By Pat Milton
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Construction workers at the ground zero skyscraper where two firefighters died have told investigators they removed a 42-foot section of the building’s standpipe because they mistakenly believed it was part of the tower’s defunct sprinkler system, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The workers said they removed the pipe, which links fire hoses outside the building to its water supply, in two 21-foot portions from the basement of the former Deutsche Bank tower, the person familiar with the investigation into the Aug. 18 blaze told The Associated Press.
The person, confirming an account in Thursday’s editions of The New York Times, spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the probe.
The missing standpipe caused firefighters to pump gallons of water that went into the basement instead of their fire hoses, making the blaze on the building’s 17th floor more difficult to extinguish. Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino died of cardiac arrest after climbing to a few floors below the flames.
Prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation, looking at the contractors who were working to dismantle the now 26-story tower, the government agencies overseeing its removal, safety inspections and environmental issues.
Documents have been sought from the building’s owner, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the city’s Buildings and Fire departments, and its contractors, Bovis Lend Lease and subcontractor John Galt Corp.
The contractor’s plan to dismantle the building requires it to keep a standpipe in working order at all times. The Fire Department was also expected to inspect the standpipe every 15 days and has acknowledged it hadn’t done so in over a year.
The building’s sprinkler system had not been operating at the building for over a year, officials involved in the project have said. It wasn’t immediately clear how the workers mistook the standpipe for the sprinkler pipe; standpipes are often painted red in high-rise buildings.
The sprinkler pipes and the standpipes are often located in the same place in high-rise buildings, with connections to the same outlet outside the building, called a Siamese connection.
Heavy construction work began last December on the tower to remove it floor by floor, after cleaning them of toxic debris left by the Sept. 11, 2001, collapse of the World Trade Center’s south tower.
In memos written months before the fire, the head of a downtown construction agency told the state agency that owns the building it needed more funding and staff to take the ground zero tower down safely.