New York releases documents on air toxicity after September 11 attacks

New York has released more than 170,000 pages of documents that Mayor Zohran Mamdani says show what city authorities knew about toxic air after the September 11 attacks, when they learned it and how they acted to limit their responsibility.

The disclosure comes before the 25th anniversary of the attacks, which killed 2,977 people in the United States, most of them when the World Trade Center towers collapsed in New York. A federal medical monitoring program says more than 9,400 people have since died from illnesses linked to exposure to the site.

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These are documents that show what the city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when it knew it and how it acted to limit its responsibility.

The documents address health problems, air quality and the response of New York authorities after the attacks. Their release forms part of an agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victims’ advocacy group that had taken legal action to force the city to make the records public.

Mamdani said the material would show “what the city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when it knew it and how it acted to limit its responsibility.”

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For 25 years, four different city administrations hid from the public, the United States Congress and the City Council documents that showed what the city really knew about the danger of toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapsed, even as city officials continued telling the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable’.

Benjamin Chevat, the group’s director, said four successive city administrations had concealed documents from the public, the U.S. Congress and New York’s City Council. He said the records showed what the city knew about the danger posed by toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapsed, even as city officials continued telling the public that the air was “safe and acceptable.”

Asked which officials had hidden information from the public, Mamdani replied that responsibility extended across “a multitude of people in whom New Yorkers have placed their trust.”

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This involves a multitude of people in whom New Yorkers have placed their trust.