New York City releases documents about air quality after 9/11
Officials assured the public the air was safe after the attacks, but the new documents suggest there were concerns.
New York City has unveiled previously unseen records that raise fresh concerns about Manhattan’s air quality in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old documents indicate that officials were worried about toxic air after the World Trade Center towers fell, even as the public was being told the environment at Ground Zero was safe.
"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mamdani said at a news conference, standing with survivors.
The disclosure settles a lawsuit filed by the advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch, which had sued the city for the records.
City officials discovered 68 boxes of the documents last year. They had earlier said the records were not in their possession.
"Administration after administration has ignored those calling for answers and clarity," he added, speaking beside television host and 9/11 survivor advocate Jon Stewart. "We will do no such thing."
Thousands of people have suffered health problems, including cancer, from the terrorist attacks, and many have died after inhaling dangerous contaminants from the collapsed buildings.
On Tuesday, Mamdani said he intended to publish hundreds of thousands of pages of air quality reports through an online portal, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
He said City Hall will spend more than $34m (£25m) on the project.
Mamdani said the records reveal what the city "knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when they knew it, and how they acted to limit liability".
The mayor said the documents show asbestos was found "nearly everywhere" they tested. He added that more records will be released over the next year.
The release follows years of survivors pressing city officials for greater transparency.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Stewart said the documents show the city did not realize that the air everyone was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001.
"So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years," he said sarcastically.
Among the records is an October 2001 document called the "Harding Memo", in which an aide warned former Deputy Mayor Robert Harding - who served under Mayor Rudy Giuliani - that the city could face as many as 35,000 legal claims over its response to the attacks.
The memo says the city could be sued because health advisories led people "to return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure or emotional harm)".
In the days after the attack, city and federal officials - including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - said the air near the Twin Towers was safe, although research indicates people were breathing toxic chemicals.
Christine Todd Whitman, who led the EPA at the time, later apologized for that statement, saying the agency "did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had".
Illnesses tied to the dust and smoke from the Twin Towers collapse have killed twice as many people as the attacks themselves.
"We all knew the air quality was not safe – it was very toxic in terms of how it felt," she said. "Initially, when I came off the bus and arrived at the Trade Center, you felt like you had to hold your breath. But there's only so long you can hold your breath. I could feel the particles coming into my nose and mouth and thought: 'This can't be good'."