A retired NYPD detective who worked for the elite Emergency Service Unit died early yesterday of pancreatic and lung cancer believed to be related to his work at Ground Zero.
Retired Detective Robert Williamson, 45, died at his Orange County home with family around him, said Detectives Endowment Association head Michael Palladino.
Rescue workers and firefighters contracted a serious lung-scarring disease called sarcoidosis at a much higher rate after the Sept. 11 attacks than before, said a study that is the first to link the disease to exposure to toxic dust at ground zero.
The study, published by nine doctors including the medical officer monitoring city firefighters, Dr. David Prezant, found that firefighters and rescue workers contracted sarcoidosis in the year after Sept. 11, 2001, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the attacks.
A federal appellate court has decided that it was not “conscience-shocking” for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to have reassured New Yorkers that the air near ground zero was safe following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, even if the air was toxic.
Yesterday’s decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throws out a lawsuit against a former leader of the EPA, Christine Whitman.
The panel of three judges reasoned that the government’s interest in returning New York to normalcy following the attacks should protect it from lawsuits alleging that the government made false statements about air quality. The court did not make any factual finding as to the quality of the air, or as to whether the EPA had intentionally misled the public, which Ms. Whitman has denied doing.
An appeals court ruling could spell trouble for New Yorkers suing the Environmental Protection Agency and its former chief for saying that sooty Lower Manhattan air was safe to breathe after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
A three judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared this week that EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other agency officials can’t be held constitutionally liable for making rosy declarations about air quality in the days following the World Trade Center’s destruction.
The opinion, written by the court’s chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, said opening EPA workers up to lawsuits for giving out bad information during a crisis could have a catastrophic side effect.
“Officials might default to silence in the face of the public’s urgent need for information,” Jacobs wrote.
The court’s decision to throw out a suit brought against then-EPA head Christie Whitman, infuriated lawyer David Worby, who represents thousands of first responders and construction workers who are suing the city.
“There was 400,000 pounds of asbestos, 91,000 liters of burning jet fuels, 125,000 gallons of burning Con Ed transformer oils with PCBs in it, 500,000 units of mercury 200,000 pounds of led, among other things,” Worby said. “Should she be let off the hook for saying that was safe? I don’t think so.”
The decision will have varying effects. Residents who sued Whitman may not have a leg to stand on, but ground zero workers who have charged labor law violations still have a case – at least for now.