Documents Suggest Doubt About 9/11 Air Quality

Sept. 8, 2006 — -- New documents obtained by ABC News indicate city agencies were divided over whether it was safe to open certain areas around ground zero to the public at a time when New York and federal officials were assuring the community that the air from the fires burning at ground zero in the critical weeks after 9/11 were not a health hazard.

In an Oct. 6, 2001, internal memo, New York City Health Department Associate Commissioner Kelly McKinney writes that the city's Office of Emergency Management was sharply at odds with the Department of Environmental Protection over whether the air was safe enough to reopen the area to the public.

"The mayor's office is under pressure from building owners and business owners in the red zone to open more of the city to occupancy," McKinney wrote. "According to the OEM, some city blocks north and south of Ground Zero are suitable for reoccupancy. DEP believes the air quality is not yet suitable for reoccupancy. I was told the mayor's office was directing OEM to open the target areas next week."

McKinney now works for the city's Office of Emergency Management.

McKinney referred an ABC News inquiry to an OEM spokesman, who did not return a call for comment.

On Oct. 3, 2001, then-city Commissioner for Environmental Protection Joel Miele reportedly told hundreds of anxious residents of downtown Manhattan that the dust and debris from the collapse were "not a health concern."

McKinney's memo goes on to complain that the "EPA has been very slow to make [air test] data results available and to date has not sufficiently informed … the public of air quality issues arising from this disaster."

The following week, at a news conference outside Mount Sinai Medical Center after a keynote speech she gave at an asthma summit, then-EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said, "The good news continues to be that the air samples have all been at levels that cause us no concern."