{"id":253621,"date":"2026-06-03T11:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/253621\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:52:10","slug":"editorial-nyc-must-be-honest-about-9-11-air-quality-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/253621\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial | NYC must be honest about 9\/11 air quality files"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"9\/11\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A group of firefighters search the remains of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. More than 400 firefighters have died of 9\/11-related illnesses nearly 25 years after the attacks.<\/p>\n

REUTERS\/Shannon Stapleton<\/p>\n

More than 5,000 New Yorkers have died of illnesses related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks<\/a> that brought down the World Trade Center. Nearly 25 years later, so many questions remain as to why they would suffer such a horrible fate.<\/p>\n

Of the 5,000 people who have died from 9\/11-related illnesses \u2014 a number that\u2019s nearly double the actual death toll from the attacks \u2014\u00a0most were firefighters, police officers, other first responders, volunteers and iron workers who combed through the rubble looking for victims\u2019 remains and evidence. When they toiled in that apocalyptic landscape, the powers that be assured them the air was safe.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the air was not.\u00a0<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Anyone who worked on \u201cthe pile\u201d could tell you of the toxic fumes that emanated from fires that burned underground for weeks after the World Trade Center\u2019s collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyone caught in the choking cloud of dust that settled upon Lower Manhattan could tell you they inhaled all kinds of material \u2014 fiberglass, pulverized sheet rock, asbestos, etc. \u2014\u00a0linked to every type of illness imaginable, including cancer.<\/p>\n

And clearly, City Hall knew the air was unsafe based on 68 boxes of evidence \u201cdiscovered\u201d last year in storage at the Department of Environmental Protection, which finally came to light. So many questions remain as to not just what City Hall knew and when they knew it, but why they never told the truth about their air quality from the start.
A group called 9\/11 Health Watch has sued the city, demanding answers and the release of air quality records denied to them in a 2023 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. On Monday, they secured a court order compelling city officials to testify about what they knew about the records, and why they were unfound for nearly a quarter-century.<\/p>\n

One might ask, why does it matter? It\u2019s not for a round of lawsuits for survivors seeking compensation, insisted attorney Andrew Carboy, who represents 9\/11 Health Watch. He called the city\u2019s decision not to turn over the discovered documents to them \u201ca moral injury\u201d and an affront to the public\u2019s trust in government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to agree with that statement \u2014 especially at a time when the public\u2019s general trust in government on any level is consistently low. The public needs to believe in government in order for government to survive, and City Hall owes it to the survivors of 9\/11, the families of those who have already died of 9\/11-related illnesses, and all of us as residents of New York to be transparent and forthright.<\/p>\n

After nearly 25 years of secrecy and unanswered questions, the Mamdani administration must reverse the mistakes of its predecessors and do the right thing. Release all of the air quality documents, and help achieve some sense of closure while resolving never to allow history to repeat itself whenever another tragedy strikes New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of firefighters search the remains of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on Sept.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98863,98864,98865,98866,98867,34059,98868,98869,17685,98870,98871,9,36785,56,63,65,64,98872,98873,7037],"class_list":["post-253621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-9-11-health-watch","tag-9-11-illnesses","tag-air-quality-cover-up","tag-asbestos-exposure","tag-cancer-cluster","tag-environmental-health","tag-environmental-records-transparency","tag-firefighter-health-risks","tag-first-responders","tag-foia-lawsuit","tag-ground-zero-cleanup","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-government","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-public-trust-in-government","tag-toxic-dust-exposure","tag-world-trade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253621","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=253621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}