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    Re: Asbestos Archived Message

    Posted by Si on July 24, 2019, 3:15 pm, in reply to "Re: Asbestos"

    Attempts to raise awareness of these dangers were actively stymied at the time: check out the short shrift and memory-holing of Juan Gonzalez' (should have been pulitzer prize winning) writing about the issue in the immediate aftermath - he was basically told to 'shut up and stop being alarmist'. If you've not read it, I'd recommend his Fallout - a truly shocking book that lays bare the calculated disregard for those people both responding and subsequently clearing up the WTC demolition sites.

    Also, see this from the NYT (not the best source but sufficient to show the dereliction of duties - - step forward Guliani)

    Air Masks at Issue in Claims of 9/11 Illnesses

    By ANTHONY DePALMAJUNE 5, 2006

    With mounting evidence that exposure to the toxic smoke and ash at ground zero during the nine-month cleanup has made many people sick, attention is now focusing on the role of air-filtering masks, or respirators, that cost less than $50 and could have shielded workers from some of the toxins.
    More than 150,000 such masks were distributed and only 40,000 people worked on the pile, but most workers either did not have the masks or did not use them.
    These respirators are now at the center of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 8,000 firefighters, police officers and private workers who say they were exposed to toxic substances at or near ground zero that have made them sick or may eventually do so. While residents and office workers in the area also suffered ill effects, the work crews at the site who had the greatest exposure are thought to have sustained the greatest harm.
    From legal documents presented in the case, a tale emerges of heroic but ineffective efforts to protect workers, with botched opportunities, confused policies and contradictions that failed to ensure their safety.
    Lawyers representing the workers say that there was no central distribution point for the respirators, no single organization responsible for giving them out, and no one with the power to make sure the respirators that were distributed got used, and used properly.
    By contrast, at the Pentagon, workers not wearing proper protective gear were escorted off the site.
    "Employers are responsible for providing a safe workplace," said David Worby, the lawyer whose firm represents the workers. "But the majority of workers at ground zero were given nothing, or had masks that didn't work."

    The allegations are based on the lawyers' review of more than 400,000 pages of official documents and the testimony of 30 government witnesses.
    The city, which is the principal government defendant, has moved to have the lawsuit dismissed. It argues that it and the private contractors it hired to help in the cleanup did their best to provide adequate equipment and to get workers to use it, but many workers ignored the warnings. Many workers cited reasons for not keeping the masks on, like the stifling heat and the difficulty of communicating while wearing them.
    Even if the response to an unprecedented emergency was flawed, the city's lawyers argue, a firmly established legal immunity under the State Defense Emergency Act and other laws protects New York from legal liability.
    Kenneth A. Becker, head of the city's World Trade Center litigation unit, declined to comment on the charges in the complaint, saying it was "inappropriate to comment on pending litigation," beyond what is contained in documents already filed with the court. In those papers, the city argued that its "concern for the health and safety of all workers and volunteers at the W.T.C. site began immediately after the September 11 attacks and continued until the end of the rescue, recovery and debris removal operations."
    Oral argument on the city's motion to dismiss the case is scheduled for June 22 before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of United States District Court in Manhattan.

    Workplace Hazards
    Ground zero was about the most dangerous workplace imaginable: a smoking heap of nearly two million tons of tangled steel and concrete that contained a brew of toxins, including asbestos, benzene, PCB's, and more than 400 chemicals. Indeed, recent health studies have found that many people who worked on the pile have since developed a rash of serious ailments, including gastrointestinal and respiratory problems.
    the chaos of the first 48 hours after the twin towers collapsed, only the city's firefighters had any personal protective equipment suitable for such an environment. But even that equipment was not sufficient.
    Each firefighter is issued a full-face mask that is part of a Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, also known as a Scott pack, which functions like scuba gear, supplying air while sealing out hazards.
    But the tanks contain no more than 18 minutes of oxygen. The system works well if a firefighter is dashing into a burning building to rescue a baby. For a nine-month recovery operation, it was useless.
    Once their Scott packs were exhausted, the first firefighters on the scene had no backup gear. That is why Firefighter Palmer Doyle and the crew from Engine Company 254 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, stopped at a hardware store on the way into Manhattan on Sept. 11 to buy every paper dust mask in stock.
    When he returned to ground zero with 50 other firefighters on a bus a few days later, Firefighter Doyle looked for respirators. He was told there was just one left for the entire crew. It was given to the youngest among them.
    Firefighter Doyle, now 51 and retired with mild asthma, a recurring cough and other work-related problems, said that the firefighters never thought for a second of refusing to work without respirators, but they did wonder when they were going to be available. Records produced in the lawsuit indicate that the Fire Department put in an order with the city for 5,000 P100 Organic Vapor/Acid Gas half-face masks, which cost less than $50 each, and 10,000 replacement filter cartridges on Sept. 28. But the order was not processed for almost two months.
    Such delays remain a sore point. "Firefighters worked during the 9/11 rescue operation with little or no respiratory protection, and anyone who claims differently is lying," said Stephen J. Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. "The department further failed to supply anything but particle masks to its workers until much later."

    In the first few days after Sept. 11, the only types of breathing protection generally available to people at ground zero were surgical masks and paper dust masks, often distributed by volunteers. Even Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington, who has qualified for workers' compensation for Sept. 11-related ailments, wore paper masks at that time, although industrial safety officers say they were practically useless.
    When private construction crews first arrived to help with debris removal, they had no air-filtering equipment with them because they do not usually work in such hazardous conditions.
    "For the average Joe, there was nothing," said Robert Gray, a crane operator who is co-author of a new book about the cleanup called "Nine Months at Ground Zero" (Scribner, 2006). Mr. Gray said that after several days, the International Union of Operating Engineers, to which he belongs, brought in a trailer to provide half-face masks and testing to make sure they fit and functioned properly.

    Outside the pile, most workers in the early days of the cleanup had only paper masks, and many of the laborers hired by cleaning contractors to vacuum the asbestos from buildings downtown had nothing at all. The New York Committee on Occupation Safety and Health, a union labor organization, provided checkups and respirators to more than 400 of these laborers, many of them illegal immigrants.

    David M. Newman, an industrial hygienist with the labor committee, said that when federal environmental officials announced that it was safe for people to return to Lower Manhattan so that Wall Street could reopen a week after the towers collapsed, employers suddenly "had a green light to say, 'We don't need to use respirators because the E.P.A. says the air is OK.' "

    He was referring to a statement made on Sept. 18, 2001, by Christie Whitman, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, that air sampling done by her agency showed that the air was safe to breathe. The agency's inspector general concluded in 2003 that Ms. Whitman's statement was far too broad and could not be scientifically supported at the time she made it.
    A sign from October 2001 shows that advice about safety gear was given, if not followed. Credit Kathy Willens/Associated Press
    According to the inspector general's exhaustive recounting of the environmental consequences of Sept. 11, a federal emergency response team prepared a report on the day of the attacks recommending that respirators be used at ground zero.
    But the report was never issued because it was decided that New York City, and not the federal government, should handle worker protection issues.
    As the magnitude of the recovery operation grew clearer, attempts were made to bring order to the operation. On Sept. 20 the city issued its first safety plan, and it asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to take charge of distributing respirators. In what would become a controversial move, OSHA used its discretionary powers to decide not to enforce workplace safety regulations but to act in a supportive role that would not slow down operations.
    "Given that the site was operating under emergency conditions, it was normal that we should suspend our enforcement action and assume the roles of consultation and technical assistance," Patricia Clark, OSHA regional administrator for New York, said in a 2003 OSHA publication.

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