security, told a group of nuclear specialists during a presentation last week. "We had a pretty good idea what they should be for Superfund sites or a Nuclear Regulatory Commission power plant release."

But an attack using conventional explosives to spread radioactive materials - a dirty bomb - would probably occur in a far more prominent location than a toxic-waste site or a power plant, and the need to resume using the site would be higher, said Mr. Buddemeier, in his presentation to a National Academy of Sciences group.

When balancing the risk of radiation exposure against the benefit of returning to normal activity, the government safety recommendations will weigh the importance of the contaminated location to economic or political life, said a radiation scientist who works for one of seven federal agencies drafting the document.

Thus a major train station, cargo port or building in Lower Manhattan might be reoccupied sooner than a suburban shopping mall, said the scientist, who asked not to be identified because the document had not yet been published.

The federal government already has guides for use by local officials in case of accidental release of radioactive material from a nuclear power plant or fuel fabrication plant.

One reason for drafting advice on radiological bombs now, participants say, is to reinforce the idea that a dirty bomb is primarily a psychological weapon that distributes radiation in quantities too small to make any measurable difference to health.

In fact, the effect of small radiation doses is a highly charged subject, usually coupled with a debate over nuclear power. Opponents of power reactors argue that even tiny doses of radiation raise long-term risks of cancer and birth defects and are not worth the benefits of power generation.

In the current effort, however, the balance would be completely different.

Federal officials stumbled upon this problem in May 2003 when they conducted a drill to practice their communications and decision-making for cleaning up after a terrorist attack. The drill, called "Top Off 2," which simulated a release of radioactive materials in Seattle, revealed confusion about how the radioactive materials would spread and how decisions should be made about when it would be safe to return to normal.

The radiation scientist said, "Do you really want to shut down the port of Seattle because you don't want to get 5 or 10 million millirem of dose? Do you want to economically cripple an entire country because of that, an infinitesimally small risk, if it is any risk at all?"

The exposures contemplated for the public would be small relative to the average dose received from natural sources, perhaps 10 times as large, experts say. The biggest health risk of a dirty bomb would most likely be from the blast itself, and outside the blast area doses would be quite small.

But people involved in drafting the document say that public fear of radiation may make it hard to communicate that idea.

ALBANY, Sept. 23 - New York's city, state and federal officials, it seems, do not always pull in the same direction, even when it comes to something as basic as preserving a program that offers counseling to firefighters, police officers and their families coping with the mental aftershocks of Sept. 11.

Earlier this month, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat who has long championed the program, persuaded the Republican-controlled Senate to pass an amendment that would have allowed the city to use $4.45 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to save the program, "subject to the request of the governor of New York."

But it turned out that Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, had no plans to make such a request. The Pataki administration said it wanted to use the remaining federal money for other programs and offered to split the cost of the counseling program with the city, using $2 million from the state and $2.5 million from the city.

Senator Clinton, who had been celebrating what she thought was a victory in delivering federal funds for the program, called Project Liberty, said she was perplexed that her gift horse was looked in the mouth by city and state officials, costing them millions of dollars. "I was under the impression that both the state and the city had some pretty serious financial needs," she said in an interview. "This is money that had already been appropriated, and is there to be spent."

And where did Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican, stand on all this? It was not easy to say.

The city's Washington lobbyists worked with Senator Clinton's office through this month helping draft language for the amendment. But an aide to the mayor said the lobbyists asked the senator's office to pull back after they realized that City Hall would also prefer to spend the emergency agency money elsewhere. The senator's office flatly denies that the city changed its mind.

Even as the city either was - or was not - asking the senator's office to cease and desist, the city's fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, was writing Senator Clinton a letter thanking her for her "continuing support and strong advocacy on behalf of the F.D.N.Y." and asking her for an amendment "to provide additional counseling services."

The deal with the governor means that the city will have to put up $2.5 million of its own money for the program - more than it saves in a year from closing one of the six fire companies Mayor Bloomberg shut down earlier in his tenure to save money.

At a minimum, it seems, there was a lack of communication and coordination between the interested parties. And any problems caused by the lack of communication were apparently exacerbated by partisan mistrust.

Several Democrats, and some union leaders, questioned whether Mr. Pataki was turning down money obtained by Senator Clinton so as not to hand her a political victory. There has been widespread speculation in political circles that Mr. Pataki is considering challenging Mrs. Clinton for her Senate seat when she comes up for re-election in 2006, and that both of them are weighing runs for president in 2008.

"I would hope that this isn't politics, and Governor Pataki being afraid of watching Senator Clinton deliver once again for New York," said Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker and a Democrat, who visited Washington on Thursday. "I can't think of any reasonable explanation."

A spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki, Lisa Dewald Stoll, said "Everyone is trying to do the right thing by getting Project Liberty funded. The governor is working with the mayor to protect those funds already allocated to New York City children while providing additional resources to support the critical health needs of our first responders. This is a silly game of credit claiming, and we're not interested in playing."

Much of the confusion centered on the money appropriated for the emergency management agency.

Tom Gavin, a spokesman for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said officials from the agency had told the committee that there was $25 million in unspent aid to New York that had not been allocated for any specific purpose. "FEMA had absolutely no plan on file, no papers of any kind from the state of New York, and advised the Congress that that money could be used," Mr. Gavin said.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the agency, said Thursday that some of the money had not yet been earmarked for a specific purpose, but that some projects had been identified as possible uses.

"We are looking to New York to determine how best to spend this remaining $25 million that the president has committed to New York," she said.

Aides to the governor said that they had other plans for that money, including using some of it to pay for counseling for New York City schoolchildren. And an aide to Mayor Bloomberg said that the city still has more than $100 million in expenses related to Sept. 11 that it has not been reimbursed for, and that it hopes some of the $25 million will be used to cover those expenses.

Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary, said, "We made it clear before the amendment was offered that we have millions in dollars in outstanding claims in front of FEMA, and it makes more sense for the city and state to jointly fund this valuable program rather than compete against ourselves for federal money."

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A building heavily damaged on September 11th must come down, but the question is how. Tests show the Deustche Bank building is full of asbestos and other contaminants and people who live downtown are worried again about their safety. Dozens showed up Thursday at a meeting to hear about plans to tear the building down. NY1's Monica Brown has details.

It's been referred to as an eye sore and a painful reminder of the horror that took place September 11th.

Now the 40-story Deustche Bank building, which has been vacant ever since, is set to come down later this year and residents of the area want to know how that can be done safely.

"This is a health issue, so the stakeholders are everyone that lives in Lower Manhattan, not just the LMDC," said Marc Ameruso of Community Board One.

"We had testing done in our facility a couple of months ago and we plan on having it done again after the building is taken down," said Maria Bernaerts, who works downtown. "We want to make sure the air is safe for the employees."

"I think this is very important for everyone to get out and see how this is going to affect their neighborhood, especially the students in the area," said Jack Gibson, who works downtown.

A study conducted for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which now owns the building, was released last week.

In it are the details of the levels of asbestos, dioxin, lead and other contaminates in the building.

At a public information session Thursday night, about 80 residents of Lower Manhattan listened to the LMDC's plan to raze the building.

A plan corporation officials say is still in the beginning stages.

"It's very important that we do all of the work in a way that nothing is transmitted to the community and the plan that we're going to create will do just that," said Amy Peterson of the LMDC. "It will ensure that the work to both clean and deconstruct the building is done in a safe manner so that any potential for releasing the contaminants that are in that building, the World Trade Center dust, to the surrounding community is eliminated."

Among other things, says Peterson, the LMDC plans to continue to monitor the air during demolition and says it will develop an emergency evacuation plan just in case.

While no specific time frame was given, LMDC officials say they want their plan finalized and submitted to federal regulators for approval as soon as possible, so the demolition can begin at some point over the next few months.

The corporation says it will continue to keep the community informed of its plans. The public comment period will run through October 13th.

Contact Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337

Washington, DC ­ The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has directed to its staff to "refrain from answering" inquiries from the news media in order to "prevent EPA management from being surprised by news coverage," according to an agency memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Earlier this month, Bharat Mathur, the top EPA official for the six-state Mid-western region (covering the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin), issued a memo to the entire staff within the region entitled "Working with the Press." The memo, however, orders EPA not to communicate with, let alone work with, the press. Instead, all inquiries from reporters are to be routed to the EPA Office of Public Affairs.

Mathur’s memo forbids employees from initiating any contact with a reporter or from responding to inquiries made by the members of the press. Even EPA employees who are designated public spokespersons on particular matters must "report their conversations" with reporters to the Office of Public Affairs.

"The ultimate sin in the Bush Administration is going off message, especially when that discordant note is authoritatively accurate," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization is challenging Bush Administration non-disclosure policies for federal workers. "This policy shows the EPA political leadership’s profound fear of the expertise of its own professional staff."

This new EPA non-disclosure policy –

Overrules previous practice of allowing agency scientists or other specialists to answer questions that fall within their recognized expertise;

Appears to violate Congressionally-enacted bans on agencies imposing any "nondisclosure policy, form, or agreement" on its employees without explicitly informing employees about their rights to reveal matters covered by statutes such as the Whistleblower Protection Act; and

Seems designed to hide information by directing reporters away from experts and toward relatively uninformed public affairs staff.

"This non-disclosure policy is so broad that EPA employees cannot reveal where the bathrooms are located or what the time of day is to a reporter," added Ruch. "Significantly, under this policy, EPA staff can still talk to environmental groups or members of the public – just not reporters."

Similarly, in EPA’s Rocky Mountain region (covering Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming), Inside EPA reports that employees have been directed not to answer any "potentially political inquiry" from the media.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local, state and federal resource professionals, working to protect the environment.

In what the L.M.D.C. called a transparent process, consultants hired by the L.M.D.C. presented the study findings at a Sept. 14 Community Board 1 meeting. Cautiously optimistic, local residents expressed an array of concerns regarding their health and safety.

True to expectations, the Louis Berger Group, an engineering and environmental consulting firm in East Orange, N.J., found high levels of contaminants throughout the building. In addition to excessive asbestos contamination in 24 of the 31 floors sampled, Louis Berger found presence of dioxin, lead, quartz, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chromium and manganese in the dust samples. Mold was found on five floors. "The inspection didn’t look in every nook and cranny because the L.M.D.C. didn’t own the building," said Berger’s Tom Lewis. Now that L.M.D.C. owns the building, more invasive tests can begin.

L.M.D.C. purchased the property on Aug. 31 following a court battle between Deutsche Bank and its insurers, Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Company and AXA Corporate Solutions Insurance Company. The dispute was not resolved until Governor George Pataki tapped former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to settle the matter. In the agreement, L.M.D.C. acquired the property for $90 million and will pay up to $45 million for cleanup and dismantling; the insurers will pay any exceeding costs, which are likely. The sale allows for the expansion of the World Trade Center site to allow for more park space and less office density.

L.M.D.C. plans to deconstruct the building in a two-phase process with the help of six different consulting firms. The Gilbane Building Company will steer the deconstruction process. The building will first be cleaned and decontaminated and then dismantled piecemeal. How the process will take place ­ whether the building will be completely cleaned before it is dismantled, or cleaned as it comes down ­ has yet to be decided. "We are very interested in moving forward with this project," said Amy Peterson, the corporation’s vice president for memorial, cultural and civic development. "We have a real interest in removing this building."

At this point, many local residents are taking the L.M.D.C. at its word that it will keep them abreast of future developments. "I have to trust that what they say is true," Pat Moore, a 28-year resident of 125 Cedar St., said after the meeting. Her building sits 100 feet from the former Deutsche Bank building. "They say they’re going to do additional testing, so I hope they will be forthcoming with their results."

Moore, a C.B. 1 member, is worried about evacuation procedures. "I’m really concerned about having some emergency plan in place if something falls off the building, if a crane falls down. I really want to know that they have some system to warn us and evacuate us," she said. "I’ve literally had anxiety attacks about that black mesh falling on me and suffocating me. And now I’m terrified about having something falling off that building."

Peterson said at Tuesday night’s meeting that although a plan has yet to be laid out, the L.M.D.C. intends to reach out to the city’s Office of Emergency Management to establish one. Kate Millea, the project manager at L.M.D.C., provided a 24-hour hotline number, 917-715-6790, for concerned residents.

When board member Catherine Hughes said she heard the plan was to start the project on Nov. 1, Peterson did not object. With deconstruction plans scheduled for public release sometime after Oct. 13, the work schedule appears overly ambitious to some. "I have never heard of six agencies working together in a year to complete a deconstruction," said Pearl Scher, a C.B. 1 member.

Peterson was quick to reply. "We’re confident that we can go to the regulators and get this done quickly," she said.

Joanna Rose, a spokesperson for the L.M.D.C., said afterwards that the deconstruction would most likely not begin until mid to late November.

Many residents voiced concern saying it was unprecedented to take down such a large contaminated building in a city. "A demolition of such a contaminated building in such a densely populated area has never been done before," Catherine Hughes told Downtown Express.

Steve Kass, L.M.D.C.’s environmental counsel from Carter Ledyard and Milburn, argued that government oversight would assure a safe process. "It is our expectation and intention to comply with all legal requirements. We need approval from the E.P.A. and other agencies have been looking over our shoulders very carefully," he said. "…What is unique about this project is not either the decontamination or deconstruction, but the extraordinary level of public scrutiny, reporting and transparency at every phase."

Lewis of Berger sited an example of a successful dismantling project of a nuclear reactor located alongside a hospital and of other buildings in New York City being dismantled. "If you break [a project] into bite-sized pieces, it becomes much more manageable," he said. He did not, however, note an example of a highly contaminated building ever being dismantled in a densely populated area.

The L.M.D.C.’s selection of experts satisfies Steven Abramson, a 114 Liberty St. resident. "The most reassuring [component of the L.M.D.C.’s plan] is the fact that Ambient is going to do it," he said. The Ambient Group, an environmental and water treatment consulting company, was hired by L.M.D.C. to monitor air quality. The residents of 114 Liberty St., which was badly contaminated on 9/11, hired Ambient as a consultant. Abramson and his family moved back into their apartment two weeks ago, one of the last families to return to their homes. "Ambient will not tolerate a faulty job. If there’s a problem, they’re going to say it," he added.

There will be a public information session on Sept. 23 at 500 p.m. at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St., followed by an open public comment period, which will run until Oct. 13. The development corporation will unveil the deconstruction details sometime after the end of the public comment period and begin work in November. The building will be completely dismantled sometime in 2005, according to the L.M.D.C.

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Three years after the World Trade Center attack, evidence is mounting that significant health effects plague those who lived or worked near the disaster, researchers reported at a conference last weekend.

In the months after the attacks, concerns grew about the health consequences of exposures sustained by persons involved in the rescue and recovery response. In addition to the estimated 10,000 Fire Department of New York personnel, an estimated 30,000 other workers and volunteers potentially were exposed to numerous psychological stressors, environmental toxins, and other physical hazards. Sunday’s event was entitled the 9/11 World Trade Center Dust Health Effects Conference and was sponsored by New York University Medical Center.

One past study discussed at the conference found that babies born to women who were pregnant and living near the World Trade Center when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred were smaller and had shorter gestation periods than those whose mothers lived elsewhere in New York.

The cause of the difference in newborns is not known, but doctors speculated at the conference that the babies might have been affected in the womb by exposure to toxic dust and fumes wafting from ground zero, by their mothers’ psychological stress or perhaps a combination of the two.

Babies delivered after the attack weighed 5.3 ounces less and were a third of an inch shorter. The study separated women into early and late stages of pregnancy at the time of the attack. Women in the early stages delivered their babies earlier, by 3.6 days on average, than women in later stages of pregnancy ­ regardless of how far they lived or worked from the W.T.C. The babies also had slightly smaller head circumferences, a result of shorter gestation. The scientists said that the differences were not life threatening and do not mean the newborns had medical problems.

Dr. William Rom, a professor at NYU Medical Center and an organizer of the conference, said the differences in birth weight were "statistically significant."

Another study discussed at the conference found that workers at the World Trade Center site developed respiratory problems that lasted more than a year after the attacks.

Dr. Stephen Levin of Mount Sinai Medical School said that many of those who helped with cleanup and recovery efforts at ground zero still have breathing problems associated with their exposure to the site.

"These preliminary findings of the WTC Screening Program demonstrate that large numbers of workers and volunteers suffered persistent, substantial effects on their respiratory and psychological health as a result of their efforts," Levin said.

Problems noted in the study include asthma, sinusitis, constant coughing and stuffy nose, facial pains, chest tightness, wheezing and shortness of breath.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the study is the first to show that workers at the World Trade Center site suffered respiratory symptoms over such a long period.

"These findings suggest that specialized medical monitoring programs for rescue and recovery workers that identify potential problems and make appropriate referrals for treatment should be part of all emergency preparedness plans," said Dr. John Howard, director of the C.D.C.’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). "Early provision of respiratory and other protective equipment is also crucial for preventing physical and mental health effects."

The study analyzed data from 1,138 of the rescue workers between July and December 2002. Nearly three out of four of the workers reported upper respiratory symptoms that were newly developed or made worse by working at ground zero. Three out of five reported lower respiratory symptoms associated with their work at the site.

Dr. Rom said that the findings of the respiratory study were "surprising because you primarily think of this type of exposure just causing irritation."

About a dozen of the spectators at the conference said they were Downtown residents who were concerned about their health.

John Reynolds, a Tribeca resident, said that he still suffered from a persistent cough that he said began when the cloud of dust from the disaster tumbled over him.

"I’m here for answers," Reynolds said. "So far, I haven’t found any. I’ve been to six doctors and they all throw up their hands and say they just don’t know what caused my cough."

Senator Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the conference but did not attend due to her husband’s recent surgery.

In a statement made by a representative of the senator at the conference, Clinton said she is working to amend the homeland security appropriations bill that is currently being acted on by the Senate to provide an additional $4.5 million in mental health counseling services for New York’s firefighters, police officers and their families.

"As I reflect on the last three years, I think that we have made significant progress," Clinton’s statement said. "But the progress has been slow, and much remains to be done. That was the basic conclusion that [the General Accounting Office] reached in its testimony before the House of Representatives last week. And that is the message in the new scientific studies that have come out recently, such as the Mt. Sinai study of rescue workers that was published last week in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal."

A new environmental study of the former Deutsche Bank building opposite ground zero, independent of the bank and its insurers, has confirmed the presence of high levels of asbestos, dioxin, lead and other contaminants throughout the unused 40-story tower.

The study was conducted by the Louis Berger Group for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which took over the building on Aug. 31 and plans to begin razing it by the end of the year. Though it has long been known that the tower was contaminated, the findings released yesterday will almost certainly add to the expense and complication - both structurally and politically - of dismantling the building.

The study is also intended to address health and safety concerns, the corporation said, by giving the public a fuller picture of conditions inside the damaged building and to help in planning engineering controls, work practices and disposal procedures.

Berger, an engineering and environmental consulting firm in East Orange, N.J., found high levels of quartz, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chromium and manganese in the building. Now that the corporation owns the building, samples will also be gathered from behind walls and in other hollow spaces.

The study was presented last night to a meeting of Community Board 1. Neighbors asked how contaminated debris would be trucked from the site, what regulations would govern the project and how open the process would be to the public.

Susan Fox, who lives close by, wanted to know whether there would be an evacuation plan. "We are going to put an emergency action plan in place," said Amy Peterson, the corporation's vice president for memorial, cultural and civic development.

Kimberly Flynn, an environmental advocate, asked how unusual it was to tear down such a large building with so many contaminants. Tom Lewis of Berger answered, "If you break it into bite-sized pieces, the contaminant aspect will be addressed."

Originally 1 Bankers Trust Plaza, the building was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999 and was badly damaged in the 2001 terrorist attack. The collapse of 2 World Trade Center across Liberty Street opened a 15-story gash in its facade. About 1,700 windows were broken. The building filled with trade center dust, ash, soot, debris and smoke. It has never been reoccupied and is now partly shrouded in black netting.

The area around the gash was repaired to keep the building structurally sound. Open to the elements and stripped to steel and concrete, it is separated by plastic barriers from the contaminated parts of each floor. There are areas more than 60 feet wide and 50 feet deep where metal decking has replaced concrete floors, conveying the extent of damage. Almost no trace remains of any office, except for a tiny swatch of ochre-colored carpet on the 12th floor.

Deutsche Bank called the building a total loss. Its insurers, Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Company and AXA Corporate Solutions Insurance Company, said it could be cleaned and reoccupied. Under a settlement this year, the development corporation acquired the property for $90 million. It is to pay up to $45 million for cleanup and dismantling, with the insurers meeting costs above that. The Gilbane Building Company will oversee the project.

It now seems likely that the price tag for demolition will exceed $45 million. But Ms. Peterson said "Cost is not a consideration. The extra cost will go to the insurers. What's a consideration for us is doing it safely."

"There's dust everywhere in the building, and we'd like to go in and get it out," she said. "It's been there for three years. It's not helping anyone to have it sit there. We are confident that we can come up with a plan that satisfies the regulatory agencies."

A public information session is to be held Sept. 23. The comment period runs until Oct. 13. The study and other information is on the corporation's Web site, renewnyc.com.

For a yardstick, Berger used two federal criteria for concentrations of contaminants in residential buildings one for estimated existing levels in Manhattan and the other for target cleanup levels around the trade center site. Though "not directly applicable to a commercial deconstruction project," Berger said, they "put the results of this study into relative context."

Using these criteria, Berger found excessive asbestos in 24 of the 31 floors it tested, or 77 percent. It also found excessive levels of dioxin (in 99 percent of the samples), lead (97 percent), quartz (94 percent), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (80 percent), chromium (30 percent) and manganese (21 percent).

Berger said levels of nickel, beryllium and polychlorinated biphenyls did not exceed the levels specified by the criteria in any samples tested. Other contaminants - cristobalite, barium, cadmium, copper, zinc and mercury - exceeded the levels in fewer than 5 percent of the samples tested. Berger also said it found no detectable levels of mercury vapor.

Yesterday, workers clad in protective suits could be seen entering the building. Their role, Ms. Peterson said, is to double-check the windows and plywood boards on the exterior and to inspect the plastic barriers around the contaminated areas.

A propos of the NY Times story below, 9/11 EA would like to make the following clarification re the interchange between Kimberly Flynn and LMDC representatives that is paraphrased in the article in Item No. 1 below.

Flynn included in her questions the fact that this building was to be demolished "in a densely built, fully occupied urban environment" (something the Times reporter didn't mention. Her final follow-up question (which was not mentioned in the article) was, "Given the complex and unprecedented nature of the project, will the LMDC be bringing in the EPA to supervise the demolition?"

The answer LMDC contractors gave was that EPA would be reviewing the protocols and that LMDC would consult with EPA and all other regulators throughout the process. The presentations by both Louis Berger group representatives and Amy Peterson of LMDC were sprinkled with stock phrases about "complying with all applicable laws and regulations" and "communicating with the regulators."

Please note The question about whether anything like this demolition had ever been done before was also asked by someone at the Citizens' Advisory Council Meeting that took place earlier Tuesday afternoon. At that meeting, LMDC contractors said, "No."

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Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle accepted a Republican proposal limiting a trust fund for asbestos victims to $140 billion to break a deadlock that has stalled the legislation in Congress.

The Democrats previously insisted the fund be $145 billion. The plan, financed by companies such as Armstrong Holdings Inc. that make products with asbestos and their insurers, would end lawsuits that have bankrupted more than 70 U.S. companies.

Daschle, 56, of South Dakota and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, 52, a Tennessee Republican, have been exchanging proposals to reach a compromise for months. In a letter to Frist, Daschle said he is ``hopeful that resolution can be achieved'' before Congress completes its session Oct. 8.

Frist is also optimistic, said spokeswoman Amy Call. ``We are hopeful that this process can move forward and we can reach an agreement,'' she said. Frist hasn't seen the proposal, she said.

USG Corp. rose $1.58, or 8.7 percent, to $19.73 in composite New York Stock Exchange trading at 133 p.m. Owens Corning shares rose almost 13 cents, or 24 percent, to 62 cents at 132 p.m. New York time in over-the-counter trading.

A spokeswoman for insurers expressed doubts the compromise would work.

``The prospects are not good'' for passage by Congress this year because ``many very important structural elements of the fund are still open and nowhere near closure,'' said Julie Rochman, a spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association.

Pending Lawsuits

Under Daschle's new proposal, some pending lawsuits wouldn't be covered by the fund and could still be pursued in court. For example, he would exempt any cases involving mesothelioma, a fatal illness caused by the cancer-causing fiber, that already have a trial date; all cases in which trial has begun; cases with a trial date within 60 days of the fund's creation, and proposed settlements awaiting court approval.

Last month, Frist said manufacturers and insurers would never agree to the Democrats' original demand of exempting all current cases from the fund.

Bill Samuel, legislative director of the AFL-CIO, estimated that more than 300,000 claims are pending.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Friday and made public Monday, was brought against Silverstein Properties and the four construction companies hired to oversee removal of the 1.5 million tons of debris.

David Worby is a lawyer for about 800 plaintiffs. He said they will seek billions of dollars in compensation. The lawsuit also asks for a system to track for the next 20 years all who were exposed.

The lawsuit alleges that many workers didn’t have access to protective gear, and those who did weren’t taught how to wear it properly. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that many cleanup workers suffered from respiratory problems long after the work was done and that some still battle ailments. Some of the plaintiffs suffer from afflictions ranging from tumors to heartburn; some joined the suit because they fear they risk developing cancer in the future. A spokesman for Silverstein said the cleanup was conducted by the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The other defendants said they hadn’t seen the complaint and had no immediate comment.

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 Exposure to large quantities of known carcinogens released during the September 11, 2001, collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City and its subsequent cleanup apparently should have little effect on individuals who lived or worked in the area, said researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The researchers estimated that exposure to certain carcinogens released at Ground Zero only added a one person per 100 million increase in lifetime risk for individuals who lived or worked in the area. Their conclusions appeared in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on July 27 (http//www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0404499101).

The carcinogens studied were polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), compounds formed by the incomplete combustion of organic materials such as fuel, wood, and even cooked meat. They often attach to particulate matter such as soot and circulate in the atmosphere, where they can be inhaled.

Following the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers, fires burned through December 20, 2001. The fires, initiated by the ignition of approximately 91 000 L of jet fuel from the airliners that crashed into the buildings, spread to an estimated 100 000 tons of organic debris, 490 000 L of transformer oil, 380 000 L of heating and diesel fuel, and gasoline from several thousand automobiles stored beneath the towers, the researchers said. The fires, plus emissions from construction machinery operated at the site after the collapse, created between 100 and 1000 tons of PAHs that circulated and settled primarily in lower Manhattan.

Stephen M. Rappaport, PhD, coauthor of the study and professor of environmental health at North Carolina, said the team focused on PAHs because these compounds are always associated with burning organic materials and cancer risk. That connection was first shown in 1775 when exposure to PAH-containing soot among British chimney sweeps was linked with the appearance of squamous cell carcinomas. Since then, PAHs have also been associated with human cancers of the skin, lungs, and bladder.

"Whenever you burn hydrocarbon fuels you produce PAHs," Rappaport said. "But there was no research on risk of exposure to PAHs following the collapse of the World Trade Center."

The researchers analyzed 243 air samples that had been collected from 4 areas surrounding the collapse site for 200 days following September 11. Three of the sites were at the fence line of Ground Zero; the fourth was on the 16th floor of an office building about 0.5 km from Ground Zero. The investigators found air concentrations of PAHs on September 14 ranged from 1.3 to 15 ng/m3. By day 200, PAH levels had returned to background levels, comparable with the range of 0.03 to 0.50 ng/m3 typically seen in Los Angeles.

The researchers estimated that over a 70-year lifetime, 15.6 people per 100 million will develop cancer due to baseline PAH levels. The new data suggest 16.7 people per 100 million will develop cancer due to elevated PAH exposure related to the World Trade Center disaster, the researchers said.

While the findings offer some reassurance, Rappaport cautioned that they pertain only to individuals with jobs or residences in lower Manhattan, not to emergency personnel and construction and demolition crews working at Ground Zero, who could have had more intense interaction with PAHs.

The study also does not rule out potential adverse reproductive effects among the children of women were pregnant or conceived during that period. In fact, research involving 187 women present in lower Manhattan during the 3 weeks after the towers collapse found an apparent association between maternal exposure to the disaster and intrauterine growth restriction (when compared to a cohort of pregnant women who had not been in lower Manhattan), an effect that may have been mediated through exposure to PAH or particulate matter (JAMA. 2003;290595-596).

Rappaport also noted that the study focused only on outdoor air, which is transient in nature. Sizable amounts of PAH-containing soot remains trapped by the buildings in the area, he said.

"People living in lower Manhattan had a great deal of contamination in their apartments; the dirt and soot blew in and can still be there," Rappaport noted. "Also, these materials could be recycled throughout the buildings by the heating and air-conditioning systems."

Researchers are hoping that a registry of more than 50 000 individuals living or working near the World Trade Center on and after September 11, 2001, will help them track health effects caused by exposure to substances from the destruction of the twin towers.

The World Trade Center Health Registry is recruiting individuals who worked or lived in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, and workers involved in the rescue, recovery, and cleanup any time between the attack and June 30, 2002. They are to be followed for 20 years and compared with the general population.

Besides providing two decades worth of data for future research, the registry should help alert patients and their physicians about potential diseases and conditions associated with the catastrophe, said Pauline Thomas, MD, of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is overseeing the registry in collaboration with the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Registry participants complete a 30-minute telephone survey regarding exposures and health problems. Registry researchers will focus on respiratory and mental health, as well as cancer rates.

But there are factors that are likely to limit the effectiveness of the registry as a research tool, including large variations in exposure levels among participants and the self-selecting, nonrandomized nature of participants who may not be representative of all those exposed, noted Robert Morris, MD, PhD, of Tufts University in Boston. Although the registry should be able to uncover trends in diseases where diagnosis is clear cut, such as cancer, it will probably be less useful in determining real levels of concern for conditions such as multiple-chemical sensitivity.

As a result, the ability to ever fully answer even the most basic questions about the health impact of that day on the public may have been seriously compromised.

While there has been a growing consensus since the attack that thousands of people may have grown ill because of the toxic mix of dust, debris, smoke and chemicals that were released when the towers collapsed, there is still no definitive answer to what exactly was in the dust or to how many people suffered because of their exposure.

Moreover, there is no system in place that adequately tracks people's health with physical examinations, provides treatment and can make authoritative determinations about the impact.

According to a continuing study by the Government Accountability Office, the various monitoring programs set up to address health concerns related to the trade center disaster "vary in their methods for identifying those who may require treatment," and "none of those programs are funded to provide treatment."

A copy of the study was provided to The New York Times by a government official who believes that the federal government has not done enough.

The issue of the air quality in and around the area of the World Trade Center has been the subject of intense debate since the first days after the attack, when the Environmental Protection Agency declared that it was safe to return to the area.

Critics contend that in their eagerness to get the city moving again, and, in particular, to reopen the New York Stock Exchange, officials underestimated the possible impact of the contaminants that first billowed into the air and later settled in offices and homes throughout downtown.

While limited monitoring programs have been set up to identify problems among emergency personnel, construction workers and volunteers who spent day after day in the rubble, little has been done to identify and assist others who may have been exposed to the dust, according to politicians and health care experts in the New York region.

"No one is in charge," said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat. Representatives Maloney and Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, are leading the hearing today. Both have lobbied aggressively for more money.

The government study finds that 250,000 to 400,000 people who were visiting Lower Manhattan; working, living or attending school there; or responding to the attack were exposed to the dust.

The largest program set up to try to establish who might have been exposed is the World Trade Center Health Registry, created two years after the attack. Many labor unions and other groups discouraged people from signing up, expressing concern about how the data would be used. One year after the registry was created, only 55,226 people had been enrolled, according to the government study. The registry does not provide physical examinations or formal treatment.

The most extensive health-related program set up to date is run by the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which received federal grant money to provide physical examinations for police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers. Again, this program does not involve treatment. And it has enough money for only about 12,000 screenings, according to an official at the center.

The official, Dr. Stephen M. Levin, co-director of the screening program, said so many people showed up that the program did not have the resources to examine all of them.

"We are finding high rates of persistent respiratory problems," Dr. Levin said. He noted that while medical experts have a sense of the health impact on volunteers and workers at ground zero, little has been done to understand the wider health impact because of a lack of federal money.

While some people have been able to rely on their own insurance to deal with health problems, and many workers who suffered serious respiratory illnesses received workers' compensation to help them deal with the costs, many others have run into resistance from insurers.

There are a handful of other monitoring programs, including some for firefighters and state workers, but none are scheduled to run beyond 2009, the government study said.

"The duration of the monitoring programs may not be long enough to fully capture critical information on health effects," the study found.

Dr. Levin and others worry that some health consequences, like cancer, may take years to develop.

Still, many of the effects were recognized immediately. Within 48 hours of the attack, the study says, the Fire Department found that about 90 percent of its 10,116 firefighters and other emergency workers reported an acute cough. "Almost all F.D.N.Y. firefighters, 9,914, who had responded to the attack developed respiratory effects, and hundreds, about 380, had to end their firefighting careers due to W.T.C.-related respiratory illness," the study reports.

It also cites other research that shows how screenings across a wide swath of those who were in the downtown area in the days after the attack - including carpenters, police officers and truck drivers - show similar respiratory problems.

Doctors and government investigators told a House subcommittee it could take decades to pick up on all of the lingering health woes stemming from Sept. 11 and the cleanup effort around the World Trade Center.

The two most common conditions found to date are lung damage and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The government currently funds six separate health screening programs to monitor those who came into contact with the dust from ground zero. Each program is run separately, and none are funded beyond 2009.

Dr. Stephen Levin, who heads Mount Sinai Medical Center's Sept. 11 health screening program, said that timeframe would not catch any cancers caused as a result of exposure.

"In this witches' brew of airborne materials found at and near ground zero were a number of carcinogens, including asbestos and the ... cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke," said Levin.

The doctor said about half of the first responders reporting symptoms 10 months after the attacks suffered from at least one lung problem, like wheezing, cough, or shortness of breath. An equally high rate were still showing signs of psychological distress, Levin said.

Subcommittee chairman Christopher Shays, R-Conn., compared the health problems to soldiers who smoked heavily during wartime, but didn't show signs of lung cancer until decades later.

"Those who labored and lived near ground zero fought to survive against a subtle, prolonged assault on their bodies and minds. Many are still fighting," said Shays.

Two Manhattan Democrats derided the government efforts to date.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the World Trade Center site, accused federal agencies of not doing enough to test and clean interior spaces in lower Manhattan.

"I believe residents are slowly being poisoned today," Nadler charged.

The Department of Health and Human Services coordinates much of the current health screening, but Rep. Carolyn Maloney argued they don't even have a basic estimate of the number of victims to understand the scope of health problems.

"How many people are still suffering or still sick?" she asked.

"I'm not sure anyone could give you an exact figure," answered Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Howard said some new estimates would be available later this week which could provide a better sense of the scope of Sept. 11-related health problems.

He also said there was scientific value in using multiple programs to study the health affects from different perspectives.

Much of the hearing centered around two analyses offered by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

One detailed the current efforts of the health screening programs, and a second tabulated workers' compensation claims stemming from the rescue and cleanup effort.

On the Net

Government Accountability Office http//www.gao.gov

 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/science/07dust.html

Mr. Scharf, an Emmy-winning photographer (for his work on a National Geographic film about parasites), has three scanning electron microscopes in his home that he uses to produce highly magnified images of ordinary things - fruit flies, fungi, even dental plaque.

He was curious to examine the dust. "I wondered what exactly is in there," he said. But he did not want to disturb the dead; he did not want to be looking at even microscopic human remains.

Fortunately, he did not find any signs of life, like red blood cells. The dust contained mostly ash and fiberglass and an occasional thread of asbestos. "It was an extremely high-energy, high-temperature event," he said. "Everything organic was incinerated."

Maloney also pointed out that many September 11 rescue and recovery workers had not applied for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) benefits because their illnesses became more serious after the fund’s Dec. 22, 2003 deadline.

Other workers missed out on the benefits Maloney said, because they were not informed of their eligibility for the fund. Residents around Ground Zero expressed the same concerns, the lawmaker said.

In announcing her legislation, Maloney (D–Queens/Manhattan) declared

"Anyone hurt by 9/11 deserves access to this fund, but countless injured victims were denied help or discouraged from applying because of misguided regulations. The president and Congress need to extend the Victim Compensation Fund deadline and reform it for all those who were clearly injured from 9/11 but denied the help they deserve."

Maloney stated, "Largely as a result of the VCF’s misguided restrictions on applicants, 1,755 of the 4,430 personal injury claims considered were denied." The 40 percent denial rate does not include those who never applied because of confusion over the regulations or because they were not informed that the fund existed.

Detailing the reform sought by her legislation, Maloney stated

"Since it takes longer than three days for a 9/11 respiratory illness to emerge, the fund should obviously allow more than three days for an injured victim to seek medical help to be eligible. Since the development of respiratory illness was not exclusive to the first four days of service at Ground Zero, the fund should clearly be eligible to those who responded beyond the first week.

"Finally, the December 22 deadline came too soon for many 9/11 responders to realize the full extent of their illness. They deserve a chance to apply. It will be a lasting shame on the federal 9/11 response if we exclude those in need from seeking help that they so clearly deserve."

Joining Maloney as she unveiled the legislation were Manhattan attorney Michael Barasch, who has represented workers who were denied benefits, and a number of New York City firefighters, police officers and recovery workers employed at Ground Zero, among them Department of Correction Warden Peter Curcio.

Barasch explained, "No one ever told the lungs about the Victim Compensation Fund deadline. Congress is doing the right thing by continuing to help those who sustained latent pulmonary injuries while working in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

"There are so many sick and/or disabled rescue workers who weren’t diagnosed until it was too late for them to apply."

Curcio was one such case. He described his experiences "On 9/11, I ran into harm’s way to help. It was my job and I was proud to do it. When I got there, the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] told me the air quality was acceptable and I stayed to help. We all now know that was a lie.

"The question now is, is Congress going to leave me uncompensated for my pulmonary injuries because they developed late and are getting progressively worse? Are they going to leave me uncompensated because they failed to communicate the purpose and eligibility criteria for the fund to all of those who served down there?"

Curcio concluded, "This was unchartered territory for all of us. I can forgive them for deceiving me on the air quality to prevent mass hysteria if they can forgive my late application based primarily on their failure to broadcast the fund information properly and permit a reopening of the fund."

Maloney explained that in addition to the late-onset illness and inadequate outreach as potential reasons that those injured from September 11 may have missed the original VCF deadline, time restrictions on VCF applicants were also questioned.

Specifically, the lawmaker said, VCF criteria required applicants to have arrived for rescue and recovery operations within 96 hours of the attacks and for all injured claimants to have sought medical help for an injury within 72 hours, although the fund’s Special Master Kenneth Feinberg had some discretion over the latter criteria.

Maloney’s legislation would

•Amend eligibility rules so that responders to the 9/11 attacks who arrived later than 96 hours could be eligible if they experienced illness or injury from their work at the site.

•Amend eligibility rules so that those who did not seek immediate medical verification for their illness or injury from the disaster, but who have since obtained medical evidence, would be eligible.