City releases 40,000 more 9/11 records, including lawyers' emails on dust-filled buildings

New York City has released about 40,000 more documents about the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath, the second batch posted to the public records portal Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched last month, amNewYork and NBC New York reported Wednesday.

The portal, at nyc.gov/sept11docs, now holds roughly 210,000 pages, according to NBC New York. It opened Sept. 8 with about 170,000 pages, including the long-sought Harding Memo and the "68 boxes" of records that were not located until 2025, as part of a settlement of two Freedom of Information Law suits brought by the advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch.

"Our commitment to honoring the victims of the horrific terror attacks of Sept. 11 and delivering accountability and transparency to survivors cannot begin or end on the anniversary," Mamdani said in a statement.

What's in the new batch

Many of the records are communications between city agencies and their lawyers, normally protected by attorney-client privilege, which the administration waived earlier this year, NBC New York reported. Among the examples the station found:

• December 2002: as CUNY, the Board of Elections and downtown residents sought FEMA help decontaminating buildings still full of dust, the EPA indicated it would pay for some cleanups if the city's Department of Environmental Protection certified the buildings as contaminated. The Law Department told DEP to "refrain from getting involved." A lawyer in its World Trade Center unit wrote that such a certification could be used as evidence against the city in suits over letting people stay in or return to those buildings.
• April 2002: an environmental official in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office expressed "surprise" that the EPA said it had advised since the first days that indoor spaces with more than minimal dust should be professionally cleaned, advice the city had not given the public.
• March 2002: minutes from the first meeting of an interagency air-quality task force record agency lawyers discussing how to square new testing or cleanup instructions with earlier assurances that conditions were safe.

NBC said it could not reach the Law Department lawyer for comment, and a longtime Bloomberg spokesperson declined to comment on specific communications.

What advocates say

The first release already included a February 2002 memo warning that the city might not be adequately informing the public about health risks, amNewYork reported. Benjamin Chevat, executive director of 9/11 Health Watch, said the records reviewed so far show "a disturbing record" in which the city, state and federal governments did not change course even after the extent of the hazards was known. The group's lawyers are now reviewing the new batch.

What's next

The settlement calls for more records to be posted over the coming months, and a City Council-mandated Department of Investigation inquiry is separately examining what city officials knew about post-9/11 air quality and when, amNewYork reported. When it launched the portal, the city also said it would assign staff at DCAS and city public schools to help people retrieve records proving they were in the exposure zone, for the World Trade Center Health Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.