New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration in the United States has released more than 170,000 pages of municipal records detailing the impact of the September 11, 2001, attacks on air quality and public health, as well as the city’s response to the disaster.
The documents were unveiled on Tuesday through a newly launched online portal, three days before the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The release followed the settlement of two lawsuits filed by 9/11 Health Watch, an organisation that had sought access to the records for years.
“For too long, New Yorkers have had to fight for access to records that should have been available to them in the first place,” Mamdani said in a statement.
Speaking at a press conference, Mamdani said the health consequences of the attacks continued long after the immediate crisis had passed.
“The devastating truth is that the suffering did not end once the smoke cleared and the dust settled,” Mamdani also said at a press conference. “People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.”
The newly released records represent only a portion of the documents relating to air quality around Ground Zero.
However, they include an internal city memo examining potential liability over the air pollution.
The documents also shed further light on what city officials knew about the hazardous conditions around the World Trade Center site and the information communicated to members of the public at the time.
The September 11 attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Congressman Jerry Nadler said officials had been warned about the potential health dangers posed by toxic substances in the air around Ground Zero.
“My colleagues and I who represented Ground Zero and the surrounding communities immediately warned local and federal officials of the health risks posed by toxins in the air at the time,” Nadler said in a statement.
“Our warnings were not heeded, and now we and the public know that city hall, led by former mayor [Rudy] Giuliani, predicted that thousands of responders and community members would face devastating long-term health impacts from these toxins.”
New York City Council member Gale Brewer also welcomed the publication of the records, saying affected communities had spent 25 years seeking answers about the health consequences of the attacks.
“For 25 years, first responders, survivors, families, and people who lived, worked and went to school in lower Manhattan have lived with the health consequences of 9/11 while critical pieces of the city’s own record – HOW they got sick – remained out of reach,” she said in a statement.
Brewer described the online portal as an important step towards greater public access to the records.
“The portal, Brewer said, “is a great first step toward giving the public access to that record, one that has been denied them under previous administrations.”
Ben Chevat, executive director of 9/11 Health Watch, praised the administration for releasing the documents and said they could help answer long-standing questions about what city officials knew about the dangers following the attacks.
Chevat thanked Mamdani for “being the mayor, after 25 years, who finally begins to answer the question: ‘What did the city know about the dangers from the toxic cloud at Ground Zero and when did it know it?’”
“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’,” he said in a statement.
The release comes as New York prepares to mark 25 years since the attacks and renews scrutiny of the health risks faced by first responders, survivors and residents exposed to the toxic environment following the collapse of the World Trade Center.
