A Victory in the Battle to Disclose City’s Knowledge of September 11 Health Risks
The years-long lawsuit by advocates for the community of people whose health has been affected by toxins released during the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 reached a turning point yesterday (Tuesday, September 8) when the administration of Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a settlement with plaintiff 911 Health Watch – a nonprofit that seeks to ensure the Federal government’s continued, long-term commitment to the health and well-being of September 11 responders, survivors, and their families.
At a City Hall press conference, Mayor Mamdani announced the release of 170,000 pages of documents, most of which his predecessors denied existed, and all of which a succession of mayors refused to make public. “The very least our City owes the families, survivors and first responders whose lives were forever changed by the September 11th attacks is transparency and accountability,” Mayor Mamdani said.
He added, “the devastating truth is that the suffering did not end once the smoke cleared and the dust settled. For so many New Yorkers who lived or worked or studied near Ground Zero, and for the thousands of others who worked on the pile, recovering those we lost and clearing the rubble, that was only the beginning of years of hardship and illness that would follow.”
Ben Chevat, executive director of 911 Health Watch said, “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, even as City officials continued messaging to the public that the air was safe and acceptable.”
The settlement announced Tuesday requires the City to establish an online portal that will make all relevant documents available for public inspection. Additionally, the agreement requires the City to acknowledge for the first time the existence of the so-called Harding Memo. This is an October 2001 document in which a City lobbyist warned then-Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Harding that, “according to the Law Department, there are approximately 35,000 potential plaintiffs as a result of the events of September 11 and it is estimate[d] that 10,000 would file a claim. A major concern is that if these cases make it to court, the judges and juries will be biased in favor of plaintiffs (even though the City seems to have a strong defense) and therefore award substantial damages to compensate individuals for their loss.” The memo went on to anticipate “direct effect” lawsuits, arising from “public safety officers directing individuals who relied (to their detriment) on the direction.” Further grounds for litigation, the author predicted, could arise from, “health advisories [that] caused individuals… to return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure or emotional harm),” while anticipating a wave of “toxic tort cases that might arise in the next few decades.” Attorneys for 911 Health Watch tracked this document to an archive in the University of Texas at Austin in 2024, after City agencies for several years denied that it existed and refused to produce it.
Even as the Harding Memo was circulating, out of public view, among senior staff at City Hall under the title, “Legislative Alternatives to Limit the City’s Liability Relating to 9/11/01,” Giuliani administration spokesmen were telling New Yorkers that “the general public’s risk for any short- or long-term adverse health effects are very low” (five days after September 11); that “the air quality is safe and acceptable” (17 days after); and that “despite the smoky conditions in areas of Lower Manhattan that are close to the World Trade Center site, test results from the ongoing monitoring of airborne contaminants indicate that the levels continue to be below the level of concern to public health” (24 days after).
The lawsuit settlement also requires the City to cooperate fully with an independent probe by the Department of Investigation into the City’s air-quality messaging following the World Trade Center collapse.
“Now, close to 25 years later, more people have died from September 11-related illnesses than were killed on the day itself,” the Mayor continued at Tuesday’s press conference. “It would be one thing if government had stood alongside survivors and provided them with everything they needed at every step of the way. And yet, we know that could not be further from what actually happened. People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.”
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Editor’s note: The Broadsheet has followed this story closely. On October 3, 2025, we published Records? What Records? about City lawyers admitting that they had files about September 11 health risks, after decades of denial. On December 5, 2025, we published Outrageous Admission of a Decades-Long Cover-Up, describing how advocates were reacting with fury to the City’s “discovery” of 68 boxes of September 11 documents. On April 10 of this year, we published The City’s Response is Devoid of Credibility, reporting that even after 911 Health Watch disclosed the contents of the Harding Memo on February 5, 2026, the City continued to insist that no records could be found. On May 26 of this year, we published An Extraordinary Remedy, about a New York State Supreme Court Justice ordering City officials to give sworn testimony about the missing September 11 documents.