{"id":691932,"date":"2026-03-30T07:22:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/691932\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:22:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:22:30","slug":"they-have-the-data-but-nyc-denies-another-request-for-info-on-9-11-toxins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/691932\/","title":{"rendered":"They have the data, but NYC denies another request for info on 9\/11 toxins"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City has denied another request for data about the toxins that swirled above Ground Zero<\/a> after 9\/11 \u2014 claiming nothing could be found \u2014 despite the discovery of 68 boxes worth of information on the subject just four months ago, the Daily News has learned.<\/p>\n

Advocates for 9\/11 survivors are again suing for the data, claiming city officials are playing hide and seek with people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith its ever-changing replies, the city plays three-card monte with Sept. 11 records,\u201d attorney Andrew Carboy said about the stream of Freedom of Information Law denials.<\/p>\n

Carboy filed a new lawsuit against the city on Sunday, asking a judge to order the city to produce the records. A similar lawsuit against the city\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection led to the agency coughing up 68 boxes worth of material on the subject<\/a>, despite the city claiming for years it had nothing to share.<\/p>\n

Those documents included a memo ordering all agencies to send their documents regarding 9\/11 to the Law Department.<\/p>\n

To Carboy, the latest denial was the same song advocates have heard for nearly a quarter century \u2014 but this time with a different dance partner: Mayor Mamdani.<\/p>\n

\"NewMayor Mamdani (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, Carboy and attorney Matthew McCauley, who are representing the families of 9\/11 illness victims and the survivor advocacy group 9\/11 Health Watch<\/a>, said that the city closed a 2023 FOIL request for the data sent to the mayor\u2019s office and the city Law Department, as well as two appeals for the data. The last appeal was denied on March 20.<\/p>\n

In the denial, FOIL Appeals Officer Jeffrey Lowell, claims that searches \u201chave not identified any records responsive to your requests under FOIL,\u201d according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Lowell also claimed that \u201cthe Law Department records are not maintained in a manner that allows it to search for records responsive to the request.\u201d<\/p>\n

The denials came in February, three weeks after incoming Corporation Counsel Steven Banks testified before City Hall and vowed to review all of the 9\/11 related documents the city has<\/a> and \u201crelease or make available what can be made available,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as a new Corporation Counsel pledges \u2018transparency\u2019 and the release of the Sept. 11 archive, in the corridors of the Law Department and the dimmer corners of City Hall, career officials continue their grinding resistance,\u201d Carboy says in the new lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Hall treats the Freedom of Information Law like a rigged card game, staged atop a cardboard box on a sidewalk. Here, Sept. 11 first responders and survivors, seeking the facts of toxic exposure, are the \u2018marks,\u2019 left without answers after tireless efforts to obtain them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WreckageWreckage after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. (Michael Schwartz for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201c[The city\u2019s] shameful achievement is to make records of the most significant event in New York City history \u2018disappear,’\u201d he added in the suit. \u201cThe FOIL appeal denial from their government might as well read \u2018Thanks for playing.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The city, in its search for documents, sent 911 Health Watch internet links to widely available, decades-old federal reports and testimony.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe head-snapping \u2018back and forth\u2019 between city leaders and city lawyers, an effort to prevent any substantive disclosure, is highly improper,\u201d Carboy says in the suit. \u201cThis sleight of hand must stop now.\u201d<\/p>\n

An email to the Law Department about the FOIL denial and Carboy\u2019s lawsuit was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransparency isn\u2019t optional, it\u2019s essential to any healthy democracy,\u201d a spokesman for the mayor said in a statement. \u201cMayor Mamdani has been clear \u2014 transparency and accountability are prerequisites to a city government that truly delivers for New Yorkers. Based on this responsibility, this administration is working to address FOILs, including this request, in a timely and efficient manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the city marking the 25th anniversary of 9\/11 in five months, Benjamin Chevat, the executive director of 911 Health Watch, is hopeful Mamdani will bring about a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani can still be the Mayor who, after 25 years, answers the question: what did the city know about the hazards caused by the toxic chemicals at Ground Zero, and when did it know it?\u201d Chevat said Sunday.<\/p>\n

More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are now enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control\u2019s\u00a0WTC Health Program,\u00a0<\/a>which provides 9\/11-related health care benefits. Out of that number, about 81,000 have a certified condition linked to the toxins that hung above Ground Zero.<\/p>\n

On the day of the terror attacks, 343 FDNY members died in the collapse of the twin towers. Since then, an additional 400 members have died of 9\/11-related illnesses.<\/p>\n

\"FirefightersFirefighters at Ground Zero in Manhattan. September 2001. (AP Photo\/Mark Lennihan, File)<\/p>\n

City administrations dating back to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have refused to provide attorneys and local elected officials documentation on what city officials knew about the potential dangers of World Trade Center toxins.<\/p>\n

The stonewalling continued until last year when City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan)\u00a0pushed through legislation<\/a>\u00a0ordering the city\u2019s Department of Investigation to launch a probe over what and when the city knew about the toxins.<\/p>\n

A Daily News story published last year as the city marked the 24th anniversary of the terror attacks disclosed that only eight weeks into the DOI review,\u00a0the response was so overwhelming\u00a0<\/a>the agency was looking at the possibility of getting outside help\u00a0to parse through all the data.<\/p>\n

Then, after telling Carboy that they had no documents to share \u2014 and even petitioning the court to dismiss the attorney\u2019s FOIL requests,\u00a0calling the search nothing more than a \u201cfishing expedition\u201d\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 the city Department of Environmental Protection late last year suddenly produced 68 boxes of materials for attorneys to sort through.<\/p>\n

After years of searching, Carboy and his team in February obtained a copy of the famed \u201cHarding memo,\u201d which was written about a month after 9\/11. In it, city officials raised concerns that thousands of first responders and survivors\u00a0could potentially suffer from \u201ctoxic exposure<\/a>\u201d at Ground Zero.<\/p>\n

Carboy and McCauley repeatedly asked the city for a copy of the memo, only to be denied. They finally got a copy\u00a0from the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Texas at Austin, where the estate of\u00a0investigative Village Voice journalist Wayne Barrett<\/a>, who had cited the Harding memo in his 2007 book \u201cGrand Illusion,\u201d had bequeathed his personal papers and notes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City has denied another request for data about the toxins that swirled above Ground Zero after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":691933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2451,3059,5295,1370,728,405,403,5294,8989,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5293,80,5321,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-691932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-county","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-county","17":"tag-new-york-politics","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkcity","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-nyc","23":"tag-nyc-crime","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-sub-county-region","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116316926704714167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}