Delivered April 28 at congressional hearing convened by Rep. Major Owens at Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York City.

My name is Joel Shufro. I am the Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) a coalition of 250 local unions and 400 safety and health professionals, lawyer, doctors and rank and file activists in the New York Metropolitan Area. I am also Vice President of Local 1180, Communications Workers of America. I am joined by Joel Shufro, NYCOSH's Executive Director. Our organization believes fervently in every worker's right to a safe and healthful job, that strong government enforcement of stringent standards is the most effective way of preventing job related accidents and occupational illness and that education of workers, employers is the key in making a workplace a safe and healthful environment.

We are pleased that you have convened this hearing to discuss implications of the World Trade Center disaster for worker safety and health – and surely there is no more fitting day for us to do that than today, Worker Memorial Day. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Jerrold Nadler, who has played an outstanding role in raising issues about the occupational and environmental health consequences of the collapse of the World Trade Center. Also we would like to commend Representative Carolyn Maloney for her efforts in procuring additional funding to continue and expand the screening program which has provided important information about health consequences that workers experienced from working at or around Ground Zero.

As painful as it is to look back to the events of September 11th it is imperative that we do so that we might be better prepared for any comparable act of terrorism or natural disaster in the future. The tragedy provides us with a portal to evaluate how well our public health regulatory framework worked to protect workers and members of the public from occupational and environmental hazards posed by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

I would like to make the following five points:

1. Congress needs to mandate that worker safety and health protections remain in place and are not over ridden by the local incident command structure during emergency response.

The findings that 50 percent of workers participating in the Mt. Sinai World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Screening Program have respiratory problems as a result of exposure to toxic materials at the site is extremely disturbing. The findings of this screening program raises important questions concerning the effectiveness of OSHA worker protections. While OSHA deserves to be commended for its successful efforts to prevent workers from being killed or suffering major injuries while working on what was, undoubtedly, one of the most dangerous construction sites in the history of our country, we believe that the failure agency to enforce its regulations, particularly in regard to the use of respirators, has led to thousands of workers suffering disabling from occupational disease.

The question of public policy which Congress needs to deal with is why were OSHA standards not enforced at Ground Zero? OSHA claims that in emergencies such as these, the local incident command structure overrides their authority. OSHA contends that since the site remained officially a rescue operation until the last piece of debris was removed, they had no authority. If the agency is legal interpretation is correct (which we do not believe), we think Congress needs to act immediately to address the situation. We can understand that under the horrendous, catastrophic conditions such as we experienced at the World Trade Center that OSHA regulations may not be followed during the first several days or a week. But it is outrageous that the enforcement of OSHA standards would be suspended for over nine months compromising the health and safety of workers. We fail to understand why OSHA standards were not in effect even if OSHA was not the lead agency. While there are a few circumstances in which OSHA standards may be held in abeyance, we think the precedent set in this case is extremely dangerous. No local agency should have the right to suspend federal OSHA enforcement.

2. The definition of workers who are considered emergency responders needs to be expanded. All workers with potential emergency response responsibilities must be provided with appropriate safety and health training now.

Tens of thousands of workers were involved in the rescue, clean up and restoration of services. Transit workers, telephone repair workers, sanitation workers, stationary engineers, building custodians, tow truck operators, health care providers, utility workers, construction workers to name a few of the categories – were involved in the response. Relatively few of the workers had appropriate safety and health training, let alone trained as emergency responders. Safety and health training was not instituted until late October – well after thousands of workers had been exposed to the toxic dust and fumes at the site. The definition of emergency response workers to needs to be expanded to cover the hundreds of job categories who, in the case, heavens forbid, of another terrorist attack or natural catastrophe would be called upon to respond.

3. City, state and federal laws and government regulations dealing with emergency evacuation need to be reviewed, updated and enforced.

The experience of September 11th demonstrates the importance of evacuation planning and practice. There is no question that thousands of workers escaped from the buildings because of training and preparation resulting from the prior experience of 1993. Even so, as research being conducted by the Columbia School of Public Health is finding, there was considerable confusion among occupants of the Twin Towers about what to do and whose orders to follow. Furthermore, since many of the occupants had no plan to account for workers once they had left the building, it took days to determine who was in the building and who had escaped.

It is imperative that building evacuation codes be reviewed and updated in light of what happened at the World Trade Center. Although many buildings in New York City and throughout the country have bi-annual fire drills, these exercises are pro-forma exercises -- often not taken seriously by building occupants. In our building, while fire drills are conducted regularly every six months, workers are not provided with training about how to evacuate the building and what procedures should be taken by workers once they leave the premises of the building. Additionally, fire marshals do not receive training and fire drills. These codes need to be reviewed so that evacuation protocols are in place, the codes need to be enforced and workers and building residents must receive appropriate training.

4. Congressional action needs to be taken to force the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up workplaces in lower Manhattan which were contaminated by dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

As you know, the EPA, after months of foot dragging, finally agreed that it had responsibility for cleaning up building which had been contaminated by the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center. However, when the EPA reversed its position, it excluded workplaces from its clean-up plans. Workers were forced to rely on the assurances of their employers that their workplaces were appropriately cleaned. In some cases, employers act responsibly; in others not.

To date, the EPA has not provided a reasonable legal or scientific basis for its decision. Why should apartments on the sixth floor of a multi-use building fall within the EPA's clean up plans, but an office on the fifth floor of the same building be excluded? The EPA said that employers had the resources through their insurance policies to cover the costs of clean-up. You will hear testimony later this morning from workers in offices where testing has found high levels of asbestos contamination even after the office had been "professionally" cleaned. Unfortunately, many buildings were only superficially cleaned and are still contaminated.

Worse, we have been told that the dust removed from the apartments in which clean up is performed must be treated as hazardous waste and so bagged and labeled, but that workers who do the work will not be required to wear respirators. The clear message from the EPA is that workers are being treated worse than dirt.

We believe that Congress needs to:

• order the EPA to revise its protocols to include workplaces in its clean-up program in lower Manhattan;
  
  
• order that the EPA has responsibility for decontamination of residences and workplaces as a result of future acts of terrorism and natural disasters;
  
  
• order the EPA and OSHA to develop a set of protocols for the clean up of acts of terrorism and natural disasters which would set clearly defined clearance standards which could be used to determine whether residences and offices were habitable.

5. Congress needs to enact legislation which requires companies using extremely hazardous substances to substitute safer chemicals such as the Corzine Bill (S157).

The risk of terrorist attack on industrial facilities that store large quantities of hazardous chemicals is a pressing homeland security issue. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are 123 facilities where a release of chemicals could threaten more than one million people. There are more than 750 additional facilities where such a release could threaten more than 100,000 people.

In spite of documented security lapses and widespread agreement about the vulnerability of the nation's chemical infrastructure, there are no federal standards in place to require chemical plants to assess their vulnerabilities and take steps to reduce them.

Equally worrisome is the potential for threats of terrorism to abridge our Right to Know. Information about chemical usage and storage which were previously available to the public. For example, according to information we have received, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, in order to protect the public from toxic terrorist attacks, will no longer honor the requests of individuals, non-profit or community-based organizations or researchers for information about the toxic substances used in facilities within the City. Government agencies on the state and federal level have enacted similar restrictions.

We believe that limiting the public's right to know is short-sighted. Rather than create a climate in which facilities which use toxic substances are under scrutiny from the public and members of the community, the result of limiting information will only create additional walls behind which irresponsible employers will hide.

Senator Corzine's legislation would ensure that all high priority chemical facilities take steps to protect their workers and the surrounding communities from attack. The legislation requires EPA to work with the Department of Homeland Security to establish minimum requirements for the improvement of security and the reduction of potential hazards at chemical plants and other industrial facilities that store large quantities of hazardous materials.

Conclusion

It is clear that public health was not the principle that guided federal, state or local officials. The decision to reopen Wall Street -- six days after the attack – before the toxic characteristics of the dust were known was a political decision, and not based on science.

Despite the soothing, reassuring comments of the leaders of the EPA and OSHA that there the air was "safe" and that whatever contaminants were present were far below the safety standards of the two agencies, they couldn't suppress the fact that workers and community residents were experiencing a host of respiratory and other ailments. The disconnect between the government's statements and the experience of workers and community residents requires us to revisit the response of the EPA and OSHA to determine whether the protocols and standards that they used were sufficient to protect the public's health.

It will take years for us to understand the health consequences for workers who worked on the pile and in the area surrounding the World Trade Center. What we do know is that too many of the men and women who we have considered to be heros are now sick.

We hope this hearing is the first step in that process.

NYCOSH's 9/11-related work is conducted in partnership with the United Church of Christ's National Disaster Ministries, with additional support from the September 11th Fund created by the United Way of New York City and the New York Community Trust.