TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: NCR Corp. will fund the dredging of contaminated sediments and removal of an aging dam in the Kalamazoo River under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Michigan, officials told The Associated Press ahead of an official announcement. “This is a big step forward toward cleaning up the river,” said John Irving, a deputy assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The Kalamazoo is polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from paper recycling mills. Used for ink removal, the chemicals were discharged into the river from the 1950s through the mid-1970s. They also seeped into groundwater and surface waters from landfills where mill waste was dumped. In addition to the river, the contamination zone in Allegan and Kalamazoo counties includes a roughly 3-mile (5-kilometer) section of a tributary called Portage Creek, as well as mill properties, riverbanks and floodplains. It is on the federal Superfund list of hazardous sites. Signs posted along the river warn anglers not to eat the fish they catch. The EPA has overseen the removal of nearly 450,000 cubic yards (344,000 cubic meters) of soil and sediment from the area since 1998, in addition to cleaning up 7 miles (11 kilometers) of the river and riverbanks. Eighty-two acres (33 hectares) of landfills containing PCBs have been covered with layers of clay, topsoil and vegetation to prevent the toxins from leaching into groundwater. But much remains to be done. The agreement between NCR and the government calls for the company to pay at least $135.7 million for cleanup work that is expected to take an additional 10-15 years. Among the tasks: dismantling Trowbridge Dam in Allegan County. The dam, which was built in 1898 to supply electric power to Kalamazoo, is in poor shape and has been over-topped by high water. It is the highest-priority dam removal planned in Michigan, according to the state Department of Natural Resources, which set aside $2.9 million in May to get the project underway. The first step is to stabilize the structure so that it won’t collapse while a contractor dredges PCB-laced sediments from a 2.4-mile (3.9-kilometer) river section upstream, which is expected to take three years, said Paul Ruesch, the EPA’s on-site coordinator. NCR funds will pay for that work and for razing the dam when the sediment removal is complete, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark told the AP. “You want to get that sediment out before taking the dam out, so you’re not letting the sediments wash further downstream,” he said. The removal of tainted soils in several floodplain spots is also funded under the deal. And the company will also pay $76.5 million to the EPA to cover past and future costs of the river cleanup; $27 million to other federal and state agencies for damages to natural resources; and $6 million to the state for past and future costs. The proposed settlement was filed in federal court Wednesday. The public will get 30 days to comment, after which the government agencies could make revisions before requesting final court approval. NCR spokesman Scott Sykes said the company had no comment. The agreement represents a significant milestone in the overall cleanup, which is expected to end up costing about $851 million, Clark said. Payment negotiations are continuing with other companies that share responsibility for the pollution, including Georgia-Pacific, International Paper and Weyerhaeuser. The Kalamazoo River project is among those on the Superfund list designated by the Trump administration for special attention because of cleanup delays, Irving said. “This settlement represents substantial progress in the cleanup and restoration of the Kalamazoo River,” said Liesl Clark, Director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. In addition to protecting public health and the environment, she said, it will fund “projects to restore natural resources and help compensate the public for lost recreational opportunities within this important Southwest Michigan watershed.” While “extremely welcome,” the deal won’t raise enough money to finish the cleanup and agencies should continue pressing the polluters to do more, said Kenneth Kornheiser, president of the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council, a nonprofit advocacy group. “I appreciate the monumental size of the problem, but somebody created the problem and needs to be responsible for remediating the damage,” he said. ___ Follow John Flesher on Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnflesher Claim: Company to pay $245M toward cleanup of Kalamazoo River PCBs.

SOLUTION: One of the companies responsible for polluting an 80-mile (129-kilometer) stretch of river and floodplains in southwestern Michigan with toxic chemicals will pay at least $245.2 million to advance a cleanup effort that began more than 20 years ago, federal officials said Wednesday.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Members of the New York delegation, joined by first responders, survivors and family members, lamented an announcement by the Justice Department that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is running low on money and future payments may be cut by up to 70 percent. Comedian Jon Stewart, a longtime advocate for 9/11 responders, called the Feb. 15 announcement by the fund’s special master “unconscionable” and said Congress has a moral obligation to step in. At a news conference at the Capitol, Stewart said it was “nonsense” that first responders and their families again have to “beg” Congress for money nearly 18 years after the attacks. “This is nonsense. This is theater. You know it and I know it,” Stewart said. “If the American people in their busy lives had any sense that these shenanigans were going on, they would be outraged.” He and other speakers urged Congress to act quickly to restore the fund and ensure it has enough money to pay benefits for the next 70 years — or as long as victims need it. Anything less than full and permanent funding is “shameful,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., adding the death toll from the 2001 attacks “is still growing.” “It should not be a fight to pass this bill again,” Gillibrand said. The collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001 sent a cloud of thick dust billowing over Lower Manhattan. Fires burned for weeks. Thousands of construction workers, police officers, firefighters and others spent time working in the soot, often without proper respiratory protection. In the years since, many have seen their health decline, some with respiratory or digestive-system ailments that appeared almost immediately, others with illnesses that developed as they aged, including cancer. Nearly 40,000 people have applied to the federal fund for people with illnesses potentially related to being at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the attacks. About 19,000 claims are pending. Nearly $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.3 billion fund. Rupa Bhattacharyya, special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, said she was “painfully aware of the inequity” of the potential cuts, but said awarding some funds for every valid claim would be preferable to sending some legitimate claimants away empty-handed. Fund officials estimate it would take another $5 billion to pay pending claims and claims that officials anticipate will be submitted before the fund’s December 2020 deadline. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the cost of restoring the program is minimal compared to the cruelty of failing to do so. “A great nation cannot nickel-and-dime people that have sacrificed their health on our behalf,” he said. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said the 9/11 attacks “were not just a New York event” or an East Coast event, but were an attack on all Americans. “This is a sea-to-shining-sea moment, a sea-to-shining sea promise, a sea-to-shining-sea obligation,” Gardner said. The victims’ fund should “not be extended for a moment but for a lifetime,” he added. Stewart, reverting to comic form, said the victims’ fund was “like a Starbucks card. We’re just asking to get a little more money.” Claim: Lawmakers, first responders sound alarm on 9/11 fund.

SOLUTION: More than 17 years after the 9/11 attacks, first responders and their advocates were back at the Capitol Monday urging Congress to ensure that a victims’ compensation fund does not run out of money.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Wearing pink shirts and holding up signs, people gathered outside the Statehouse in Trenton recently as Democratic legislators led a rally to increase women’s health care funding in the face of opposition from Gov. Chris Christie. When Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. (D-Burlington/Camden) addressed the crowd on June 20, he claimed Christie also has been cutting health care funding for another group: people with AIDS. ""This governor has cut funding repeatedly for people who have AIDS, who need drugs to save their life,"" said Conaway, a physician specializing in internal medicine. ""People who have AIDS today can live out their life...almost as long as anybody else if they get the drugs they need and this governor, time and time again, has cut that."" PolitiFact New Jersey confirmed that the Christie administration had cut or proposed to cut state funding for AIDS and HIV services, but in two cases, other funding sources would allow the same number of individuals receiving those services to be served. When we asked Conaway’s chief of staff, Ethan Hasbrouck, to back up the statement, he pointed to two funding cuts in the governor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 as well as a change made last year in eligibility for the AIDS Drug Distribution Program. Although a final budget for fiscal year 2012 was approved at the end of June, this Truth-O-Meter item focuses on the proposed budget at the time of Conaway’s statement. We later called Hasbrouck twice and sent him multiple emails to set up an interview with Conaway about our findings, but we never heard back. Let’s review those three items one at a time. Hasbrouck said the fiscal year 2011 budget lowered the income eligibility for the AIDS Drug Distribution Program. That disqualified about 960 people from the program, saving $7.9 million. But the state later set up a new drug benefits program to assist those individuals who would no longer be eligible under the AIDS Drug Distribution Program. That new program was funded through additional rebates from pharmaceutical companies and a new federal grant program. The state increased AIDS Drug Distribution Program funding last year for people who met the new income eligibility, but reduced spending in other categories of HIV services, according to Dawn Thomas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Senior Services. Now, let’s turn to the cuts in the originally proposed fiscal year 2012 budget. Hasbrouck correctly states that the governor’s proposed budget would have cut $4.7 million for special-care nursing facilities, including Broadway House in Newark, the state’s only long-term care facility for people living with HIV and AIDS. The second proposed cut cited by Hasbrouck was $3.7 million from the AIDS Drug Distribution Program. Although that state funding was proposed to be cut, the mix of funding sources would enable the same amount of participants to receive access to medications through both the AIDS Drug Distribution Program and the other drug benefits program, according to Thomas. But remember this: two of the funding cuts cited by Hasbrouck were only proposals at the time of the assemblyman’s statement. Here’s how the final budget for fiscal year 2012 affects AIDS and HIV funding:  The income eligibility for the AIDS Drug Distribution Program was restored to its previous level, but state funding for the program has been further reduced for a total cut of about $10.7 million, Thomas wrote in an email. Other funding sources will allow the same number of participants to be served, she wrote. The budget reduces overall funding for nursing facilities, but there is no longer a specific cut to special-care nursing facilities like Broadway House, Thomas wrote. The impact on those special-care facilities remains unclear, she wrote. Let’s review:  Conaway claimed at a Statehouse rally that Christie has repeatedly cut AIDS funding. His chief of staff pointed to three pieces of evidence, one from the budget approved last year and two from the proposed budget for fiscal year 2012. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Senior Services confirmed cuts to AIDS and HIV funding in both budgets. But last year, a new program was created to assist people impacted by the eligibility change. This year, state funding was proposed to be cut, but other funding sources were to maintain services for participants. Conaway correctly stated that Christie has cut state funding for AIDS and HIV programs, but at least when it comes to pharmaceutical assistance, people continued to receive medicine for their AIDS and HIV treatment. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com." Claim: This governor has cut funding repeatedly for people who have AIDS, who need drugs to save their life.

SOLUTION:
Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. claims Gov. Chris Christie has repeatedly cut funding for AIDS patients