Thousands of New Yorkers who survived the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks 25 years ago are suffering the consequences of being at or near Ground Zero years later. And yet, the answers as to how and why they are sick remain elusive.
Twenty-five years later, the survivors, their families and their attorneys still do not have access to all the data city and state officials knew in the immediate aftermath: A time when they claimed the air was safe, defying all scientific logic, even as toxic fires smoldered for weeks and carcinogenic dust covered most of Lower Manhattan.
The truth would reveal itself years later as chronic respiratory illnesses and 68 different types of cancer in the bodies of those who lived or worked near Ground Zero, or took part in the recovery mission.
Why is it that we still do not yet know the full scope of the environmental disaster sparked by the 9/11 attacks? Because the city hid crucial documents on Lower Manhattan’s air quality for the better part of a quarter-century and three separate mayoral administrations.
Last year, the city revealed that 68 previously undisclosed boxes of material related to the air quality at the World Trade Center site post-9/11 had been found in a Department of Environmental Protection facility.
Among the material was a memo to then-Deputy Mayor Robert Harding noting that there were some “35,000 potential plaintiffs” directly tied to 9/11 who could file claims against the city because of “health advisories causing individuals to return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure).”
Yet most of the undisclosed material that the city said it found last year remains unavailable to elected officials and advocates for those suffering today from 9/11-related illnesses — including unions for the more than 400 firefighters who have died of such illnesses in the years since the attacks.
Last week, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and other 9/11 victim advocates called on the Mamdani administration to make things right and release all of the discovered material. The public ought to know what the city knew and when to fully understand the scope of the disaster, and inform future generations how they can avoid a similar fate should, God forbid, a similar catastrophe strike.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani should not only order the full disclosure of these documents but also a full inquiry by the city’s Department of Investigation to determine how such material about such a critical event as 9/11 could have been shrouded in secrecy for nearly 25 years.
There may be further anger upon public review of these documents, and the city may even face a new round of litigation. The city will have to bear those costs in the name of accountability. The survivors of 9/11 suffering today deserve justice, the costs be damned.
