Troves of new 9/11 docs suggest NYC officials knew of air quality health risks

New York City released about 170,000 pages of documents related to post-9/11 air quality and health risks on Tuesday — a trove of paperwork within which some notes suggest city officials knew of the potential environmental dangers and legal exposure in the early aftermath of the terror attacks.

One undated internal document — a letter to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s deputy mayor, Robert Harding — listed various potential grounds for lawsuits against the city, including health advisories that caused people to return to the area too soon, causing toxic exposure, rescue workers being provided with faulty equipment, and police failing to secure businesses from looters.

Another memo early in the Michael Bloomberg administration, five months after 9/11, said the city was “leaving itself open to a barrage of lawsuits. At the least, we should discontinue telling people to clean their apartments with wet mops and rags.” The note added that the city should ask the federal government for cleanup funds.

NYC Corporation Counsel Steven Banks said that the city’s Department of Investigation is now investigating what city officials knew and when they knew it, as well as why information appears to have been withheld.

Meanwhile, city officials continue to comb…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health