Ground Zero Air Secrets Finally Revealed | US News

0:00On September 8th, so we're talking about air quality around Ground Zero. After 9.11 and it turns out there's a whole lot more information coming out. Now over 170,000 pages of reports, contamination logs and official back and forth have been sitting in boxes for more than 20 years. They're finally starting to release this stuff publicly, writers were getting close to the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The city is actually putting together an online portal for these documents so people can actually see them. Some of the early reports from July 2002, less than a year after the attacks, showed us bestos and dust samples collected just a short. Distance from the world traits and our site. We're talking about asbestos found on building ledges, roofs and even electrical cables. Now some of these reports indicated the asbestos levels were within the limits set by agencies, but others suggested they might have been higher than. It was considered safe. This adds fuel to the ongoing discussion about whether people were really told the truth

1:01about the air quality back then and if they were exposed to. Dangerous stuff when they were assured everything was okay. Digging a bit deeper, there was also an audit from November 2001 that found benzene, a known carcinogen, was still spiking near the site. And get this, they found increased asbestos levels even at the fresh kills landfill on Staten Island where all the debris was taken. This whole situation is definitely a reminder of the long term health issues people have faced, which is why programs like the World Trade Center. Health program exists. The city's putting a significant amount of money around $34 million into processing and releasing all these newly found records. It's a huge undertaking and it's clear there's a lot more to uncover and understand about the aftermath of that tragic day. US News Today, powered by AI bringing you what matters nationwide. I'm Corey with The Story.