Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Wednesday, March 19, 2014
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Fukushima Fallout: Ailing U.S. Sailors Sue TEPCO After Exposure to Radiation 30x Higher Than Normal
Three years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, scores of U.S. sailors and marines are suing the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, for allegedly misleading the Navy about the level of radioactive contamination. Many of the servicemembers who provided humanitarian relief during the disaster have experienced devastating health ailments since returning from Japan, ranging from leukemia to blindness to infertility to birth defects. We are joined by three guests: Lieutenant Steve Simmons, a U.S. Navy sailor who served on board the USS Ronald Reagan and joined in the class action lawsuit against TEPCO after suffering health problems; Charles Bonner, an attorney for the sailors; and Kyle Cleveland, sociology professor and associate director of the Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo. Cleveland recently published transcripts of the Navy’s phone conversations about Fukushima that took place at the time of the disaster, which suggest commanders were also aware of the risk faced by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Three years ago this month, our next guest, Navy Lieutenant Steve Simmons was stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan off the coast of Japan. The aircraft carrier provided humanitarian assistance in the days after the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s northeast coast. Simmons, along with thousands of other emergency responders on the USS Reagan, were diverted from their naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean and steered to Japan’s decimated coastline to distribute food parcels, clothes and blankets to victims. At the time, they were unaware they were entering into an unprecedented nuclear crisis: a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
AMY GOODMAN: Shortly after returning home, Steve Simmons blacked out while driving. Then he began regularly experiencing gastrointestinal problems and soaring fevers. Within months, Simmons’ legs buckled. He was no longer able to walk. He’s one of many first responders who say they’ve experienced devastating health ailments since returning from Japan, health ailments ranging from leukemia to blindness, to infertility, to birth defects.
Simmons is now part of a class action lawsuit against the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, that accuses the utility of failing to disclose the risks of radiation exposure. Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper and marine Mathew Bradley are also part of the lawsuit.
MATHEW BRADLEY: This degenerative disease in my lower back, and I have no family history of it. And I have no accident that could have caused it. And I have some digestion problems, as well, and stomach pain, as well.
LINDSAY COOPER: Right now I have a lot of weight issues and thyroid issues, issues that I didn’t have before I came in and then issues that I didn’t have after I had my child. But I’m just—I personally can’t afford to go to a doctor and get checked out, like the others can. I’m kind of almost nervous, if you want to say—I’m really nervous to find out what’s going to happen.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Lindsay Cooper and Mathew Bradley speaking to the Ecological Options Network.
Now, recently obtained phone conversations suggest the U.S. Navy was also aware of the risk faced by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan responding to the Fukushima disaster. The conversations, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, feature naval officials who acknowledge that even while a hundred miles away from Fukushima, the carrier was exposed to levels of radiation that were 30 times greater than normal.
AMY GOODMAN: The transcript also contains discussion of health impacts that could come within a matter of 10 hours of exposure, including thyroid problems. However, the Navy leadership continues to deny sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation, even though those aboard were later told to scrub the ship and equipment in protective suits.
Democracy Now! invited a member of the Navy to join us on the show, but they declined. However, Lieutenant Greg Raelson of the Navy’s Office did speak to us briefly, saying servicemembers who participated in Operation Tomodachi, the Fukushima relief effort, were not at risk of radiation poisoning.
LT. GREG RAELSON: There’s no indication that any U.S. personnel supporting Operation Tomodachi experienced radiation exposure at levels associated with the occurrence of long-term health effects. The tri-service dose assessment and registry working group studied the available data. And their report, which was peer-reviewed by a non-government counsel of subject matter experts, determined that the highest whole-body dose to any crew member doesn’t present any risk greater than normally accepted during everyday life.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we are joined now by three guests.
In Washington, D.C., Lieutenant Steve Simmons is with us, the U.S. Navy sailor who served on board the USS Ronald Reagan, participating in the class action lawsuit against TEPCO. This April, Simmons will "medically retire" from the military.
In San Francisco, California, we’re joined by one of his attorneys, Charles Bonner, who is representing the class action lawsuit.
And via Democracy Now! video stream from Yokohama, Japan, we’re joined by Kyle Cleveland, sociology professor and associate director for the Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo. Cleveland’s recent article in The Asia-Pacific Journal is called "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty." In it, he published transcripts of the Navy’s phone conversations about Fukushima that took place back in March of 2011, three years ago at the time of the disaster.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s go first to Lieutenant Steve Simmons, the U.S. Navy sailor who participated in the Fukushima relief efforts. Can you talk, Lieutenant Simmons, about what happened on March 11th, 2011, three years ago? Where were you, and what were you called to do?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Well, after—after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the shores of Japan, we—the Ronald Reagan had already been on a scheduled deployment, and following that earthquake and tsunami, we were called away from our exercise there in the Pacific to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Japan.
AMY GOODMAN: And what happened next?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: We arrived on, if I remember correctly, the 12th of March, so the following day, which had been after the first reactor had already melted down. And the understanding of everybody on board was that there was no health risk, no dangers, as far as the radiation exposure goes. At one point, we had actually sat in the plume off the reactor for approximately five hours. And another time, we actually had to secure the water system, because we actually had brought contaminants up into the water.
AMY GOODMAN: How close were you to it?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Honestly, at this point, I hear conflicting stories each time. I know the—I’ve seen photos where you can clearly see the mountains of Japan right there in the background. So, if I remember correctly, the human eye can only see about 17 miles on the horizon, so you’re clearly within visible distance. But then there’s also reports that we were no closer than 160 miles. So, at this point, which one’s accurate, I’m not exactly—you know, I would have to believe the photos.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Simmons, at the time, you weren’t aware that you were being exposed to any radiation. When did you start feeling the impact on your health? And what are some of the things that have happened since?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: It wasn’t until November of 2011. We returned in September. At the end of November, I had started noticing something was wrong. The first thing was—I was actually driving into work. I was driving down Route 50 heading into Arlington, and I blacked out and drove my truck up on a curb. Following that, I started coming down with what maybe I thought was just maybe a flu, started running fevers. I dropped about 20 to 25 pounds unexpectedly and then started experiencing night sweats, difficulty sleeping, and had been back and forth to the doctor numerous times for lab work and other studies to try to figure out what’s been going on. And from January to March of 2012, I had been hospitalized tree different times.
The first hospitalization, they couldn’t figure anything out. The only thing they supposedly came up with was a sinus infection, and just kind of blew off the thought that radiation had anything to do with it. In fact, the intern told me that if it was radiation, I had—I should have seen symptoms long before now. Three days later, after I was discharged, I was back in the hospital because my lymph nodes started swelling, and still running constant fevers as high as 102.9.
During the second hospitalization is when I was actually just coming out of the restroom, and my legs buckled on me. And at that point—from that point on, they hadn’t been the same. It had been—it’s probably about April time frame when I started using a wheelchair for long distances. And then, by the summer of '12, I had to start using a wheelchair full-time. Every time I would try to stand or do anything, my legs would shake and muscles start twitching. And it just progressed from there, and now the muscle weakness affects my legs, my arms, my hands. And now everything is still progressing, and there's now issues with signals going from the brain to bladder, as well. So that’s another issue that I’m dealing with now.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re sitting in a wheelchair right now?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: We also wanted to bring Charles Bonner into the conversation from San Francisco. Charles Bonner, can you talk about the other people who are part of this class action suit? How did you find out about them? What are the ailments they are experiencing?
CHARLES BONNER: Yes, thank you very much, Amy, for having me on your show.
We initially started out with only eight plaintiffs, eight people who had contacted us as of December of 2012. By June of 2013, we had 51 sailors and marines who had contacted us with various illnesses, including thyroid cancers, testicular cancers, brain cancers, unusual uterine problems, excessive uterine bleeding, all kinds of gynecological problems, problems that you do not see in a population of 20-year-olds, 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds, even 35-year-olds, as is Lieutenant Simmons, his age. So, now we have filed a class action for approximately a hundred sailors. And every day we’re still receiving calls from sailors with these various problems. Just a couple of days ago, I received a call from a father whose son now has lung cancer. The total number of sailors who responded to this Operation Tomodachi—"tomodachi" is a Japanese word meaning "friend," so this was an operation helping our friends—the total number of U.S. sailors who responded was approximately 24,000. But there were a total of 70,000 U.S. servicemen and women who ultimately were first responders, and that include servicemen and women who were based in Japan.
So we have filed this class action lawsuit on behalf of all of them, because one thing is very clear: They all were exposed to radiation. We can debate the level of radiation, and we are not suing the Navy, and we are not accusing the Navy of having done anything improper. Of course, no one in the Navy would knowingly expose these young sailors and marines to high levels of radiation, radiations that one commander measured at 30 times normal, and 30 times more than what TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, represented to the public and to the U.S. Navy. The responsible party for these young sailors’ injury is the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the fourth-largest power company in the world.
Tokyo Electric Power Company failed to tell the public, including the Navy, that they were in an active meltdown. They had a triple meltdown following the earthquake and the tsunami. They didn’t have batteries. They didn’t have backup power. They didn’t have any kind of auxiliary water supply to cool these reactors down. They actually called to the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Company for the power company to dispatch batteries to them, and they did, but the trucks carrying the batteries got mired into traffic because of the tsunami. So, meanwhile, you had these managers frantically in the dark trying to figure out what to do. They sent their workers out into the dark to get car batteries, so these workers, in the storm, raising their hoods, extracting car batteries, going back in with flashlights, trying to figure out how to connect the batteries to the water supply so that they can cool the reactors.
Meanwhile, these young sailors on board the USS Ronald Reagan are cruising into this unknown. They do not know all of this disaster is occurring. But more importantly, TEPCO does not tell them that they are in an active meltdown, that the reactor number one has melted down within four hours following the earthquake, and there have been all kinds of explosions. Major releases are happening. There’s radioactive releases, including 300 tons of radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean. And as Mr. Simmons will tell you, these young sailors were using this desalinated water. They were bathing in it. They were brushing their teeth with it. They were cooking with it. And so, they were ingesting this radiation both through food and water, as well as the air. And now they’re all sick. And so, we have to put the sailors first. This is Operation Tomodachi; now it’s operation help our friends, the U.S. sailors and young marines. They have all kinds of problems.
I’d like to just take one second and read you just a paragraph from one declaration from one of our young lady sailors. She’s 32, and she states that, quote, "During Operation Tomodachi, I began having migraine headaches, irregular menstrual cycles, knee surgery, breast surgery and leg surgery to remove unexplained mass from these areas." This radiation not only hurts the young sailors, but it hurts their offsprings. This is a declaration from the wife of a sailor, who writes in her declaration to the court, "My husband was exposed to radiation particles while assigned to the Seventh Fleet on the USS Ronald Reagan assisting in Operation Tomodachi beginning in March of 2011. As a result of this exposure, our son, who was born on November 14, 2012, at eight months was diagnosed with brain and spine cancer." These are just a few examples of what these young sailors are dealing with.
And one last report. This is a sailor who’s 22, has been diagnosed with leukemia and is losing his eyesight. And he writes in his declaration to the court, "Upon my return from Operation Tomodachi, I began losing my eyesight. I lost all vision in my left eye and most vision in my right eye. I am unable to read street signs, and I am no longer able to drive. Prior to Operation Tomodachi, I had 20/20 eyesight, wore no glasses and had no corrective eye surgery. Additionally, I know of no family member who have had leukemia." So these are the examples of the kinds of illnesses and injuries that these young sailors are experiencing.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. Charles Bonner, attorney, joining us from San Francisco; Lieutenant Steve Simmons, a U.S. Navy sailor. And when we come back, we’ll also be joined by Kyle Cleveland. He’s a professor. He’ll join us from Yokohama, Japan, to talk about documents he obtained of backstage conversations among U.S. officials about the radiation risk at the time that all of this was happening three years ago this month. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about a class action suit that has been brought by marines and U.S. sailors against TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, that runs the nuclear power plants that melted down March—in that week of March 11, 2011, after the earthquake led to the tsunami that created this catastrophe. Our guests are Lieutenant Steve Simmons, who was a sailor who participated on the USS Reagan in relief efforts, now suffering from very serious health ailments potentially related to radiation exposure, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. We’re also joined by his attorney, the class action attorney, Charles Bonner. He’s in San Francisco. And we now go to Professor Kyle Cleveland, who recently wrote "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty."
Kyle Cleveland, thanks for joining us from Japan. Talk about the backstage conversations that were taking place among the U.S. military and U.S. officials. And how did you get a hold of these conversations?
KYLE CLEVELAND: The documents you’re referring to are through the Freedom of Information Act, and these were documents that were made available maybe six or eight months after the crisis started, through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And in these documents, these were transcribed telephone conversations between NRC officials and Washington, D.C., embassy and diplomatic staff in Tokyo, and also people in Pacific Command or United States Forces Japan, principally the Navy.
And what those documents reveal is that there was a lot of backstage discussion by these experts, who were trying to assess just how bad the situation was. I think you quoted in the document a discussion in which they were saying—this is on, I think, March 13th—that they were picking up rates at about a hundred nautical miles out from the plant that were 30 times above background and would represent a thyroid dose, a committed dose equivalent to the thyroid—that in a 10-hour period would exceed the protective action guidelines set up by the Department of Energy.
So, in my research, I’ve interviewed some 160 people, including diplomats and diplomatic staff and people within the various nuclear agencies. It’s been quite interesting to see that at that period of time, particularly in about the first 10 days or so after the crisis began, there was a great deal of disagreement and a great deal of debate backstage about just how bad this was and what those rates represented and whether or not they could verify this. Now, keep in mind that TEPCO, at this period of time, in the period of time that we’re talking about where the Reagan sailors would have been exposed, they were trying to—frantically trying to deal with the situation. They were in a station blackout. And even though they knew that the radiation levels were quite high, that wasn’t really making it into the public.
When we talk about TEPCO, I think it’s important to make a distinction between the operational staff at the plant, who were really working desperately 24 hours a day to deal with this, and the TEPCO officials, including their spokesmen, who were really downplaying the situation. And anyone who followed the situation at that time, it was quite confusing. It was very frustrating that in every stage of this, they were downplaying just how bad it was. And so, in the first few days, the United States really had no information that they could act upon. And so, very quickly, they set up their own radiation assessment. You know, the United States has a great deal of military assets in Japan, some 82 military bases, and their own radiation measurements, starting about on the 13th or 14th of March and going for months after that, were revealing that the situation was really quite a bit more severe than what TEPCO was acknowledging.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: According to the documents that you saw about these conversations, the Navy was aware that the sailors on the USS Reagan would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation?
KYLE CLEVELAND: Well, what they were—the readings that they were getting, these were coming from helicopters that were flying relief missions for the tsunami effort. They had landed on a Japanese command ship that was about 50 miles away from the plant, and the measurements that they were getting clearly alarmed them. These were readings much higher than they expected. In the documentation—again, the Freedom of Information Act documents—they did not anticipate that they would have really any readings of significance at a hundred nautical miles, and yet they were getting readings that were—that would exceed the protective action guideline dose in a 10-hour period. So, they were aware that they were getting hit by this radiation. Keep in mind, in the first week or so of the crisis, at least the first four or five days, the wind was blowing out to sea, and aside from these inland communities very close to the reactor, the first people that were hit by this plume were the U.S. military. And these nuclear aircraft carriers are arguably some of the most sophisticated radiation-measuring devices in the world. And what those documents reveal is that their alarms set off at very consistent levels, and they saw that they were getting rates that were surprising them. The issue of whether—
AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor Cleveland, why isn’t the U.S. Navy responsible for this as well as TEPCO, as Japan, the nuclear power company?
KYLE CLEVELAND: Well, I think that the real question is whether or not the U.S. government, and the U.S. Navy, in particular, took the appropriate protective action measures, given the information that they had available at the time. You know, it’s very easy now to look in retrospect and make these kind of severe judgments about this, now that we have more information and there’s a lot more transparency to this. But at the time, they had very little information to act on.
And from what I’ve gathered, at least from my interviews, they immediately were trying to take protective measures. They moved the carrier off. They did stop the water supply after they saw that it had become contaminated. For many of the servicemen who were close in, they provided potassium iodine to protect them against thyroid doses. And they set up also a radiation registry, called the Tomodachi Registry, which is still publicly available as an online interactive website, that allows servicemen and anyone who was in Japan at that time in proximity to the plant to go on and see where they were at a given day and what their estimated dose exposures were. So, I think the United States government and the Navy was doing whatever they could.
Keep in mind that many of the officers and the administrative staff that were dealing with this, they were on the ship themselves, or they were at the military bases in Japan, where their families were living, and they were also being exposed to this. So, I think that, you know, for many people who were not privy to these backstage discussions and these kind of elite-level decision makers and the kind of rationale and reasons for why they were making their decisions, it may seem that somehow it was unreasonable and unfair. But when you scrutinize it closely, I think that they were trying to take the appropriate protective actions. The question of whether or not that was useful and whether or not they were in fact the best measures they could take is kind of another question.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Naoto Kan, an interview we did on the third anniversary of the meltdowns, March 11th. Naoto Kan was the prime minister of Japan when the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown occurred. I spoke to him in Tokyo when we broadcast from Japan weeks ago. The former prime minister spoke about the inaccuracy of the information TEPCO provided to him at the time of the disaster.
NAOTO KAN: [translated] From what I was hearing from the headquarters of TEPCO, and in particular from Mr. Takeguro, who was the former vice president, was—had almost no accurate information being conveyed about what was actually the situation on site.
AMY GOODMAN: The former prime minister of Naoto—the former prime minister of Japan. He went on to say that he flew to the nuclear plant, because he couldn’t get accurate information from TEPCO officials, to speak to workers, where he could get accurate information. I wanted to go back to Lieutenant Steve Simmons. What was your health like before March 11th, 2011, three years ago?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Before March, I was actually in what I would like to consider relatively good health. I was physically active. I had been doing P90X and Insanity workouts, and oftentimes kind of a hybrid between the two of them. And the summer of 2010, when I was down in Hawaii, one day I had met up with a friend and gone out and did a trail run, the following day hiked Diamond Head. And then, after—the day or so after that, I went and hiked Stairway to Heaven. So, I was in pretty good health.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Simmons, can you explain when you decided to join this lawsuit and what you’d like to see happen now?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: It wasn’t—well, for a long time, actually, after my ailments started, I had tried to find out if there was anybody else that was dealing with similar issues or other ailments related from that deployment. And I had reached out to some of the other folks that I was stationed with on board the Reagan, and they hadn’t heard anything. And it wasn’t until, I think, December of '12, when my wife's sister had actually sent her a news article talking about the original plaintiffs of the case. Shortly after that, I had reached out to Paul and his team and inquired with them about it and sent them my information. And it really—for me, it comes down to the fact that, like Charles said, a lot of these sailors and marines are in their early twenties, mid-twenties, and they haven’t had the luxury that I’ve had to do 16 years of the service and be awarded the opportunity for medical retirement. And these young sailors and marines need to be taken care of. And that was the main driving force for me to come forward and bring my information to Paul and Charles to help strengthen their case, to make sure that these individuals are taken care of in the manner that they deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: How many people were on the USS Reagan?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Approximately 5,500.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you all for joining us: Lieutenant Steve Simmons, U.S. sailor, a part of the class action suit that’s being represented by Paul Garner and Charles Bonner; Charles Bonner, our guest from San Francisco; and Professor Kyle Cleveland, thank you for joining us from Yokohama, Japan. We’ll link to your piece, "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias."
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Black, Latino Firefighters in New York City Settle Long-Running Suit over Racial Discrimination
Some 1,500 Black and Latino applicants to the Fire Department of New York have settled a long-running lawsuit with the city and the Justice Department over racially discriminatory hiring practices at the nation’s largest fire department. The agreement grants almost $100 million in back pay to those impacted. When the case was filed in 2007, the Fire Department was 90 percent white, even though African Americans and Latinos totaled half the city’s population. Under the new agreement, the Fire Department will be required to change its recruiting policies in order to increase diversity and make the department more representative of the city’s population. We discuss the settlement with two guests: Paul Washington, past president of the black firefighters’ group, the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters, and captain of Engine 234 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; and Richard Levy, the case’s lead attorney.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Some 1,500 black and Latino applicants to the Fire Department of New York have settled a long-running lawsuit with the city and the Justice Department over racially discriminatory hiring practices at the nation’s largest fire department. The agreement grants almost $100 million in back pay to those impacted. When the case was filed in 2007, the Fire Department was 90 percent white, even though African Americans and Latinos totaled half the city’s population. Under the new agreement, the Fire Department will be required to change its recruiting policies in order to increase diversity and make the department more representative of the city’s population.
AMY GOODMAN: This is the latest discrimination lawsuit settled by New York since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office 10 weeks ago. The city also settled a case over its Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk program and another case that sought to block a law allowing individual officers to be sued for racial profiling.
Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests. Paul Washington is past president of the black firefighters’ group, the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters, and captain of Engine 234 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He was one of the Fire Department of New York employees who raised the original Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the department’s racial makeup. And Richard Levy is with us, lead attorney representing the black firefighters, senior partner of the law firm Levy Ratner, and worked on the case with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Paul Washington, let’s begin with you. What is the significance of this latest development and the settlement?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Well, first, thanks for having me on.
And the significance is, this is one more victory in a long fight that we’ve had with the city over excluding blacks and other people of color from the Fire Department. It’s been a long battle. It’s been a 150-year battle. The Fire Department is actually 150 years old in New York City, and they’ve never hired blacks, women or people of color in any type of substantial number. So this is another victory.
AMY GOODMAN: Give us the numbers again on the percentage of people of color in this fire department, that’s the largest in the country, second largest in the world?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Right. Right now blacks are about 4 percent of the Fire Department, Hispanics maybe about 8 or 9 percent. And actually, those are the highest numbers we’ve ever had in the Fire Department percentage-wise. It’s never been below 90 percent white male. So now it’s about 86—86, 87 percent white male. And that’s where it stands.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Richard Levy, you’ve been working on this case. Can you explain how the New York City Fire Department compares to other fire departments across the U.S. and why it’s been so disproportionately white?
RICHARD LEVY: Well, it’s the worst in the country. There is no fire department in any substantial city that has had a worse record on diversity than the New York City Fire Department. And it’s been chastised for that for decades, including by federal courts, but for some reason, the administrations have not chosen, until now, to take steps to remedy an obvious problem.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But why in New York City? Why has New York City’s Fire Department been so bad, if other departments in the country have not reflected this kind of prejudice?
RICHARD LEVY: Well, the truth is that most departments around the country have changed because of lawsuits. For some reason—and I guess we know the reason, really, and Paul could probably talk about it better than I. But it’s a terrific job being a firefighter. If you ask most any firefighter what they think of the job, they’ll tell you it’s absolutely wonderful. It’s exciting. There are short days. They work eight days a month. The pay is good. They’re well respected. It’s, in that sense, a very good job. So the whites, who have basically controlled the jobs and the departments over many, many years, have seen to it that their kids and their family members and their relatives go into those jobs after they’re in them, and so it’s become an enclave. It’s become a protected area of white privilege, in a sense. And so the courts had to intervene, really, to see that steps were taken that others could join.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Washington, can you talk about the original Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint? Give us the examples of discrimination.
PAUL WASHINGTON: Well, in 2002, we first filed that complaint, and it alleged that—you know, that there was discrimination throughout the department, everything from how they recruit, when the test for the job comes out about once every four years, and the Fire Department would put forth a pitiful effort to recruit blacks into the job. That was one of our complaints.
Another complaint was the test that they were giving was no indication of how good a firefighter you would become, but it managed to put blacks down at the bottom of the list. Blacks would always score not as well as whites on the test. And that would be fine if the guy who got a hundred was going to be better than the person who got a 90 or an 85, but that wasn’t the case. Everybody knew that wasn’t the case. So, there were things like that. There was a five points—there’s a five points residency that’s given to anyone who’s a New York City resident. There was vast—a vast amount of cheating going on. People from Long Island and upstate were still getting those five points, which was critical to getting a job.
So those were some of the complaints that we brought in 2002, and now here we are, what, almost 15 years later, 13 years later—my math is kind of bad—12 years later, and we’re now just finally settling this lawsuit.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Paul, what were some of the questions in the entrance exams that you feel didn’t necessarily address how good a firefighter would be, but somehow managed to exclude the majority of black or Latino applicants?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Well, if you looked at the test, you couldn’t really find—there was no smoking gun. There was no question that you could say, "Oh, this question would be harder for a black applicant to answer than a white applicant." But it’s just like the SAT test, for example. You know, blacks just don’t do as well on the test. And if it’s job-related, that’s fine, but we knew, and the city knew, all along, that they could not prove that that test was job-related.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul, can you talk about how you ended up in the New York Fire Department?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Easy. My father was a firefighter. My older brother was a firefighter. I had two cousins who were firefighters. As Richard said, it’s a father-son type of job. Most people don’t realize how good the job is unless they have some type of close connection like that, which I had, which is a tremendous advantage in getting onto the job. To have a close relative is—it puts you leaps and bounds ahead of others, for many different reasons. The motivation—you obviously have more motivation. You know the proper steps to take to become a firefighter. If you’ve had some type of background issue—maybe you had a DUI, or maybe you had some type of a medical problem—a lot of times, you know, your father would be able to smooth those things over. And that was all proven in the case that we brought.
AMY GOODMAN: So your father must have been one of the only African Americans in the New York Fire Department.
PAUL WASHINGTON: My father was either the first or the second black firefighter in Staten Island. He joined the Fire Department in 1956 when there was blatant discrimination. Commissioner Cassano has stated, over the course of his 40 years in the Fire Department, he never saw discrimination. He said that under oath. He never saw—my father, myself, we’ve seen enough discrimination for him and everybody else. There’s been plenty of discrimination in the Fire Department. And my father and people of his era had it much harder than I ever did.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Richard Levy, could you talk about what you think some of the changes are within the Fire Department of New York that are likely to be initiated as a consequence of this settlement?
RICHARD LEVY: Yeah, I think there are going to be significant changes, partly because of the case and partly because I think there’s a new attitude at City Hall. Under the new settlement, the settlement that was reached last week, we’re going to have a chief diversity officer in the department who is going to be responsible solely for dealing with racial problems in the department, recruiting in the department and so on. There has been a lot of—a lot of tension around race in the Fire Department. There was a public hearing—a fair hearing, they call it—in court a year or so ago, and hundreds of whites signed up to complain about the case and to complain about changing the test, knowing nothing about what the changes would be and that the test was going to be more job-related than it ever had been, but they were just screaming about any change. So I think we’re going to see real changes from that. We now have a recruiting quota, which we never had before. So I think there’s going to be a real requirement that the department step up its game on bringing more minorities into the department.
AMY GOODMAN: How much did you win exactly? How much was the settlement?
RICHARD LEVY: The monetary part of the settlement will be in excess of $98 million: $98 million is the amount that represents lost back pay and lost benefits.
AMY GOODMAN: How much will this mean for individual firefighters?
RICHARD LEVY: Well, it could range up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to a firefighter who could have been hired on this job, but for the discrimination that took place in various steps of the hiring process.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the difference between Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor de Blasio in dealing with the settlement, because it’s spanned both tenures?
RICHARD LEVY: Well, it’s a night-and-day difference. I have to say that this case, as Paul suggested, should have been settled ages ago. It was an obvious situation. The test was clearly bad. They had never tried to clean it up or tried to look at its validity, what we call validity in the legal parlance. And there had been findings. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, federal commission, had made a finding.
The Equal Employment Practices Commission, an agency of New York City, back in 2000, had said, "There’s a problem with these tests. We think they’re no good. Commissioner Scoppetta, why don’t you check out these tests?" And the commissioner said, "No, I don’t think we need to do that." And so they went to the mayor—something they had done only twice in the history of the Equal Employment Practices Commission—and they said, "Mayor, tell the commissioner he really has to check out these tests." And the mayor said, "I don’t think we need to do that." So, that was the Bloomberg administration.
The de Blasio administration, when we came in and we said, "Look, we should—we should wrap this up. It’s creating more tension in the department. It shouldn’t go on. It’s obvious that changes have to be made," they said, "Yeah, it looks like changes really have to be made." We sat down. We created a settlement very quickly with the new corp counsel, Zach Carter, who understood the issue and approached it from the standpoint of, "Well, let’s talk about what we can do to improve." Night-and-day situation.
And my view is that the $98 million bill should be sent directly to Mayor Bloomberg personally, because he could have settled this case several years ago for $10 million. And there was a back-pay meter that was running during all that time, so all these people were building up back pay that finally wound up at $98 million, because he, I think very arrogantly, would not allow a settlement to happen in this case.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Paul Washington, are you worried at all about backlash against present black firefighters in the department who might be upset at this ruling—I mean, sorry, from the rank and file who may be upset at the ruling?
PAUL WASHINGTON: No, not really. But honestly, the issues, the racial issues that occur in firehouses, will never really be adequately addressed until there are enough black firefighters, women firefighters, Hispanic firefighters in those firehouses. I mean, it’s one thing when you’re a black firefighter and you’re the only black firefighter working in that house on a particular tour. You know, it might just be you and 12 white firefighters. That’s one atmosphere. But when there’s three or four black firefighters, or two or three black firefighters, two or three Hispanic firefighters, a woman firefighter in that group, it’s a whole different dynamic. It’s a much more comfortable atmosphere for those women and firefighters of color.
AMY GOODMAN: Do black or Latino firefighters who are in the department get any of the settlement money?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Some who came into the department later than they should have will be eligible for some of that.
AMY GOODMAN: Will you? Will you?
PAUL WASHINGTON: No, no, no. This affected firefighters who took the test in 1999 or 2002.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, why did you fight so hard for this?
PAUL WASHINGTON: Well, you know, I just—I just thought that it is a great job, and it was a job that needs to be open to all New Yorkers. You know, everyone needs to share in this job—black, Hispanic, Asian. And I knew that there was no reason that blacks were being excluded—no good reason that blacks were being excluded. So, you know, it was a fight that I was glad to take on.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, congratulations to both of you and to the Vulcan Society. I want to thank you both for being with us. Paul Washington is past president of the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters, one of the Fire Department of New York employees who raised the original Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the department’s racial makeup. And thanks to Richard Levy, lawyer for the black firefighters, who sued New York City over the discriminatory hiring. Again, New York City’s Fire Department, largest in the country, second largest in the world.
When we come back, sailors and marines are suing the nuclear power company in Japan for radiation exposure they suffered coming to the aid of the Japanese after the Fukushima meltdown. Stay with us.
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Headlines:
Report: NSA Recording All of Foreign Nation’s Phone Calls
The latest disclosures from Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency is recording every single phone call of an undisclosed foreign country. A surveillance system called "MYSTIC" stores billions of phone conversations for up to 30 days. Phone calls are also being recorded in another four countries on a more limited basis. The Washington Post has withheld naming the targeted countries at the U.S. government’s request. At the White House, Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to comment.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: "I haven’t seen the report, and I don’t have a response to it, except to say that we don’t, as a general rule, comment on every specific allegation or report. You know, we make clear what activity the NSA and our intelligence activity — our intelligence community engages in, and the fact that they are bound by our laws and the oversight of three branches of government."
The MYSTIC operation has been in effect since 2009. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the program, saying: "This is a truly chilling revelation, and it’s one that underscores how high the stakes are in the debate we’re now having about bulk surveillance. The NSA has always wanted to record everything, and now it has the capacity to do so."
Snowden to TED Conference: "We Don’t Have to Give Up Our Liberty"
As the latest revelation emerged, Edward Snowden continued a remote speaking tour with an address to the TEDx conference in Vancouver, Canada. Speaking from Russia through a robot that wheeled out onto the stage, Snowden urged global citizens to work together against unwarranted government surveillance.
Edward Snowden: "The last year has been a reminder that democracy may die behind closed doors, but we as individuals are born behind those same closed doors. And we don’t have to give up our privacy to have good government. We don’t have to give up our liberty to have security. And I think by working together, we can have both open government and private lives. And I look forward to working with everyone around the world to see that happen."
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Russia Seizes Ukrainian Navy Base After Announcing Crimea Annexation
Russia has seized control of a Ukrainian Navy base one day after formally announcing the annexation of Crimea. A Russian flag was raised above the base today in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. The seizure also follows the killing of a Ukrainian soldier in Crimea by unidentified shooters. In a speech Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Crimea a part of Russsia and rejected the new government that seized power in Ukraine last month.
Russian President Vladimir Putin: "Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia. This conviction, based on truth and fairness, has always been resolute and was passed from generation to generation. Both time and circumstances could not erase it. Dramatic changes that our country went through in the 20th century could not erase it either. It is also clear that there is still no legitimate executive power in Ukraine. There is no one to talk to there. Many state bodies are seized by impostors. And on top of that, they don’t control anything in their country."
In his remarks, Putin also blasted what he called Western hypocrisy on Crimea, saying the U.S. selectively applies international law according to its political interests.
Russian President Vladimir Putin: "Our Western partners, headed by the United States of America, prefer in their practical policy to be guided not by the international law, but by the right of the strong. They started to believe that they have been chosen and they are unique, that they are allowed to decide the fate of the world, that only they could always be right. They do whatever they want."
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U.S. Threatens New Sanctions on Russia
The Obama administration has threatened a new round of sanctions on top of those announced against Russian officials earlier this week. In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed Putin’s remarks.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "I must say I was really struck and somewhat surprised and even disappointed by the interpretations and the facts as they were articulated by the president (Putin). With all due respect, they really just didn’t jibe with reality or with what’s happening on the ground. And the president may have his version of history, but I believe that he and Russia, for what they have done, are on the wrong side of history."
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U.N. Panel: Enough Evidence to Indict Syrian Combatants for War Crimes
United Nations investigators have expanded their list of suspected war criminals from both sides of Syria’s civil war. Panel chair Paulo Pinheiro and inquiry member Carla Del Ponte said they’ve collected enough evidence to indict.
Paulo Pinheiro: "This so-called perpetrators list contains names of persons individually criminally responsible for some war crimes and human rights violations, the names of heads of intelligence branches and detention facilities where torture was found, names of military commanders who target civilians, airports from which barrel bomb attacks are planted and executed, and names of armed groups involved in attacking and displacing civilians."
Carla Del Ponte: "I must say as former prosecutor that I would be glad to be prosecutor of this office of the prosecutor, because the commission have collected a lot of evidences that can be used tomorrow to prepare an indictment."
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U.S. Suspends Syrian Embassy, Consulates
The Obama administration has suspended the Syrian embassy in Washington and ordered the expulsion of its diplomats and staff. Secretary of State John Kerry said the Assad regime has lost the right to claim diplomatic legitimacy.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "We just felt the idea that this embassy is sitting here with representation, that we could take seriously, is an insult. And we closed it. It’s that simple. And we’ll see what happens in other places, but the Assad regime can never regain legitimacy in Syria. Whether they win, don’t win, they can’t regain legitimacy."
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Greenpeace Activists Detained at French Nuclear Plant
Thirty-four activists with the environmental group Greenpeace were arrested in France on Tuesday in a protest against the country’s oldest nuclear plant. The activists broke into the facility and unveiled anti-nuclear banners calling for its closure.
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France Bans Monsanto GM Corn
France meanwhile has banned the agribusiness giant Monsanto’s genetically modified corn ahead of the annual season of sowing maize. Monsanto’s GM corn is the only variety allowed in the European Union. But France has long attempted to ban all GM crops, alleging threats to health and the environment.
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Dozens Arrested Protesting Denial of Medicaid Expansion in Georgia
Nearly 40 people have been arrested at the Georgia State Senate in Atlanta protesting a bill that would bar the expansion of Medicaid. Georgia is one of a number of Republican-led states that have opted out of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Activists stood up in the Senate gallery on Tuesday as lawmakers began debate on a measure that would reaffirm Georgia’s stance. It was the largest protest to date by Moral Monday Georgia, an outgrowth of the North Carolina group that has staged regular rallies against state Republicans since last April.
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Undocumented Immigrant Who Hid in Church Basement Re-Enters U.S.
Dozens of people crossed the Mexican border into California Tuesday in the latest such action by immigrants challenging the Obama administration’s record deportations. The crossing was led by Elvira Arellano, a woman who made national headlines when she spent a year inside a Chicago church with her son, seeking refuge from deportation. She was deported in 2007. Arellano re-entered the U.S. on Tuesday with her two children and was taken into detention. Many participants in the protest were young people known as "DREAMers" brought to the United States as children.
Obama Admin Denies Record Number of FOIA Requests on Security Grounds
New figures show the Obama administration denied a record number of Freedom of Information Act requests last year despite pledges of transparency. According to the Associated Press, the White House denied or partially censored 36 percent of FOIA requests. In a record 57 percent of cases, the administration cited grounds of national security. Upon first taking office, President Obama had vowed to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history."
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New York City Advocate Calls for Hotline to Report Fast-Food Wage Theft
A group of fast-food workers rallied in front of a New York City McDonald’s on Tuesday in support of lawsuits accusing the company of wage theft. Employees have filed suit in three states, claiming McDonald’s and its franchises have stolen their wages through a range of illegal practices. Workers’ accusations include being forced to work while off the clock, having hours deleted from their time cards and being denied meal and rest breaks. McDonald’s worker Franklin La Paz said he’s been consistently overworked and underpaid.
Franklin La Paz: "My name is Franklin. I am 25 years old and work just over 30 hours a week at McDonald’s. I work in McDonald’s to make ends meet, but I’ve also been a victim of wage theft, and I’m here today because it has to stop. Like Jennifer, I’ve never been paid the state-mandated uniform maintenance fee, but for months now I’ve also been forced to work off the clock and after my shift ends at midnight, two nights a week for five to 10 minutes, sometimes 10 to 20 minutes off the clock. It means doing clean-up and other basic job duties. It may not sound like a lot, but when you’re living on the edge like me, every penny counts."
Also addressing the crowd, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James said she will formally propose a measure to establish a hotline for workers to report wage theft.
Letitia James: "Fast-food corporations are regularly committing wage theft by not paying workers for tasks performed before clocking in or after clocking out, not paying workers for all the hours they work, not providing workers with a required meal break. It is unacceptable, and it’s now time that government steps in and supports these workers and protects their salaries — and supports their right to organize, so that they could have a decent salary, a living salary to make ends meet in New York City."
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U.S. Vets Shunned by Army Racism Awarded Medal of Honor
And two dozen U.S. veterans belonging to ethnic minorities have been awarded the Medal of Honor after long being denied because of racism. The veterans from Vietnam, Korea and World War II had gone unrecognized for heroic acts because of the racial biases of their commanders. Just three members of the group of 22 were alive to attend Tuesday’s ceremony. President Obama honored their service in what he called an effort "to set the record straight."
President Obama: "For their gallantry under fire, each of these soldiers was long ago recognized with the Army’s second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. But ask their fellow veterans, ask their families, and they’ll tell you that their extraordinary deeds merited the highest recognition. And today we have the chance to set the record straight."
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"U.S. Sailors and Marines Allege Fukushima Radiation Sickness" by Amy Goodman
Three years have passed since the earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The tsunami’s immediate death toll was more than 15,000, with close to 3,000 still missing. Casualties are still mounting, though, both in Japan and much farther away. The impact of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown on health and the environment is severe, compounded daily as radioactive pollution continues to pour from the site, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO.
In an unusual development, more than 100 U.S. Marines and Navy sailors have joined a class action suit, charging TEPCO with lying about the severity of the disaster as they were rushing to the scene to provide humanitarian assistance. They were aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other vessels traveling with the Reagan, engaged in humanitarian response to the disaster. The response was dubbed “Operation Tomodachi,” meaning “Operation Friendship.”
Lt. Steve Simmons is one of the plaintiffs. Before Fukushima, he was physically robust. Eight months later, he suffered inexplicable health problems. He said on the “Democracy Now!” news hour, that, while driving to work: “I blacked out and drove my truck up on a curb. Following that, I started coming down with what maybe I thought was just maybe a flu, started running fevers. I dropped about 20 to 25 pounds unexpectedly and then started experiencing night sweats, difficulty sleeping.” He was hospitalized three times. Doctors dismissed his concerns about possible radiation poisoning. “Three days later, after I was discharged, I was back in the hospital because my lymph nodes started swelling, and still running constant fevers as high as 102.9.” In April 2012, his legs buckled under him while he was hospitalized. He has relied on a wheelchair ever since. He will be allowed to “medically retire” this coming April.
This is the second attempt to sue TEPCO on behalf of these sailors and Marines. The first lawsuit had eight plaintiffs and was dismissed for technical reasons based on the court’s lack of jurisdiction. “By June of 2013, we had 51 sailors and Marines who had contacted us with various illnesses,” lead attorney Charles Bonner explained, “including thyroid cancers, testicular cancers, brain cancers, unusual uterine problems, excessive uterine bleeding, all kinds of gynecological problems, problems that you do not see in a population of 20-year-olds, 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds, even 35-year-olds. ... So, now we have filed a class action for approximately a hundred sailors.” As news of the lawsuit spreads, many more will likely join in. The USS Reagan had at least 5,500 people on board when off the coast of Japan.
You might wonder why the group doesn’t sue their employer, the U.S. Navy, as well. “The responsible party for these young sailors’ injury is the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the fourth-largest power company in the world,” Bonner explained. “Tokyo Electric Power Company failed to tell the public, including the Navy, that they were in an active meltdown. They had a triple meltdown following the earthquake and the tsunami. They didn’t have batteries. They didn’t have backup power. They didn’t have any kind of auxiliary water supply to cool these reactors down.”
I interviewed Naoto Kan in his offices in Tokyo last January. He was the prime minister of Japan at the time of the disaster. Kan immediately set up control center to manage the nuclear crisis. Present at the center was a TEPCO executive. Kan told me, “From what I was hearing from the headquarters of TEPCO, and in particular from Mr. Takeguro, who was the former vice president, was, almost no accurate information was being conveyed about what was actually the situation on site.” Frustrated with the stonewalling, Kan flew to the plant to discuss the situation with workers on site. Once staunchly pro-nuclear, Kan now advocates for a nuclear-free Japan.
The ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima should serve as a warning to the world. Instead of following the wisdom of Naoto Kan, President Barack Obama is committing public funds to build the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in more than 30 years. In the wake of Fukushima, Obama’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission put out talking points designed to diminish growing public concern with the safety of nuclear power plants in the U.S. NBC News obtained the NRC’s internal emails instructing staff to downplay safety risks. U.S. nuclear plants are not safe. The U.S. sailors and Marines of Operation Tomodachi deserve their day in court. The U.S. public deserves an honest assessment of the grave risks of nuclear power.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
© 2014 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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