PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by James Brosi, President of New York City Fire Officers Association
1:35:22
ยท
3 min
James Brosi, representing the New York City Fire Officers Association, testified in support of the investigation into the 9/11 environmental hazards and the release of related records. He shared personal experiences as a 9/11 responder and emphasized the importance of transparency from the government regarding the toxic conditions at Ground Zero.
- Brosi urged the Department of Investigation to find resources for this crucial investigation, despite the time that has passed.
- He highlighted the discrepancy between the actual dangerous conditions at Ground Zero and the public reports of acceptable air quality.
- Brosi criticized the government's lack of transparency and record-keeping, emphasizing the need for this information to better understand and address the health impacts on 9/11 responders and survivors.
James Brosi
1:35:22
Good morning, Chair Breaux.
1:35:23
My name is James Brosi.
1:35:24
I represent the New York City, New York City Fire Officers Association.
1:35:27
And I would like to thank you and the council for taking this, very specific issue up on behalf of all of us and all the people who live and worked in and around ground 0.
1:35:37
I would also say that I would implore the the Department of Investigation to find the resources to take on this investigation.
1:35:44
While it may be more difficult based on the amount of time that has passed, it is one of the most important things you can do for the transparency of government.
1:35:51
I don't stand here just as a representative of the 75100 offices that I represent, but also as a person who had lost a family member in 911, whose father has succumb to 4 cancers associated with 911, whose brother has significant respiratory issues, and I myself was a 911 responder.
1:36:08
And I can share with you as I spent my time on the pile only very few days after 911 as I stood on West Street standing on the second floor looking at the pile as I waited for one of my fellow firefighters to look through a marble notebook to see if his brother had been listed as a killed in action or killed in duty member, because that's how rudimentary the process had become.
1:36:30
And as I stood there, I was approached by a member in full respiratory protection, something that was nothing, nowhere near available to our members while we were down there.
1:36:37
And that member came to me without any knowing who I was other than being a firefighter and said, you need to get out of this building.
1:36:43
I said, why is that?
1:36:44
As I stood on 4 inches of ash and he said, because the toxicity inside the building is is very dangerous to your health.
1:36:51
We just had a meeting with the Department of Enviro Environmental Protection, OEM in the city, and we're ordering all people outside the building without respiratory protection.
1:37:00
Do yourself a favor.
1:37:01
Get outside and get respiratory protection.
1:37:04
Ironically, by the time I returned to my car about 9 o'clock that night, 10:10 Winds was reporting that the air quality south of Canal Street was acceptable.
1:37:12
Anybody who spent a minute down there knew that it was anything less than acceptable.
1:37:15
And anybody who knows what's happened here, when your excuses for not producing documentation, when the New York City Fire Department maintains routine records of who's on duty for over 20 years, and you're telling me the most significant attack on American soil didn't give anybody in city government wherewithal not only to save the records, but to have those records on file, to know the exposures that we that we subjected our people to so we would be better reverse engineer how we would early detect these cancers.
1:37:43
We can't undo do the exposure that you've put us under.
1:37:46
We can't stop the hundreds of people who have died since 911, but what we can do is at least expose these records, find out where the government failure occurred if it did, and if there is further information that could better target the things that are killing our people to increase their lives, to increase their quality of life, then shame on us for not doing it.
1:38:04
The reason people don't trust government is because our own government has put 10 obstacles in the way just to see the records.
1:38:10
How dare they?
1:38:12
We did the work.
1:38:13
I'll say as first responders that we knew there was risk.
1:38:15
I'll say that we measured that risk and we measured against what our duty was and what you asked us to do.
1:38:20
But how dare they not release the records?
1:38:22
How dare this become a staffing issue?
1:38:24
And how dare somebody tell me that the buildings were lost in a building records were lost in a building that collapsed in the same day in which the event had occurred?
1:38:32
We are reasonable people, but we're expecting a reasonable response from government.
1:38:36
I can't thank you enough for taking this up.
1:38:38
I know it's a a bit of an end around and a very limited use of this tactic, if not the first time.
1:38:43
But I appreciate your creativity and I appreciate you spearheading this and I appreciate your constant support for the firefighters and first responders in New York City.
1:38:51
Thank you.