MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
On Friday, the nation will mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In New York, firefighters are demanding answers after the city released records this week on air quality around ground zero after the attacks. Reporter Steve Kastenbaum says the documents suggest officials knew far more about the toxic dangers than they told the public.
STEVE KASTENBAUM, BYLINE: A few weeks after the attacks at the World Trade Center, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani addressed concerns some Lower Manhattan residents had about the foul odor coming from ground zero.
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RUDY GIULIANI: The odor is really just from the fire and the smoke that continues to go on. It is monitored constantly, and it is not in any way dangerous.
KASTENBAUM: Twenty-five years later, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made public a mountain of previously unreleased city documents that revealed exactly what officials knew about the dangers that were lurking in the air. Those included asbestos and other contaminants.
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ZOHRAN MAMDANI: People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.
KASTENBAUM: Now the unions representing firefighters and other recovery workers hope this newly available information will lead to the list of covered illnesses being expanded and federal compensation increased. Jim Brosi is president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
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JIM BROSI: At the earliest time of October, the city was making a fiduciary choice to prioritize the economic stability of Lower Manhattan over the health and safety of the firefighters, the police officers, the construction workers and the children that went back to school down there.
KASTENBAUM: More than 9,000 people have died from 9/11-related cancers and other illnesses since the attacks, according to the 9/11 health monitoring program. Over 450 of them were firefighters. Brosi wonders how many could've been saved if they had this information sooner.
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BROSI: They went through great lengths to making sure you did not know the totality of the situation and what they knew when they made the choice to sacrifice its residents and its first responders for what they believed was the greater good.
KASTENBAUM: Ten years ago, former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman apologized for assuring people that the air was safe. Rudy Giuliani's staff issued a statement referencing communications from the EPA declaring that the air quality near ground zero was safe in September 2001. Former Mayor Eric Adams accused Mayor Mamdani of raising this now to score political points.
For NPR News, I'm Steve Kastenbaum in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAWN LEE'S PING PONG ORCHESTRA'S SONG, "KISS THE SKY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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