{"id":180177,"date":"2026-03-30T22:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/180177\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:06:11","slug":"a-moral-injury-city-sued-over-not-releasing-information-on-lower-manhattan-air-quality-danger-after-9-11-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/180177\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A moral injury\u2019: City sued over not releasing information on Lower Manhattan air quality danger after 9\/11 attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"55080102025_c04caa887f_c\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin speaks at a February press conference urging the city to release all information related to what it knew about the air quality after the 9\/11 attack. <\/p>\n

Emil Cohen\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

Advocates for victims of the 9\/11 terror attacks have for years been demanding information from New York City about when and what it knew about the danger of breathing air around the World Trade Center after the towers crumbled.<\/p>\n

Now advocates for victims are taking that fight to Manhattan Supreme Court \u2014 on Sunday, they filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the city to compel to release its files.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The suit stems from FOIL requests filed in 2023 by advocacy group 9\/11 Health Watch<\/a> seeking risk assessments the city performed immediately after the attack, communications between city agencies and between the city and Congress and what basis the city had for telling the public that the air in lower Manhattan immediately following the attacks was so safe that life could essentially go back to normal.<\/p>\n

Advocates for victims and their families say they aren\u2019t pushing for the release of this information so survivors have new grounds to sue the city \u2014 there are multiple legal blockers preventing them from doing so at this point \u2014 but for answers and accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fight isn\u2019t about money. This fight isn\u2019t about victims\u2019 compensation. \u2029This fight is about answers,\u201d Andrew Carboy, an attorney for 9\/11 Health Watch, said. \u201cThis is a moral injury case. The answers are so important because this country is a democracy. One of the foundations of our democracy is open government and transparency. When people don\u2019t trust their government, that\u2019s not stabilizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he believed the city\u2019s release of the information 9\/11 Health Watch believes the city\u2019s withholding should be considered a national issue.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most significant event in New York City history, and one of the most significant events in our nation\u2019s history,\u201d Carboy said. \u201cWe went to war for 20 years over this. Tens of thousands of American men and women lost their lives in that effort. \u2029Tens of thousands have become sickened by the pollutants in lower Manhattan after the collapse of the World Trade Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs allege that the city has consistently denied the group\u2019s FOIL requests, telling advocates it didn\u2019t have the information being requested and couldn\u2019t search its records for it.<\/p>\n

In November, the Department of Environmental Protection released 68 boxes of records after saying they had none to share<\/a>, and in February, advocates uncovered an October 2001 memo<\/a> to then Deputy Mayor Robert Harding, showing the city lobbied the White House and Congress for liability protection while publicly claiming the air was safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The memo says the city\u2019s Law Department estimated that 10,000 of the 35,000 eligible people would file suit against the city for a list of potential reasons, including \u201chealth advisories causing individuals to return to the area too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The October memo, advocacy groups said shows the city intentionally hid information about the air quality, at a Feb. press conference.Emil Cohen\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a push to get New York City back on its feet at the expense of overlooking human health concerns,\u201d Carboy said. \u201cNow, they\u2019re denying they have any records from September, October, November, and December of 2001. How could they not have those records? \u2029It absolutely makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carboy said documents he has obtained show city agencies were directed to preserve their records from the time \u201cindefinitely\u201d and that the Law Department scanned them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Law Department told amNewYork Law it was currently in the process of creating a public portal that will house records related to 9\/11 air quality and health risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The department declined to respond directly to additional questions on when the portal would be up or what types of information it would contain.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

But, the issues don\u2019t end at fulfilling the FOIL requests, advocates said. The city also needs to provide the Department of Investigation with the $4 million it\u2019s requested to carry out a currently unfunded City Council-mandated investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n

Carboy noted that, despite 9\/11 Health Watch filing FOILS and a suit against the Department of Environmental Protection, the agency only released those 68 boxes of records after the council passed legislation requiring the investigation, crediting the DOI\u2019s teeth with the city\u2019s compliance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Hall did not respond to amNewYork Law\u2019s question on whether it planned to fund that investigation. The Department of Investigation declined to comment on the investigation\u2019s progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council Member Gale Brewer, who authored the legislation requiring the investigation, has requested to launch a probe into the matter. She said she was frustrated by the delay in the release of the files and that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Corporation Counsel Steven Banks should \u201cput everyone in a room\u201d to settle the matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"Council Member Gale Brewer speaks at a February press conference urging the city to release all information related to what it knew about the air quality after the 9\/11 attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor should put everybody in the room and say, \u2018Let\u2019s get this done. Let\u2019s find all the boxes. Let\u2019s see what\u2019s available,\u2019\u201d Brewer said.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council Speaker Julie Menin speaks at a February press conference urging the city to release all information…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5301,33868,2710,43241,75,84,83,9,24,63,42256],"class_list":{"0":"post-180177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-9-11","9":"tag-gale-brewer","10":"tag-law","11":"tag-law-department","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-manhattan-headlines","14":"tag-manhattan-news","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-steven-banks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}