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    The other day we saw a letter from the US EPA accusing LMDC of abandoning "the review and acceptance process"  (Click Here).  The impression was that LMDC no longer wished to submit any new modifications of the already reviewed and accepted plans to the US EPA but only to NYS DOL. US EPA was concerned that LMDC did not want any more US EPA oversight.  Is recalcitrance to regulatory oversight something novel with regard to the deconstruction - decontamination of 130 Liberty Street?

    In December of 2006 it was reported in the newspapers (Click Here) that, John Galt, a subcontractor of Bovis, walked off the 130 Liberty Street job.  The politicians panicked.  Mayor "the bloom is off the berg" Bloomberg called an extraordinary meeting of the parties involved. On January 29, 2007, at the extraordinary meeting, a deal was hashed out.  The politicians capitulated.  More money was given or promised to Bovis and John Galt.  It was only with the release of the August 22, 2007 letter of James Abadie, the Principal-in-Charge of Bovis Lend Lease LMB, Inc. that we learn that the walk-out was because of their perception of "inordinate regulatory interference".  The politicians apparently bought into the argument of  "inordinate regulatory interference" and, as result, capitulated with more money or the promise of more money. John Galt went back to work.

    So isn't it ironic that Mayor "the bloom is off the berg" Bloomberg would lash out against three fire officers for not enough FDNY "regulatory interference" when he had already bought into the argument in January 2007 that there was "inordinate regulatory interference"?  Can Mayor "the bloom is off the berg" Bloomberg have it both ways? Surely he knows by now that FDNY was not one of the Regulators (Click Here). Imagine what the complaints would have been if FDNY had been invited to be one of the Regulators on the project! I'll bet ya' that the politicians did not want to throw any more Regulators into the Deutsche  Bank mix of regulators after they started hearing complaints from the contractors about "inordinate regulatory interference". More regulators meant increased costs.  I wonder when complaints about "inordinate regulatory interference" began to be made? Is there a correlation between the start of complaints about "inordinate regulatory interference" and the stopping of FDNY inspections of the toxic Deutsche Bank Building? I wonder? Recall that FDNY really had no jurisdiction over the toxic Deutsche building in the first place (Click Here). Without jurisdiction and with the escalating complaints of "inordinate regulatory interference" , why should the contractors be seeing FDNY at all? Keep in mind that on 6/14/2006 - six months before Captain Peter Bosco arrived at Engine 10 - Don Adler of John Galt Corp., the demolition sub-contractor for the toxic Deutsche Bank Building, proclaimed that the Deutsche Bank Building was not subject to any regulations. (See, 6/14/2006 Report of Bob FitzPatrick, Environmental Scientist, New York City Response and Recovery Operation by clicking here).

Hmmm. The pieces are slowly starting to fit together in this toxic puzzle.