New Yorkers were 'lied' to about toxic air after 9/11 attacks, says Mamdani

New Yorkers were 'lied' to about toxic air after 9/11 attacks, says Mamdani

Toxic air quality was being recorded in Manhattan soon after the 9/11 attacks even as officials played down health risks to the public, according to a trove of newly released files.

Asbestos was found "nearly everywhere" tested near Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center towers collapsed in 2001, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.

"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," he said, announcing the release of 170,000 documents related to the attacks.

Illnesses related to the dust and smoke from the towers' collapse have claimed more lives than the nearly 3,000 who died in the attacks, US health officials say.

Thousands of people have experienced health effects like cancer, including many who have died, after breathing in hazardous contaminants after the Twin Towers collapsed.

Speaking alongside Mamdani at Tuesday's news conference, TV host and 9/11 survivor advocate Jon Stewart said the new files show the city knew by October 2001 - a month after the terrorist attacks - that the air in Manhattan was toxic.

"So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years," he said sarcastically.

The records show asbestos was found near Ground Zero for months after the attacks at the same time people were being advised it was safe to go there.

The files, which include air-quality reports and communications among city officials, include October 2001 correspondence known as the "Harding Memo".

In it, an aide warned former Deputy Mayor Robert Harding that the city could face as many as 35,000 legal claims for its response to the attacks.

The document states that the city could be sued because health advisories caused individuals "to return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure or emotional harm)".

City officials also told citizens to clean up dust and debris with "wet mops and rags" despite the presence of asbestos, which is only supposed to be cleaned by licensed professionals, according to another memo documenting the concerns of congressman Jerry Nadler.

The memo pointed to testimony from the city's top health official at the time saying a study had found "no elevated levels of asbestos in indoor air", but that tests showed dust had "low levels of asbestos in some samples".

The memo, attributed to Ester Fuchs, a special adviser at the time to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, acknowledged "potential problems for City Hall".

Days after the attack, city and federal officials - including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - declared that the air near the Twin Towers was safe.

Christine Todd Whitman, the head of the EPA at the time, later apologised for this declaration, saying the agency "did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had".

Tuesday's release of documents resolves a lawsuit brought by advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch, which sued after officials said they did not have the records.

City officials found 68 boxes of documents last year.

The pages of air quality reports and other records were released through an online portal timed for this Friday's 25th anniversary of the attacks. More documents are to be shared over the next year.

Karen Klingon, who was involved in the 9/11 Health Watch lawsuit, told the BBC on Tuesday her brother lived five minutes away from Ground Zero. He developed asthma, was later diagnosed with cancer and died at 61 of a related brain tumor.

"There's a lot of research, probably, that can be done about what was in the air, and the kind of illnesses that derived of those toxins that were in the air, like what happened to my brother," she said. "Hopefully it helps people that were sick know and in the future."

Phil Alvarez, whose brother Luis Alvarez died of cancer in 2019 after exposure to Ground Zero toxins, told the BBC that people "continue to get sick every single day, continue to die".