Mamdani releases long-undisclosed 9/11 files showing alarms over toxic Ground Zero air

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has released more than 170,000 pages of previously undisclosed records revealing warnings about dangerous air around Ground Zero following the September 11 attacks.

The documents include internal memos and environmental testing that regularly detected elevated levels of toxins, including asbestos, in the months after the attacks.

“As the years pass and the human toll grows, we reckon with the cost of September 11th whenever another New Yorker is stolen from us too soon,” Mamdani said on Tuesday.

The records show then-US Rep. Jerry Nadler warned Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office in 2002 that the Environmental Protection Agency had “neglected its responsibility for monitoring indoor air quality around Ground Zero.”

Nadler also raised concerns that then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman had declared the air “safe to breathe” before government testing of indoor air quality was conducted.

Whitman said Tuesday her statements “were based entirely on the analysis done by EPA scientists.”

The records were released following a lawsuit by advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch.

At least 140,000 people are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, while 49,000 have been diagnosed with certified WTC-related cancers, according to the 9/11 Memorial.