AsthmaMoms World Trade Center: Environmental Health Articles

Widow of firefighter killed at Deutsche Bank rails at city ... The family of deceased firefighter Joey Graffagnino at his home in Bay Ridge. From l.: father Joe Graffagnino, 9-month-old son Joseph, widow Linda, and mother Rosemarie. Joey Graffagnino with his wife Linda. Graffagnino was killed in a fire at the Deutsche Bank building two weeks ago. The grieving widow of firefighter Joseph Graffagnino condemned city officials yesterday for sending her husband into a death trap. "It seems with the city it's really all about money. It's not about human life," Linda Graffagnino said. "Now, who is paying the price? Me, my in-laws and my children. My children don't have a father now." Two weeks after her husband and fellow firefighter Robert Beddia were killed by a fire at the toxic Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan, Graffagnino broke her silence, speaking to reporters at the dining room table of her Brooklyn home. The numbing sadness that comes with burying a father who will never see his 9-month-old son stand on his own has given way to anger. "Why was this work still going on in this building with all the violations," she asked, referring the litany of violations found at the tower by the city Buildings Department since demolition began in March. Graffagnino said she also wonders why no one knew that a standpipe in the tower had been disconnected, preventing the firefighters from getting water up to the fire and dooming her husband. "If you don't have water to put a fire out, I don't know how you're going to put it out," she said. "I don't know who you're going to save." "My husband had to die for someone to take notice and take action," she said. "It's sad.... No one apologized. I don't know if anyone will." "It's not just dollars and cents," she added. "People's lives are at stake. But you don't realize it until lives are lost." (NYDaily News, Aug. 31, 2007)

Senior FDNY chiefs spent weeks at toxic tower before fire ... No one has pinpointed exactly why fire inspectors failed for months to check the condemned ground zero skyscraper where firefighters encountered a maze of hazards and potential deathtraps when responding to a blaze two weeks ago. But there is perhaps a greater mystery: Months before the Aug. 18 fire that killed two firefighters, numerous senior fire chiefs spent weeks at the demolition site and apparently never reported those conditions. The battalion chiefs were at the building to search for remains of Sept. 11 victims. Now, those who played a role in the remains search are being questioned by investigators. Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned this week that the chiefs' judgement must be questioned. "It's troublesome that there were a lot of senior fire officials that had come through that building when we were searching for remains," Bloomberg said. "They saw the kind of conditions that were in that building, and as far as I can tell so far, none of them brought it to anybody's attention." A series of dangers existed in the former Deutsche Bank building before the blaze. They include barricades in the stairwells, combustible debris strewn about, signs that workers routinely ignored the site's no-smoking rule and a tangle of polyurethane sheeting and other materials used to seal against asbestos and lead leakage. ... Fire inspectors were required to check the building every 15 days and never did, investigators found. But meanwhile, numerous battalion chiefs were there nearly every day last spring as part of the city's renewed search for remains of Sept. 11 victims, Bloomberg said. The Fire Department declined to identify those officials or make them available. Spokesman Frank Gribbon said the matter was under investigation. According to a June 1 memo written by Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, updating Bloomberg on the remains operation, searchers had been in the building since March 15 and completed the job on May 29. ... At the former Deutsche Bank building, numerous fire officials were said to have worked in different shifts on those teams, spending hours amid the conditions that investigators now say likely worsened the fire earlier this month. Firefighters who responded to the blaze quickly found that the inside of the building was nearly impossible to navigate. Barricades on the stairwells and among the floors made it easy to get disoriented or lost. And as part of the asbestos containment operation, a system had been set up to create negative air pressure on some floors. Officials believe this caused the fire to behave differently - flames were quickly sucked downward instead of creeping up, which surprised firefighters who typically set up a base of operations a few floors under the point of origin. With the odds already stacked against them, firefighters also couldn't get water out of the building's supply network known as its standpipe. Marshals later found pieces of it lying in the basement. Bloomberg said Friday that the battalion chiefs who were there for the remains search would not have known about the standpipe problem, because they were not in the basement, but should have raised objections about the multitude of other problems. Fire marshals have begun interviewing officials who played a role in the remains search at the Deutsche Bank, according to a person with direct knowledge of the remains operation. Gribbon, the Fire Department spokesman, declined to say what investigators have learned and whether anyone will be reprimanded, but Bloomberg has warned of possible disciplinary action "up and down the chain of command." Three other fire officials said to be responsible for the department's lack of a fire plan for the tower and its failure to inspect the building, including the standpipe, have already been relieved of their commands and reassigned to headquarters. (Newsday, August 31, 2007)

Op-Ed: Burning Questions After a Blaze ... New York real estate and construction is about money, and if reporters and investigators follow the contracts and the subcontracts of the Deutsche Bank building they are bound to find a clear line of responsibility for the conditions that led to the killing of these two men. ... (NYTimes, by Dennis Smith, Aug. 31, 2007)

Threat Seen in History of Demolition ... In the fall of 2005, the planned demolition of the former Deutsche Bank headquarters finally seemed to have gotten back on track. Bovis Lend Lease, an international construction management company, had been awarded the job to oversee the work. The federal Environmental Protection Agency had accepted its detailed demolition plan, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation had approved a tentative arrangement under which three large contractors would do the complex work. Just as a draft contract was being completed, the deal fell apart. It collapsed days after the president of one of the companies, a large Massachusetts demolition contractor, received an anonymous telephone call telling him to stay out of New York, according to the contractor and several other people briefed about the call. The F.B.I. investigated the threat, sending two New York City agents to Waltham, Mass., to interview the contractor, Chris Berardi. Mr. Berardi, the president of North American Site Developers Inc., known as Nasdi, said in a telephone interview from Boston last week that he thought the call had been meant to intimidate him. “It was basically, ‘Don’t come to our city. You’re going to come in here and you’re going to be leaving very shortly,’ ” he recalled. “Reading between the lines, it was a threat to say, ‘Don’t come here, stay where you are; you’ll regret it.’ ” Mr. Berardi, nearly two years later, played down the significance of the threat in describing his decision to withdraw from the deal, saying instead that the decision had come down to money. He acknowledged, though, that the federal agents who interviewed him took the matter seriously and seemed concerned. Two people who worked on the deal — one for the government and one for a private contractor — expressed some skepticism, suggesting that North American Site Developers wanted out of the deal anyway. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is under investigation. The collapse of Bovis’s deal with North American Site Developers and the two other potential demolition contractors, LVI Services Inc. and Bedroc Contracting, cleared the way for the hiring of the John Galt Corporation, the troubled contractor that has come under scrutiny in the criminal inquiry into the Aug. 18 fire at the building that left two firefighters dead. After three months, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation approved a deal under which Bovis gave Galt a $60 million contract for the job, despite concerns raised by the city’s Department of Investigation. The city investigators had strongly warned development officials against hiring any companies tied to another demolition contractor, Safeway Environmental. Galt, an arranged marriage of sorts including executives from a scaffolding company with no demolition experience and two former Safeway executives who had done asbestos abatement, was seen by city investigators as too closely tied to Safeway. Safeway had come under scrutiny because one of its former owners, Harold Greenberg, had been convicted of bribery and mail fraud linked to a bid-rigging scheme in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has been accused of being tied to organized crime. The Department of Investigation began investigating Galt after the company was approved to work on the bank demolition in part because of concerns that Mr. Greenberg had connections to the company, people with knowledge of the matter have said. While several people briefed on the F.B.I. investigation said it had not determined the source of the call, Mr. Berardi said the agents who interviewed him asked about Mr. Greenberg and his former partner in Safeway, Steven Chasin. Mr. Berardi, who has never worked in New York, said Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Chasin did not threaten him personally. The two F.B.I. agents, who had traveled to Massachusetts to interview Mr. Berardi rather than delegating the task to other agents in the bureau’s Boston office, were from a New York squad that investigates public corruption. Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Chasin have not returned calls seeking comment. When North American Site Developers withdrew from the project, the arrangement with the other two companies collapsed because only North American Site Developers had the adequate financial strength for the job, several people involved in the deal said. “We were ready to go forward and do this project in a safe and conscientious manner, and once Nasdi, which was providing the bonding for the demolition portion of this job, withdrew, the deal fell apart,” said Paul Desser, the director of estimating and marketing for Bedroc. “And we were down to the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.” The chairman of LVI Services, Burton T. Fried, would not comment. Once the deal fell apart, according to several people involved in the project, Bovis proposed using a half-dozen other companies, some of whom city officials felt were too closely tied to Safeway. Eventually, Bovis hired Galt despite the strong caution voiced by the city’s Department of Investigation. A spokesman for Bovis yesterday would not discuss the telephone call to Mr. Berardi or the reasons that the earlier deal with his company collapsed. (NYTimes, by William K. Rashbaum and Charles V. Bagli, Aug. 30, 2007)

ALARM LINGERS AFTER DEUTSCHE BANK FIRE -- CB1 MEMBERS DECRY “TOXIC CLOUD OF UNCERTAINTY” AND “TRAGEDY REPEATING ITSELF AS FARCE” SKEPTICAL RESIDENTS DEMAND ASSURANCES ABOUT POSSIBLE CONTAMINATION NO-SHOW JOB: CONTRACTORS SLAMMED FOR SKIPPING EMERGENCY CB1 MEETING ... Mr. Schick predicted that “negative air pressure” (which prevents toxic materials from escaping, because all air flows inward) would not be restored in the building until the various investigations were complete. This led Battery Park City resident Craig Hall to note that “many of us have already been through two EPA cleanups,” and ask “what is the risk of new contamination?” When officials from multiple agencies repeated that data collected thus far shows no such risk, Congressman Jerry Nadler broke in to ask, “if new data show an increased level of risk, what will you do and how long will it take?” EPA representative Pat E v a n g e l i s t a answered that it would take “several weeks, at a minimum” to restore negative air pressure, an outlook that Mr. Nadler termed “unacceptable.” ... LMDC chair Avi Schick voiced surprise, saying, “we were told they would be here tonight to answer questions,” which led Congressman Nadler to predict, “they’re going to
answer questions, under subpoena and under oath.” Borough president Scott Stringer said that “Bovis never misses a Community Board meeting when they want something from the community, so they should have been here tonight.” Mr. Shick concluded by saying that “we’re going to hold Bovis’ and Galt’s feet to the fire by asking them hard questions. And if
their answers aren’t satisfactory, they won’t be back.” ... (BPC Boradsheet, by Matthew Fenton, Aug. 28-Sept. 11, 2007)

HUNDREDS OF LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST BPCA TEMPORARY WORKERS FROM SIX YEARS AGO CLAIM TO SUFFER FROM ‘WORLD TRADE CENTER SYNDROME’ SHOULD RESIDENTS EXPECT TO BE TAKEN TO CLEANERS BY CLEANERS? ... .At a July meeting of the Battery Park City Authority’s board, deputy general counsel Annette Guarino announced that 375 lawsuits have been filed against the Authority in recent weeks by temporary workers whom building managers hired in 2001 to clean Battery Park City apartments of World Trade Center dust and debris. “This makes us the largest defendant outside of Ground Zero,” Ms. Guarino noted, adding that 50 similar “cleanup cases” were filed against the Authority between 2001 and 2005, with 43 ultimately being dismissed. “These people have been certified by Mount Sinai Hospital as having a cluster of symptoms called ‘World Trade Center Syndrome,’” Ms. Guarino added, “and a large plaintiff firm that specializes in tobacco litigation has taken their cases en masse.” Authority chairman James Gill described the suits as “baseless,” while president Jim Cavanaugh noted, “we didn’t hire these people. They were hired by contractors who were hired by landlords, which had nothing to do with the Authority. So there’s no reason we should be a party to these actions.” Authority spokesperson Leticia Remauro later added that, “in addition to the fact that we should never have been named as defendants, these lawsuits have been filed too late to be legally valid.” While Ms. Guarino was cautiously optimistic about the wave of suits being dismissed, nobody at the Authority was able to predict whether residents who owned condominiums or rented apartments at the time of the September 11 attacks, and whose homes were cleaned by contractors, should expect to be named as defendants in similar litigation in the future.(BPC Boradsheet, by Matthew Fenton, Aug. 28-Sept. 11, 2007)

Differences in PTSD Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors Among World Trade Center Disaster Rescue and Recovery Workers .... CONCLUSIONS: Workers and volunteers in occupations least likely to have had prior disaster training or experience were at greatest risk of PTSD. Disaster preparedness training and shift rotations to enable shorter duration of service at the site may reduce PTSD among workers and volunteers in future disasters. .... (Am J Psychiatry , August 29, 2007)

EPA Letter to LMDC David Emil: Abatement and Deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street (also known as the Deutsche Bank Building) .... writing to express the concern of the U.S. EPA about the "preliminary position" that you stated at the August 28, 2007 meeting with pat Evangelista, WTC Coordinator .... and representatives of the NYSDOL, NYCDEP, OSHA, and others.... Mr. Evangelista informed me that you have proposed tthat the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) implement a new sampling plan to gather new data for the building at 130 Liberty Street and to revisit abatement procedures .... EPA has participated, and continues to participate, in meetings to understand the concerns of the FDNY and to address them expeditiously. Our primary environmental concern at this time is the need for LMDC to implement all necessary measures to seal the buioding to control potential releases of contaminants into th environment. In so doing, we urge LMDC to employ additional measures to safeguard public and worker safety and health, and to incorporate appropriate recommendations from FDNY.... (EPA, August 29, 2007)

Community, Officials Slam Deutsche Bank Contractor ... More than 100 community members and a half-dozen public officials fired heated questions at the contractor in charge of demolition of the Deutsche Bank building at a meeting Wednesday night. The meeting came nearly two weeks after two firefighters died in a blaze at the building, and a week after falling construction equipment at the site injured two other firefighters. Mark Melson, executive vice president of northeast region of Bovis Lend Lease, opened by saying that while he is deeply sorry about the loss of life, the demolition at 130 Liberty Street is “one of the most highly-regulated demolition efforts in New York City.” Melson said the company has lost confidence in the project's subcontractor, the John Galt Company and, as a result, terminated its contracts with the company last week. He said due to investigations by the Manhattan district attorney and the attorney general, the company could not go into details about the situation at the building that led up to the fire. "I'm happy to answer any questions you have, but there are certain subjects, they are the subject of an ongoing investigation and we do not intend to talk [about with] this community and this board," said Melson. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Community Board 1 Chairwoman Julie Menin put pressure on Bovis to disclose information as to how the company went about hiring John Galt despite pleas from the Community Board not to hire the contractor. "Had you put a halt to John Galt and had the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation seen fit to put a halt to John Galt, I venture to say that we wouldn't be here tonight," said Kimberly Flynn of 9/11 Environmental Action. Melson said it has obtained outside counsel to investigate the hiring procedure and what went wrong at the site, but it is not sure whether Bovis will make the findings public. "Your reputation has been sullied, gentlemen, and that happened with the blood of the people who were killed at your building," said local resident Sally Regenhard, who lost her son in the September 11th terrorist attacks. According to Melson, it is up to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to ask the community for approval of a subcontractor. ... Bovis Senior Vice President James Abadie said the company will work with representatives from the FDNY and the Department of Buildings to ensure future safety at the site and that rules will be tightened in regards to smoking, which fire marshals believe caused the blaze. "Any person who is violating any of those rules will be removed from the job and barred from working there," said Abadie. ... Meanwhile, lawmakers are pointing fingers across the aisle, blaming political opponents for conditions that led to the fire. Some Manhattan Democrats say Governor George Pataki is to blame. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Borough President Scott Stringer say the building should have been demolished years ago. "The Pataki administration LMDC, you couldn't meet with them, they wouldn't talk to you, they totally didn't care, and everything they did was about their own politics,” said Stringer. Pataki's spokesperson says he won't dignify the comments with a response. The number two Republican in the State Senate, however, puts the blame on Avi Schick, head of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Senator Dean Skelos says days before the fire, Schick even took The New York Times on a tour of the building to show how well the demolition was going. Democrats say the blame is unjustified and that Schick and Governor Eliot Spitzer have been more involved in the rebuilding effort than the previous administration. (NY1, Aug. 29, 2007)

Survey Shows a High Rate of Asthma at Ground Zero .. Rescue and recovery workers at ground zero have developed asthma at a rate that is 12 times what would be expected for adults, according to findings released yesterday by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Of nearly 26,000 workers surveyed in 2003 and 2004, 926 reported that they developed asthma for the first time after working at ground zero (a rate of 3.6 percent). In a group that size, under normal conditions, no more than 77 new cases of asthma (0.3 percent) would have been expected, according to the report, which is published in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a science and health journal. The health department also found that workers who arrived at ground zero on Sept. 11, when the dust cloud and smoke from the fires were thickest and respirator masks were least available, had the highest risk of developing asthma in the aftermath of the disaster. ... (NYTimes, by Anthony DePalma, Aug. 28, 2007)

Questions On City's Role In Demolition Near 9/11 Site ... The former headquarters of Deutsche Bank, at the edge of ground zero, has been in state hands for more than three years, ever since the Pataki administration fashioned a deal to buy and demolish it. The wounded tower had stood as both an ugly reminder of Sept. 11 and the slow progress in rebuilding downtown Manhattan. But for at least 30 months, New York City officials have themselves played a role alongside first the Pataki and now the Spitzer administration in helping to determine how the contaminated 41-story building at 130 Liberty St. was to be demolished, who was to do the work, how much they would be paid and, ultimately, whether the companies hired for the job were reputable firms. As it turned out, the subcontractor hired for the demolition was an organization comprised of executives from one company without the requisite experience and two senior executives from a second company under scrutiny by city investigators, a company whose former owner twice had been convicted of federal crimes, and had been accused of ties to organized crime. The subcontractor, known as the John Galt Corporation, is now the focus of a criminal investigation after two firefighters died in an Aug. 18 blaze; evidence points to the fire's being caused by workers smoking on the building's upper floors. The efforts of firefighters to combat the blaze were badly compromised by an inoperable sprinkler system and a nonworking standpipe in the contaminated building. The Galt firm was hired even though the city and the state had jointly established an agency -- the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center -- and charged it with coordinating construction activity downtown, and preventing troubled contractors from getting work there. A former city investigator was appointed to the agency. Interviews with current and former officials involved in the work at the Deutsche Bank also show that at least two senior Bloomberg administration officials were clearly aware that the executives from the suspect company, Mitchell Alvo and Donald Adler of Safeway Environmental, had ultimately been hired to work on the demolition project. Records show that one of those officials was Martha Stark, the commissioner of the city's Department of Finance. Ms. Stark served on a committee of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation overseeing the Deutsche Bank building, and received a copy of a letter responding to the continuing concerns of city investigators regarding the two men from Safeway after the Galt Company was hired. To date, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his aides have said little about their knowledge of the troubled company at the heart of the demolition work. The administration has refused to say whether senior officials were alerted by city investigators about their objections to the use of Safeway and its executives. And it has refused to say whether Ms. Stark briefed anyone about the company's role, and the concerns swirling around it. A spokesman for Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who served on the board of the downtown development agency, indicated last week that Mr. Doctoroff was aware that the Safeway executives had been hired, but had been satisfied that safeguards had been put in place to prevent any wrongdoing. It was unclear whether Mr. Doctoroff knew about the full range of concerns of city investigators. Yesterday, a mayoral spokesman, Stu Loeser, again refused comment, citing the investigation by the Manhattan district attorney. But the records show City Hall officials attended a meeting convened by Mr. Bloomberg and Gov. Eliot Spitzer at Gracie Mansion on Jan. 29, 2007, after the John Galt Company and Bovis Lend Lease, the company that hired Galt, walked off the demolition job in a bid for more money. The companies complained they were being asked to do more work than the contract entailed. The city eventually backed the state's decision to provide an additional $40 million to complete the demolition and remediation work, money that, if finally approved, would flow in part to the Safeway executives. That meeting took place seven months after the city's Department of Investigation took action against Safeway that would probably prevent it from doing future city work and five months after the agency's investigation of the John Galt Corporation blocked that company from winning a contract to tear down the Bronx House of Detention. Again, it was unclear whether those concerns were ever raised during the negotiations at Gracie Mansion. Diane Struzzi, a Department of Investigation spokeswoman, citing the current criminal inquiry, would not say whether officials from the agency had notified anyone inside city government, from the mayor and Deputy Mayor Doctoroff, down to lower-level managers, about their concerns. Much of the work in rebuilding downtown, of course, had been headed over the years by the Pataki administration, which first created the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The state, now under the direction of Mr. Spitzer, controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and is a partner with New Jersey in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site. State officials from the Pataki and Spitzer administrations have yet to explain their roles and responsibilities at the Deutsche Bank building. District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau has subpoenaed records from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, John Galt, Bovis, the Fire Department and others as part of a widening investigation. But the city's Department of Investigation has long been interested in Safeway Environmental, its owners and executives. Its concerns originated from the criminal convictions and accusations of organized crime connections against Harold Greenberg, a former Safeway owner. Indeed, in the summer of 2005, city investigators persuaded the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to disqualify Safeway from getting a $13 million contract to erect scaffolding at the Deutsche Bank building. And in early 2006, it sent a letter to the development agency cautioning against using Safeway officials in the much larger undertaking of demolishing the building. Nonetheless, in January 2006, Bovis and the development agency struck an agreement that allowed the Safeway executives to play a role in the project. Under the terms of the arrangement, Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler were required to cooperate with an unspecified inquiry by the Department of Investigation. A former official who had been involved in the project said the Department of Investigation did not learn of the arrangement until March 31, in a meeting with the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center. Charles Maikish, a command center official, eventually conceded in a letter to city investigators that he had been remiss in failing to consult the Department of Investigation and acknowledged that the department had supplied the command center with ''negative'' information about Mr. Adler and Mr. Alvo, according to two people who have seen the letter. Mr. Maikish's letter indicates that he sent a copy to Ms. Stark. In the following months, city investigators' interest in Safeway intensified -- as it intervened to end the company's involvement in several city contracts. One deal was with the city's Department of Sanitation. The Department of Investigation sent a letter dated May 5, 2006, to Mr. Alvo, president of Safeway, notifying him that the company was in ''default'' of a monitoring agreement that allowed the company to undertake contracts with Sanitation. Among the reasons for the finding, the letter said, is that two Safeway officials, Mr. Alvo and Steven Chasin, had refused to submit to follow-up interviews with investigators as the agreement required. It was precisely that sort of requirement -- that Safeway officials would continue to cooperate with investigators -- that reassured state and city officials that Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler could be cleared to work on the Deutsche Bank demolition job. (NYTimes, by Charles V. Bagli and William K. Rashbaum; Diane Cardwell, August 29, 2007)

Politicians Play Blame Game Over Deutsche Bank Demolition ... There's lots of blame to go around. Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers at each other for why the Deutsche Bank building was even still standing. Democrats pounced on former Governor George Pataki. The building stood on his watch for five years after it was crippled in the September 11th terrorist attacks. ... The remarks from Stringer echoed what a fellow top Democrat said Monday. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was quoted criticizing Pataki, but a day later he said was not interested in rehashing fights with his former sparring partner. “What’s important is we go forward,” said Silver. The GOP, meanwhile, shot at Pataki's successor. The Senate's number two Republican says Governor Eliot Spitzer's point man for rebuilding Lower Manhattan, Avi Schick, has been more focused on good public relations for his boss, than on tearing down the contaminated structure. “He said that everything would change on day one, and now we’re almost nine months into his administration and nothing changed,” said State Senator Dean Skelos. Republicans have not been shy about carping on the governor. He's currently embroiled in an ethics scandal. But with the fire near Ground Zero still fresh, the GOP has stayed away from casting blame, although a state agency under Spitzer owns the building. Skelos changed that; he says days before the fire, Schick took The New York Times on a tour of the building to show how well the demolition was going. “The issue is not about pointing fingers, blaming,” said Skelos. “[It’s about] getting to the truth.” Not surprisingly, Democrats quickly came to Schick's defense. They say he and Spitzer have been more involved than the previous administration. Speaker Silver has close ties to Schick. Although he bit his tongue about Pataki, others were not shy. ... (NY1, August 28, 2007)

FIRED-FIRM CEO STILL RUNS SITE'S SCAFFOLDS ... The top executive of a subcontracting company being blamed for the deadly Deutsche Bank blaze will continue to play a key role in the demolition of the building, although his company was fired from the project. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., owner of the black-shrouded building at 130 Liberty St., continues to retain the services of Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting on the site - a company run by the same man who heads the John Galt Corp. Officials with the LMDC declined to comment on the relationship between the two companies and refused to provide details on the kind of services Regional Scaffolding will continue to provide nor the value of its contract. .Greg Blinn, CEO of the John Galt Corp. and vice president of Regional Scaffolding, said his contract with the LMDC forbids him from speaking to the press. His two companies operate out of the same offices at 3900 Webster Ave. in The Bronx. Last week, the LMDC and the main contractor for the demolition project, Bovis Lend Lease Corp., fired John Galt as the asbestos-removal subcontractor in the wake of the Aug. 18 blaze that killed two firefighters. Five days after the deadly fire, a John Galt employee dropped a 300-pound pallet jack from the 23rd floor of the building injuring two more firefighters. Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that that fire was most likely started by careless smoking on the 17th floor. Employees of John Galt have said basic safety practices were ignored and, despite specific rules forbidding it, on-site smoking was routine. The John Galt Corp. was also slapped with 12 violations from the Department of Buildings and 20 federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations for work at the building near Ground Zero. (NYPost, by Chuck Bennett, August, 28, 2007)

HEROES GASPING AT 9/11 ASTHMA-RATE SHOCK ... Of 25,748 rescue workers surveyed, 926, or 3.6 percent, developed asthma after working at the toxic site. Of workers who were there 90 days or longer, 7 percent developed asthma. "The dust from the World Trade Center collapse appears to have had significant respiratory health effects at least for people who worked at the site," Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said. ... Robert Grey, an attorney who specializes in workers'-compensation issues, said he expects the new numbers won't stop the city from challenging the compensation claims of 9/11 workers. "There has been a disconnect between the Law Department and the Health Department for quite some time now," Grey said. "It would not surprise me if the new report gets ignored by the Law Department because [it has] taken a position that they have an obligation to protect the city's money by contesting these claims." ... (NYPost, by Frankie Edozien, Aug. 28, 2007)

buildings: ACCIDENTS -- New York City Toughens Construction Fire Protection Rules in Wake of Fatal Ground Zero Blaze .... New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Aug. 27 a crackdown on fire safety protections for all city demolition, decontamination and construction projects following an Aug. 18 blaze at the Deutsche Bank deconstruction project at Ground Zero in which two firefighters were killed. Bloomberg ordered the city Fire Dept. to mandate "surveillance by every fire unit...of all buildings under construction/demolition," to review "pre-fire plans" and to order new plans created, if necessary at "any potential structures." Bloomberg also confirmed that city fire marshals have "tentatively" determined that the seven-alarm fire was caused by "careless smoking" by abatement or construction workers on the building's 17th floor. He also pointed to gaps in city and contractor oversight of the building's water supply system and fire safety measures. "Senior fire officers decided against creating a unique fire plan for the building," said the Mayor, who also announced the demotions of three top department officials and the submission of sections of an inoperable building standpipe to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va. for metallurgical analysis. Work on the demolition project remains halted as multiple investigations continue. Bovis Lend Lease, the project's contractor, did not return calls to confirm whether it has officially terminated the demolition subcontractor, The John Galt Corp. The firm was issued a notice of contract default on Aug. 22. Bovis also did not confirm reports that two new firms are handling emergency work at the site—Gramercy Group, a Westbury, N.Y.-based demolition and environmental contractor and Atlantic Heydt Corp., a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based contractor and scaffolding firm. ... (McGraw Hill Construction Engineering News-Record, by Debera K. Rubin, 9/27/07)

Rep. Nadler Reacts to WTC Health Registry's Findings on Asthma (8/27/2007)

SCOPPETTA'S DUTY ... Written by then-Battalion Chief William Siegel, the memo called for: * "Weekly surveillance" of the building - in addition to the department's mandatory 15-day inspections for buildings under demolition. * Regular updates on interior conditions, like the status of its standpipe system and stairwells. (Standpipes bring water to fight upper-floor fires, and clear stairwells are needed for rapid evacuation in a fire-fighting emergency.) * Adoption of protocols to ensure that up-to-date information would be relayed to firefighters responding to an emergency at the building. In the event, firefighters arrived at the building unaware that its stairwells had been boarded up and that its standpipe system had been partly dismantled. They ended up trapped on the 14th floor. Only sheer luck and extraordinary skill prevented more fatalities.Obviously, those who ignored calls for a "pre-fire plan" and "weekly surveillance" needed to go. ... No doubt others in the FDNY chain of command are going to join Fuerch on the sidelines; that's as it must be.And ongoing probes by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo must determine precisely who was responsible for the conditions inside the building. All that in due course. ... (NYPost, August 28, 2007)

Union decries 'knee-jerk' decision ... (NYDailyNews, Aug. 28, 2007)

4% of 9/11 workers developed asthma: study ... Previous studies have found up to 70% of 9/11 workers reported some kind of respiratory problem. ... The new findings were released yesterday by the city Health Department and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The large-scale survey of the more than 25,000 rescue and recovery workers enrolled in Mount Sinai Medical Center's 9/11 registry found that 926, or 3.6%, had developed asthma since 2001. ... (NYDaily, by Helen Kennedy, Aug. 28, 2007)

Subpoenas issued in Deutsche Bank fire investigation: Three FDNY officers stripped of their commands ... The forensics is just a part of this investigation. It is very much a white collar paper chase. This building will hold some of the clues, but not all of them. Prosecutors and their investigators have examined the building extensively, taking photographs and gathering evidence. Eyewitness News has learned that a series of subpoenas have now been issued for the documents, memos, letters and e-mails that could prove vital to the investigation. ... Officials also sought today to reassure neighbors that the air was not contaminated by the fire, insisting that after 576 tests over nine days there is still no evidence of airborne contaminants. But legislative oversight is being stepped up. ...(abc7, August 28, 2007)

Asthma up for 9/11 workers, city study says ... A study released yesterday by the city’s Health Department found a significant increase in asthma rates among 9/11 rescue and recovery workers. Of the 25,000 workers participating in the World Trade Center Health Registry, 3.6 percent of them reported developing asthma after their efforts at the toxic Ground Zero site, which is 12 times higher than normal for an adult populatuion over the same time period. “There were significant increases in risk for earlier arrival, total duration of work, exposure to the dust cloud, and working on the pile at the WTC site,” stated the report published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The survey, conducted in 2003 and 2004, found that workers who arrived on Sept. 11, 2001, and worked more than 90 days reported the highest rate of new asthma at 7 percent. .... (Metro NY, by Ammy Zimmer, Aug. 28, 2007)

FDNY Tragedy May Reach Top Brass: Union Official Tells CBS 2 High-Ranking Officials Knew About Deutsche Building's Dangers For Years ... "It goes all the way to headquarters, all the way to the chief of the department," says Jack McDonnell, a spokesman for the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. McDonnell says top FDNY officials -- well above the three commanders who were reassigned following the fire -- were very aware of the potential dangers of fighting a fire at that very building. "We're talking a very high-profile, very dangerous building," McDonnell says. How did they know? A memo issued by the city last week tells the tale. The memo states that on April 6, 2005, top department brass went to the Deutsche Bank building to familiarize themselves with its dangers. So whose agency organized the meeting? "It was Chief [Salvatore] Cassano," McDonnell says.... All of this comes as CBS 2 HD has obtained another smoking gun memo urging the creation of a plan to fight fires at the Deutsche Bank building. On November 21, 2005, City Councilman Alan Gerson wrote to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation -- the owner of the Deutsche Bank building -- demanding a fire fighting plan that "would spell out in advance what their normal protocols would be in several of the most likely emergency situations, for example, fire." Still, there was no pre-fire plan that was ever developed. In what may be just as bad, according to union officials, there are still no department guidelines for inspecting toxic buildings. "The fire department at the very highest levels ... failed to establish protocols for the men and women in the field. To lay the blame at the foot-soldier level is just not right," says UFOA attorney Steven Rabinowitz. ... (CBS, Aug, 28, 2007)

Giuliani role in Sept. 11 ceremony angers some rescue workers ... Rudy Giuliani will speak at the sixth anniversary remembrance of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, as he has every year, but some relatives of those who died said the solemn ceremony is no place for presidential politics. ... (NYNewsday, Aug. 28, 2007)

'Failures' by FDNY spur angry mayor to demote bosses: Lack of a fire plan led to 'inexcusable' errors at fire that killed 2 bravest; smoking is cited as cause ... (SI Advance, by Sally Goldneberg & Peter N. Spencer, August 28, 2007)

Asthma Diagnosed after September 11, 2001 among Rescue and Recovery Workers: Findings from the World Trade Center Health Registry ... The rate of self-reported newly-diagnosed asthma was high in the study population and significantly associated with increased exposure to the WTC disaster site. Although we could not distinguish appropriate respiratory protection from inappropriate, we observed a moderate protective effect of mask or respirator use. The findings underscore the need for adequate and timely distribution of appropriate protective equipment, and the enforcement of its use when other methods of controlling respiratory exposures are not feasible. ... (Environmental Health Perspectives; by Katherine Wheeler, Wendy McKelvey, Lorna Thorpe, Megan Perrin, James Cone, Daniel Kass, Mark Farfel, Pauline Thomas, and Robert Brackbill, Online 27 August 2007)

SURVEY FINDS ELEVATED RATES OF NEW ASTHMA AMONG WTC RESCUE AND RECOVERY WORKERS: New Findings from the World Trade Center Health Registry Indicate That Respirators Helped Reduce the Risk of Developing Asthma ... (News Release, August 27, 2007)

Firm to face public after Deutsche Bank fire: Forum scheduled this week as cleanup continues ... A public meeting set this week for the company charged with taking down the Deutsche Bank building. Its' been one week since two New York City firefighters died in a fire there in lower Manhattan. Also, two local lawmakers believe they've come up with a way to help prevent a similar tragedy. ... To help prevent this from happening again with this building or another vacant one, a city councilmen and state senator announced Saturday they're pushing for a waiver or state law to free up retired firefighters who could inspect complex buildings like Deutsche Bank. It would also require standpipe problems or sprinkler problems to have to be logged in a database. "We cannot allow or continue to allow the safety of firefighters and the public to fall through a mysterious black hole of inspection," said NY State Senator Eric Adams. And, after two other firefighters were injured from falling debris at the Deutsche Bank building on Thursday, local residents want their own answers, too. "Who knows whether they're trying to cover anything up or anything like that?" said lower Manhattan resident, Bruce Oelschlager. "It's a dangerous building." A public meeting is scheduled somewhere in lower Manhattan this week. The chief contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, is promising to attend. ... (abc, by Emily Smith, Aug. 26, 2007)

E.P.A. Whistle-Blower Says U.S. Hid 9/11 Dust Danger ... A senior scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency has accused the agency of relying on misleading data about the health hazards of World Trade Center dust. The scientist, who has been sharply critical of the agency in the past, claimed in a letter to members of the New York Congressional delegation this week that test reports in 2002 and 2003 distorted the alkalinity, or pH level, of the dust released when the twin towers collapsed, downplaying its danger. Some doctors suspect that the highly alkaline nature of the dust contributed to the variety of ailments that recovery workers and residents have complained of since the attack. Tests of the gray-brown dust conducted by scientists at the United States Geological Survey a few months after the attack found that the dust was highly alkaline, in some instances as caustic or corrosive as drain cleaner, and capable of causing severe irritation and burns. The tests that are being challenged by the E.P.A. scientist were conducted by independent scientists at New York University. Those tests also indicated that larger particles of dust were highly alkaline. But they found that smaller dust particles — those most likely to reach into the lower airways of the lungs, where they could cause serious illnesses — were not alkaline and caustic. The geological survey’s tests did not differentiate the dust by particle size. A spokeswoman for the agency, Mary Mears, said in a statement that the E.P.A. stood behind its work on ground zero environmental hazards, as did the N.Y.U. scientists. The scientist making the complaint, Cate Jenkins, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and works in the agency’s office of solid waste and emergency response, said the test results helped the E.P.A. avoid legal liability. Residents of Lower Manhattan have sued the agency in federal court, claiming that it bungled the cleanup. Dr. Jenkins said the test reports had a costly health effect, contributing “to emergency personnel and citizens not taking adequate precautions to prevent exposures.” In her statement, Ms. Mears distanced the agency from Dr. Jenkins, who has worked for the E.P.A. since 1979 and has been in conflict with the agency for years over her whistle-blowing activities. “Dr. Jenkins has not participated in any aspect of the E.P.A.’s work on the World Trade Center,” the statement said. “This appears to be a disagreement about scientific methods and not the validity of the results.” The New York University scientists, who were not directly financed by the E.P.A., denied being pressured by the agency and said Dr. Jenkins’s claims were without scientific merit. ... The two scientists named in Dr. Jenkins’s letter are faculty members of the New York University School of Medicine who collected dust samples from ground zero in the days after the attack. One of them, George D. Thurston, is director of N.Y.U.’s Community Outreach and Education Program. He has helped inform Lower Manhattan workers and residents about health hazards related to the terror attack. Testifying before a Senate committee in 2002, Dr. Thurston said that more than 95 percent of the dust was composed of comparatively large particles that were highly alkaline. He said that although they were irritating, those dust particles did not pose serious health concerns for residents because they were too large to enter the lower airways of the lungs. Smaller particles, those less than 2.5 microns in size, are far more dangerous because they can be easily breathed deep into the lungs. Dr. Thurston told the Senate committee that tests showed those particles to be pH neutral, and therefore of less concern. A year later, the same scientists, in conjunction with the E.P.A., among others, published a report in Environmental Health Perspectives, a professional journal, in which they described a new round of tests in which they found the smallest dust particles to have pH values from 8.8 to 10, which made them alkaline. To keep the particles in the samples from congealing, however, they used a standard process that involved freeze-drying and soaking the samples in saline. When pH tested, the particles were then found to be “near neutral.” Lung-Chi Chen, the second N.Y.U. scientist, an inhalation toxicologist with N.Y.U.’s School of Medicine who was responsible for the testing, said the saline could not have diluted the alkalinity of the samples so greatly that they went from alkaline to neutral. “We were not trying to mislead anyone,” he said. Dr. Chen said the samples tested prior to Dr. Thurston’s 2002 Senate testimony and those in the 2003 report came from different batches of dust, which probably accounted for the difference in their alkalinity. He said he was not surprised that the smaller dust particles had characteristics and alkalinity levels different from the larger ones. He explained that the larger particles were made up of building materials that had been pulverized by the pressure of the imploding towers. The smallest particles, he said, were probably a combination of crushed material and the combustion byproducts produced by high-temperature fires that burned for weeks. (NYTimes, by ANthony DePalma, August 25, 2008)

Unclear When Work At Deutsche Bank Building Will Resume ... It remains unclear when work will resume at the former Deutsche Bank building at the World Trade Center site, after a construction worker lost control of a hand-held pallet jack yesterday afternoon, injuring two firefighters in the third incident at the site in four months. ... In yesterday’s incident, the heavy jack fell 23 stories – more than 200 feet – and crashed through a shed, hitting two firefighters who were keeping the area secure. The machine is used for heavy lifting at construction sites. ...Officials say the worker who dropped the jack was from the John Galt Company, the subcontractor at the building, which on Wednesday was given five days to finish up before being removed from the project.Residents in the area urge caution in moving forward at the site. ... All work had been suspended on the site after last week’s fire, other than some scaffolding work, but now all activity whatsoever has been halted at the site to allow for an investigation into the fire and yesterday’s incident. The Manhattan District Attorney and the Attorney General are investigating Saturday's fire. (NY1, Aug. 24, 2007)

Firefighters Bid One of Their Own Farewell ... There was grief today at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and even some laughter at a few memories of Firefighter Robert Beddia, a 23-year-veteran of the department who died on Saturday doing the work he loved. ... The fire raised troubling questions about why it had taken so long to bring down the 41-story building that was damaged beyond repair in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. On Thursday, as Firefighter Graffagnino’s funeral was taking place in Brooklyn, two more firefighters were injured at the building when a worker lost control of a small forklift on the 23rd floor of the building, sending it tumbling down 200 feet to the ground. The forklift crashed through a construction shed on the ground level, and part of the shed collapsed on the two firefighters. Both firefighters, Neil Nally, 35, and William Carbettis, 51, of Engine 258 in Long Island City, Queens, were listed in stable condition today at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. They both sustained head injuries. Firefighter Carbettis had his spleen removed. Firefighter Nally also had an injured back and right hand, according to a fire official, and could be allowed to leave the hospital today, fire officials said. At today’s funeral for Firefighter Beddia, there were echoes of the funeral on Thursday for his colleague, Firefighter Graffagnino. ... (NYTimes, by Maria newman & Coolin Moynihan, Aug. 24, 2007)

Firefighter Injured In Deutsche Bank Incident Released From Hospital .... One of the firefighters injured when a piece of construction equipment plummeted off the side of the Deutsche Bank building yesterday was released from the hospital this afternoon, while the other remains in stable condition. Firefighter Neil Nally was released from the hospital after being evaluated for neck and back injuries. Firefighter William Corbetis underwent surgery to have his spleen removed and 100 staples placed in his head. He also broke his rib and fractured vertebrae in his neck..... All work at the former Deutsche bank building has stopped after a construction worker lost control of a hand-held pallet jack yesterday. The heavy machine plunged 23 stories – more than 200 feet – and crashed through a shed, hitting the two firefighters who were keeping the area secure and a construction worker. Officials say the worker who dropped the jack was from the John Galt Company, the subcontractor at the building, which on Wednesday was given five days to finish up before being removed from the project. This latest accident comes just days after two firefighters were killed battling a fire in the condemned building. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. It remains unclear when demolition work will resume at the site, but residents in the area said safety should be a top priority. “The investigation should continue and we have to get this thing settled one way or the other,” said one area resident. “We’re going to need more agencies to get involved and do more investigating before they decide what they’re going to do with the building.” “I think the right thing to do is to take a step back now,” added another. “Obviously get it down sooner rather than later, but do it the right way.” “When it’s safe, it should come down,” added a third. “Until they can find a safe way to do so, I think they should not do it until they can get it done correctly,” added a fourth. Thursday's accident was the third in four months at the building to hurt or kill city firefighters. In May, a 15-foot sprinkler pipe fell off the 35th floor and through the roof of the local firehouse, hurting two firefighters inside. The Manhattan District Attorney and the Attorney General are investigating Saturday's fire. (NY1, August 24, 2007)

Debris Removal and Scaffold Repair Work ... (LowerManhattan, Aug. 23, 2007)

Nadler Outraged by Suggestions that Environmental Safety Rules to Blame for Tragic Deutsche Bank Fire ... Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), whose district includes the Deutsche Bank building that caught on fire Saturday and resulted in the tragic loss of two firefighters, today raised serious objections to the arguments by some that environmental safety rules were to blame for the blaze. Rep. Nadler noted that the likely cause of the fire is negligence. "The City's Fire Marshalls have not yet reached any conclusion as to the specific cause of the tragic fire, but some are already jumping the gun and placing blame on the local community for demanding the environmental safety guidelines that were in place for the building's demolition. Such a move is outrageous, unwarranted and deflects attention from the real problems - the negligence on the part of the government and the contracted companies. Blame cannot be placed on the residents who demanded that both public health and worker safety be protected during the demolition process. "We know now that the Fire Department did not have a fire plan for the building; we know that the building's standpipes - required by law to be maintained and inspected - were not; and we know that building's sprinkler system was not working. We also know that key safety guidelines were ignored by John Galt and Safeway. Indeed, Community Board 1 had unanimously passed a resolution on April 18, 2006, rejecting Safeway and John Galt because of their prior safety violations. "The community and I had repeatedly warned the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation about the safety of the Deutsche Bank building. There were serious safety concerns about the John Galt and Safeway - and neither company had handled a demolition projection of this scale or unique nature. We had to petition hard to get the LMDC to even recognize that there was a legal obligation to follow environmental safety guidelines. And, there was never a single agency that was placed in charge of the demolition project and the monitoring of adherence to safety, health and environmental rules - despite our repeated calls for that necessary step. "It is clear that even before the fire, the various government agencies involved and John Galt and Safeway were bad actors. The demolition of the Deutsche Bank building had to be conducted in a manner that protected the safety of local residents - and these steps were not the cause of Saturday's fire. We must let the investigation run its course and let the truth come to light." (News Release, Aug. 23, 2007)

Behind 9/11 Demolition Work, Obscure Name and Slim Record ... The John Galt Corporation of the Bronx, hired last year for the dangerous and complex job of demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, where two firefighters died last Saturday, has apparently never done any work like it. Indeed, Galt does not seem to have done much of anything since it was incorporated in 1983. Public and private records give no indication of how many employees it has, what its volume of business is or who its clients are. There are almost no accounts of any projects it has undertaken on any scale, apart from 130 Liberty Street. Court records are largely silent. Some leading construction executives in the city say they have never even heard of it. That may not be as surprising as it seems. John Galt, it appears, is not much more than a corporate entity meant to accommodate the people and companies actually doing the demolition job at the emotionally charged and environmentally hazardous site at the edge of ground zero. The companies and project managers who have been providing the expertise, the workers and the financing for the job are Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting Company, which is not in business to demolish skyscrapers, and former executives from Safeway Environmental Corporation, a company that was already removed from one contract at 130 Liberty because of concerns about its integrity. Using a separate corporation to insulate the assets of a parent company from the enormous potential liabilities of demolition work is not itself unusual. And challenging construction projects in the city often have several companies come together in a joint effort. The arrangement involving Galt -- achieved after multiple companies that had bid on the Deutsche Bank contract were eliminated for one reason or another -- is nonetheless odd for such a momentous job, one that is expected ultimately to cost roughly $150 million. The arrangement, never fully publicly disclosed, was proposed by the general contractor charged with overseeing the demolition, Bovis Lend Lease, and approved by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns 130 Liberty Street. Yesterday, Bovis announced that it had declared Galt in default on the bank building contract, saying the outfit Bovis had selected had failed ''to live up to terms of its contract with respect to site supervision, maintenance and project safety.'' One person who has spoken to Bovis executives, but who was not authorized to speak for the company, said it was likely that Galt would be formally fired within the week. When officials at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation approved Galt's participation, they even allowed two former senior Safeway executives to join the operation at the Deutsche Bank building on several conditions, including that they cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the city's Department of Investigation. In the 17 months since Galt took shape -- and as problems mounted at the demolition site, including repeated safety violations -- city and state officials have made announcements about the work and problems at 130 Liberty referring to John Galt as if it were a fully established corporation, and never mentioning by name the more controversial and less than perfectly qualified people and companies doing the work. .... (John Galt, by the way, is a central character, an engineer, in Ayn Rand's novel ''Atlas Shrugged.'' The book begins with this line: ''Who is John Galt?'') John Galt's stationery puts its headquarters at 3900 Webster Avenue in the Bronx, near Woodlawn Cemetery, the same address as Regional Scaffolding's. The two companies also share many of the same officers. Greg Blinn, who is shown in city records as the president of the John Galt Corporation, said in a telephone interview: ''I'm not really sure how I can help. My contract precludes me from talking to the media. I have to refer all questions or inquiries to the L.M.D.C.'' Daniel L. Doctoroff, the city's deputy mayor for economic development, who was a member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation at the time it approved the Galt contract, said through a spokesman this week that safeguards had been put in place to make sure that the former Safeway executives did nothing inappropriate -- like funnel money back to Safeway. Those safeguards included enlisting the help of an integrity monitor who would scrutinize, among other things, Galt's hiring, purchases and financial transactions. ... Safeway first surfaced on the scene at 130 Liberty when it, along with Regional Scaffolding, won a $13 million scaffolding contract in 2005 for the bank building. But Safeway, its former owners, Harold Greenberg, 61, and Stephen Chasin, 56, and another company they long operated, Big Apple Wrecking and Construction Corporation, had a troubled history. Mr. Greenberg, of Staten Island, has gone to federal prison twice for crimes related to the industry. Identified by federal investigators as a Gambino crime family associate, he was convicted in 1988 of bribing a federal inspector to overlook asbestos-removal violations while Big Apple was demolishing Gimbels department store on East 86th Street in Manhattan. Three years later he pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a bid-rigging scheme involving other contractors. Safeway's failure to disclose his criminal history and the accusations of mob ties led the authorities to bar the company from working on city schools in 2003. School investigators contended that Mr. Greenberg and his partner in Big Apple and Safeway, Mr. Chasin, sought to disguise their roles in companies in order to obtain public contracts and other work from which his convictions would bar them. (Safeway Environmental was one of the subcontractors used in the development of a new headquarters for The New York Times, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.) ... At the city's insistence, Safeway was ultimately bounced from the scaffolding contract at the bank building. Meanwhile, the effort to take down the building moved slowly, as litigation and fights over costs and responsibility dragged on. By early 2006, though, Bovis, a multibillion-dollar global operation, had won the giant contract to oversee the demolition of the bank building. Seven contractors submitted bids to Bovis to do the demolition work under Bovis's direction. Some, though, were deemed not qualified. Others dropped out. That all opened the way for what was known as the John Galt Corporation. ''There was only one contractor willing to work on taking down the building, as far as I know,'' Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday. Thus began the negotiations to allow Galt to go forward and tackle the contaminated building. According to an agreement between the state and Bovis, John Galt was allowed to take on Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler, the two former Safeway executives. ''A series of conditions were included in the contract at the direction of L.M.D.C. that prevented questionable individuals from working at this job or from having any association with John Galt,'' said Mr. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor. ''Once Galt and Bovis agreed to these stipulations, representatives on the L.M.D.C. board from the city joined their state counterparts and voted to approve the contract amendment to Bovis.'' According to the agreement, portions of which were shared with a reporter, neither John Galt nor Bovis could employ or use the services of any other senior executives, principals or owners of Safeway Environmental or two other companies, one of them Big Apple Wrecking. The contractors also agreed to allow Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler to cooperate with the city's Department of Investigation in what was described in the agreement -- without elaboration -- as an ongoing investigation.The presence of Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler on the 130 Liberty Street project was not mentioned in the development corporation's March announcement but was highlighted in a Daily News article on April 16, 2006. John Galt, having done little, if any, work before the 130 Liberty Street project, did actually try to win another project shortly after starting work at the bank building.It was the winning bidder for the demolition contract at the Bronx House of Detention in the summer of 2006. But it failed to obtain approval through the city's contract review process and lost the job because, officials say, they learned that the city's Department of Investigation had opened an investigation into John Galt.''In July 2006, E.D.C. and the developer were made aware that D.O.I. had initiated an investigation of Galt that might delay a background clearance, so the developer instead used the next lowest bidder,'' said Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation. Galt's work at the Deutsche Bank building, however, went on unaffected. Deputy Mayor Doctoroff said the city's decision to deny Galt the Bronx contract did not obligate the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to re-examine whether Galt was the right company to be working at ground zero. ... (NYTimes, by Charles V. Bagli, David W. Dunlap, and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 23, 2007)

Two Firefighters Injured At Deutsche Bank Building ... A piece of construction equipment fell from a condemned ground zero skyscraper Thursday, injuring two firefighters, the Fire Department said. Demolition work at the former Deutsche Bank skyscraper was suspended after Saturday's blaze, but work has continued to remove debris and contain toxic material in the condemned building across from the World Trade Center site. Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon said scaffolding fell from the north side of the building facing the World Trade Center site shortly before 2 p.m. City officials said a piece of equipment fell from a high floor on the north side of the building through a sidewalk shed, injuring the firefighters who were standing underneath the shed. (CBS/AP, Aug. 23, 2007)

...AND BRING THE BUILDING DOWN NOW ... Vital as it is to conduct a management housecleaning at the FDNY, it is equally urgent that New York's leaders - Gov. Spitzer in particular - expedite the demolition of the skyscraper in which two firefighters died Saturday. The Deutsche Bank building has stood at 130 Liberty St. - shattered, empty and dangerous - for nearly six years. Now it must go - as quickly as it can be cut to pieces and carted away. Not in another six years. Not next year sometime. Now. Mayor Bloomberg, too, must aid in that effort. The building's owner - the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. - is, after all, a joint city-state entity. But as governor of the entire state - and partner with New Jersey's governor in the Port Authority (which retains long-term control over all of Ground Zero) - Spitzer is most responsible for the fate of that site and its surroundings. And so Spitzer needs to take the lead. He needs to home in on that building like a laser, for much more is at stake than the fate of a single abandoned office building - toxic waste dump that it is. As The Post's Steve Cuozzo made painfully clear on these pages yesterday, the building's removal is essential if other work at Ground Zero is to proceed. And Ground Zero, in turn, is the ticket to guaranteeing the long-term vitality of Downtown - and, ultimately, New York City itself. Certainly, as home to one of New York's most vital industries - finance - lower Manhattan's fortunes are linked closely with those of the state. ... (NYPost Editorial, Aug. 23, 2007)

Scaffolding collapse at NYC fire site injures 2: Blaze broke out at condemned skyscraper last week, killing 2 firefighters ... (MSCNB/AP, Aug 23, 2007)

Ex-Demolition Boss Warned of Safety Lapses ... Workers at the toxic former Deutsche Bank tower drank, smoked and ignored basic safety rules on the job - and the company doing the $177 million demolition project never reined them in, a whistleblower told the Daily News. "The firefighters - they didn't stand a chance. They walked into a deathtrap, a booby trap a year or more in the making," said the 52-year-old asbestos-removal supervisor, who worked at the Ground Zero job site for a year. The supervisor met with FDNY marshals Tuesday, telling them he saw a slew of safety violations in the toxic tower. He said the 29th floor was casually known as "Teddy's Tavern" because of the vodka and other booze regularly consumed in that floor's decontamination unit, where men cleaned up and ate meals. The 29th floor has since been demolished. The whistleblower also said work crews smoked heavily and ran live power lines along floors where asbestos removal was being done - a dangerous lapse. He said the demolition subcontractor, John Galt Corp., hired one electrician to monitor 10 floors, instead of the required two per floor. He charged that some workers set up transformers on work floors and failed to safeguard the red-hot electrical generators. Galt was hit with a "Notice of Default" yesterday from Bovis Lend Lease, the general contractor. The notice axed Galt from the project, citing numerous safety violations at the demolition site and "the failure to properly maintain all required site safety precautions." The whistleblower worked at the job site from May 2006 until Memorial Day 2007, when he said he had a blowup with his boss at John Galt over an unpaid bonus. The whistleblower said he quit and took a better job. He said he came forward so what happened to the doomed firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building doesn't happen to another firefighter. "My son is FDNY, a firefighter. It could have been my son going into that deathtrap," he said. "The people in charge of that site knew there were problems. They were told there were problems, and they did nothing." ... The Ground Zero project was Galt's first demolition of a tower and its first major asbestos job - and it showed, he said. He said the company fired an asbestos supervisor around last Christmas because he was routinely drunk, but then rehired him in the spring to run the 17th floor, which is where the FDNY believes the fire ignited. "He was a drunk. Everyone knew it. For whatever reason they let him back on thejob this spring, and now everyone's looking at the 17th floor," the whistleblower said. The asbestos supervisor singled out by the whistleblower acknowledged he was in charge of the 17th floor, but said he never drank on the job, and didn't allow anyone else to drink. He said he left several hours before Saturday's fire erupted. "I wasn't there when the fire broke out. I left at noon. I had to go to New Jersey," the man said, adding his employer told him "not to say anything to the press." A cordial but tight-lipped Greg Blinn, Galt's president, said outside his mansion overlooking the Hudson River in Valley Cottage, Rockland County, "According to my contract with Bovis and the city, I'm not allowed to talk. I wish I could, but I can't." .... (Daily News, by Alison Gendar, Aug 23, 2007)

FDNY Admits No Pre-Fire Plan For Deutsche Blaze ... Details of what the FDNY did not know before hundreds of firefighters rushed into the vacant, burning Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero that left two dead on Saturday were released late Wednesday afternoon. Five days after Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia died from smoke inhalation while trapped in an unfamiliar burning building, the FDNY admits it did not have a pre-fire plan for the building which was in the process of being demolished. A plan may have alerted firefighters to the labyrinth-like structure as the contractors dismantled the building floor-by-floor. It turns out the standpipe -- the critical way for firefighters to get water in a high-rise -- was inspected the day before the tragic blaze, but that inspection occurred on the 25th floor. The fire happened well below that, where firefighters found the standpipe was not working. That forced the firefighters to carry hoses up the floors, and because they were working harder walking up the stairs, it expended more air from their air packs. Before long, Beddia and Graffagnino died after running out of air while trapped in a thick, black smoke. The track records of both contractors responsible for the dismantling of the building are also coming to light. The Department of Buildings says there have been 60 inspections of the deconstructed floors since March 2007, and in that time, six separate stop-work orders have been issued along with 19 violations for assorted safety violations. Neither Bovis Lend Lease nor employees of the John Galt Corporation are talking. Late Wednesday there was even more finger-pointing. A letter from Bovis Lend Lease was hand delivered to the John Galt Corporation essentially complaining that its subcontractor is making too many mistakes. The letter goes on to say in part that the "failure to properly maintain all required safety precautions are only some areas of concern." The letter comes a day after CBS 2 reported criminal charges could come forward following two investigations, one from Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau, and another from State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.(wcbstv, by Sean Hennessey, Aug. 22, 2007)

A stunning admission in Deutsche Bank fire: Interim report on deadly blaze out ... Mayor Bloomberg's office is admitting the FDNY had no plan to battle a fire at the contaminated and condemned Deutsche Bank building -- and there were no inspections of the building since last November. ... The mayor's interim report is not good news for the FDNY. What it clearly indicates is that months ago the department stopped doing regular inspections at the Deutsche Bank building and did so in violation of its own city code. The code requires the FDNY to conduct visual inspections of standpipes located in buildings under demolition every 15 days. The report states that the lack of adequate inspections will now be a major focus of the investigation. Almost equally stunning is that the report confirms that the fire department had no pre-fire plan for the building. Keep in mind this was a toxic demolition site loaded with tons of flammable plywood and plastic wrap. ... (WABC, by Jim Hoffer, Aug. 22, 2007)

Criminal Investigation Into Fatal Fire At WTC Site Underway ... The Manhattan district attorney has launched a criminal investigation into Saturday's fire that killed two firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building. The D.A.'s office will work with fire marshals and other agencies to determine whether there were any criminal violations involved. The investigation centers on a standpipe which had been disconnected, cutting off a crucial water supply for firefighters. .... State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says he is also looking into what led to the deadly fire, but he says the D.A.'s investigation will take the lead. And while the cause of the fire is still under investigation, the Daily News reports that at least one worker at the site says he and his colleagues routinely smoked on the job near hazardous chemicals and often had to deal with shoddy equipment, constantly blowing fuses. .... (NY1, Aug. 22, 2007)

UPDATE ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THE FIRE AT 130 LIBERTY STREET: Summary of FDNY Inspection, Violation and Administrative Activity at 130 Liberty Street ... (NYC Mayor's Press Release, August 22, 2007)

Fitterman Hall Raises Concerns ... At last night's Community Board One public hearing on last weekend's Deutsche bank fire, questions surfaced about another casualty of September 11th - CUNY's Fitterman Hall. The 15-story academic building was badly damaged in the attacks. REPORTER: It has remained vacant while CUNY developed plans for its decontamination and demolition. Paul Stein, of the New York Public Employees Federation, quizzed city officials about Fitterman's safety in light of the fatal fire at Deutsche Bank. He quoted directly from CUNY's website which disclosed that as of this March, the standpipe in Fitterman needed to be repaired. STEIN: Have any of the agencies here go to Fitterman Hall and inspected the fire stand pipers system and rested it, pressurized it and made sure that it works? REPORTER: NYFD Fire Chief Sal Cassano said fire inspectors would go through Fitterman Hall as early as today. Before the Deutsche Bank fire, the New York State Dormitory Authority said Fitterman Hall would take a year and a half to deconstruct and another 2 and a half years to rebuild (WNYC, Aug. 22, 2007)

Subcontractor At WTC Site Dropped After Deutsche Bank Fire ... In a letter to Galt executives, Bovis executive James Abadie wrote that in recent weeks, "and most notably in the days following the tragic accident that occurred at the project site on Aug. 18, Galt has demonstrated an inability to comply with the terms of its trade contract with respect to site supervision, maintenance and project safety."The contractor taking down a toxic ground zero skyscraper where two firefighters were killed last week was dropped from the project Wednesday for safety problems. John Galt Corp., which was conducting most of the work at the site, was given five days notice before its contract is terminated. The decision was made by Bovis Lend Lease, the company managing the dismantling of the former Deutsche Bank office building. ... City officials also announced several other failures to properly inspect the abandoned building damaged on Sept. 11 before the fire. The cause is still under investigation. The Fire Department was required to inspect the building's standpipe -- which provides water throughout the building to fire houses -- once every 15 days, but the firehouse two doors down had not inspected the building since April 2006, the city said in a statement. There were periodic checks before that, but the last comprehensive inspection was in March 2005. The broken standpipe -- pieces have been found lying unattached in the building's basement -- caused thousands of gallons of water to go into the basement instead of fire hoses, leaving more than 100 firefighters in the building without enough oxygen or water. Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino died of cardiac arrest a few floors below where the fire started in Saturday's blaze. The Fire Department also did not have a plan to fight fire in the building, which it was required to do, the city said Wednesday. Demolition work has stopped at the building, which lay vacant and contaminated with asbestos and other toxins for four years before cleanup work began. Emergency crews were working to repair broken windows and wood panels that had kept environmental toxins from leaking out into the air. Tests from a dozen air monitors for asbestos contamination have been negative. (wnbc, Aug. 21, 2007)

Prosecutor To Launch Probe Into Fire Deaths ... The Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, is launching an investigation into the deaths of two firefighters over the weekend in a major fire at the former Deutsche Bank building near ground zero. Prosecutors will join the fire department in the probe. A spokeswoman for Mr. Morgenthau, Barbara Thompson, said it was too early to consider filing criminal charges. Her comments echoed those of Mayor Bloomberg. "At this point there is no reason for anybody to think in terms of criminal charges or anything else," Mr. Bloomberg said this morning. "We will continue to act the way you expect us to act. We will do a careful, thorough investigation." When asked why firefighters were sent into the burning building on Saturday, even though it was being destroyed, Mr. Bloomberg said people work inside the building during the day and the fire department was uncertain whether people were inside. What's more, he added, "You can't let a fire go out of control," because it could damage the structure of the building or release contaminates into the air. When asked in the contractor responsible for the demolition, Bovis Lend Lease, and its subcontractor, John Galt Corp., should be removed from the job, Mr. Bloomberg said, "I don't know who you would suggest we get." "When we went out for contractors to perform this work there was only one contractor willing to take on the job and we are appreciative of that," he said. "Without that the building would still be at 40 stories." (NYSun, by Grace Rauh, Aug. 21, 2007)

Lingering questions; Faulty standpipes at Deutsche Bank ... There may have been no way to avoid sending firefighters into the building, even if there was nobody inside to rescue. But why didn't the standpipes, which should have pumped water to the blaze, work properly? Who was responsible for making sure that they did? Were firefighters prepared to deal with the irregular conditions in the building, which had been considered dangerous even for the workers demolishing it? Did they know about apparent changes in exit routes? Why didn't they have enough oxygen to survive longer than they did? There will be a lot of second-guessing about all the delays in deconstructing this building and in rebuilding the entire Ground Zero site. What's important is what the authorities learn, so this sort of tragedy is less likely to happen again. (NY Newsday, August 21, 2007)

Criminal Probe Of Fatal Ground Zero Fire ... Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation Tuesday into the blaze that killed two firefighters at a toxic ground zero skyscraper. Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said attorneys in his office have been in touch with city fire marshals to determine whether criminal violations occurred in Saturday's fire at the former Deutsche Bank office building next to the World Trade Center site. Authorities said it was not unusual for prosecutors to join the investigation of a serious building fire or collapse. Their involvement would give fire marshals subpoena power, should they need it. The cause of the blaze, in which two firefighters died on the building's 14th floor, was still under investigation. City officials have said that the fire started on the 17th floor of a building that was being dismantled floor by floor. Workers were cleaning asbestos and other materials on that and several other floors on Saturday afternoon when the fire broke out. The New York Post quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying: "We know the water didn't work. So you have to figure out whether they (the contractors) were negligent. If they are, they could possibly face under the law a form of criminally negligent homicide." Mayor Michael Bloomberg said earlier Tuesday that the investigation was continuing and "at this point, there's no reason for anybody to think in terms of criminal charges or anything else." City officials have said that workers would routinely take smoking breaks near the place where the fire started, and that electrical equipment including hot water heaters for decontamination showers were also nearby. Investigators said Monday that a piece of the standpipe system, which connects fire hoses from the outside to a water supply line for the building, was found unattached and lying on the basement floor. As details emerged about the flaws in the system, fire safety experts questioned why more thorough tests weren't conducted, and one person involved in the project says the problem may have existed for more than a year. City Department of Buildings officials said they had manually tested the standpipe on each floor of the building — originally a 41-story tower that had been demolished to the 26th floor — before taking it down. But it wasn't clear if or when officials had filled the dry system with water to test the pressure of the complete system. Fire safety expert Glenn Corbett said that would have been the "only way to test the integrity of the system" and that more testing should have been done. (cbs, Aug. 21, 2007)

9/11 'LIES' HANG IN THE AIR ... (NYPost, by John Mazor and Leonard Greene, Aug. 20, 2007)

Community Questions Downtown Air Quality Following Fire ... Community Board 1, which represents Lower Manhattan residents, held an emergency public hearing Tuesday night to question officials about the neighborhood’s air quality following the Deutsche Bank building fire this past weekend. .... "The Deutsche Bank building has been an area of long concern for us," said one local resident. "There has been a lot of delays in terms of deconstructing the building, and a lot of concern as to whether they are really doing things safely. And, unfortunately, the events of this weekend sort of highlight a lot of the concerns that are building up to this. They really are sort of shortcutting wherever they can." ... An official from the Environmental Protection Agency said some of the air monitoring stations have been inaccessible because of the fire investigation. The agency also says that even if toxins are found, it could take weeks before the building is sealed. "I believe we're talking many weeks," said Pat Evangelista of the EPA. Last year, the community board expressed concern about the subcontractors who were hired to demolish the building. The board claims the contractors had previous violations on other projects, but the Pataki administration never took action. "We passed a resolution, but unfortunately they were hired and as the facts come out over the next couple of days we'll see what the level of involvement was," said Community Board 1 Chair Julie Menin. .... Meanwhile, the city says it is holding a meeting Wednesday to look into resealing the building. (NY1, Aug. 20, 2007)

Officials Address 130 Liberty Community Concerns ... State and city officials, along with more than 100 downtown community members filled the New York State Assembly Hearing room at 250 Broadway last night. They gathered to better understand the course of events leading to and repercussions of the fire at 130 Liberty Street on August 18^th. The meeting was called by Community Board 1 and was co-sponsored by New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Martin Connor, and City Council Member Alan Gerson. ... (LowerManhattan.info, Aug. 20, 2007)

Rep. Nadler and Borough President Stringer Call for Improved Emergency Communication System: Modernization Is Necessary to Address Safety Concerns Facing Lower Manhattan Residents ... Congressman Jerrold Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer today called on the City’s Office of Emergency Management to improve and modernize their emergency communications system in order to better relay essential information to the public in the event of an emergency. In response to the recent tragedy at the Deutsche Bank Building, and the confusion that ensued for many residents of the area, local officials have said it is time for the City to better utilize modern technology to provide residents of lower Manhattan with vital information and answers to their valid questions when situations like the events of Saturday afternoon arise. At a press conference in front of a residential building near the Deutsche Bank Building, Nadler and Stringer were joined by community leaders and concerned local residents who indicated a strong desire to have a clearer line of communication between coordinating agencies and the public. The residents of lower Manhattan continue to have legitimate concerns over air quality safety as a result of the toxic plume produced on September 11^th and the toxins that lingered in the area for months after the terrorist attacks. ... (News Release, Aug. 20, 2007)

Deutsche Bank blaze stops work at site ... Authorities are continuing an investigation into the cause of a fire that killed two firefighters battling a blaze in the former Deutsche Bank building on Saturday. On Monday, work was officially halted at 130 Liberty St., where the condemned 41-story building is located. The building had been undergoing a floor-by-floor demolition since February after several fits and starts since the 2004 decision to tear it down. Demolition was halted last June when the Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns about asbestos or lead toxins in the air and in December, workers for John Galt Corp., the subcontractor responsible for the demolition, walked off the job in a dispute over costs. The city’s Building Department said Monday that only repairs needed to keep the building safe will be permitted until the investigation is complete. ... Manhattan’s Community Board 1, which oversees the area, spoke out on behalf of local residents, who complained that there was no discernable chain of communication during or after the blaze. Community board members have previously raised the issue about a building-by-building evacuation plan, but one has never been put in place. ...(Craines, August 20, 2007)

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