NEW YORK CITY— Asbestos was still being detected about a half-mile from the World Trade Center site 10 months after the Sept. 11 attacks, and tests also found elevated levels of carcinogenic benzene near Ground Zero, according to more than 170,000 pages of City records released on this week.
"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
The release follows a lawsuit by 9/11 Health Watch, an advocacy group seeking access to the records.
In May, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that the City had violated public-records law by denying the group's request.
The City did not appeal, leading to a settlement requiring the release of the records.
"For too long, New Yorkers have had to fight for access to records that should have been available to them in the first place," Mamdani said.
The records include air-quality reports, contamination data, resident complaints and internal memos from the months after the attacks.
A November 2001 audit sent to the Environmental Protection Agency found high levels of benzene near the World Trade Center site and increasing asbestos concentrations in the air at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, where debris from the attacks had been taken.
Other records show asbestos, heavy metals, carcinogenic organic contaminants, fungi and bacteria at 130 Liberty Street, the former Deutsche Bank building near the World Trade Center site, between September 2001 and April 2002.
At 15 John Street, about a half-mile from the World Trade Center site, inspectors continued finding asbestos in July 2002.
In late October 2001, then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani acknowledged that the air sometimes smelled terrible, but said officials had told him it did not pose a health danger.
"Every test that has been done says the air quality was in acceptable limits," then-Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said months later.
But a February 2002 memo to top City officials raised concerns about whether New Yorkers were receiving enough information about potential health risks in Lower Manhattan.
The memo detailed then-U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler's concerns about asbestos, indoor air quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency's oversight, noting that the City's Health Department had advised residents to clean buildings with wet mops and rags.
"However, if Nadler's concerns are justified, we are not informing people of the real health risks in Lower Manhattan," the memo read.
The memo also warned of the legal consequences if those concerns proved valid, saying the City could face "major public relations problems" and "a barrage of lawsuits."
The potential legal exposure had already drawn the attention of City officials months earlier.
A 2001 memo known as the Harding Memo examined the City's liability for claims related to toxic exposure after the attacks and estimated about 35,000 potential plaintiffs, including roughly 10,000 expected claims.
The records do not provide a complete account of air quality after the attacks.
Some tests showed asbestos levels below limits set by environmental and worker-protection agencies, while others indicated levels above those limits.
Many of the documents do not include written analysis explaining the results.
More records are expected to be released over the next year.
The City also plans to assign employees to help survivors, responders and others locate records they may need when applying for the World Trade Center Health Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.
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