Page 628 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

CENTRAL CASE STUDY

Transforming New York’s

Fresh Kills Landfill

CANADA

“An extraterrestrial observer might conclude that
New York
conversion of raw materials to wastes is the real
purpose of human economic activity.”

—Gary Gardner and Payal Sampat, Worldwatch Institute
Long Island
New York City “Recycling is one of the best environmental success
Staten Island
New stories of the late 20th century.”
Jersey Fresh Kills Landfill
—U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
UNITED STATES

Atlantic
Ocean

The closure of a landfill is not the kind of event that normally influence. New York City instead found itself paying contrac-
draws politicians and the press, but the Fresh Kills Landfill was tors exorbitant prices to haul its garbage away one truckload
no ordinary dump. Said to be the largest human-made struc- at a time. In the years following the Fresh Kills closure, trucks
ture on Earth, Fresh Kills was the primary repository of New full of trash rumbled through neighborhood streets, carrying
York City’s garbage for half a century. On March 22, 2001, 12,000 tons of waste each day bound for 26 different landfills
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Governor and incinerators in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylva-
George Pataki were on hand to celebrate as a barge arrived nia, and Ohio. The city sanitation department’s budget nearly
on the shore of New York City’s Staten Island and dumped the doubled, and budget woes caused the city to scale back its
final load of trash at Fresh Kills. recycling program. Some New Yorkers suggested reopening
The landfill’s closure was a blessing for Staten Island’s Fresh Kills.
450,000 residents, who had long viewed Fresh Kills as a foul- The landfill was reopened, but not for a reason anyone
smelling eyesore, health threat, and civic blemish. The 890-ha could have foreseen. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist
(2200-acre) landfill featured six gigantic mounds of trash and attacks, 1.8 million tons of rubble from the collapsed World
soil. The highest, at 69 m (225 ft), was higher than the nearby Trade Center towers, including unrecoverable human remains,
Statue of Liberty. was taken by barge to Fresh Kills. A monument will be erected
New York City had grandiose plans for the site. It planned as part of the new park.
to transform the old landfill into a world-class public park— Today, park development is progressing. Roads, ball
a verdant landscape of ball fields, playgrounds, jogging trails, fields, sculptures, and in-line skating rinks are being designed.
rolling hills, and wetlands teeming with wildlife. Almost three Wetlands are being restored. People will be able to bicycle on
times bigger than Manhattan’s Central Park, the site hosted trails alongside the region’s largest estuary and reach stunning
the region’s largest remaining complex of salt marshes and vistas atop the hills. Recreation areas named Owl Hollow Fields CHAPTER 22 • MAN A GING OUR WASTE
freshwater creeks, while the mounds offered panoramic views and Schmul Park opened in 2012, and work is underway on
of the Manhattan skyline. The city sponsored an international further parcels, including North Park, which overlooks an adja-
competition to select landscape architects to design plans for cent wildlife refuge.
the new park. The full conversion of Fresh Kills Landfill into Fresh
Meanwhile, with its only landfill closed, New York City Kills Park—one of the largest public works projects in the
began exporting its waste. The city began plans to develop an world—will take 30 years. Its progress has been hampered
efficient network of stations to package and transfer the waste by bureaucratic, regulatory, and financial challenges. But in
and ship it outward by barge and railroad. However, these the end, this longtime symbol of waste will be transformed
plans soon fell apart amid neighborhood opposition, economic into a world-class center for recreation and urban ecological
misjudgments, and accusations of political favoritism and mob restoration. 627

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