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As UN Contractor Skanska Hits Pipe, Methane Gas
Clears Printing Plant, Landfill Blamed
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS,
June 30 -- As the UN's contractor
Skanska dug test holes on Friday, a pipe was ruptured and there emerged
a smell
"like rotten eggs," the head of the UN's Capital
Master Plan Michael
Adlerstein told Inner City Press on Monday. The UN's publishing section
was
vacated, and Monday morning the usual UN Journal publication was not
available in hard-copy.
In
response
to questions Monday from Inner City Press, Adlerstein described a
period of
wonder and worry, in which Con Edison was called to check on a gas
leak, and
the New York Fire Department also responded. "There was a smell of
gas," Adlerstein said. "Con Ed has a gas they add to their gas, a
fingerprint" to see if a leak is attributable to them. This one wasn't.
Rather it came from "muck... the old Turtle Bay landfill is slowly
rotting, and produces methane gas."
Adlerstein
described "a little plastic cap on top of the pipe," adding that over
the weekend three venting systems were installed. He himself gave the
all clear
to UN Security to have work continue in the publishing section.
UN's Ban Ki-moon announces Capital Master Plan on
May 5, methane gas not shown
Inner City Press was
alerted to the problem by
UN workers who asked for anonymity due to fear of retaliation. They
stated that
only when those working complained for a strong gas-like smell were
they
allowed to stop working. They now wonder about the safety, going
forward, of
working with the gasses being released by the drilling of the UN's
contractor,
Skanska. A dozen or so workers in hardhats were shepherded into the UN
on
Friday night around 9 p.m., no explanation was given. [Separately, in
the UK, Skanska has been exposed as paying sub-minimum wages, click here
for that.]
In recent
weeks, even in the UN's checkerboard-floor lobby, holes have been
drilled in
the ceiling, sometime blocked off by sheet plastic that falls,
flapping, at
night. "Is this safe?" a worker asked Inner City Press, pointing at a
hole in the ceiling. While UN management insists that safety is being
considered, questions are mounting, including about the cost overruns
of the Capital Master Plan to vacate and gut-rehabilitate the UN's 40
story tower. Watch this site.
Footnote: As the
contract talks between UN
Television workers and the UN's contractor, Venue Services Group, go
down to
the end-of-June wire, Inner City Press asked Capital Master Plan
chief Michael
Adlerstein if VSG could, as people say, get even more business from the
UN
under the CMP. Adlerstein said that part of the CMP is to moving the
broadcast
facilities, but that he did not know if VSG could get the work.
Later on Monday evening, an offered was made that will keep UN TV
working while it is considered to be ratified. We'll see.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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