New York failed to disclose what it knew on ‘toxic air’ after 9/11, documents show

• New York City released 170,000 documents revealing it withheld information on toxic air after 9/11, as announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
• Over 9,400 people have died from illnesses linked to toxic exposure after the World Trade Center collapse, with officials repeatedly assuring the public the air was safe.
• The documents may implicate former mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in concealing health risks and legal liability related to air quality after the attacks.

NEW YORK - New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Sept 8 the release of tens of thousands of documents showing the city did not disclose all it knew about air toxicity after 9/11.

The release comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks that killed 2,977 people in the United States, mostly in the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York.

In the years since, more than 9,400 have died from illnesses linked to their exposure to the area, according to a federal medical monitoring programme.

“These are documents that show what the city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when they knew it, and how they acted to limit liability,” the mayor told a news conference following the online release of 170,000 pages of documents on health concerns, air quality and the city’s response to the attacks.

The release is part of an agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victims’ advocacy group that had taken legal action to compel the city to make the documents public.

“For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the US Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the City actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as City officials continued messaging to the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable’,” the group’s director Benjamin Chevat said in a statement.

After the initial dust cloud that followed the collapse of the World Trade Center, months of pollution and lingering dust ensued, causing cancers that thousands of New Yorkers still suffer today.

Leaders ‘lied’

When asked about the names of officials who had withheld information from the public, Mamdani said, “this goes across a multitude of those that New Yorkers have trusted”.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.”

Roughly 173,000 documents released on Sept 8, and additional ones which will be published online in waves over the next 12 months, could implicate two former New York mayors.

They are Rudy Giuliani, in office at the time of the attacks, and then Michael Bloomberg, mayor from January 2002 to December 2013.

Some concern discussions Giuliani’s administration had at the time about its legal liability and health risks, New York City’s chief counsel Steven Banks said on Sept 8.

Giuliani’s spokesman did not return a request for comment.

Another document highlights information provided by Congressman Jerry Nadler during Bloomberg’s tenure regarding concerns from residents of Lower Manhattan about the quality of the air they were breathing.

Bloomberg’s team declined to comment.

On Sept 11, 2001, hijackers seized control of two planes that struck the two World Trade Center towers. A third hijacked jet smashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth, which seemed to be headed for the Capitol or the White House, crashed in woodland near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back and seized control. AFP