9/11 NYC air quality records released by Mamdani administration

NEW YORK CITY – Reams of data and records about the air quality on and after Sept. 11, 2001, are being released by New York City's law department, Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration announced.

About 170,000 pages of records are now accessible through a special September 11th Public Records Portal. The announcement comes as part of a settlement of a court challenge to force the release of documents, some of which were gathered a quarter century ago as 9/11 recovery efforts were still underway.

The website that houses the portal, sept11documents.cityofnewyork.us, was officially launched Sept. 8, with city officials noting additional records would be added in coming months.

The court case, called an Article 78, was filed in 2024 by 911 Health Watch and the nonprofit's executive director, Ben Chevat.

"For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the U.S. Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the city actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse," Chevat said in a statement, "even as city officials continued messaging to the public that the air was 'safe and acceptable.'"

Chevat thanked Mamdani, who was 9…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/