NYC air quality agency convicted of eco crimes just weeks before 9/11, secret docs reveal
The New York City agency tasked with protecting residents’ air and water was convicted of federal environmental crimes — just weeks before the Sept.11, 2001, terror attacks, newly unearthed documents reveal.The stunning revelation about crimes committed by the Department of Environmental Protection was included in a massive trove of 170,000 secret, 9/11-related city records released by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.The documents dump includes letters that the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office submitted in federal court years after the World Trade Center was attacked that revealed the DEP’s prior conviction.
The department pleaded guilty to two environmental crimes, including one felony, and initially received probation in August 2001, under then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the documents show.Officials admitted discharging mercury-contaminated water into a tributary of an upstate New York reservoir that supplied the city’s tap water, in violation of the Clean Water Act.The violation occurred in 1998, the DEP said.The DEP also pleaded guilty to violating the Toxic Substances Control Act for unauthorized use of PCB-contaminated machines in a water supply facility it ran in Westchester County.As a condition of probation, DEP was required to implement an environmental and worker health and safety compliance program in its New York City water supply system, and submit to oversight by a court-appointed monitor.The department also was required not to commit another federal, state or local crime during the term of its 8-year probation.But the US Attorney’s Office, then headed by Michael Garcia, issued a release on February 7, 2006, headlined: “New York City Agency Admits in Federal Court To Violating Probation.”Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said DEP ran afoul of its probation by committing another violation of the Clean Water Act by failing to properly maintain the emergency electrical system at the Red Hook Water Pollution Control Plant ...