Albany, NY, Asked to Join Search for Data on WTC Toxins

Albany should join the ongoing search for elusive documents about the toxins that swirled above Ground Zero after 9/11, said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who has asked Gov. Hochul and the leaders of both houses to “direct an investigation into what the State of New York knew about the dangers.”

In a letter acquired by the Daily News, Hoylman-Sigal, who was a state senator before becoming Manhattan’s borough president, asks Hochul, state Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to probe for whatever documents they have on the toxins kicked up during the collapse of the twin towers nearly 25 years ago.

“Responders at Ground Zero, along with residents, commuters, and students who entered the disaster zone deserve to know what their government knew, and when it knew it, even as the government was claiming that all was well,” Hoylman-Sigal says in his letter dated Friday.

“The city was not alone in responding to 9/11,” he added. “What did the Pataki administration know? Surely state agencies had a role and salient information during the crisis in the days, weeks and months after the attacks.”

Reached Saturday, Hoylman-Sigal said he hopes the state will do an agencywide search for documents much like what the city’s Department of Investigation has undertaken — a search that helped uncover 68 boxes of documents within just a few weeks.

“As the elected representative for 1.6 million Manhattanites, it’s incumbent on me to echo (DOI’s) demands at the state level and learn what, if anything, New York State has in its repository of files on what is considered the most cataclysmic event in Manhattan’s history,” he said.

“I believe there is no desire on the part of Albany officials to hide or cover up any documentation that may shed light on that fateful day, but I think its important that we remind them that they may have documents that could help survivors, family members of the deceased and the public understand the full impact of the terror attacks.”

A spokeswoman for Hochul’s office said they were reviewing Hoylman-Sigal’s request.

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.

The stonewalling continued until last year when City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D- Manhattan) pushed through legislation ordering the DOI to launch a probe over what the city knew when about the toxins.

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, the response was so overwhelming the agency was looking at the possibility of getting outside help to parse through all the data.

Attorneys for 9/11 survivors and the families of those who died of 9/11 illness had been trying to get these documents through Freedom of Information Law requests but have been denied at every turn, with the city claiming they can find no documents to share.

When attorneys sued for the documents, the city Department of Environmental Protection late last year suddenly produced 68 boxes of materials for attorneys to sort through.

Advocates for 9/11 survivors hailed Hoylman-Sigal’s request.

“The governor should go through the state’s records and find out what they knew,” Benjamin Chevat, the executive director of 9/11 Health Watch, told The News. “The state of New York had to be involved when Mayor Giuliani decided to put a limit on the city’s liability instead of mitigating the harm the toxins caused.”

More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are now enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s WTC Health Program, 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.

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.

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