NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 2006
Insider: EPA Lied About WTC Air
Scientist Says It Covered Up Truth In Saying Ground Zero Air Was Safe
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Play CBS Video Video Ground Zero Sickness Thousands of people who worked to clear the wreckage of the World Trade Center after 9/11 have had lung problems. Could their illness have been prevented? Tracy Smith has an exclusive report.
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Dr. Cate Jenkins is the EPA scientist making the allegations against her own agency. (CBS/The Early Show)
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Vinnie Forras is suffering from severe lung problems after volunteering at ground zero. (CBS/The Early Show)
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Timeline In Terror's Wake A look at the major developments following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
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Interactive On Sacred Ground From redevelopment to memorials, see the designs and follow the progress at the attack sites.
Vinnie Forras was a firefighter, an athlete, a 6-foot-2 "brick wall of a man," Smith says.
But, when she visited with him recently, just strolling up his driveway was difficult for him.
He needed a steroid inhaler just to get through his interview with Smith.
"It's very difficult to rely on everyone else around me to take care of me when I'm the one who always used to take care of everybody else," Forras lamented.
Forras was at ground zero for three weeks and was covered, like so many of the workers, in dust.
"We ate it," he recalls. "We inhaled it. We got it on our eyes our nose, our throats, everywhere.
"The level of destruction and just the carnage that was there was beyond anyone's imagination, but we just kept going as much as we could, as much as our bodies would let us."
Five years later, Forras' body is giving out. He takes 25 pills a day to treat lung scarring, acid reflux and constant headaches. Plus that inhaler.
And it's hardly just Forras.
A new study says nearly seven out of 10 World Trade Center rescue and wreckage workers had new or worsened lung problems after the attacks.
Dr. Jacqueline Moline is co-director of a program at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, which released the study, based on their work tracking and treating 9,500 rescue workers.
She says the potential problems form the air were underestimated.
Asked if this could have been prevented, Dr. Moline says, "I think a lot of the health effects could have been prevented if people were wearing appropriate respiratory protection."
Forras says he and his fellow workers were told to wear protection, but working conditions at ground zero made using respirators difficult and, "Anyhow, we were being told, 'Don't worry about it, because the air is OK.' "
About those assertions, Forras says now, "We're believing in them. This is the EPA. They're supposed to know this stuff."
At Mount Sinai, there's a waiting list for treatment, and there are still thousands of workers to be screened.
"It's the tip of the iceberg now," Dr. Moline says, "and we don't know what's gonna happen."
And it's the future of his family and his country that Forras says worries him most: "If the government turns their back on the volunteers that went down to ground zero and all the people that tried to do their best, what's gonna happen the next time we're attacked? Are people gonna think twice?"
On Thursday, the Bush administration promised that 9/11 health programs, including the one at Mount Sinai, will get $75 million in funding by the end of the month. But doctors say 40 percent of the workers don't have health insurance, so more money is probably needed.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
http://web.me.com/rolandgarret/Site/9_11_ World_Trade_Center_Dust_Cloud%3A_How_Many_Will_Die%21.html
. . . . " In fact, on January 11, 2002, in a report by Cate Jenkins, of the EPA Hazardous Waste Identification Division stationed in Manhattan, compared asbestos levels found in lower Manhatten to the Libby, Montana Superfund site. Her conclusion was that lower Manhatten should also be declared a Superfund ste. Needless to say, the EPA has ignored its own report.
" In January, 2002, I attended a panel discussion "reporting back" about the hazardous conditions from the implosion of the World Trade Center. This meeting was sponsored by Cal-OSHA, "Worksafe!," and other safety organizations. The reporters explained that Hazardous Material Cleanup ("HAZWOP") regulations were suspended for the cleanup of the World Trade Center "dustpile." And that OSHA was prevented from enforcing work safety regulations and relegated to merely an advisory status. (Employers thus faced no penalties for putting workers at risk.)
" The haste to rapidly dispose of hazardous waste, unencumbered by safety regulations, compounded the environmental damage and the catastrophic damage to humans working and living in the affected area. To make matters worse, the government led people to believe that things were safe. They did not inform the workers and residents in the area of the immediate risks and long range risks to their longevity.
" It is obvious that the government is/was aware of these risks, because it suspended safety regulations. (If conditions truly were safe, then regulations would not have to be suspended.) The knowledge of the long range potential liabilities of the building contractors, the asbestos companies, and other producers of carcinogens, is also why the government is now proposing to put limits on asbestos litigations. The driving force behind these actions was the economic necessity to hasten the reopening of Wall Street? a clear illustration of profits being more important than human lives.
To say that we (first responders) were warned is a joke. There was no effective mass communication for days. Check the pictures. Bush and other VIP's were all at GZ without any respirators. If they aren't wearing them, you would think it was safe. So much for leading by example.
I suggested a no mask, no pass rule at the EOC on 9/12 when an effective military perimeter was established, but was blown off. I'm just glad I brought my own mask from home since there were not many of the right ones (HEPA rate P-100's) available.
I also wonder about Tuesday's children, the Iraqi children who have lost their parents because of the deliberate. unwarranted invasion of their country. I will never feel safe as long as this group of people are in office, I hope they leave before we are in a nuclear war, because that's what they want to do next....
Byrnt
PS: Katie did a good service in her coverage of the workers' illness and their dreaded futures.
Neither Whitman nor B ush have figured ou how to respond to a cvrisis except to lie. Next up: Rudy Giuliani.
Wasn't CTW one of the dems on Bush's first cabinet? I think it's probably going too far to lay this *particular* lie on Bush's doorstep, but I certainly understand the inclination to go that way. Check out David Corn's "The Lies of George W Bush" for an entertaining/disturbing read. It's a bit dated these days (from his first term), but I think there's a website out there that maintains a more current list.
- by alphaa10-2009 September 8, 2006 3:33 PM EDT
- Lies, lies and more lies from the past six years of Bush are coming home to roost with a vengeance. This week, the Senate report on how Bush lied about Iraq intel will make the news even plainer-- Bush cannot cover his incompetence with deceit.
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See all 18 CommentsAs Lincoln observed, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."