Statement for the press by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, New York City, December 9, 2005

Good morning. Thanks so much for coming out through the snow this morning. Im delighted that our friends in the environmental community are here. Theyve all been incredibly committed to this cause.

I want to thank Senator Clinton for her tireless advocacy on behalf of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, and for her insistence on the highest possible standards of response. Senator Clinton truly understands the responsibilities of the public servant. Without her work, the movement assembled to seek environmental injustice would have come to very little.

Welcome to my office. Were all standing about a mile from Ground Zero. Were the Towers still standing, you'd feel as though you were in their shadow. And in the weeks following their terrible fall, this area was so choked with toxic dust that only residents with proof of address were allowed down here.

Yet according to the EPA plan, if you're standing north of Canal Street, your'e nowhere close to Ground Zero. The EPA would say that this far north of Ground Zero a whole mile contamination is not an issue. So its particularly interesting to note that in the weeks following the attacks, the Department of Energy used this very roof to measure the contamination and causticity of the air.

EPA does not want to hear that if you looked out this window on September 11, you would barely have been able to see the buildings opposite. EPA does not want to hear if you had been walking through Brooklyn Heights on September 11, you would have had office paper swirling around your feet.

EPA says contamination can be defined by lines on a map.

The fact is that the testing and cleanup plan that the Environmental Protection Agency has put forward is a shameless and transparent effort to find nothing, spend nothing, and do nothing.

As I have mentioned, the most obvious failure of the plan is that a priori it denies the possibility of contamination north of Canal Street and in Brooklyn, places where we all saw WTC dust with our own eyes. In my book, we should reject on its face any plan that discounts these areas. But, sadly, there are many more reasons to oppose the plan before us today.

The plan involves yet another absurd imagination game and that is that EPA asks us to imagine that businesses and workplaces cannot be contaminated. This is ludicrous. If dust can get through window jambs in homes, it can do so in business. Indeed, we saw it do so.

In addition, the sampling method proposed by the plan is clearly designed to avoid the very locations where WTC dust was likely to collect. The plan will not test HVAC systems, and it will not test so-called "reservoirs" the deep, dark spaces in buildings that rarely get cleaned, and, therefore, where dust piles up.

And when it comes to cleanup, there is another major flaw. EPA has backpedaled on its commitment to clean whole buildings wherever contamination is found. So if my apartment is found to be contaminated, and is cleaned, I may still not be out of the woods, because my neighbor didn't get his apartment tested in the first place. So when he decides to rearrange his furniture next year, you know what's going to happen.

Time and time again we have said that the only way to solve the whole problem is to address the whole problem. Time and time again, EPA has failed to do that.

EPA is mandated under federal law to take the lead here. Leaving aside that we have had to drag them into it, kicking and screaming, wouldn't you think that, as the federal governments experts on environmental hazards, they would want to see the job done well? Wouldnt you think that they would want to see lives saved?

It is plain to see that EPA has failed to protect Americans when they most needed protection, and I think its wholly appropriate that we ask the GAO to look into their actions. Certainly the residents and victims here in New York want answers. But even beyond that, the taxpayers in our country need to know whether the Environmental Protection Agency they pay for is doing its best to protect them if its doing anything to protect them.

Finally, I want to say this to EPA: its not too late. We are angry, and we are disappointed, but we would welcome a better plan. The plans shortcomings are clear, but the solutions to those problems are clear as well: test above Canal Street; test Brooklyn; test the parts of buildings where dust is most likely to be found; commit to cleaning entire buildings.

We would welcome an effort to do this the right way. We are ready as we have always been ready to work together.

On September 11, a terrible tragedy befell this city. Enough damage has been done already. Lets resolve here and now to help heal New York while we still can.

Thank you

9/11 responders are now in need of help
 
SHERYL McCARTHY

'People keep saying it's all in our heads, but you know what, we're dropping dead," Bonnie Giebfried told me.

A former emergency medical technician, Giebfried was healthy and athletic when her ambulance responded to the World Trade Center attacks more than four years ago. But after spending five hours at the site and being buried twice by falling debris, her life changed dramatically.

 She used to play on three softball teams and a paddleball team. Now she suffers from full-blown asthma, a persistent cough, a condition that causes stomach acid to back up into her throat and has damaged her vocal cords, damage to her left side from the neck to the knee, nerve damage, and injuries to her left thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulder. She recently recovered from her third bout with pneumonia, has been hospitalized three times, and has made repeated trips to emergency rooms.

So she wasn't surprised by recent news reports that 23 former Ground Zero responders have died from diseases related to their exposure to toxic chemicals there, and that thousands more are sick and suffering. While some responders are suing the government, Giebfried and others want the federal government to pay for medical treatment for the sick responders, many of whom can no longer work and have no health insurance.

Mount Sinai Medical Center has done medical screenings for more than 15,000 World Trade Center responders under a federally funded program that will last until 2009. The medical center has also treated 1,600 responders through a program primarily paid for by the Red Cross. But there's a three-month waiting list and it's funded only for another year and a half.

Meanwhile, doctors at Mount Sinai say they're seeing people who are chronically ill and not getting better. And because they were exposed to numerous carcinogens, many more could get sick over time and some may develop cancer.

"There's a potentially looming time bomb of what we may see down the road," says Dr. Robin Herbert, director of the World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Giebfried hasn't worked since April 2004. It took more than two years for the state's workers' compensation program, which is funded by private employers, to agree to pay some of her medical bills. After her job insurance ran out, she was without coverage for a year until the Red Cross picked up her $440 monthly premium under the COBRA program, and that coverage will end in March. Meanwhile, she has more than $40,000 in unpaid medical bills and is living off a federal disability check and a small stipend from workers' compensation.

Her story is similar to the ones I heard from other responders. They talked about going from good health to having a vast array of ailments for which they take up to two dozen medications. They talked about losing the ability to work, about burying friends, and about fearing that, having been exposed to the infamous "green smoke" at Ground Zero, they will only get sicker over time. They also talked about fighting with workers' compensation officials for their benefits, and about their amazement that the federal government has done nothing to help them with their medical needs.

John Feal, 39, a former demolition supervisor, worked six days removing debris at Ground Zero before his left foot was crushed by a steel beam. He's since had half his foot amputated, battled gangrene and organ shutdown, and has had more than a dozen surgeries on both feet. Every time he takes a pre-operative breathing test, he fails it. He thinks programs like the one at Mount Sinai are great, but knows the hospital can't handle the demand.

"We went [to Ground Zero] without any prejudice, without thinking about our lives," Feal said. "Now while we're suffering and dying slowly - we are literally decaying - these people have just turned their backs."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) is outraged that to date, "not one dime of federal money" has gone for the treatment of sick and injured responders. She and other members of New York's congressional delegation are pushing Congress to restore $125 million that was cut from the federal budget to help states pay workers' compensation claims related to Sept. 11 and to pay for treatment programs like Mount Sinai's. The measure passed the House and the Senate is expected to follow suit.

The health problems of the responders are shaping up to be the next big national scandal. They deserve to be treated better, not simply ignored.

Sheryl McCarthy can be reached at mccart731@aol.com.

SPECIAL

GROUND ZERO MEMORIAL PRAYER SERVICE

THURSDAY JANUARY 26 @ 12 NOON

LIBERTY & CHURCH

REMEMBERING FALLEN FIRST RESPONDERS

PRAYING FOR ALL FIRST RESPONDERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

           SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER

DON FAETH

VP, UNIFORMED EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS & PARAMEDICS—FDNY, LOCAL 2507

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT REV. BILL 917.826.7255

Bill Doyle -Father of Joseph
Wtc tower1 101st fl.Cantor
http://www.joeydoyle.com
17189482538
17189486284 phone/Fax
3472360885 Mobile
http://www.wtcufg.org
http://takebackthememorial.org/
http://www.911fsa.org
9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism
http://www.coalitionof911families.org/
Board Member, 9/11 Health Insurance Group

Sept. 11 detainees sue officials and guards

By Nina Bernstein The New York Times

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2006
 
NEW YORK Hundreds of people were swept up on visa violations in the weeks after Sept. 11, held for months in a federal detention center as "persons of interest" to terror investigators and then deported. Now six of them have become accusers. 
They are coming back to New York to give depositions against top government officials and detention guards whom they are suing. As in the cases of all the Muslim immigrants rounded up in the New York area after the Sept. 11 attacks, the six were never accused of a crime related to terrorism. In fact, they were eventually cleared. 
But as they return here - four from Egypt, one from Pakistan, one from Britain - the U.S. government is requiring that they be in the constant custody of federal marshals. 
They are barred from calling anyone during their stay at an unidentified hotel, where depositions are being taken over the next two weeks. They can expect hours of questioning by lawyers representing more than 31 defendants in the lawsuits, including John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert Mueller 3rd, the director of the FBI. 
The first returning detainees, Yasser and Hany Ibrahim, who are brothers, say that putting themselves back in the hands of the government they are suing is an act of faith in the United States. Speaking by telephone from Alexandria, Egypt, the two said they were frightened but resolute in pressing a class-action lawsuit charging that they and others were abused and deprived of due process because of their religion or national origin, in violation of federal law and the Constitution. 
"I'm seeking justice," said Yasser, 33, who had a Web site design business in New York before he and his younger brother, Hany, 29, a delicatessen worker, were delivered in shackles to a detention center 19 days after Sept. 11. "It's from the same system that did us injustice before. But I have faith in this system. I know what happened before was a mistake." 
A report by the inspector general of the U.S. Justice Department found systemic problems with immigrant detentions and widespread abuse at the federal detention center in the borough of Brooklyn where the six were held; several guards have since been disciplined. 
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said officials would not comment on any aspect of the case, but in court papers the officials who have been sued deny wrongdoing. 
Justice Department lawyers contend in part that the Sept. 11 attacks created "special factors" - including the need to detect and deter future terrorist attacks - that outweigh the plaintiffs' right to sue for damages for any constitutional violations. 
The detainees' lawyers say that what happened at the detention center can be recognized four years later as the template for later abuses by the United States around the globe. 
Right after the World Trade Center attacks, they said, their parents urged them to come home. "We assured them," Yasser Ibrahim recalled, "'This is the United States. They don't arrest people for no charges. We didn't do anything, so nothing's going to happen to us."' 
But on Sept. 30, 2001, the lawsuit says, a dozen terrorism investigators from the FBI, the police and the immigration services knocked at the door of the apartment that the brothers shared with several Egyptian and Moroccan friends. They took away the Ibrahims and another man; their tourist visas had expired. 
Physical abuse, the lawsuit says, began the moment they arrived, chained and shackled. As Yasser described it, supervised guards slammed his younger brother face-first into a wall where a T-shirt bearing the U.S. flag had been taped, then did the same to him. 
Worse than physical or verbal abuse, Yasser Ibrahim said, was "the feeling that we are being hidden from the outside world, and nobody knows in the outside world that we are arrested and in this place." 
At a closed immigration hearing Nov. 20, three weeks after their arrest, the brothers agreed to immediate deportation. By Dec. 7, the lawsuit says, FBI memos stated that clearance checks on the Ibrahims had shown no links to terrorism. But they were held six more months - Hany Ibrahim until May 29, 2002, and Yasser Ibrahim until June 6. 
The Ibrahim brothers say a presumption of guilt followed them to Egypt, where they now are unemployable. Yasser Ibrahim, who is married with a 2-year-old son, said he and his brother were eking out a living in a small jewelry business. 
"It's going to be very difficult for me to go back for just a week and not to be able to see the places that I loved before," he said of his return. "America's the land of the free." 
 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/23/news/detainees.php

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Planning Purposes - Sent January 23, 2006

Contact: Joe Soldevere (Maloney) - (212) 860-0606; Craig Donner (Fossella) - (718) 356-8400

Fossella, Maloney & Sick/Injured Ground Zero Workers

to Call for Appointment of

9/11 Health Czar

to Coordinate Feds' Response

to Ground Zero Health Impacts

-Recent Deaths Underscore Need for Immediate Action-

WHAT: News Event. NY Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens) and Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island) will be joined by sick & injured Ground Zero workers, union leaders and NY Delegation members TBA to demand that a seasoned health expert be appointed 9/11 Health Czar to coordinate the federal response to 9/11 workers' health needs.

WHY: The federal government does not have a single individual overseeing and coordinating the response to the health impacts of 9/11 nor has federal funding been spent treating sick and injured responders. Further, the federal health monitoring program was shut down after only 400 workers were examined, creating uncertainty among the thousands of workers, volunteers and residents who responded to the attack.

Recent media reports indicate that as many as fourteen 9/11 workers, including an NYPD detective and a firefighter, have died due to injuries sustained during their service at Ground Zero. Clearly, the federal government must take charge and act now to ensure that all 9/11 responders have access to health monitoring and treatment.

WHO: * 9/11 RESPONDERS and Family Members STILL SUFFERING & STILL WITHOUT PROPER ACCESS TO HEALTH MONITORING AND TREATMENT

        * NY Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Vito Fossella and Others TBA

        * Tom Hart, Chair of the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Monitoring Program Advisory Committee

                    * NY Labor Leaders

WHEN: Wednesday, January 25th at 11:00 AM

WHERE: Ground Zero, west side of Church St. (at Cortlandt St., across from Century 21 Dept. Store), Rain Location TBA

Oliver Stone's upcoming drama "World Trade Center" which is scheduled to be released August 2006. Starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal the Academy Award winning director tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen – John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno – who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape.

The film also follows their families as they try to find out what happened to them, as well as the rescuers who found them in the debris field and pulled them out. Their story shows how the best in people rose above the tragic events of that day.

http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_7162.html

9-11 memorial fund needs support
By: Marie MacKay

Carolyn Beug, Utah State University alumnus.

Mary Alice Wahlstrom, wife of a former USU employee.

Brady Howell, former USU student.

All died on Sept. 11, 2001.

These individuals are who a small group of Davis County teenagers are determined to do.

Youth of Promise (YOP), a service group composed of junior high and high school students, is nearing the final months of a five-year fundraising effort to build a $500,000 Sept. 11 memorial at USU's Utah Botanical Center.

The only obstacle preventing the construction of this historic project is funding - $180,000 to be exact.

"It's not just a small project that they are doing, it's a huge project and to think that they have already put in literally years is phenomenal," said Zellene Allred from Hyde Park, whose son Michael died in combat Sept. 6, 2004.

In order to complete the memorial for the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, YOP needs to raise the remaining money by March, said Margaret Wahlstrom, whose mother-in-law, Mary Alice and sister-in-law, Beug, died in the first airplane that hit the World Trade Centers.

The group is involved in several fundraising projects. They are selling "Utah Unites in Hope" wristbands for $2 each.

They also receive a certain percentage of money for groceries when Albertson's customers fill out a Community Partner form with their Preferred Savings cards.

In addition, a book containing the bibliography of Utah residents who have died in the war on terror will be sold at the Botanical Center's Utah House.

"Before we do construction, we have to have the money," said YOP President Mari Lindstrom.

Because the memorial will be built on land donated by USU, Lindstrom hopes to involve the university's students to raise money.

Daniel Allred, a USU freshman whose brother Michael died in the war, has been working with members of ASUSU to sell wristbands at university-sponsored events.

"It's going to such a great cause. These [students] might not agree with why the war started, but these are men and women who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for people they don't even know," Allred said. "It's a way for the community to come back and say 'thank you.'"

Originally, the memorial was meant to honor the three individuals from Utah that died during the attacks, but as the memorial evolved, the war in Iraq began and the youth group wanted to pay tribute to those serving from Utah and the heroes from Sept. 11, Wahlstrom said.

"It's a very interesting concept and idea and it's very fitting that the memorial will be expanded to recognize the entire Sept. 11 event," said David Anderson, associate director of the Botanical Center.

With help from AJC Architects, the memorial is designed to portray the message of the war through a three-dimensional physical manifestation of emotions.

A pathway to the memorial will lead visitors under a large stone balancing over piles of rubble on the ground representing the vulnerability felt on the day of the attacks.

Once inside the memorial plaza, there will be a reflecting pool symbolizing the unity of the United States after the attacks and 3,000 fiber-optic lights to show how many lives were lost, Brough said.

"It's a very humbling experience to know that someone you know has been added to that lost list, but there is a healing as you come to these different memorials that these young men have not been forgotten," Zellene said.

A row of totems will be constructed by community groups to express their feelings through art and words.

"After they get it built, it will never be finished - it will be a living and growing monument that will show other events that are going on [in the United States]," Brough said.

The memorial has already been nominated for the national American Freedom Award, Lindstrom said.

"It's a really beautiful project and I think people will come from all over the nation to see it," she said. "I hope people will want to be united as a nation."

Through various fundraising efforts, YOP has already received other donations from organizations including Kaysville City, Clearfield Job Corp, Hill Air Force Base, Layton City, Northern Electric and Spears Plumbing.

For more information about the memorial, or to donate, visit www.utahbotanicalcenter.org or send donations to Utah Unites in Hope at 715 E. 200 North, Kaysville, UT 84037.

http://www.utahstatesman.com/media/paper24...w.utahstatesman.com

Residents fight to include WTC steel in 9/11 memorial
By MICHAEL GANNON

Jason Klein saw the flier handed to him at the Chappaqua train station last week. He also passed the children holding the "Honk to save the steel" signs at the edge of Bicentennial Park yesterday as he drove to get his hair cut.

He had not, however, actually seen the object of the bitter controversy that has divided this affluent hamlet for 2 1/2 years: two small remnants of twisted steel support beams from the World Trade Center. After stopping on his way home to see the steel on display at the park, he couldn't understand why the New Castle Town Board would not include the pieces in a memorial to three town residents killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"We're talking about excluding the most meaningful piece of the memorial," he said after signing a petition urging the town to reconsider its decision.

The debate over whether to include the steel in a memorial planned for this quaint, passive park, known colloquially as the "Duck Pond," has raged since the idea was first floated in the summer of 2003.

The Town Board last month voted 3-2 to build a memorial in the park that did not include the steel. The decision was influenced by neighbors of the park who have fought the plans, arguing that the small, steel pieces — slightly larger than twin toolboxes — are disturbing reminders of a horrific day.

Michael Wolfensohn, a town resident who conceived the memorial and has fought to include the steel, says he respects the concerns of neighbors. But what he cannot understand, he said yesterday, is why anyone would object to including the steel in the manner proposed: shielded in the middle of the park, inconspicuous to anyone except those who take the time to visit the immediate vicinity.

"If you don't want to see the steel, you don't have to — unless you hang-glide over the place," he explained, in an animated conversation with Klein.

Wolfensohn has raised some $26,000 for the memorial, which was inspired by the death of his friend and neighbor, Louis Inghilterra, in the attacks. New Castle residents George Morell and Allan Shwartzstein also died.

Wolfensohn said he would continue to pressure the town to include the pieces in the memorial. He organized yesterday's event as a way to demonstrate what he calls widespread public support for his position. After about three hours at the park yesterday afternoon, about 165 people signed a petition and hundreds of passing cars on Quaker Road honked their horns in response to the sign.

While opponents to the steel by and large avoided the park yesterday, signs of the acrimony were visible — literally.

Russell Leto, a homeowner who has lived on Quaker Road opposite the park for two years, yesterday hung a sign in his yard that read, simply, "No Steel."

Leto said he did not object to the steel being displayed publicly in a more appropriate venue, such as Town Hall. A passive park in a residential neighborhood, however, to which people come for quiet reflection, is not an appropriate place, he said.

"Both my wife and I lived and worked in Manhattan on Sept. 11," he said. "It's not something we want to be reminded of every day."

Not all neighbors, however, agree. "I think it's kind of a small thing to be focusing on," said Jim Harrison, who lives on a hill overlooking the park from the opposite side, who visited the park yesterday. "It's such an unobtrusive thing."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...1220304/1018/NEWS02

   
By Jim Schlosser

GREENSBORO -- David Griffin Jr. and his crew have been breathing easy for more than four years, but Wednesday's newspaper headline made them skip a breath or two.

"Workers at ground zero might be dying of toxicities," it read and included a reference to what's been dubbed "the trade center cough" that many who worked or lived near the World Trade Center in New York City still experience.

Griffin, a leader in his family's D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. of Greensboro, probably spent more time than anyone at the site where on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two jet airliners into the centers, which toppled. On that day, 2,801 people were killed, 2,261 injured.

"You worry about it but it ain't nothing that consumes you," Griffin said of health dangers that might loom. "You trust in the Lord and get up and go to work and hope everything works out."

He said he and other Griffin employees go to the doctor annually for respiratory monitoring. None has shown any signs of illness, Griffin said.

Susan Smith, a Red Cross worker from Greensboro who spent a month at the site, said her initial reaction to Wednesday's story was "scary," especially the part about a worker coughing up gravel. She could relate to what's been dubbed "trade center cough." She had it awhile after returning home.

She says at the Red Cross's urging she went through a battery of respiratory tests at Duke University Medical Center about a year later. She checked out fine. A few years later she was offered a chance later to repeat the tests, but declined.

"I'm really not worried," she said. "I don't live my life that way."

But the article made her think of the many people she met at the site. She wonders what has become of them. One worker sticks out in her mind. He came into the Red Cross facility "covered from head to toe in dirt and dust." He rested, then returned to the site. Has he suffered any from the experience?

She observed that some workers wore respirators, others didn't. Everyone, including herself, was thinking of the moment, not the future.

Smith's and the Griffin crew's good health appears to buck a trend. Wednesday's story cited three men who worked at the site and who all had died within the past seven months. They had complications that reportedly included bronchitis, emphysema and possibly cystic fibrosis, black lung disease and mercury poisoning. Two of the three had never smoked.

Their families and colleagues blame dust and particles ingested at the ruins. The story said thousands of others who worked or lived near the site have reported respiratory problems.

The story cited doctors who said it would take decades of monitoring to determine what permanent effect, if any, exposure to ground zero had on the 71,000 who worked there after the attack.

Griffin said his crew began medical screening about 18 months ago at the request of New York City health officials.

D.H. Griffin supervised 2,000 people in New York, but most weren't on the company payroll. Griffin declined to say how many of the company's workers were in New York. A story in the News & Record in May 2002, when David Griffin was still in New York, put the figure at about two dozen.

The younger Griffin, whose father, D.H. Griffin Sr., founded the company, said the trade center assignment was the most dangerous in the company's 45-year history.

The history includes demolition and implosion of more than 12,000 buildings. A recent job was the implosion of the 452,000-square-foot former Burlington Industries headquarters on West Friendly Avenue.

After the two hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center, the remains of the towers burned for 100 days, Griffin said. The ashes and dust contained human remains and asbestos.

"We tried to be very adamant about wearing respirators," Griffin says.

But he conceded that he and others often worked without masks. They made communications impossible. Words sounded garbled. He said good communications trumped constant wearing of a respirator.

"You could get killed if you didn't communicate," he said, referring to the huge beams being cut up around him.

He said despite the shock of Wednesday's story, he believes various factors unrelated to ground zero might figure into the chances of becoming ill. A person who inhaled some asbestos dust and other toxic particles and who also smoked two packs of cigarettes daily might be more prone to sickness than a nonsmoker.

Firefighters face similar environmental dangers, he said, when they confront out-of-control fires. But they are only exposed for a few hours at a time and not every day. He said, during one stretch, his crew worked 16 hours a day for five months.

"You get more exposure in that time than a firefighter might get in a 35-year career," he said.

But he knew the risks in New York and elsewhere he works. He said the only occupation more perilous than demolition work is the opposite: erecting steel beams that wreckers remove decades later.

"In New York," he said, "you were doing what you had to do. Everything in life has certain levels of danger. We're in a dangerous business."

And the work goes on. His company is now taking down the 6-million-square-foot former Cannon Mills plant in Kannapolis.

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...07/1001/NEWSREC0201

Monday, January 23, "EPA to New York City: Drop Dead!" on WBAI

WBAI’s weekly Health Action will look at how the EPA has wasted two years in producing a "plan" to sample for 9/11 contamination that has nothing to do with science and even less to do with protecting the health of workers in residents in Lower Manhattan and areas of Brooklyn and New Jersey. To make matters worse, it has abandoned any attempt to examine and make recommendations address the unmet health needs of those whose health is already compromised as a result of its earlier coverup of the environmental threats people faced immediately following the destruction of the WTC.

On WBAI 99.5-FM, Monday, January 23, 1- 1:30. Also webcast at www.wbai.org

With Lainie Kitt, Teamsters Local 237 representative on the 90 Church Street Coalition, and Rachel Lidov, Co-Coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action. Hosted by Jonathan Bennett, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.


******

9/11 and the Environment: A Failed Government Response

A Panel Discussion

 Tuesday, January 24th -- 4:00-5:00 PM

Cardozo Law School
12th St and 5th Ave

 Moot Court Room
on the first floor

with


Suzanne Mattei, Executive, New York City Office of the Sierra Club
Kimberly Flynn, Co-Coordinator, 9/11 Environmental Action
Joel Kupferman, NY Environmental Law and Justice Project
Moderator: J.P. Harpignies, Associate Producer, Bioneers

to subscribe or unsubscribe to News&Alerts,
write to: clearinghouse@911ea.org

for more information:
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL A CTION
www.911ea.org
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION is a community-based organization of residents, parents and occupational safety, public and environmental health advocates, formed in April 2002 to end the federal Environmental Protection Agency cover-up, fight for a comprehensive clean-up, and demand medical monitoring and health care for everyone harmed by WTC contamination.

N EWS&A LERTS' frequent bulletins come to you free of charge. Nonetheless, we always appreciate contributions of any amount to support 9/11 EA's daily work. Please visit http://www.911ea.org and click on the "Make a Donation" link, or write to Rachel@911ea.org to find out how to send one. We are very proud to announce that as of mid-December, 2005:

9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION is a 501(c) nonprofit organization and all contributions are tax deductible in accordance with IRS regulations.

for more information:
9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL A CTION
www.911ea.org

GLEN RIDGE, NJ - Steve Plate, the last mayor of Glen Ridge, has been tapped to become the director of priority programs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and in so doing, takes on one of the biggest and most ambitious projects of our time.

Through the promotion, Plate, 51, will be overseeing the World Trade Center redevelopment project through to its completion, currently projected to be somewhere around 2010.

It has been a long and rewarding climb to the top for Plate, who said he worked his way “up the ranks” in private industry with such companies as Exxon after getting his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Manhattan College.

By the time he left the private sector, he had made his way through different cultures and locations, and was ready for something more challenging.

He remembers the exact date he went to work for the Port Authority: June 10, 1985. And within about 20 years, he completed various important projects, which became more and more ambitious, like a rail project in Harrison.

This culminated in his leadership of the John K. Kennedy International Airport’s “Air Train.” The $1.9 billion project now moves more than 12 million passengers to and from the airport each year, with a fully-automated system which is run by a computer. And, as Plate points out, the whole project came in “on schedule and under-budget.”

“I guess they moved me over because of that success,” Plate said.

It was also because of his success that Plate had been sought after by the Civic Conference Committee to become a councilman in the borough.

It was during his second term on council that Mayor Tom Langton resigned his post because of his imminent move to Washington, D.C. Plate, as president of the council, immediately took over the top position.

He served out the half-term left by Langton, and then served another complete term of his own.

“The mayor doesn’t get paid, it’s non-partisan; it’s really a labor of love,” Plate said, of his years in the position.

It was this ‘labor of love’ which Plate said spurred him on to several of his proudest accomplishments as mayor. He points to the construction of the pool, the clean-up and restoration of several parks, and also the hiring of such employees as Administrator Michael Rohal and Director of Planning and Development Michael Zichelli as the most important contributions that he helped to make.

Plate said his job and specialty is relating the engineering aspects of a project to the lay people who depend on it getting done.

“Even though I’m an engineer, I kind of have a broader perspective on things. Engineers tend to have the stigma that they have the focus on technical issues, and less on business and personal issues,” he explained.

Rohal said Plate’s combination of engineering prowess and public management skills came as no surprise to him.

“I was delighted to hear that Steve accomplished two of his career goals, by overseeing the World Trade Center redevelopment and becoming the director for the Port Authority,” Rohal stated. “I believe that — with his technical knowledge, work ethic, and dedication — he will do an exemplary job.”

Plate’s task with the new World Trade Center will be another “labor of love,” as he describes it. There will be more than 10 million square feet of the office towers, a half-million square feet of retail, a performing arts center, a PATH terminal, and a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

That memorial, in particular, means much to Plate, who narrowly missed being on the 72nd floor of the first Trade Center tower on the morning of Sept. 11. He missed his morning train out of the Ridgewood Avenue station that morning, and watched from afar as the second plane hit the other tower. Eighty-four of his Port Authority colleagues died in the attack.

So, the new Trade Center has become something of a personal quest and a way to leave his last engineering statement, as well as honoring those who were lost.

“There’s no other job as exciting as this is,” Plate said.