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 in Brooklyn.
Garcia said the emergency electrical system in Red Hook failed during the August 2003 blackout, causing the plant to discharge approximately 30 million gallons of untreated sewage into the East River.
“The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is entrusted with performing critical functions for all New Yorkers, including the provision of drinking water and the prevention of water pollution,” Garcia said at the time, noting the agency’s admission in court was “an important milestone in achieving the goal of this federal prosecution: to ensure that DEP complies with all applicable environmental and worker safety laws while carrying out its responsibilities.”
Andrew Carboy, a pro bono lawyer for the advocacy group 911 Health Watch — which sued the city to get it to release the long-hidden documents — said the DEP’s prior conviction was “deeply disturbing.”
“DEP, which apparently was convicted of federal environmental crimes in August 2001, just weeks before the World Trade Center collapse, led the City’s September 11th air quality response,” Carboy told The Post.
“We cannot identify any other city agency with the dishonor of a felony conviction arising from its core function. The newly released DEP records are revelatory, and not in a good way,” he said.
“That DEP fought us in court for years and represented that these records did not exist or could not be found is even more troubling today. “
On December 23, 2009, the US Attorney’s Office, then headed by Preet Bharara, wrote a letter to the court saying the DEP had made improvements in its compliance program, effectively ending its probation.
A DEP spokesperson said Thursday, “In August 2001, DEP pleaded guilty to a Clean Water Act violation that occurred in 1998—before the Sept. 11 attacks. We fulfilled the terms of probation in December 2009 and have since strengthened and expanded our environmental, health, and safety compliance programs within the agency.
“We now have strong, comprehensive policies that guide how we protect our workforce every day. Protecting the people who operate, maintain, and protect New York City’s essential water and wastewater systems goes hand in hand with protecting the city we serve.”
