Money for vics must be available for yrs. to come
Like everyone in the 9/11 community, I anxiously awaited Friday's announcement of the new policies and deep financial cuts to current and future claims to the Victim Compensation Fund. These catastrophic reductions, while necessary at this time, are a devastating blow. On 9/11, I was an FDNY first responder, and then I joined the effort at Ground Zero for many months. The Environmental Protection Agency, a federal entity, had proclaimed to the world that the air was “safe to breathe.”
Consequently, roughly 425,000 citizens — first responders, workers and residents — were exposed to a host of carcinogens. In an effort to proclaim to the terrorists that America was resilient, Wall Street was quickly reopened, children and teachers and support staff were pushed back into schools in the downtown area prematurely, and residents urged to return to their homes and clean up the debris.
In the years immediately after 9/11, a wave of illnesses swept over many of my first responder colleagues — and others who suffered unwitting exposure as well.
Many were stricken with respiratory diseases or cancers that progressed with vicious speed — some so fast doctors called it “cancer on steroids.”
With so many struggling, I began work as a fire union lobbyist for passage of the Zadroga Act, which would help 9/11-stricken families get some relief.
On Friday, as the announcement was made about VCF cuts, I remembered the many times sick and dying first responders from New York and surrounding areas would pile onto buses to drive to Washington, D.C., and lobby for money to set up the compensation fund.
They didn't do it for themselves — for many of them, it was already too late.
But they went all the same, to lobby on behalf of future victims. They understood that the No. 1 concern for most of the afflicted was access to financial compensation so families could be secure. None of them wanted to see families drained of stability in order to pay enormous medical bills.
That vision and that dream has now been shattered.
I feel a personal sense of failure that we weren't able to persuade Congress to allot sufficient money to take care of all those who were exposed to the World Trade Center toxins.
Although $7.3 billion might sound like a sufficient sum, those of us who witnessed the tragic effects of such exposure firsthand always knew it would not be enough.
But I don't place the blame for Friday's decision to slash payouts on the special master, who is mandated by the law to ensure the viability of the fund to its current termination date of Dec. 18, 2020.
Congress never envisioned the exponential growth of 9/11-related respiratory disease and cancers, which often take a decade or longer to manifest themselves. Doctors at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not realize how many people would die from these toxins.
If the current trend continues, there will be thousands of victims whose families will be financially devastated without the promised safety net of compensation by their federal government.
This is why Congress must reauthorize and replenish the Victim Compensation Fund now, and not wait until the 2020 deadline.
Rich Alles is a retired FDNY deputy chief and now a 9/11 community advocate. He will be in Washington, D.C., next week to begin yet another round of lobbying to extend funding of the VCF.