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9/11-related news archive, January 2007 - IV
 

 


Admitting Mistakes, CUNY Promises a Better Demolition

By Skye H. McFarlane
Downtown Express
February 2 -8, 2007

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_195/admittingmistakescuny.html

The Borough of Manhattan Community College’s second report to the public on the fate of it’s damaged former dorm got better marks than the first, but community members weren’t yet ready to pass the college with flying colors.

At Tuesday night’s public forum on the plans to decontaminate and dismantle Fiterman Hall — the 30 W. Broadway building that was gashed and contaminated by the collapse of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11 — community activists praised an improved public process, but expressed continuing concerns about the project’s emergency response plan, as well as the school’s level of outreach among its own students and staff.

“Our efforts last time left something to be desired,” admitted Max Pizer, a City University of New York representative, when speaking of B.M.C.C.’s first public forum on Oct. 30, 2006. Community activists had scolded B.M.C.C. for giving the public little advance notice of that meeting.

On Tuesday, several community members praised B.M.C.C. for listening to the public’s suggestions, both regarding the meeting process and the project plan itself. Since October, the college has created a Web site and an e-mail list dedicated to providing information on Fiterman Hall. B.M.C.C. has also formed a community advisory panel, made up of local politicians and representatives from community groups, to help the project directors meet the neighborhood’s needs. The panel will begin meeting in February.

The project is currently awaiting the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators on its plans to remove toxins like asbestos and lead from Fiterman Hall before deconstructing it piece by piece to make way for a new classroom building. The project team, which includes architects Pei Cobb and Freed, PAL Environmental and Airtek Environmental, hopes to have new scaffolding up by this spring and complete deconstruction by April 2008. The college’s goal is to have the new building constructed by summer 2010.

Dave Newman of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health said that in terms of listening to the community, the Fiterman Hall process was “light years ahead” of the fraught deconstruction at the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. — a sentiment echoed by others in attendance.

“You guys have done a much better job with the public than L.M.D.C. [Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns the Deutsche Bank building] did and I commend you for that,” said Community Board 1 member Marc Ameruso.

“Marc, can you repeat that please? So everyone can hear you,” said Scott Anderson, B.M.C.C.’s vice president of administration, drawing laughter from the audience. In October, Anderson had taken personal responsibility for the college’s communication shortcomings and vowed to establish an “open and transparent process.”


On Tuesday, Anderson again pledged to improve communications after several speakers pointed out that while the public had received notice of the meeting through multiple e-mails and four newspaper ads, B.M.C.C.’s students and workers had gotten just a single e-mail. Speakers said that because the two-year college gains many new students each semester, college officials must work extra hard to inform students about Fiterman Hall and the emergency procedures that they must follow if a worst-case-scenario — a fire or a mass release of toxins — should ever occur at the site.

Anderson agreed, saying, “Can we do better on this? We’re going to have to do better on this…We really have to tell the story [of what happened to the building on 9/11] to people who don’t know the past.”

Student body president Krystal Garner also questioned how students would be informed in the case of an emergency, since the current plan for community notification includes no mention of B.M.C.C. students or staff. Other speakers said that the response plan needed a clearer, more specific chain of command. Community members also called for more student and labor representation on the community advisory panel; a definitive, layman’s terms list of which toxins may remain in the building; and the training of all site workers to deal safely with contaminants under the U.S. Department of Labor’s HazWOpER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response) standard.

The B.M.C.C. representatives said that they would take all the suggestions under advisement before the next public forum, which will take place in about six weeks.

Skye@DowntownExpress.com

© 2006 Community Media, LLC

9/11 Workers Struggle to Get Workers’ Comp

By Chris Bragg
Downtown Express
February 2 -8, 2007

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_195/911workersstruggle.html

Half a dozen doctors testified on his behalf. Experts on 9/11-related diseases confirmed his claims. A picture of him working on a smoldering pile of rubble at ground zero offered hard evidence.

Still, for Joe Picurro, it wasn’t enough. The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board ruled he still hadn’t proven his health problems were due to his 28 days as a volunteer during the 9/11 cleanup. He hadn’t even proven he’d actually worked at the site, they said, saying the photograph could have been doctored.

It took two years, five hearings, an appeal to the New York State Supreme Court and several pleading media appearances before he thought he finally won.

Picurro looks back with anger on the time and effort it took for what he calls his victory: a check for $67.71 a week. “They throw us a bone every once in awhile to appease us,” Picurro said a few months ago. “The cheapest one possible.”

But then more recently the checks stopped coming and he will have to go back to court.

More than five years after 9/11, many cleanup workers who rushed to help the city in its time of need say they have developed serious physical conditions due to that work: 756 cleanup volunteers and many more paid workers have submitted claims. Many claimants say, however, the Workers’ Compensation Board has been slow in helping them get back on their feet.

In seeking a fraction of their income before their illnesses, workers say they have entered a maze of bureaucracy. They say it’s difficult to get hearings scheduled, and once they do, proving their illnesses are related to their 9/11 work is more difficult than in normal compensation cases.

Joe Picurro at a 2006 Christmas party held by the Feal Good Foundation. Named for injured 9/11 worker John Feal, the foundation helped the Picurros buy Christmas presents for their daughter.

Many cases have been pending for years and for some, the financial strain has grown too great to bear. “We’re numbers,” said Jeffrey Endean, a 9/11 volunteer and former commander for the Morris County Sheriff’s Office in New Jersey, “and next to those numbers are dollar signs that they don’t want to pay off.”

The Workers’ Compensation Board, established in 1914, was a compromise between workers and employers: New York workers gave up the right to sue employers for injuries in exchange for timely compensation and medical care if they were injured on the job.

For employees of companies hired to do 9/11 cleanup work, and for the unpaid volunteers who worked under government authorized rescue agencies, the board is the sole means of resolving no-fault claims. City employees, such as police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers, go through a separate compensation process.

For most cases that go in front of the board, an employer’s insurance company is responsible for challenging and ultimately paying off or settling a claim. Volunteer claims, however, are compensated out of a $50 million grant created shortly after 9/11 by Congress, which by special rule is also administered by the board.

For many of the workers, even getting started in the process can be difficult. They say it can take months just to get a hearing.

Louis Dauerer, president of the Injured Workers Bar Association, said the board has been “fixated on getting its number of hearings down” in recent years, adding that it’s difficult for all injured workers to get hearings these days, not just 9/11 workers. The number of workers’ compensation hearings in New York State has decreased from 407,983 in 2001, to 305,722 in 2005, according to the board’s annual reports.

Board spokesperson Jon Sullivan acknowledged that the board tries to reduce its number of hearings, but said that’s only because it wants to be efficient. “It doesn’t make sense to have a hearing if there’s nothing that moves the case forward,” he said.

Once hearings are scheduled, many 9/11 workers say they aren’t told what exactly they need to do to prepare, resulting in further delays in the case. Some say they don’t want to pay for a lawyer to help, citing New York’s already small maximum weekly compensation of $400 — a rate that hasn’t seen an increase since 1992.

Linda Carillo, who is 35 and lives in Far Rockaway, was a construction worker for 18 years before 9/11. Present as a volunteer in its immediate aftermath, she worked on a human assembly line that removed rubble from ground zero. She said she now suffers from serious respiratory problems and post-traumatic stress disorder. To date, her workers’ compensation case has been open for four years. She said she’s unable to work and has been forced into foreclosure on her house.

After waiting months for her first hearing she went to court, but her claim was denied because the board said she needed a letter showing she had respiratory problems. She’d had no idea she needed the letter, and it took her another year to reopen her case.

The Worker’s Compensation Board says 94 percent of its 9/11 related cases are “resolved.” The board does not say how many cases have been accepted or rejected, however, and worker case files are sealed.

Workers’ compensation lawyers say the term “resolved” is misleading.

The board is able to say a large percentage of cases are resolved because it routinely sends letters to claimants telling them their case needs “no further action.” According to Vic Fusco, of Fusco, Brandenstein and Rada in Manhattan, who represents a number of 9/11 workers, this puts the burden on the worker to file a new claim.

“All the issues that board can resolve are resolved,” said Sullivan, explaining the board’s process. “But we understand a resolved case today may need to be reworked tomorrow, because new issues come about.” He added that the length of time it takes to resolve a case can vary greatly, with complex 9/11 health cases often taking longer.

After Carillo refiled her claim with a chart from Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Medical Center showing a significantly decreased lung function, she faced an even more vexing problem. She was again denied, this time because there was no “causal relationship of the medical condition,” according to the letter sent to Carillo by the board.

It’s a problem for many 9/11 workers. Often, 9/11-related injuries are more difficult to prove than other workers’ compensation cases. Out of 756 volunteers that have submitted claims, 61 are currently receiving benefits, Sullivan said.

According to a recently released Mount Sinai study, 69 percent of 9/11 workers studied have developed new or worsened respiratory problems in the past five years. But the board doesn’t grant workers’ compensation for many of these types of claims. In 2005, it granted compensation for over 90,000 physical injuries, particularly to the back and legs, according to its annual report. In addition, it granted compensation for 5,000 occupational injuries caused by long-term physical stress, but half of those were chronic wrist injuries. Environmental or respiratory type injuries, however, were not listed.

“9/11-related illnesses are considered illness and not injury,” said Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Center, which treats Picurro and Carillo. “If a man falls and twists his ankle, he would be compensated because they know the time and the date it happens.”

The only way to prove 9/11 cases is to find qualified doctors willing to testify on a worker’s behalf. The board requires doctors to have a “reasonable degree of medical certainty” that 9/11 caused a worker’s injury.

However, many workers go to respiratory specialists who can diagnose their illness, but cannot point to its cause. One reason is that until August 2006, the city Department of Health did not release any guidelines for diagnosing 9/11-related illnesses, leaving many doctors unaware of their symptoms.

Joe Picurro, 39, a native of Toms River, N.J., was an ironworker during the 9/11 cleanup, removing twisted metal in an effort to find bodies buried in the rubble. Now he’s been diagnosed with a number of serious respiratory diseases and leukemia, which has an uncertain link to W.T.C. dust and may take many years to establish. When he was initially hospitalized in the Toms River Community Medical Center, doctors told him he had the flu as he vomited up small pieces of his esophagus, according to his wife Laura Picurro.

His doctors were incredulous when she told them she believed 9/11 dust had caused her husband’s illness. “They said they had never heard of such a thing,” she said. They gave him an antibiotic. Only after a number of costly visits to different doctors did they finally learn he had scarring and particles of pulverized glass in his lungs. Picurro was unemployed at the time he volunteered. Because he lacked health insurance, the rounds of visits and hospital stays put the couple heavily in debt.

Often, doctors unfamiliar with 9/11 illnesses will attribute workers’ respiratory problems to a preexisting condition. Claimants who are smokers, like Picurro, particularly face this problem, although that would not have explained the pulverized glass in his lungs.

“Not many doctors are aware of the nuances because they don’t see the sheer numbers of people,” said Moline, who said she herself has been able to testify persuasively in a number of workers’ compensation cases because of her broad experience.

Albany tried recently to address some concerns about the board. In August, former Gov. George Pataki extended the deadline to apply for 9/11 related worker’s compensation, which had passed in 2003, until August 2007. The bill also included several measures intended to speed up the workers’ compensation process and to provide speedier access to medical care if a claim is being challenged.

Still, many frustrated workers and volunteers are now looking beyond the workers’ comp process to get the money they feel they deserve.

There are 8,000 people who have filed a lawsuit claiming negligence by the Environmental Protection Agency and the New York Port Authority, among others, for alleged misleading statements about the air quality at ground zero. The fate of the suit is still unclear.

There is also the possibility of reopening the “9/11 Victim Compensation Fund,” which Congress originally created just weeks after 9/11.

The original fund provided more than $38 billion to 9/11 victims and their families, and was paid for largely by the federal government. But the fund’s Special Master Kenneth Feinberg, who awarded money to workers who developed symptoms early on, decided that Congress had not intended the fund to compensate workers with injuries that would develop over a longer period of time, because there was no way of knowing the amount each claimant’s illness would eventually cost.

But now, some New York and New Jersey lawmakers, including Senator Hillary Clinton, want the fund reopened for those very workers. In September, they introduced a bill to allow workers to apply to the fund whose symptoms became apparent after the initial December 2003 deadline.

The original fund was unusual in several ways. There was no limit on how much could be spent, and compensation was decided outside the normal legislative or legal processes.

Francis McGovern, a professor at Duke Law School and an alternative dispute resolution expert, thinks that Congress as a whole won’t want to reopen the fund. “If you do this once, you could say it’s 100 percent unique,” he said. “But if you do it twice, you’re saying anything else like this gets federal funding to pay for it. I think the inclination of Congress, except Hillary Clinton, would be to let the tort system take care of these folks.” McGovern said a system similar to the asbestos trust recently proposed in Congress, which would have more financial constraints, would be more feasible.

Clinton and her New York colleagues in the House and Senate want $1.9 billion in new spending for continued 9/11-related medical monitoring, treatment and research for workers and residents affected by the attack.

Waiting on Congress and the courts, many workers have given up on their cases, preferring instead to rest and focus on their health problems, according to case workers and advocates.

Diana Salvador, a psychologist and former director of the 9/11 Family Wellness program, believes the stresses created by trying to go through the process only makes workers’ health worse. “There’s a sense of powerlessness,” she said. “Between the trauma and talking to the board and getting health insurance, it can become more than a full-time job.”

Carillo, with the bills mounting and having lost her house, said she’s starting to consider giving up her fight for compensation. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m tired of telling my story over and over and nothing happening.”

© 2006 Community Media, LLC

Down Payment or Chump Change? Bush 9/11 Pledge Hailed and Assailed

By Josh Rogers, Jefferson Siegel and Skye H. McFarlane
Downtown Express
February 2 -8, 2007

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_195/downpaymentorchump.html

President Bush came to Lower Manhattan Wednesday promising $25 million for 9/11 workers in need of health care. New York optimists called it a starting point to get all of the money needed while others said the glass was nine-tenths empty at best.

The president, who delivered an economic address at Federal Hall on Wall St., also met privately with Ceasar Borja, 21, who last week attended the State of the Union address hours after he learned his father, a police detective, had died from a respiratory ailment believed to have been contracted from his recovery work at the World Trade Center site.

“I’m not quoting Mr. President, but what I heard is that there will be more support,” Borja said, according to news reports. “I felt a dedication. I felt the motivation and appreciation as well that the president has for my father, my family and myself for coming this far.”

The $25 million will go to Mount Sinai’s health program for W.T.C. site workers, which is expected to run out of money this summer. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Mount Sinai had previously said it needed $250 million. He and others said Lower Manhattan residents and office workers suffering from ailments that may be connected to exposure to W.T.C. dust or toxins in the air also need health care funds.

“Since Sept. 11th, 2001, President Bush has never met with the residents, not a single one,” Catherine McVay Hughes, a Downtown resident and a leader in the 9/11 environmental efforts, said at a rally that coincided with the president’s visit. “We are now asking that he does, and that President Bush supports those that live and work in the shadow of the former World Trade Center towers.”

At his press conference, Borja said he “expressed [to the president] how the funding should be expanded not just for heroes and heroines that without hesitation ran to save, rescue and ensure a future for all of the lives that they would find there that they could bring home.”

White House spokespersons indicated more money will be coming, although apparently not for residents, according to wire service reports. “We consider this a good starting point,” said Sean Kevelighan, a Bush spokesperson. Tony Snow, White House press secretary said: “First responders who need treatment will get the treatment they need. Many are already covered by insurance programs, many through their union; but if there are gaps in that, we’re going to do it.”

Members of New York’s Congressional delegation, who are backing a bill for $1.9 billion in 9/11-related health care money, had varied reactions to the Bush announcement. Representatives Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat, and Vito Fossella, a Republican, were the most upbeat, calling it a “breakthrough” in a joint release. Sen. Hillary Clinton was more measured, calling it “an important first step” but also cautioned that it not become a “hollow promise.”

Nadler, whose district includes the site, was the most critical, pointing out the next fiscal budget doesn’t start until October, so Mount Sinai may have no money for several months, and may be able to stay open for only a few months if it gets the $25 million.

Spokespersons for Mount Sinai declined to comment.

Marvin Bethea, a paramedic and 9/11 responder suffering from asthma, sinusitis, post-traumautic stress disorder and depression, criticized the relatively small promise during the rally. “Don’t tease us by giving us a piece of steak and letting us have a couple of bites out of it and then tell us, four months from now, there is no more steak, there is no more treatment,” he said.

Craig Hall, a Downtown resident, said there shouldn’t be distinctions between people whose health was affected by the attack: “We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “No one can be excluded from this, unfortunately.”

© 2006 Community Media, LLC

Son's Graveside Plea

By Adam Lisberg
Daily News
February 2, 2007

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/494115p-416090c.html

His face pinched and solemn, Ceasar Borja Jr. walked slowly yesterday onto the patch of bare earth where his father had been laid to rest five days earlier.

But before he could get any farther, three employees of Mount Saint Mary Cemetery in Flushing approached, hands reaching out to him.

"We buried a lot of people here when [9/11] happened," said Irving Meadows, 43. "We want to thank you. You did a lot of good things."

Borja, 21, has spent the past 15 days in a whirlwind, starting when the Daily News reported the plight of his father, Cesar Borja, 52, a retired NYPD cop who contracted a fatal lung disease after working at Ground Zero.

The cop's son pleaded publicly for more help for ailing 9/11 workers like his dad - winning a seat at the State of the Union address last week, an audience with President Bush on Wednesday and a preliminary $25 million commitment for more federal funding.

But Borja also lost his father, just hours before the State of the Union.

"The burying has to stop," Borja told Meadows and his colleagues. "We're the richest nation in the world. We can afford to take care of everybody, all the rescuers. And there's all the people downtown who still need help. There's 5-year-old kids living there who need inhalers."

Then he stood at the grave and said a few private words into the wind. He placed a copy of The News - with a picture of him and Bush - face-down on the flower-strewn earth. He crossed himself and said a prayer.

And then Borja walked away. He had to get to class at Hunter College, and he had to get ready for his job at Starbucks. He was ready to slip back into his life.

Search for Remains Will Go Beneath an Asphalt Lot

By David W. Dunlap
New York Times
February 1, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/nyregion/01blocks.html

THE unending hunt for the body parts of 9/11 victims is likely to intensify this month as excavations begin on an asphalt-covered staging area opposite ground zero. This was once an entire city block, where the little St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church stood, and the rubble under that asphalt has lain pretty much undisturbed for five years.

“It is virgin territory in the search for human remains,” said a construction superintendent who was involved in the cleanup of the World Trade Center site and requested anonymity for this column because he was bound by confidentiality rules.

What makes the search so important is that family members of 1,148 victims have still not received any remains identified as their relatives’. And in the civic realm, it is a visceral reminder — as the rebuilding begins in earnest — of what was lost in the first place.

According to the chief medical examiner, 1,063 body parts, mostly bone fragments less than four inches long, have been found around ground zero since September 2005: 766 at the former Deutsche Bank building, 209 in abandoned manholes under a haul road along West Street and 88 in the fill and debris beneath the asphalt surface of the haul road.

Last week, two pieces of structural steel from the trade center were found about two to three feet under the haul road surface, roughly midway between Vesey and Liberty Streets, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said yesterday. Each piece is about 18 feet long, 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep. They will be taken to Hangar 17 at Kennedy International Airport for storage with other large-scale artifacts.

Similar discoveries almost certainly await workers as they approach the staging area, bounded by Liberty, Washington, Cedar and West Streets, where St. Nicholas Church stood. The rest of the block was a parking lot, so there was little to obstruct falling material from penetrating the ground after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower, 200 yards away, and after the south tower collapsed, directly across Liberty Street.

The four-story church was leveled.

WHAT was left was a field of debris, most notably a multi-story, multi-ton section of the south tower facade, which lodged at the base of the 90 West Street building on the corner of Cedar Street. This was documented by the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the University at Buffalo.

“I believe it may have been cut off at grade level and never pulled out,” said Stephen V. DeSimone, president and chief executive of DeSimone Consulting Engineers. He was among the first engineers on the site after the attack, under a volunteer effort organized by the Structural Engineers Association of New York.

“That area was probably cleared and repaved before any of the other areas, which may have resulted in the encapsulation of human remains,” Mr. DeSimone said.

It is still largely a paved area. On the Liberty Street side are huts maintained by the Port Authority. One is used by family members, one by the police, one as a conference room and one as a security booth.

Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler, who is overseeing the renewed search effort, said two perpendicular exploratory trenches, about five feet wide, will be dug through the staging area, beginning early this month.

“We will excavate further based on what we find during the exploratory phase,” he said, adding that exploratory excavations will include the ground beneath the huts.

Ground-penetrating radar will be used to locate utility lines and “any other underground structures,” Mr. Skyler said, when asked about the possibility of encountering buried steel from the twin towers.

Some family advocates and elected officials, including Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, have called on the city to request the help of the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command, a special military unit. They were joined last month by Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan.

A spokesman for the command, Troy Kitch, noted yesterday that city officials had their own plan and said, “It’s our position that they clearly have the forensic expertise to implement it.” He added that there have been informal, collegial exchanges between the city’s scientists and those at the command.

Mr. Skyler said the city would not request the command to “divert personnel” to New York. And Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary, Christine Anderson, said on Tuesday that the governor is “confident that the current search is being done respectfully and carefully.”

Mr. DeSimone, for one, does not second-guess the absence of painstaking forensic archaeology in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

“Nobody really understood the magnitude of the devastation,” he said. “There was this hopeful notion that you’d find people intact. It only became evident much later on that this would be more like finding grains of sand than remains.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Responders Want Bush to Pay Up

By Emi Endo
Newsday
February 1, 2007

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyscen 015075304feb01,0,1406240.story?coll=ny-nynews-print

Emergency responders and others who say working at or living near Ground Zero sickened them charged yesterday that President George W. Bush is more than a day late and a dollar short in providing health programs for them.

About a dozen advocates called on Bush, who was in the city for a Wall Street appearance, to commit to a long-term plan for monitoring the health of those who worked at or lived near the World Trade Center site and for treating their Sept. 11-related illnesses.

"We've been given a slow death sentence," said Marvin Bethea, 47, of Kew Gardens Hills, a hospital paramedic who survived the towers' collapse.

"Here it is, five years later now ... and we're fighting for getting medical coverage as well as for financial compensation," said Bethea, who was healthy before 9/11 but had a stroke five weeks after the terrorist attacks and suffers from asthma, depression and other illnesses. He co-founded the nonprofit group Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes, an organization of 9/11 responders that helps recovery workers.

Bethea and the others held a news conference in front of the PATH station at the trade center site about an hour before Bush was scheduled to speak on the economy a few blocks away at Federal Hall. They are worried that about $75 million set aside for health programs is due to run out by the summer.

The White House had sought to head off controversy before Bush's visit by announcing Monday it would put up an additional $25 million to continue health care programs. That amount could be considered a downpayment on first responders' treatment, the White House said.

But yesterday, though Bethea's group and others such as the Sierra Club expressed gratitude for Bush's first indication he would help, they said the $25 million was not nearly enough to address the need.

Mariama James, who lives near the site, said she and her family became sick after she cleaned dust in their apartment.

"Recovery workers aren't the only people that were affected by this disaster," James said. "There are other people in need of treatment and monitoring." Addressing the president, she said, "I ask that you please consider residents, students, office workers whose lives and health have also been impacted."

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

Federal Money for 9/11 Health Woes Just a Start, Say Survivors

Agence France Presse
January 31, 2007

http://nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/read.php? newsid=30025699

New York - What with the asthma, trauma, depression and 13 medications a day, life has all but stopped for Marvin Bethea, a paramedic who was buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Despite three years off work and several stints in hospital, the 47-year-old still considers himself lucky. "I'm one of the fortunate to have health coverage," he says, laboring between breaths.

Like many others caught up in the September 11 attacks, Bethea wants Washington to do more for the rescuers, volunteers and residents suffering ill health due to their exposure to toxic dust and rubble near Ground Zero.

The first federal funding for those suffering from conditions such as asthma or lung disease was unveiled Tuesday, when President George W. Bush announced 25 million dollars for a program at New York's Mount Sinai hospital.

Bush on Wednesday met Ceasar Borja, the 21-year-old son of a New York cop who died last week of lung problems developed since working at Ground Zero, to discuss the federal measures.

Borja became an instant spokesman for those suffering conditions related to the September 11 attacks when he attended Bush's State of the Union address in Washington last week on the same day his father died.

"I expressed how the funding should be expanded, not for just the heroes and heroines that were present there," Borja told reporters after his talks with Bush, who was in New York to visit the stock exchange.

"Everyone should be taken care of and paid for completely by the federal government," he added.

According to Mount Sinai, which runs a program dedicated to those suffering September 11-related illnesses, 250 million dollars a year are needed to tackle the issue and cope with the volume of patients.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton has requested 1.9 billion dollars in federal money for the care program. "I am grateful for this first step but there is a long road ahead," Clinton said.

Bush said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that no rescuers involved in the 9/11 cleanup operation should be without help, but others have urged the safety net to be spread far wider -- and not just cover rescuers.

"Those who rushed into harm's way were heroes. And they ought to be honored. And I also believe that they ought not to go without health care," Bush said.

"We're going to work with Congress to make sure that those folks who went into harm's way don't go without health care", he added.

But in New York, people like Bethea are still waiting.

"I do appreciate the 25 million that he gave, it's nice, but it's a drop in a bucket," Bethea, who helps run the group "Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes," says. "Twenty-five million is not going to do it... There's a lot of frustration too, because this has been going on for five years."

The former paramedic says he has been to Washington 12 times in the last two years to press the case of September 11 rescuers but was never met by the president.

In the last three years he has been into hospital seven times. He explains that his medication costs 1,100 dollars a month, and although he is covered by health insurance, not everyone is so lucky.

"People are losing their homes, I know this gentleman who had to go with his child's college fund because he had no more money. People get their lights turned off, families are breaking up because finances are a strain on a marriage", he says.

The press has also started to express increased frustration. "It will be up to the president to deliver the real and substantial resources that only the federal government can muster for the heretofore forgotten victims of 9/11", the Daily News said in a recent editorial.

"What About Us?", the Newsday tabloid asked in a front page story featuring a police officer with brain cancer.

Research by Mount Sinai Medical Center released in September found several thousand police officers, firefighters, construction workers, office workers and volunteers were still suffering respiratory problems.

An estimated 40,000 people helped clear debris from the site of the World Trade Center in late 2001 and early 2002, many of whom did not wear face masks.

Scientists believe their symptoms are linked to the fine particles released from the debris and inhaled deep into the lungs.

An autopsy carried out on a 34-year-old police officer last year for the first time established an official link between respiratory complaints and the hours workers spent sifting through the rubble at Ground Zero.

For David Newman, from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, the priorities are to develop long term care for those affected and to properly address the impact on local residents, not just emergency responders.

"What we're faced with fundamentally is a public health crisis," he says.

"It warrants a concerted, rather than a piecemeal public health response."

Contractor Is Cited for Safety

By Greg B. Smith
Daily News
February 1, 2007

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/ 493834p-415902c.html

For the first time, a federal watchdog agency has slapped Ground Zero contractors for not protecting workers from toxic dust.

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration quietly has hit two companies with violations for leaving workers exposed while the ruined former Deutsche Bank building on the edge of the site was being cleaned.

The potential fines are minimal - but the act was yet another sign that the federal bureaucracy is acknowledging that even now, Ground Zero is a minefield of poisons.

Demolition contractor John Galt Inc. was cited on Jan. 23 and security company Tyler-Conner Inc. was cited Jan. 17 after OSHA inspectors discovered workers weren’t properly wearing "fit-tested" respiratory masks while removal of asbestos inside the tower was underway.

The citations, all termed "serious," allege violations were discovered both inside the tower and in a loading area where workers were handling bags of dust-laden debris.

Inspectors said guards could be exposed to dust containing asbestos, lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, PCBs and other toxins if a collapse occurred during demolition. But they were never told how to protect themselves, the agency alleges.

Officials at John Galt, which faces a $1,600 fine, and Tyler-Conner, which was fined $1,050, did not return calls seeking comment. Both companies can contest the fines.

Last spring, Galt also was cited by OSHA for lax job safety conditions when a worker fell into a subbasement and was injured. In October, OSHA agreed to reduce $9,000 in fines to a $1,000 settlement, documents show.

A Dream Comes True for Ceasar

By Ceasar Borja Jr.
Daily News
January 31, 2007

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/ 493756p-415900c.html

The door moved slowly at first, and then it burst wide open. My brother and sister lit up. I was holding a bottle of water to my forehead, and I put it down right away. My mom said, "Oh, my God - it's the President!"

President Bush walked in and held out his hands with a little flourish. He had open arms, bright eyes and a smile on his face. He was human, and he was genuine. He made us feel at ease right away.

He hugged my mother, Eva, first, and gave her his condolences. He recognized me, and he just said, "Ceasar!"

Everything I had hoped for came true.

Our meeting with the President yesterday came exactly a week after I first said I wanted to tell him about all the people who were sick from working at Ground Zero, and how they needed help paying for their health care.

My dad, Cesar Borja, a retired New York City police officer, contracted the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis from working there after 9/11. He died last week, right before I attended the State of the Union address.

I promised my dad then I would keep fighting for all the other people who need health care from 9/11. He would have been so proud to see us there yesterday with the President.

We got to Federal Hall and sat in a small room, where one of his top health aides, Dr. John Agwunobi, came in to talk with us about how the government will figure out the funding for Ground Zero health care.

Then Bush came in and greeted us. He gave each of us a pin and a small coin with the presidential seal; I gave him a Mass card from my dad's funeral. I showed the President some family pictures of us with my dad. Then he got to a picture of my mom kissing my dad's forehead when he was intubated in the intensive care unit.

Bush paused on it, and his face went very serious. He handed it back to me, and I said, "You and the Congress have the power to pass legislation to provide for medical support for all the people who need it."

He said, "You're all right, Ceasar," and he shook my hand.

We thanked him for the $25million he put in the budget for Ground Zero responders. He said something like, "It's only a beginning. It's just a beginning."

I don't want to put words in Bush's mouth by trying to repeat exactly what I remember him saying. But I could tell from his demeanor that he was sincere, and everything he said to us was positive. Nothing was neutral, and best of all, nothing was negative.

My dad didn't get a full inspector's funeral because the NYPD doesn't recognize that he died in the line of duty, and the doctors won't draw a direct connection.

Bush asked us if that made any difference for our benefits - he was really concerned about that. I said we would be taken care of.

But I said, "Mr. President, my father did die in the line of duty because my father's pulmonary fibrosis was directly connected to his service at Ground Zero."

He agreed, saying, "Do these people have a hard time understanding what 'direct link' means?"

My mom says I talked too much during our 15-minute meeting and didn't let the President speak. But the reason we were there was to inform the President about all the people who need help, the rescuers who came to the World Trade Center to help and then got sick, the people who can't pay their bills, the children who still live down there.

I gave him the complete unedited, unabridged version of everything I've been saying for the last two weeks, since the Daily News first published my dad's story.

I said, "Mr. President, my father served and protected the city of New York for 20 years. You can help this. You can help all the families."

Before he left, the President looked at my 16-year-old brother Evan, with his long hair, and said, "You look like a rock star!"

To my 12-year-old sister Nhia, he said, "And you, you look like a movie star!"

Afterward, we went out and spoke to the press with people in Congress who have helped us, like Reps. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens). When they were talking, I looked up at the sky a couple of times. I was looking toward my dad.

I miss my father every single day. I would trade everything that has happened in the last two weeks - going to Washington, meeting the President, being all over the national news - for even just one more hour of my dad being here, just one more second to kiss him on the cheek.

But I know he was so happy we got to speak to the President. I wasn't nervous at the time, because my family was there.

When Bush first came into the room, he told me, "You made the world listen."

My mom told the President, "That's right - he made you listen."

Ceasar Borja Jr. lives in Bayside, Queens. He is a student at Hunter College and plans to major in journalism.

NY College Student Advocates Expanded Health Care for WTC Rescue Workers

By Barbara Schoetzau
Voice of America
January 31, 2007

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-01-31-voa73.cfm

Caesar Borja Jr.'s dream came true Wednesday. The college student met privately with President George Bush to make the case for expanded health care coverage for all workers at the World Trade Center site. Borja's father, a New York City police officer, died waiting for a lung transplant last week. From VOA's New York Bureau, correspondent Barbara Schoetzau has the story.

Borja, 21, believes his father's pulmonary fibrosis was directly linked to the months he spent working at the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attack. Borja believes his father should have received the same burial as police officers who die in the line of duty.

The student at New York's Hunter College has become the human face of a campaign for more federal funding to treat people exposed to toxins at the World Trade Center site.

Borja says he and his family were honored to meet the president, but he would not reveal any of Mr. Bush's comments during the private meeting. Borja says he told the president funding should be expanded to include all responders at the site and downtown residents and should include state of the art medical equipment and the latest drugs.

"I expressed how the funding should be expanded not for just the heroes and heroines, but also those that live in residency around the area," he said. "There are children there and people who rushed to get the city of New York up and running shortly after 9/11 occurred so that our economy would not fail, those businesses from the Mom and Pop pizza shops, bagel stores to Wall Street, from the bottom to the top, to help everyone should they be suffering from any World Trade Center-related illness that they also be taken care of and paid for completely by the federal government."

A study of 1,100 of the more than 11,000 responders and volunteers at the site found that 40 percent had persistent lower respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath and dry coughs, while 50 percent experienced upper respiratory symptoms, including congestion, ear pain and sore throats. About 51 percent had mental health problems.

Borja has become the symbol of the issue. Just two hours after his father died, Borja attended the President's State of the Union address as the guest of New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Tuesday the Bush administration announced it would propose an additional $25 million to fund 9/11 health care programs, but health care advocates say as much a $2 billion may be needed in the long term.

Son of Late Ground Zero Worker Makes Health-Care Plea

Associated Press
February 1, 2007; A03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article / 2007/01/31/AR2007013102344.html

NEW YORK, Jan. 31 -- The son of a Ground Zero rescue worker who died last week of lung disease met with President Bush on Wednesday to urge expansion of health services for those still fighting illnesses.

"On behalf of all World Trade Center victims, I expressed the urgency and the desperate need for financial support for health services," said Ceasar Borja Jr., 21.

He said he told the president that the funding should be expanded not just for "the heroes and heroines" who risked their lives to save victims under the twin towers, but also for people exposed to the fumes because they lived or worked in the area.

Borja's father, Cesar Borja, was a police officer who worked 14-hour days in the smoldering pit after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. He was 52 and awaiting a lung transplant when he died.

Bush met Borja, his mother, Eva, 16-year-old brother Evan and sister Nhia, 12, at Federal Hall in Manhattan, where the president delivered a speech about the economy Wednesday.

About an hour before the speech, sick Sept. 11 workers and neighborhood residents gathered nearby at the edge of Ground Zero to criticize Bush's proposal to spend an additional $25 million to fund a health-care program.

"Twenty-five million is absolutely not enough," said Marvin Bethea, 47, pointing out that some lawmakers, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), have proposed $1.9 billion in additional funds.

"First responders who need treatment will get the treatment they need," Bush spokesman Tony Snow said. "Many are already covered by insurance programs, many through their union; but if there are gaps in that, we're going to do it."

Dead Officer’s Son Asks Bush to Increase Aid to 9/11 Workers

By Maria Newman
New York Times
January 31, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/nyregion/31cnd-borja.html

After meeting with President Bush today, the son of a former police officer who died last week from an illness that may have been linked to his rescue work at the World Trade Center on 9/11 said Mr. Bush had assured him that he wanted to expand federal financing for the medical needs of people injured at ground zero.

“I’m not quoting Mr. President, but what I heard is that there will be more support,” Cesar Borja Jr., 21, said in describing his meeting with the president. “I felt a dedication. I felt the motivation and appreciation as well that the president has for my father, my family and myself for coming this far.”

Cesar Borja Sr., 52, died of a lung disease hours before his son attended the State of the Union address last week in Washington to draw attention to the plight of 9/11 rescue workers like him who became ill after they were exposed to toxic dust at ground zero.

The day after he died, his son asked for a meeting with the president to tell him about the health problems of ground zero workers. The president agreed to meet with him today, just after he delivered a speech on the economy at New York’s Federal Hall, which is located near the World Trade Center.

The meeting came a day after the president proposed spending an additional $25 million on a health-care program related to 9/11 at Mount Sinai Medical Center and a similar effort for New York firefighters.

Officials warned last month that money for those two major monitoring and treatment programs would run out in a matter of months.

Mr. Borja said he appreciated the president’s meeting with him and his mother, Eva; his brother, Evan; and his sister, Nhia.

“I expressed how the funding should be expanded not just for the heroes and heroines that without hesitation ran to save, rescue and ensure a future for all of the lives that they would find there that they could bring home,” Mr. Borja said in a news conference after the meeting.

He said he was also speaking up for people who lived and worked near the World Trade Center when it was attacked who cannot pay for treatment of the illnesses they may have contracted as a result of their proximity to the disaster.

“My father was fortunate to have his own health insurance and his own pension,” Mr. Borja said. “But there are those what have to pay out of their own wallets for health monitoring, for doctors’ appointments, for medicine.”

The elder Mr. Borja died of pulmonary fibrosis, a type of chronic lung disorder that involves scarring of the tissue between the air sacs. He was enrolled in a monitoring and treatment program for ground zero workers and had been accepted as a potential candidate for a lung transplant, but his critical condition, complicated by infection, precluded him being listed to receive a lung, his physician, Dr. Maria L. Padilla, told The Times last week.

The younger Mr. Borja, a college student, has been active in asking for more federal money for treatment of 9/11 workers. He was invited to attend the State of the Union address as a guest of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In Washington, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said the president was eager to fill any gaps in coverage for people left ill by the attacks.

“First responders who need treatment will get the treatment they need,” Mr. Snow said. “Many are already covered by insurance programs, many through their union; but if there are gaps in that, we’re going to do it.”

Just before the president spoke today, about a dozen people rallied near the site of his speech to criticize what they said was inadequate financing for their problems.

One of those at the rally was Mariama James, who lives four blocks from the World Trade Center and has three children with health problems she attributes to the aftermath of Sept. 11, The Associated Press said. Ms. James said she spent $480 a month for their allergy, sinusitis and asthma medicines.

“You have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to protect us from those who would do us harm,” The A.P. quoted her as saying about Mr. Bush. “We ask that you protect us from those who did us harm. The $25 million is not enough even for the needs of the workers.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

AT LAST Ceasar's Dignity Shames White House into Helping 9/11's Forgotten Heroes

By David Saltonstall and Adam Lisberg
Daily News
January 31, 2007

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/493525p-415619c.html

It took a grieving 21-year-old, mourning the loss of his World Trade Center cop father, to finally shame President Bush yesterday into helping other forgotten heroes of 9/11.

The White House ended years of foot-dragging by budgeting $25 million to help ailing Ground Zero workers, making the announcement just before Bush is to meet today with Ceasar Borja Jr., the son of a cop who died after breathing the toxic air there for months.

"I want the President to know that he has to take care of these people, because many more will die," Borja told the Daily News yesterday in his Bayside, Queens, home, moments after getting the news. "Any sum of money is a help, and I just hope that it continues."

New York's lawmakers have relentlessly pounded Bush to fund World Trade Center-related illness for years.

But it was Borja, the earnest and dignified college-age son of a cop who died in his prime, who put an undeniably human face on the issue.

He drew the sympathy of the nation last week when, just hours after his 52-year-old father Cesar Borja died of lung disease, he chose to attend the State of the Union address to draw attention to sick 9/11 workers. And he put the White House on the spot when he asked to tell his story directly to Bush.

"If it took the death of a police officer to get the money and to get the President to sit down with one of us, my hat goes off to [Borja]," said disabled paramedic Marvin Bethea, who has traveled to Washington a dozen times to push for 9/11 health funds and never met the President. "I'm glad that the President is listening to someone."

Borja promised his dying father he would fight for every suffering 9/11 worker. Although the $25 million is a victory, he said, he plans to tell Bush in a private sitdown today that the sick and the dying need much more.

Bush will meet Borja after giving a speech on the economy this morning at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan - while others suffering from 9/11 rally a few blocks away at Ground Zero.

"Mr. President, you can help this," Borja said. "You can be the hero by helping every single person so they won't be like this last picture."

Borja was holding a Daily News picture of his unconscious dad in his Mount Sinai Medical Center hospital bed, one of several that he plans to give to Bush. He hopes his mother, Eva; brother, Evan, 16, and sister Nhia, 12, also get to meet the President.

"I would love for the President to see in the flesh the family members left behind," Borja said. "It's definitely an honor, don't get me wrong. I'm really excited to meet the President. I know my father is flipping out right now."

The victory is just a first step, experts cautioned.

Advocates said $25 million is just a fraction of what it will cost to treat the looming health crisis among the thousands of sick cops, firefighters, construction workers, volunteers and others who labored there amid chemical smoke and contaminated dust.

"We fully expect to be out of funds by the end of this summer," said Dr. Jacqueline Moline of Mount Sinai Medical Center's World Trade Center health program. "There are 34,000 patients that are supposed to be treated with the $25 million, and that's not going to go very far."

Health experts estimate the hospital needs $250 million a year to treat sick workers, and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has called for $1.9 billion in funding over several years.

The federal Office of Management and Budget said the $25 million was just "a starting point" toward paying for Ground Zero health care - and that once it's in the President's budget, it will always be in line for federal funds.

"We will make sure that no Ground Zero worker lacks care because of funding," said OMB spokesman Sean Kevelighan.

Lawmakers who have pushed for federal money for health care say they are glad Bush finally recognizes the problem - even belatedly.

"We should not have had to wait more than five years and [suffered] a series of very visible and horrible deaths before we finally got the administration to react," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan). "But we are glad they have."

Added Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.), "It acknowledges that there is truly a federal component and a federal responsibility to help."

New York City's Law Department has challenged the legal claims of many sick 9/11 workers, but Mayor Bloomberg called the new funding "encouraging."

"Programs like those," Bloomberg said, "will need vastly more support from Washington."

With Kenneth R. Bazinet

Bush at Last Accepts a Nation's Debt

Daily News editorial
January 31, 2007

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/493582p-415591c.html

By order of President Bush, the United States government now recognizes, for the first time, an obligation to provide for the forgotten victims of 9/11, those men and women who did their duty after an act of war and suffered the loss of their health or their lives. This could not be any other way.

In the budget he proposes next week, the President will include $25 million to enable doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center and in the Fire Department to continue treating sickened Ground Zero responders through much of 2007. The money will be put to critical use, but it is of even greater symbolic importance as an acknowledgment of a national debt long overdue.

The White House put out word of Bush's commitment on the eve of a visit to New York during which the President is scheduled to meet with Ceasar Borja, son of a New York City police officer who served around the rubble of the World Trade Center and who died last week of pulmonary fibrosis. It was young Borja who put a face on the suffering of thousands of responders and their families by attending the State of the Union address - coincidentally, on the day his father died.

Borja's eloquent presence added powerful impetus to efforts by many, including this newspaper, to convince the administration that Ground Zero workers had, in fact, fallen victim to an epidemic of lung diseases; that many were, in fact, poorly served by health care systems, and that, in fact and fairness, America owed them.

Until now, it has required Sisyphean labor to pry loose funds from the federal government; those moneys that did arrive were grudgingly given to placate insistent members of Congress, notably Sen. Hillary Clinton and Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella, who have long fought the good fight. Only last year, as the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approached, did the Bush administration, under intense pressure, come through with dollars dedicated to treating the sick.

What a happy change it was, then, that Robert Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, went to Capitol Hill yesterday to brief Fossella (R-S.I.) and Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) on Bush's decision to devote a federal budget line to 9/11 health care, and to fill it with a down payment of $25 million.

According to Fossella, Portman described the money as just a "placeholder," and, indeed, the two treatment programs will run through it in a matter of months. But, based on Portman's assurances, Fossella added, "I am led to believe that whatever is necessary will be there. Portman was saying, 'We will be there, we are acknowledging a federal responsibility.'"

Greatly encouraging, too, was the fact that Portman went to Congress with Dr. John Agwunobe, who, as a top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, is drafting a federal plan for 9/11-related health care. The needs are concentrated in the New York City area, but they stretch across the country because men and women from at least 35 states answered the call when the twin towers fell.

King quoted Agwunobe as stating there is no doubt rescue and recovery workers suffered lasting injuries and illnesses because they breathed the toxic cloud that hung over Ground Zero. In and of itself, Agwunobe's acknowledgment was a breakthrough.

Of course, there still remains the question of how much money Bush eventually will be willing to spend. Providing highly specialized treatment, both inpatient and outpatient, to thousands of people for all-too-common conditions like asthma, persistent bronchitis, relentless shortness of breath and potentially fatal interstitial lung diseases will be extraordinarily expensive. So, too, the task of monitoring this population for cancers, such as leukemia, that are expected to emerge because of exposure to airborne carcinogens. By Clinton's estimation, figure on roughly $400 million a year.

Whether Bush ultimately meets, in true and just depth, his presidential responsibility to dutiful Americans, citizens who were allowed to become the walking wounded of the war on terror, will become clear with the presentation next month of his administration's plan. He must be generous. He must be unstinting. He must commit for the long term.

It was gracious of the President to agree to meet Borja, who will come representing thousands, including some, like his father, who can no longer speak for themselves. The young man will do his best to respectfully impress upon Bush the need for comprehensive health care funding. Grateful for the promise of $25 million, he will ask the President for more than symbolism. And it will be up to the President to deliver the real and substantial resources that only the federal government can muster for the heretofore forgotten victims of 9/11.

You can e-mail the Daily News editors at voicers@edit.nydailynews.com. Please include your full name, address and phone number. The Daily News reserves the right to edit letters. The shorter the letter, the better the chance it will be used.

9/11 Responders Emotional Pleas: Message to Bush, from Their Hearts

By Ellis Henican
Newsday
January 31, 2007

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen315073940jan31,0,5672928.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

It was 5 years, 4 months and 17 days ago. But it might as well have been a million, so much has changed since then.

We're going back into ancient history here - Sept. 14, 2001 - back to when President George W. Bush could speak into a bullhorn in the smoldering pit of Ground Zero and actually stir a whole nation with his words.

The pit isn't smoldering any more. But it is still a pit. And before Bush returns to New York this morning, I needed one last time to soak up the fleeting feeling of that long-ago day, a day whose power and majesty have not been repeated in the 5 years, 4 months and 17 days since.

So yesterday afternoon, I was back at the fence at Ground Zero. The day was biting, but I kept my hands in my pockets and my hat pulled low. I held my breath and stared for several long minutes into the hole. I listened as carefully as I could.

I swear I could hear the president's words again, echoing out of his bullhorn.

A bunch of cops, paramedics, firefighters and construction guys were down there with him. Bush was talking to them - and to us. He wasn't shouting. He wasn't especially dramatic or loud. But his words had an authority and a directness he has never been able to muster again.

Someone from the crowd called out: "We can't hear you! "

Bush answered with what just might be the 25 most memorable words of his presidency.

"I can hear you," the president said on that defiant and hopeful day. "The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. "

How long ago was that?

It was so long ago the whole world loved us then. So long ago, it was before we went to war with Saddam and let Osama get away. It was before Sunni and Shia were fighting each other in Iraq, before we had any idea how impossible that country was to get out of.

Before "weapons of mass destruction" and "Mission Accomplished" and "Wanted: Dead or Alive. " Before the president's approval rating had fallen 55 points.

I wanted to remember that feeling again.

This presidential visit wasn't supposed to be about 9/11 at all. Bush is coming to Wall Street to talk about the economy at Federal Hall.

But Ceasar Borja Jr. changed that, almost single-handedly. A 21-year-old student at Hunter College, Ceasar is the son of Cesar Borja, a police officer who worked 14-hour days in the pit at Ground Zero in the weeks and months after the terror attacks.

Like so many others who'd done that work, the father, at 52, had turned desperately ill. Last week, he was clinging to life, awaiting a lung transplant.

The son went to Washington for Bush's State of the Union address. He was there as a guest of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But on the day of the speech, he got a terrible piece of news - his hero of a dad had lost his fight.

The son never got a chance to talk with Bush in Washington. But he may get that chance today. And word came from the White House that the president's new budget proposal may include a fresh $25 million for sick 9/11 workers.

But as those details were still being sorted out, Ceasar Borja and some friends were making plans of their own. At 10 o'clock this morning, they decided, they'll be right where I was yesterday, outside the pit at Ground Zero.

Some other people from the pit will be there, too. Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo. Paramedic Marvin Bethea. Jean Marie DeBiase, whose late husband Mark was a communications worker at Ground Zero. Alex Sanchez and Manuel Checo, two building cleanup workers. Jonathan Bennett from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. [Note: This reference to Jonathan Bennett as having worked at the WTC site was the result of an editorial mistake on the part of Newsday. Bennett never told anyone he worked at the pit, nor is he the source of the quote that follows.]

"Five years after 9/11, the federal government still has no long-term plan to monitor the health of Ground Zero responders," Bennett said.

Will President Bush hear their pleas? Will the rest of the world?

Will the people who knocked down the towers, wherever they are?

We may know more today.

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

Short Shrift for 9/11 Victims: The Shame on Our Doorstep

By James McCaffrey
The Chief-Leader
February 2, 2007

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/0202/News/018.html

As another holiday season fades from memory and we embark upon a new year, we cannot forget where we have gone wrong at Ground Zero. Two areas in particular are foremost in that failure.

First of these two is the issue regarding the listing of those killed on the final memorial. A recent proposal by Mayor Bloomberg would have many think that the issue has satisfied all concerned. However, this proposal is simply a step in the right direction. Despite some support by one of the fire unions, there is still widespread opposition, as it falls far short of what the majority of 9/11 families and Americans have long sought. Numerous polls, petitions, and rallies have demonstrated this position.

Stripped of Their Rank

The latest design does group the rescue workers together in some fashion by their respective units. But those same rescue workers will not be identified by their department or by a paramilitary descending order of rank as has always been requested. Since when do we strip heroes of their appropriate rank and designation? Such ignominy should be reserved for prisoners and the like, not for heroes whom we say we will never forget. When everyday Americans, and in particular military veterans, hear of this denial, they are astonished and saddened. They all ask the same question: "Why not?"

Additionally, most civilian family groups will receive no designation whatsoever. Whom or what does it offend to provide these families with the designation that they wish for their lost loved ones? One argument says that if we gave the rank to the first responders then we would have to give myriad titles to the civilians. This is patently false. Most civilian family groups simply want their loved ones' employer designation with their age and the floor they worked on within the associated tower, which is a fairly modest request. A proposal hammered out over two years ago by the groups representing both rescue worker and civilian families and given to numerous officials bears this out.

Search An Abomination

The second issue is that of the continuing search for human remains. This "search" has become nothing short of an abomination. How many more ways can the city invent to twist the dagger that is still lodged in the heart of every family member?

In November 2001, officials said that no more remains could be found. Whatever hadn't been found by then was surely incinerated. The next six months of recoveries proved how wrong they were then. Fast forward to early 2006. As the Deutsche Bank Building is being demolished, hundreds of remains are found, at a building that the city said had been searched properly. Families again have to beg the city to perform an extensive search of the entire Ground Zero area. They request a unit such as the military unit known as JPAC (Joint POW/Accounting Command). The city again says they have searched every area necessary and that no outside help is required.

Later that year, in October, a Con Edison crew during a routine manhole cleaning operation discovered hundreds more remains under the service road on the western edge of Ground Zero. Imagine that dagger again as families realize that remains of 9/11 dead have been sucked up by a utility vacuum truck. The city has expanded the search somewhat after these incidents, but it is still a piecemeal, hit-and-miss approach.

The city obviously has its reasons for avoiding a comprehensive search. One reason to be sure is that they view such a search as representative of an unacceptable delay in the re-development of the site. But how can re-development take place when the human remains of the 9/11 dead are still being found and when it is likely that they will continue to be found? That fact alone is more than enough to vitiate the argument that the location in question is Lower Manhattan and re-development must be paramount. Besides, much of the delays that have taken place over the last five years can be attributed to those supposedly in charge, not to the families or the search for remains.

Paving Over the Dead

A basic tenet of civilized societies is that one does not desecrate either a battlefield or a burial ground. Ground Zero happens to be both. Building over and paving over the dead is tantamount to desecration. What have we become as a nation and as a society, when such as this is allowed? One would think that simple human decency and dignity would prevail.

It is time to strip the patina that has shrouded these issues. History is watching us. If we fail to record the truth of what happened on 9/11 and continue to attempt revisions to those events, history should - and must - judge harshly those responsible. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were manifest in just three locations, but it was all of America that was attacked. And it is all of America that we will fail if we continue on this path.

It is not too late. Let us honor those who fell by first recovering their remains in a dignified fashion. And then, on the memorial, appropriately and fully honor their memory. For this is not just a memorial to the fallen, it is a memorial for all Americans and one that must stand the test of time. One hundred years from now, one must not have to wonder who was a firefighter or a police officer or a bond trader. It should be a memorial that simply yet powerfully lets that individual know automatically. It is time to tell the story of 9/11, and it is time to tell it correctly. America and history demand it.

Editor's note: Mr. McCaffrey is a Lieutenant in the Fire Department and co-chair of the Advocates for a 9/11 Fallen Heroes Memorial. His brother-in-law, Battalion Chief Orio J. Palmer, was among those killed at the World Trade Center whose remains have not been recovered.

Bush's Budget Proposes Adding 9/11 Health Funds

By Devlin Barrett
Associated Press
January 30, 2007

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/am-responders
0131,0,4613201.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration plans to keep funding health programs for sick ground zero workers, enough to keep the effort alive at least through 2007, the White House said Tuesday.

The administration next week will propose spending at least $25 million more to fund a Sept. 11-related health care program at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan and a related effort for New York firefighters.

White House officials said they would consider providing more money, depending on the findings of a separate government task force that is examining Sept. 11-related health issues.

"We consider this a good starting point," said White House budget spokesman Sean Kevelighan.

Rep. Vito Fossella, R-Staten Island, called the news "a breakthrough" after years of seeking more help from the government.

"For the first time in the federal budget there will be a down payment to provide for funding for continued treatment and monitoring for Sept. 11 responders who need our help," Fossella said.

Word of the new money came a day before the president was to speak in New York about the economy, and sick Sept. 11 workers planned a rally timed to the visit. It was also a week before Bush offers his budget proposal to Congress.

The issue gained new attention just last week when a former New York City police officer died of lung problems, more than five years after he worked at ground zero.

Cesar Borja, 52, died awaiting a lung transplant. His son, Ceasar Borja, Jr., 21, was tentatively scheduled to meet with the president in New York on Wednesday to discuss Sept. 11 health issues, but no specific time was given.

The son, a college student, attended Bush's annual State of the Union address to Congress last week -- hours after his father's death -- to call attention to the issue.

Fossella said he learned of the additional funding in a Tuesday morning meeting with the head of the White House budget office, Rob Portman. Two other New York Republicans, Peter King, of Long Island, and James Walsh, of Syracuse, also attended the meeting.

The White House often gives lawmakers advance notice of good news contained in the budget proposal, which must still be approved by Congress.

Fossella and Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan have spent years lobbying for Sept. 11 health funding. Maloney, D-N.Y., called the move "long overdue," adding that the health programs should treat "all those exposed and affected," including lower Manhattan residents.

The $25 million figure would probably change after the administration gets more details from the hospital and New York City about their patients, and Fossella said the goal was not to hit a specific dollar target but to continue treating those patients.

The government delivered $75 million for the programs last year, but health advocates had warned that money was due to run out by the summer.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes ground zero, said the $25 million was a "first step forward" in getting the government to respond to the health needs but argued the dollar figure was grossly inadequate.

Under the new White House proposal, those programs would remain funded through the end of the year -- and their inclusion in the president's budget suggests it may be easier to continue funding through future years.

"Obviously, it's going to cost more than $25 million," said King. "But in the course of the last year, they've seen the health problems arising from 9/11, so now the only question is what is the extent of it and how to meet those needs."

The death last week of Officer Borja is one of several fatalities that have generated increasing public pressure for the government to do more for those who are still sick years after working on the toxic debris pile at the World Trade Center site.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has called for a $1.9 billion federal effort to provide years of treatment to those sick workers.

Mount Sinai, which has screened some 19,000 such workers, released a report last year finding nearly seven out of every