Portfolio at NYU

Posted 07.13.04
Where It Goes: Hauling the WTC Debris

By Gretchen Weber

November 2001

When the much-heralded last barge of trash left Manhattan for the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island last March, it was swathed in festive red, white and blue ribbons. Politicians made speeches, and local residents celebrated that an end had finally come to the 3,000-acre dump's 53-year career. Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari called the closure of the dump the highlight of his political career.

But the sweetness of victory was short-lived. A mere six months after the landfill's final closing ceremonies, the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center threw a wrench in Staten Island's plans for a landfill-free community. Within hours of the collapse of the towers, Fresh Kills was called out of retirement and put back to work. Its gates reopened to receive a very special cargo- hundreds of thousands of tons of debris from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. In the last ten weeks, Fresh Kills has received over 500,000 tons of debris from the destruction in downtown Manhattan.

Now the residents of Staten Island are forced to balance their animosity toward the dump with the desire to do their part for an overburdened city in the wake of an overwhelming tragedy.
"No one can come out and say they don't want the debris here. With a tragedy like this, you've got to just do your part," said Jay Russo, 19. "No one can say anything." Russo has lived in Staten Island all his life. For two years he has worked at the Dunkin' Donuts in the neighborhood of Arden Heights, just outside the gate to the Fresh Kills landfill at the intersection of Arden Avenue and Arthur Kill Road. This is the southern edge of landfill Section 1/9, where the World Trade Center debris is brought for sorting and burial.

"We worked so hard to get this landfill closed, and now it's re-opening," said Russo. "It's disturbing."

When Fresh Kills opened in 1948, it was only slated to be active for five years. Instead it just continued to grow, absorbing up to 26,000 tons of garbage a day at its peak and up to 13,000 tons a day in the 1990s, from the five boroughs of New York City. Estimates from Molinari's office put the total amount of trash in the landfill at 150 million tons, and mounds reach as high as 175 feet. Odors from the dump made living near Fresh Kills unbearable for two generations until the Sanitation Department created a program to collect the gases emanating from the decomposing material. When it rains, pockets of methane gas are still visible bubbling to the surface on some of the landfill's mounds.

Anthony Laieta, 56, has lived in Staten Island all his life and currently owns a home at the outskirts of the landfill in Arden Heights. He isn't bothered by the recent reactivation of the landfill. "The thing is," he said, "is where else would you put it? Shea Stadium? This is the only place with the room."

"Really, where else are they going to put it?" asked Anthony Morello, a New York City police officer in Staten Island. "I can see it from my deck and it's depressing to look at because you know what it represents, but it has to be done."

Eighty firefighters from Staten Island died on September 11th at the World Trade Center site. But despite that fact, the horrors of Ground Zero seem far removed from the quiet of Arden Heights. Trees line wide suburban streets of this quiet, residential community, and smoke curls from the chimneys of middle class homes. Yards are stocked with swing-sets, lawn ornaments, and piles of multi-colored fallen leaves, waiting to be bagged. Rocks painted white and laid in straight rows line wide, two-car driveways, as flowerbeds of zinnias and mums turn brown in the autumn air. American flags adorn houses and fences, though some are faded and torn from two months of constant exposure to the elements.

And even though the landfill no longer receives trash, the air still reeks of garbage. Except now, the familiar stench is mixed with the acrid, burning smell of lower Manhattan, brought to Arden Heights and other Staten Island communities on barge-loads of scarred, dusty hunks of metal that used to be parts of the World Trade Center.

With a long list of environmental complaints about the dump, some Staten Islanders are sensitive to health concerns regarding this new cargo at Fresh Kills. According to Russo, "The air quality is not too good," he said. "People here tend to develop asthma and my friends have noticed worse asthma with the World Trade Center debris smell. I have bronchial asthma. They still haven't proven it's from the dump, but we all know it is."

Nick Dmytryszyn, the environmental engineer for Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, has worked at Fresh Kills for 12 years. He said that he has received complaints about burning smells and poor air quality since the debris started coming to Staten Island. "I call those callers insensitive people," said Dmytryszyn. According to him, the state is doing environmental monitoring around Section 1/9 of the landfill. "It's not smoldering, and there are no fires," said Dmytryszyn. "Air issues don't exist down here. Though, it has been very dry, and if the wind blows then it does blow around."

Kathy Dodd is the District Manager of Community Board Two in Staten Island. She represents some of the communities most affected by the landfill. "Because of the tragedy and the loss involved, no one seems to have a problem with the debris coming here," she said. "They have to bring it someplace, and it's not garbage. No one has a problem as long as they don't bring garbage."

Dodd reported that she's received no complaints from her constituents about the activity in section 1/9. "I've lived here for years and used to smell the dump constantly. This debris doesn't smell."
Brown and barren, Section 1/9 of the Fresh Kills landfill sprawls across 150 acres and looms 175 feet in the air, a man-made vista visible from the surrounding neighborhoods for miles. Giant, industrial-sized lights surround a village of brown tents the size of small convenience stores where, according to Waste News, up to 300-400 sanitation workers and 200-300 employees of other government agencies sift through the debris. Security here is tight. According to Al Ferguson, a spokesman for the Department of Sanitation, Section 1/9 is a designated crime scene, and no one but approved employees of government agencies are permitted in the area.

Helicopters hover overhead and dozens of trucks and construction vehicles rumble back and forth across the flat hilltop, loaded with twisted gray configurations of pipe and beam. A pile of 12 battered, flattened cars rests on the west side of the hill. American flags fly from poles and hang on the 12-foot high chain link fence surrounding the activity at the top of the hill.

"Lots of people understand, and they don't begrudge bringing the material here," said Dmytryszyn. "Nobody wants the materials going where we don't know where the human remains will end up,"
According to Dmytryszyn, Fresh Kills is the perfect resting ground for the remains of the World Trade Center. "In my opinion, a fortunate divine decision was made in bringing the debris here to Fresh Kills without knowing how right it was at the time.

Prior to September 11th, Section 1/9 had been closed off and a barrier was set down on top of the garbage and dirt. Before it could be officially closed, however, the section needed more material. To protect surrounding areas from contamination, state law mandates that the area be sloped into a rounded mound to prevent erosion and the pooling of rainwater. The World Trade Center materials are being put to use as this additional filler for the final grading.

"To complete the job, on top of the debris from the Trade Center, we'll put dirt," said Dmytryszyn. "Clean dirt. We'll use the same dirt you would use for burial in a cemetery." Dmytryszyn hopes this section of the landfill will be designated a sacred area.

Upon arrival at Fresh Kills, all the debris is sprayed with water to wash off the clinging ash and dust of pulverized concrete. Dressed in protective clothing, searchers then comb the debris for human remains and anything else that could help identify a victim, such as a credit card or a set of keys.

Dmytryszyn describes the sorting process as very respectful. "They were finding remains and that changed the whole outlook. Maybe you find a shoe, maybe a finger," said Dmytryszyn. "You see that for the first time and you realize you're dealing with something that's happened to humans." According to The New York Times, the sorters at Fresh Kills have found over 1,700 body parts and 1,600 other potentially identifiable items.

All human remains are tagged and brought to refrigerated areas for holding and then shipped to a DNA match-up lab in Manhattan, according to Dmytryszyn. "Wallets, watches, purses, etc-anything that we can use to help a grieving family, we try to hold onto."

The hunks of metal are not buried in the landfill either, but are instead shipped to recycling yards in New Jersey. Waste News reports that each day 2,000 tons of metal from the World Trade Center site are sent for recycling.

The daunting, monotonous, and emotionally draining task of sorting through thousands of tons of debris has taken its toll on the people working at Fresh Kills. By working at the Dunkin' Donuts at the base of Section 1/9, Russo interacts with the Fresh Kills sorters often. "These guys come down here and tell us what they're finding and lots of us don't want to hear about it," said Russo. "They talk about bones and decayed torsos-a lot of grisly stuff. I usually cut them off and say I don't want to hear anymore, but I know they need to talk about it. Lots of these guys are working double shifts and it's on their minds all day."

"You can't imagine how the dump is out there," said Gene Dalton, an 18-year veteran of the Department of Sanitation. "The mountains are smoking. One night it was creepy because the FBI was combing through with rakes. I saw them lift out a pair of pants and it hit me that this is a scary place." Since September 13th, Dalton has been driving a dump truck at least 70 hours a week, hauling debris from the World Trade Center site to various piers along West Side Highway where his loads of twisted metal and other debris are dropped into barges and taken across the Hudson River to Fresh Kills.

For the first 10 days after the terrorist attacks, Dalton drove his loads directly to Fresh Kills himself. Then, according to Dalton, OSHA was upset that asbestos-laden trucks were traveling Manhattan and Staten Island roads uncovered and cut down on the land transports. Now everything that leaves the World Trade Center site is washed at least twice before leaving the area, and almost everything travels to Staten Island on the barges leaving from Pier 25, Pier Six, 59th Street, and Hamilton Street.

For Dalton, helping with the clean-up effort is just what he wants to be doing. "I feel like I'm doing something," he said. "You want to do what you can-if you're a New Yorker."

Ernest Slade, 59, works for the Department of Transportation 12 hours a day, six days a week. After 22 years as an asphalt layer, Slade now drives one of the site's 30 flatbed trucks and hauls loads of large pieces of steel from the World Trade Center site to Pier 25 at West Side Highway and Chambers Street. Because steel cutting at Ground Zero is dangerous and slow work, Slade says he often transports only two or three loads each day. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and a plain blue baseball hat, he rested in the cab of his truck, listening to country music. The giant melted and twisted steel beam he was hauling stretched 4' by 5' by 30' and weighed over 20,000 pounds-too much for the crane at Pier 25, so Slade sat waiting for permission to drive up to Pier Six instead, where there is a bigger crane.

In addition to the overtime pay, Slade also likes the satisfaction he gets from being able to help with the downtown cleanup, though he said "working in the hole" can be difficult. "At first I was emotional doing this job, because it was smelling bad," said Slade. "During the 5th week I had a load that came from where a body was. That's when you start thinking about what happened."

"Everyone has feelings for what happened," Slade said. "I know a couple of guys who say they can't sleep."

He pulled a picture album out from under the driver's seat and flipped through photographs he took on the first days after the attacks. "Seeing Ground Zero for the first time was devastating," he said. "It looked like a war zone."

Though he says much of the debris has been cleared already, Slade expects to be hauling steel to the piers for shipment to Staten Island throughout December. Workers at Fresh Kills will be busy a lot longer than that. Al Ferguson at the Department of Sanitation said that the operations at Fresh Kills could continue for a year before the task is completed.

"People recognize Staten Island as 'Oh yeah, that's where the dump is,'" said Russo. "And we were so excited when it closed. But all this has got to be done someplace and unfortunately Staten Island has the facilities to do it," said Russo.

"We're the forgotten borough," said John Luttrell, 28, a life-long resident of Staten Island and employee of the Sunoco gas station in Arden Heights. He wasn't surprised that the city turned to Staten Island in its time of need. "We get noticed at times," said Luttrell, "but usually not for what we want to be noticed for."