OSHA, EPA & City Failed New Yorkers Cleaning Up Ground Zero

I missed this story on Sunday. The New York Times published a long article on the reason why so many Ground Zero cleanup workers now have lung disease. They didn't use respirators.

One thing that neither the Times article nor the excellent analysis by Confined Space point out is that respirators are safety issues themselves. They make it difficult for workers to communicate with each other. Therefore, employers must be especially vigilant when requiring their use, because workers aren't going to want to use anything that makes it harder to yell "Watch out!" and be heard. The worker recognizes the immediate safety threat of the difficulty in communicating; they don't necessarily assign the long-term threat of lung disease the same priority. Employers care far about the cost of the job than anything else. That's why government agencies, who are aware of the health threat, must be involved in requiring these safety devices. At Ground Zero, the government failed utterly, starting with Christy Todd Whitman, head of EPA, who declared the air around Ground Zero safe to breathe when it was, in actuality, toxic.

Anthony DePalma, NYTimes: Air Masks at Issue in Claims of 9/11 Illnesses

With mounting evidence that exposure to the toxic smoke and ash at ground zero during the nine-month cleanup has made many people sick, attention is now focusing on the role of air-filtering masks, or respirators, that cost less than $50 and could have shielded workers from some of the toxins.

More than 150,000 such masks were distributed and only 40,000 people worked on the pile, but most workers either did not have the masks or did not use them.

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From legal documents presented in the case, a tale emerges of heroic but ineffective efforts to protect workers, with botched opportunities, confused policies and contradictions that failed to ensure their safety.

Lawyers representing the workers say that there was no central distribution point for the respirators, no single organization responsible for giving them out, and no one with the power to make sure the respirators that were distributed got used, and used properly.

By contrast, at the Pentagon, workers not wearing proper protective gear were escorted off the site.

Confined Space: World Trade Center Recovery: Dereliction of Duty

The problem began with a statement by then EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman assuring lower Manhattan workers and residents that the air was safe to breathe. DePalma reports that "the agency's inspector general concluded in 2003 that Ms. Whitman's statement was far too broad and could not be scientifically supported at the time she made it."

Personally, I think DePalma's being a bit too nice. The IG actually found that White House officials instructed the agency to be less alarming and more reassuring to the public in the first few days after the attack than EPA officials originally wanted to be. And earlier this year, Judge Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court found that Whitman had deliberately mislead the public when she reassured the public after the collapse of the World Trade Centers that the air was safe to breathe in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. The result of Whitman's lack of concern were devastating for recovery workers, according to Dave Newman of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health who argues that after Whitman's statement, employers "had a green light to say, 'We don't need to use respirators because the E.P.A. says the air is OK.' "

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But the real culprit here is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency tasked by Congress to ensure the health and safety of American workers. And you can look long and hard at the Occupational Safety and Health Act without finding any exception for federally declared disasters:

As the magnitude of the recovery operation grew clearer, attempts were made to bring order to the operation. On Sept. 20 the city issued its first safety plan, and it asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to take charge of distributing respirators. In what would become a controversial move, OSHA used its discretionary powers to decide not to enforce workplace safety regulations but to act in a supportive role that would not slow down operations.

Previous posts:

9/11 EPA Victims (May 16, 2006)

First Death Officially Linked to 9/11 Clean-Up (April 12, 2006)

Have a Nice Day, Christy Todd Whitman (April 12, 2006)

Liars (April 9, 2006)

Too Bad This Isn't a Criminal Case. Christy Todd Whitman Should Be in Jail. (February 2, 2006)

Republicans to FDNY: Drop Dead (November 15, 2005)

Environmental Protection Agency Also Run By "Inept Political Hacks" (September 11, 2005)

Christy Todd Spineless (March 23, 2005)

9/11 EPA Victims

Angel Franco/The New York Times
Some of the people working in the cleanup and recovery effort after Sept. 11 wore masks, but the most effective ones were effective for no more than 20 minutes.

A good review of news reports of lung disease in 9/11 clean-up workers, who were told it was safe to breathe the air in lower Manhattan by EPA and spineless EPA head Christy Todd Whitman, from the best blog on the 'net for workplace safety news, Confined Space:

Confined Space: World Trade Center Tragedies Continue

Read the whole thing. Firefighters, police, paramedics, anyone who breathed that toxic air for weeks and months, now are fighting debilitating lung disease, from sarcoidosis to mesothelioma.

Have a nice day, Christy Todd Whitman.


Previous posts:

First Death Officially Linked to 9/11 Clean-Up (April 12, 2006)

Have a Nice Day, Christy Todd Whitman (April 12, 2006)

Liars (April 9, 2006)

Too Bad This Isn't a Criminal Case. Christy Todd Whitman Should Be in Jail. (February 2, 2006)

Republicans to FDNY: Drop Dead (November 15, 2005)

Environmental Protection Agency Also Run By "Inept Political Hacks" (September 11, 2005)

Christy Todd Spineless (March 23, 2005)

Have a Nice Day, Christy Todd Whitman

BBC (uk): Problems mount from 9/11 fallout

The number of people with medical problems linked to the 9/11 attacks on New York has risen to at least 15,000.

The figure, put together for the BBC, counts those receiving treatment for problems related to breathing in dust.

Many of the victims say the government offered false reassurances that the Manhattan air was safe and are now pursuing a class-action lawsuit.

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The apparent cause? The long line of contaminants carried by the dust into the lungs of many of those at, or near, the scene on that fateful day.

'Real' figure

One list of sufferers has been compiled at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Its World Trade Center Screening Programme has 16,000 people on its books, of whom about half - 8,000 - require treatment.

A further 7,000 firefighters are recorded as having a wide range of medical problems, producing a total of 15,000. But the overall numbers affected could easily be far higher.

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Many of the people now suffering were sent to Ground Zero to help search for survivors. Others volunteered. Still more just happened to be living or working in the area.

The latter feel particularly aggrieved, even betrayed.

In the days following the attacks, the head [CHRISTY TODD WHITMAN] of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared that monitoring operations had proved the "air was safe to breathe". And with that reassurance, the authorities reopened the globally important financial hub of Wall Street.

At the time it was seen as a critical morale-booster to a wounded nation.

Yet now the federal courts have allowed a class-action lawsuit to be filed against those very authorities.

Last month, a judge described the EPA's reassurances as "misleading" and "shocking the conscience". The legal process could last years.

Historical note: The phrase "Have a nice day" is taken from the classic Doonesbury cartoon from the early 1970s, summarizing the murders of four students at Kent State after Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell, had ordered the National Guard in to Kent State. The final square of that cartoon read "Have a nice day, John Mitchell". I probably have it somewhere in a box. It is embedded in my brain, along with "Dare to be great, Ms. Caucus" and "But this war had such promise."

Liars

DEADLY FIBERS: This shirt was worn by Yeheda Kaploun at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 and 12, 2001.A toxic examination by RJ Lee Group foud the collar contained 93 million chrysotile asbestos structured per square centimeter - 93,000 times higher than the normal 500-1,000 structures per square centimeter, which is the average amount of asbestos found in American cities.
Photo: Liz Sullivan

Remember the EPA lying about air quality in Lower Manhattan after 9/11?

This shirt puts the lie to that:

NY Post: ASBESTOS SHIRT IS A TOXIC NEW WRINKLE IN WTC WOE

April 9, 2006 -- Sky-high toxic levels of potentially deadly asbestos still cling to the fibers of this ordinary white dress shirt - worn by a 9/11 volunteer for two days at Ground Zero, a shocking analysis sought by The Post reveals.

Community liaison Yehuda Kaploun volunteered at Ground Zero for 48 hours immediately after the attack, wearing the shirt as he watched good friend and beloved Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge die in a building collapse.

The volunteer kept his contaminated shirt packed in a sealed plastic bag until last week, when The Post sent the garment to RJ Lee Group laboratories for testing.

Analyzed portions of his shirt collar reveal a chilling concentration of chrysotile asbestos - 93,000 times higher than the average typically found in the environment in U.S. cities. That appears to be even higher than what the EPA said was found in the most contaminated, blown-out building after 9/11.

While there appear to be no specific regulations for asbestos levels on clothing, one lawyer for relief workers called the sickly shirt's amount "astronomically toxic."

It's the "high end of surface concentrations that you would find anywhere," added Chuck Kraisinger, a senior scientist for RJ Lee.

Testing also revealed the shirt was contaminated with zinc, mercury, antimony, barium, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead and molybdenum. Tons of the heavy metals were pulverized and burned in the debris in fires that raged for four months.

The test results are especially frightening in light of last week's report by the Centers for Disease Control that 62 percent of those caught in the massive dust cloud suffered respiratory problems. Also, 46 percent of civilians living or working in the immediate area but not caught in the cloud still experienced respiratory problems - and 57 percent reported new and worsening respiratory symptoms.

Making matters worse, Dr. Mark Rosen, chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, said that because it can take decades for asbestos cancers to develop, "We just won't know the effect [of Ground Zero exposure] for years."

About 400,000 tons of asbestos were released in the World Trade Center collapse. David Worby, a lawyer for 7,300 rescue and recovery workers who inhaled the smoke and dust at Ground Zero for months, called the area "the worst toxic site ever.

"It's mind-boggling the poisons they made these people work through," Worby said. "The amount of dioxins there make Vietnam look like a kindergarten."

"It is an urgent situation. If the government does not act . . . in terms of setting up [widespread] medical testing . . . more people over the next few years will die of toxic diseases than died on 9/11."

Have a nice day, Christy Todd Whitman.

Too Bad This Isn't a Criminal Case. Christy Todd Whitman Should Be in Jail.

Judge Slams Ex-EPA Chief Over Sept. 11

NEW YORK -- A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

"No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," the judge said.

She called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking," saying the EPA chief knew that the collapse of the twin towers released tons of hazardous materials into the air.

Republicans to FDNY: Drop Dead

'Promise Broken': N.Y. to Lose 9/11 Aid

WASHINGTON - Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.

New York officials had sought for months to hold onto the funding, originally meant to cover increased worker compensation costs stemming from the 2001 terror attacks.

But a massive labor and health spending bill moving fitfully through House-Senate negotiations would take back that funding, lawmakers said.

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The tug-of-war over the $125 million began earlier this year when the White House proposed taking the money back because the state had not yet spent it.

New York protested, saying the money was part of the $20 billion pledged by
President Bush to help rebuild after the Sept. 11 attacks. Health advocates said the money is needed to treat current and future illnesses among ground zero workers.

The Senate voted last month to let New York keep the $125 million, but the House made no such move. House and Senate budget negotiators then decided to take the money back, lawmakers and aides said.

Top New York fire officials recently lobbied Congress to keep the funding. Fire and police officials say they worry that many people will develop long-term lung and mental health problems from their time working on the burning pile of toxic debris at ground zero and they want to use the money to help them.

This is especially galling because the EPA lied to New Yorkers and worst of all to the workers who worked to clean up the World Trade Center site about the toxic quality of the air at Ground Zero. Think of this every time you hear President Dumbass say 9/11 changed everything, over and over. He lies. Constantly, reflexively, as though he were breathing. If only we had saved canisters of Ground Zero air for him.

Environmental Protection Agency Also Run By "Inept Political Hacks"

From skippy:

while our corporate media sleeps...

cover-up: toxic waters 'will make new orleans unsafe for a decade'

toxic chemicals in the new orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a us government official has told the independent on sunday. and, he added, the bush administration is covering up the danger.

...mr kaufman claimed the bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the epa has not been included in the core white house group tackling the crisis. "its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," mr kaufman said. - the independent

We must remember that Bush's EPA lied to the workers at Ground Zero about environmental hazards from the collapse of the World Trade Center, and that today thousands are sick as a result:

Updated 9/11 Report Examines Failure to Protect Citizens

"Thousands of workers and residents who have been exposed to 9/11-related contamination are now sick," said Joel Shufro, Executive Director, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. "Many of them might never have been exposed if federal officials had not downplayed the hazard in Lower Manhattan and the importance of wearing appropriate protective equipment at all times. Rescue and recovery workers in the Gulf Coast must not be subjected to the same lack of attention to their potential exposures. Until the post-Katrina air (and the water rescuers are wading in) is proven safe, it should be regarded as hazardous, so rescuers and others exposed should receive necessary training and wear appropriate respiratory protection and skin protection, if it is available. If either the training or the gear is not available, emergency officials should make a very high priority of obtaining it, while providing medical surveillance for workers engaged in the rescue and recovery."

Christy Todd Spineless

Christy Todd Whitman was dumbBush's first EPA chief. She did nothing for the environment, let Cheney dictate policy, and resigned to write an "Aren't I a good Republican" book.

Bill McKibben lets her have it: Christy Todd Whitman: When Courage Was Called For, She Punted

Bush promised to lower carbon dioxide emissions during the 2000 campaign, actually had her to go the G-8 summit and promise the same, and then when she got back to DC he called her in & changed the policy. Now, says dumbBush, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant & the US will not agree to caps.

Did she fight this? Go all Elliott Richardson on Shrub & resign in high dudgeon over this? Oh, no. As McKibben describes it:

I can't think of an instance in modern U.S. history when a Cabinet member had been so neatly, quickly and publicly kneecapped. But instead of doing the right thing, Whitman did nothing.

In a spectacular display of political cowardice, she settled down at the EPA, devoting herself to minor pieces of legislation such as the one that extended limits on diesel emissions to vehicles for "non-road uses," like tractors and backhoes. Not a bad law, but in the end no big deal. Whitman had a chance to make a real difference on what one panel of Nobelists after another has called the worst dilemma human civilization yet has faced, and she'd passed it up.

Imagine what would have happened if she had simply quit, accusing the president of reneging on a promise, undermining relations with our allies and, more to the point, neglecting the most crucial environmental challenge that's ever appeared.

It would have lifted the issue out of its relative obscurity and set it at the center of American political debate. Whitman could have done more to move the United States off the dime about global warming than any politician before or since.

Whever any Democrat or liberal tells me we need to support moderate Republicans, I think of Christy. Not exactly a profile in courage. I'll stick with the Dems.