Classified 9/11 Documents Revealed: New York Officials Knew Manhattan Air Was Toxic
A shocking fact has been revealed through thousands of recently released documents regarding the 9/11 tragedy. The reports indicate that the air quality in Manhattan was recorded as highly toxic immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks, even though officials at the time continued to reassure the public that environmental conditions were safe for health.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani revealed that asbestos content was found “almost everywhere” around Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers’ collapse. This statement was made during the announcement of the release of 170,000 documents that had previously been hidden from the public.
“People fell ill because the leaders they trusted lied to them and told them that the toxic air was safe to breathe,” Mamdani asserted during a press conference on Tuesday local time.
Data from United States health authorities shows a horrific long-term impact. Diseases related to the dust and smoke from the collapse of the WTC towers have now claimed more lives than the direct fatalities during the attacks, which reached nearly 3,000 people.
Thousands of individuals are reported to have experienced serious health effects, including various types of cancer, after inhaling hazardous contaminants in the area. Jon Stewart, the television host and 9/11 survivor advocate, harshly criticised the delay in releasing this information.
“So, to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years,” Stewart remarked sarcastically.
He added that the documents prove the city government had known about the air’s toxicity since October 2001, just one month after the attacks occurred.
One of the key documents released is an October 2001 correspondence known as the “Harding Memo”. In this memo, an assistant warned former Deputy Mayor Robert Harding that the city could face up to 35,000 lawsuits regarding their response to the attacks.
The document explicitly stated that the city government risked being sued because the health advisories issued caused individuals to “return to the area too early (causing exposure to toxins or emotional harm)”.
Only days after the attacks, city and federal officials, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated that the air near the Twin Towers was safe. Christine Todd Whitman, then head of the EPA, later apologised for those statements, claiming the agency had done its best based on the knowledge available at the time.
However, another memo from Ester Fuchs, a special advisor to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, acknowledged “potential problems for City Hall” regarding asbestos findings that contradicted the official statements of health officials.
The release of these documents is the result of a lawsuit by the advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch. For many families, this information arrives late but is crucial for their medical histories.
Karen Klingon, who was involved in the lawsuit, recounted how her sibling, who lived near Ground Zero, died at the age of 61 from a brain tumour after previously suffering from asthma and cancer. Meanwhile, Phil Alvarez, whose sibling Luis Alvarez died of cancer in 2019, emphasised that the impact of this tragedy has not ended.
“People continue to fall ill every day, and continue to die,” concluded Alvarez.