OUTRAGE AT LANDFILL OVER 9/11 REMAINS
OUTRAGE AT LANDFILL OVER 9/11 REMAINS
By KATI CORNELL
March 24, 2007 -- Recovery workers who sorted through 9/11 debris at Fresh Kills on Staten Island have accused the city of dishonoring human remains at the landfill - charging that poorly sifted material from Ground Zero was even used to "fill in potholes."
Eric Beck, a supervisory construction worker who oversaw sifting machinery at the dump, claims that he saw city Sanitation employees load inadequately searched debris from conveyor belts onto tractors and use it "to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts."
Meanwhile, city police officers tasked with picking out remains and personal effects from the conveyor belts constantly asked that the belts be slowed down "so that they could properly sift through debris," said Beck, who worked up to 20 hours a day.
"Remains in potholes are a quintessential example of the city's acting with deliberate indifference toward 9/11 family members in recovering remains," said attorney Norman Siegel, who represents the group World Trade Center Families for Proper Burial in a lawsuit.
A spokeswoman for the city's Law Department declined comment, noting that the case was pending before Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
Theodore Feaser, a Sanitation official who oversaw the recovery effort at Fresh Kills, estimated that at least 223,000 tons of debris - of a total 1.65 million - never went through the quarter-inch sifting equipment.
Noting that until Oct. 14, 2001, debris at the landfill was processed by rake and shovel, Feaser said, in an affidavit, "I strongly believe that there are - at a minimum - hundreds of human body parts of WTC victims buried at Fresh Kills."
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