Advocates and officials are raising questions after the city confirmed it recently located 68 boxes of 9/11 toxin-related documents.

What You Need To Know

  • Advocates and officials are raising questions after the city confirmed it recently located 68 boxes of 9/11 toxin-related documents

  • Last Tuesday, they were able to start looking inside some of the boxes

  • Now they wait as the Department of Environmental Protection scans the documents they’ve vetted so they can begin to learn what exactly was in the air in the days and months after the Sept. 11 attacks

Last Tuesday, they were able to start looking inside some of the boxes.

Now they wait as the Department of Environmental Protection scans the documents they’ve vetted so they can begin to learn what exactly was in the air in the days and months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“How could this happen, and who was behind it? Was it intentional misconduct or just incompetence?” General Counsel of the FDNY Uniformed Firefirefighters Association Thomas McManus said.

Advocates say they’ve been requesting the documents for years from the department.

“Twenty four years ago, they made the choice to hide the evidence of what happened [on] 9/11,” FDNY UFA President Andrew Ansbro said.

At a news conference Monday, representatives from the FDNY UFA alleged the documents were suppressed.

“The shame is, it turns out from these boxes of materials that we just discovered, that the City of New York likely knew as early as 2001 how dangerous these toxins were,” 9/11 survivor and advocate Michael Barasch said.

Barasch is a two-time cancer survivor and also represents people living with 9/11 related-illnesses.

“I want to make sure that we get to see everything with no redactions at all. We’re entitled to this information. And it’s long overdue,” Barasch said.

City Hall responded, saying it cannot discuss pending litigation, adding “The city has begun turning over documents to plaintiff’s counsel, and both parties are working out a schedule to continue this process.”

“Lawsuits didn’t bring boxes, press conferences didn’t bring boxes, but [the Department of Investigation] did it,” City Councilmember Gale Brewer said.

Brewer sponsored the law requiring the DOI to conduct the search.

“We don’t know what we’re going to find, but it’s really important to have this information available to the public,” Brewer said.

As the review continues, the question remains: were these documents hidden or lost in two decades of bureaucracy?

“The 140,000 people in the World Trade Center Health Program deserve to know. Their families deserve to know. The families of those [who] have died deserve to know,” Ansbro said.

Brewer says that only 22 of the 68 boxes have been opened. Right now, it’s unclear when they’ll be able to see the rest.