NY City Council Passes Asbestos Oversight and Firefighter Safety Bills

On Tuesday, May 12th, in a move designed to protect firefighters and first responders from various building hazards including asbestos, the New York City Council passed 12 bills that will increase oversight at demolition and asbestos abatement sites.

The bills were prompted by the fatal, seven-alarm fire on August 17, 2007 at the Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan - a blaze that killed two firefighters (Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia) and injured 105 - and are aimed at what a New York Fire Department report calls "a perfect storm of negligence and tragic mistakes", which included firefighters using their oxygen tanks too long, removing face pieces inside the building, and ignoring posted warnings.

An even greater lapse was that it took construction workers 13 minutes to report the fire, apparently started by a lit cigarette carelessly thrown in the debris, even though smoking was not allowed, and the fact that the two deaths were a result of a stairwell being improperly blocked off. To top it off, a standpipe that was to have provided water to upper floors to quench the fire had been cut, leaving firefighters few options in containing the fire, which burned through nine asbestos-laden floors.

The new laws require special permits for high-risk asbestos abatement, as represented by the Deutsche Bank deconstruction, and prohibit workers from engaging simultaneously in asbestos abatement and demolition at the same site. Other provisions include color-coded standpipes and an alarm system in non-functioning (dry) standpipes during both construction and demolition.

The new legislation does not apply to federal and state buildings, according to Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler. It does, however, insure that New York City's Buildings, Fire and Environmental Protection departments share inspection data on all phases of building operation, including new construction, asbestos abatement and deconstruction.

As New York Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta noted, the ruling will help insure that firemen and first responders are aware of serious problems before they enter a building. Had the ruling been in place two years ago, lives would have been saved.

The December 2008 indictments of a construction company and three supervisors in connection with the fire was the inducement behind the 12 new bills, which represent an agreement between the city and prosecutors over liability issues. The indictments, of the John Galt Corp., Jeffrey Melofchik, Mitchel Alvo, and Salvatore DePaola, charge that all were jointly and severally responsible for the deaths of the firemen on charges of negligent homicide and reckless endangerment.

The indictments and the new laws will not replace the dead, but as Joseph Graffagnino Sr., the father of one dead fireman, notes, "They will go a long way toward ensuring this does not happen to other firefighters."

Unfortunately, much of the damage has already been done. As tests from the World Trade Center cleanup prove, asbestos is virtually indestructible. Every piece of asbestos ever mined and manufactured into a product remains in the environment. In Manhattan, where 9/11 spread contaminated debris over an entire borough, the residents face the potential for developing a number of asbestos-related diseases, including asbestosis, cancers of the digestive tract, and mesothelioma, a subtle killer which remains dormant for decades and then explodes into lethal tumors. Victims diagnosed with mesothelioma are commonly given less than 18 month to live.

Firefighters who responded to the Deutsche Bank fire and set aside their masks in the smoky upper hallways may already be harboring asbestos' lethal and virtually invisible fibers inside their bodies. Like firefighters who responded on 9/11, where 5,000 tons of asbestos fibers entered the air, they may eventually develop what health officials now call "Ground Zero cough", a sure sign that asbestos is doing its ugly work.

The New York City regulations stand as an example to other cities, both in the prevention of asbestos-related diseases and as a protective shield owed to firefighters and other first responders who put their lives on the line every day.

Source: New York Daily News

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