Before fire, toxic WTC skyscraper loomed as painful 9/11 reminder -- Newsday

Newsday.com: Before fire, toxic WTC skyscraper loomed as painful 9/11 reminder --

"NEW YORK - For years, the black-shrouded eyesore looming above the ruined World Trade Center was as painful a reminder of the wounds of Sept. 11 as the 16-acre hole in the ground just below it. Even this year, the body parts of Sept. 11 victims, toxic dust from the trade center and aircraft pieces were still being removed from the former Deutsche Bank building, the tower that no one could agree on how to remove. On Saturday, once again the skyscraper resurrected images from Sept. 11, 2001, with potentially toxic smoke and fire, fears of a building collapse and firefighters killed on the job.

The 41-story tower has been plagued by court battles, toxic contamination, work stoppages and the ongoing search for body parts since the trade center's south tower tore a 15-story gash into it nearly six years ago.

The building was untouched for several months after the attacks, becoming infested with mold from fire sprinklers while over 1 million tons of trade center debris was being removed just across the street.

Deutsche Bank AG appealed to the government and to its insurers to pay to clean up the building, which also contained toxic levels of asbestos, lead, mercury and trade center dust. After several court battles, including a $500 million lawsuit against the city, the state agency in charge of rebuilding the trade center site bought the contaminated building in 2004.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which still owns the tower, and trade center rebuilders needed the land as part of its master plan to rebuild the trade center site. Now plans call for the spot to be home to the fifth planned tower to replace office space destroyed in the attacks.

State officials have reportedly spent far more than the building's $90 million purchase price since then in a tortuous effort to remove the building. The Environmental Protection Agency and other federal regulators have cited contractors several times for violations, including how it disposes of environmentally contaminated material.

In mid-2005, contractors clearing the roof found hundreds of small bones and parts of the jetliners that crashed into the towers. More than 700 bones were recovered, the last found on a ledge in the spring.

In December, officials finally began removing the building's steel facade, beginning the painstaking, floor-by-floor deconstruction of structural steel. But a subcontractor's dispute over payment shut the site for nearly a week. In May, work stopped for another two weeks when a 15-foot-long pipe fell off the building and through the roof of the closest firehouse to ground zero, which has a wall covered by a bronze memorial to the 343 firefighters killed on Sept. 11.

Officials have been optimistic recently that the building, which had been dismantled to the 26th floor this week, was being removed with few problems. State development officials had said repeatedly that the building would be completely removed by the end of this year.

San Jose Mercury News - Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen

San Jose Mercury News - Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen:

Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen

Click photo to enlarge

* Smoke rises from the Deutsche Bank Building, center, bordering ground... (AP Photo/Verena Dobnik)

• «
  
  
• 1
  
  
• »
  
  

NEW YORK—A blaze that killed two firefighters in an abandoned skyscraper being dismantled next to the World Trade Center may have been harder to combat because of plastics required by a federal agency to control asbestos, the governor said Sunday.

The blaze broke out Saturday on the 17th floor of the former Deutsche Bank office building, which has been a toxic site since it was damaged by falling wreckage when the trade center's twin towers collapsed and contaminated by toxic dust.

During demolition work, the federal Environmental Protection Agency had required that polyurethane sheets be used to prevent asbestos and other harmful debris from escaping, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said at a news conference.

The polyurethane "may in fact have made this fire harder to fight," Spitzer said.

Questions about other complications also were emerging on Sunday, including why the partially gutted building's water supply did not work, forcing firefighters to run hoses up to the 17th floor.

"The standpipe was not operating. We don't know why yet," fire department spokesman Frank Gribbon said.

Spitzer said the latest air-quality tests for asbestos and other fine particulate matter had been negative.

The once 40-story building was abandoned after the attacks because of extensive damage from wreckage falling from the towers and contamination by toxic dust containing asbestos, dioxins, lead and other materials. It had been largely gutted by demolition crews and workers have been taking its steel skeleton apart in pieces.

The cause of the fire was unknown, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it might have been fueled by plywood, boxes and other flammable supplies related to the dismantling work.

A worker in the building discovered the fire on the 17th floor, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said.

More than five dozen fire vehicles, carrying more than 270 firefighters, were sent to the site as pieces of burning debris fell to the streets. Smoke was visible from midtown Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

Nearby buildings were evacuated, and residents waited for hours before they were allowed to return.

"We heard this crackling," said Elizabeth Hughes, who saw the fire from her rooftop deck across from the Deutsche Bank tower. "And then a huge fire that went up three floors fast. It was massive."

The building's structure was secure and in no danger of falling, Bloomberg said.

The firefighters who died, Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33, were trapped and inhaled a great deal of smoke, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The collapse of the twin Trade Center towers across the street killed 343 firefighters. Eleven of them came from the same firehouse where Beddia and Graffagnino were based.

Stairs to Remain Intact in Ground Zero Plan - New York Times

Stairs to Remain Intact in Ground Zero Plan - New York Times: "Stairs to Remain Intact in Ground Zero Plan


Article Tools Sponsored By
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: August 6, 2007

The Spitzer administration says it has taken steps to finally solve the quandary of the “survivors’ stairway” at ground zero.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

The “survivors’ stairway,” which led to safety on 9/11.
City Room Blog

City RoomThe latest news and reader discussions from around the five boroughs and the region.

Go to City Room»

Enlarge This Image
The New York Times

The stairs, seen in a model, would lead to a memorial museum.

By that, it means every step — all 38 of them. Together.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s chief of downtown redevelopment, Avi Schick, proposes to keep the stairway whole and intact — but just the seven-foot-wide stairway proper, not the hulking concrete structure around it."

News: World Trade Center rescue dog dies of cancer

World Trade Center rescue dog dies of cancer

NEW YORK (AP) - The Fire Rescue community is mourning the passing of

Jake, the 9/11 rescue dog, The black Lab who burrowed through smoking debris at the World Trade Center site has died of cancer.

Jake had been wracked with pain and fever and Mary Flood had the 12-year-old put to sleep after one last walk through the fields and a swim in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn't been exposed to the toxic air in Lower Manhattan. But cancer in dogs Jake's age is common.

The Labrador also searched for survivors after Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.

wcbstv.com -

Ailing 9/11 Workers Sue WTC Insurance Fund

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Ailing Ground Zero workers went to court Tuesday to demand that the company overseeing a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund spend the money to pay for their health care.

The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, sometimes fatal diseases. On Tuesday, they sought compensation from the WTC Captive Insurance Co., the company in charge of money appropriated by Congress to deal with Sept. 11 health-related claims.

"The WTC Captive has consistently refused to pay any of the Ground Zero workers who have become ill on the work site, including any compensation" for lost salaries, pain and suffering, medical treatment, medical monitoring or burial expenses, said the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.

It was filed by attorneys representing thousands who became ill after working to clean up the site while breathing toxic trade center dust, including more than 100 who have died.

"She hasn't paid a penny to one of my 10,000 people," David Worby, an attorney representing the workers, said of the company's CEO, Christine LaSala. "It was their mandate."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was named in the suit along with LaSala and board members, said Tuesday that attorneys are wrong about the company's structure.

"They just don't know the facts. The truth of the matter is, Congress didn't set up a victims' compensation fund," the mayor said. "We'd like them to do that, we've asked for that, they set up a captive insurance company. And the insurance company can only pay out monies if somebody sues us in court and wins a judgment against us."

Congress directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up the fund, appropriating up to $1 billion "to establish a captive insurance company or other appropriate insurance mechanism for claims arising from debris removal, which may include claims made by city employees," according to the 2003 resolution.

The lawsuit, relying on testimony from federal officials over the years about the fund's purpose, said officials meant for the money to be used to compensate ailing workers. Federal and state governments never said "that a captive insurance company be established solely to defend the city of New York and its contractors from all rescue, recovery and debris removal related claims, at all costs," the lawsuit said.

In this case, the term "captive" refers to an entity created specifically to cover 9/11-related claims for the New York City government.

Since it began operating in 2004, the company has spent more than $73 million of the insurance money in legal fees and other expenses, the lawsuit says.

Worby and other attorneys plan to go to Washington later this week to lobby congressional leaders to urge the company to make the $1 billion available immediately for sick workers.

The largest study conducted of about 20,000 Ground Zero workers reported last year that 70 percent of patients suffer respiratory disease years after the cleanup. The city earlier this year added to its Sept. 11 death toll a woman who died in 2002 of lung disease, five months after being caught in the dust cloud of the collapsing twin towers.

Bloomberg and other city officials have estimated the cost of caring for the workers who are sick or who could become sick at $393 million a year and urged the federal government to pay for their treatment and monitoring.

9/11 'HERO' CHARGED IN 40G SCAM

July 15, 2007 -- A self-proclaimed Ground Zero hero who says he and his golden retriever rescued victims from the World Trade Center rubble has been charged with fraud for allegedly ripping off $40,000 in federal relief funds.

Scott Shields could face up to 35 years in jail after a Manhattan grand jury indicted him and his sister last month for allegedly swiping rental-assistance money from FEMA and other agencies.

Shields showed up in the days after the attack, accompanied by Bear, his cancer-stricken canine, but the dog was too sick to do any real work, and the two were on hand only for "a couple of days," according to a former NYPD officer.

"There's something wrong with the guy," said Lt. Dan Denadio, who as head of the NYPD's K-9 unit spent nine months at Ground Zero. "I don't know how he got so far."

Shields claims he and Bear "made the only live finds" at the site.

"Nonsense," Denadio said.

After his brief stint on the pile, Shields, who had resided in Greenwich, Conn., moved into an apartment across from the site - a swanky $3,182-a-month pad on Rector Place - and got one check for $16,443.50 from FEMA to pay for it, records show.

Shields collected thousands in additional rental assistance, the indictment says.

Rare Cancer Hits Some 9/11 FDNY Firefighters

GINGER ADAMS OTIS and SUSAN EDELMAN
Courtesy of New York Post

July 8, 2007 -- An alarming number of FDNY firefighters are battling a rare cancer that typically targets women, The Post has learned.

At least eight firefighters have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer over the past five years. Another five have undergone partial or full thyroidectomies after their doctors discovered abnormal cell growth that could lead to cancer around the glands.

The cluster has sprung up among those who responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11 or helped in recovery and cleanup afterward, firefighters said.

The relatively rare illness is known to affect women at three times the rate it hits males. The FDNY cases involve only men.

The National Cancer Institute put the incidence rate at 4.3 per 100,000 men - much lower than the eight cases among approximately 11,000 firefighters on the FDNY force on 9/11.

Attorney David Worby, who represents nearly 10,000 WTC responders in a class-action suit, said he has tracked "a large cluster" of thyroid cancers among his clients, which include thousands of firefighters and cops.

Overall, at least 125 active and retired firefighters - all Ground Zero responders - have contracted some type of cancer since 2001, according to figures gathered by the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

FDNY officials declined to comment .