New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday the public release of approximately 170,000 pages of documents revealing that city officials withheld critical information about air toxicity in the wake of the September 11 attacks for a quarter-century.
The disclosure comes just before the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, which killed 2,977 people in the United States, predominantly within the collapsed Twin Towers. In the years since, more than 9,400 individuals have died from illnesses connected to exposure to the contaminated environment, according to a federal medical monitoring program.
“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,” Mamdani stated at a press conference following the online publication of the files, which cover health concerns, air quality assessments, and the city’s emergency response.
The release fulfills terms of a legal settlement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victims’ advocacy group that sued to force the city to make the records available. Benjamin Chevat, the group’s director, criticized four consecutive mayoral administrations for keeping documents secret from the public, Congress, and the City Council while publicly asserting that the air was “safe and acceptable.”
So the city knew and stayed silent? This isn’t just negligence; it’s a betrayal of first responders and survivors alike.
Finally, accountability after 25 years of lies. These families deserve the truth, no matter how painful it is to face.