Tamon Charles-Activity # 10

Activity #10-Freshkills Park

On Wednesday, May 5, 2010, a small group of students along with Professor Kessler met up at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal around 8:45am to visit our scheduled Freshkills Park Site Tour. After the twenty minute ride on the ferry, we arrived at St. George to meet up with our Tour Guide whose name was Doug.
We quickly aboard the tour bus and took a drive to the landfill site to explore the development of the area and discuss future plans that will affect not only the Staten Island residents but all residents in the New York City Metropolitan area.

Our briefing on the tour bus included that Freshkills Park makes up 2,200 acres and approximately two and a half the size of Central Park and so is the largest park developed in New York City in over one hundred years. It was once the world’s biggest landfills—and now has been converted in to a productive destination that resulted into tourists from around the world seeking an interest when visiting New York City.

Doug represented the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and also informed us on the history of Freshkills Park. He led the discussion of Robert Moses in 1948 (who was a planner that also considered the development of the Verrazano Bridge) implemented proper dumping of the city’s garbage. Doug went on to discuss how the stench of the waste products have affected residents who often complained to the city to the extent in which the site was closed down—but was reopened in September 2001 for disposal of the contents remaining from ground zero; and then permanently opened in 2006 when the city of New York released a Draft Master Plan for the park (Department of Sanitation). He told us about the infrastructure of the landfill in which the inner surface was dug five feet deep was covered with plastic and then the garbage was then inserted, followed by a soil barrier layer, gas vent and then another impermeable plastic layer. This was then covered with a drainage area, barrier protection material at least two feet deep and then planting soil about six inches deep. This carefully designed infrastructure has led to planting of trees and even a permanent habitat for wildlife such as the osprey we observed nesting and great egret to name a few. The types of habitat that we explored were mainly upland grassfield and scrub shrub when we began the tour on the South Park end of the site. At this end, parts of the city can be observed as well as parts of New Jersey.

As Freshkills continued to be properly maintained by the Solid Waste Management Plan, there are hopes for building a trail running, horseback riding, sitting space as well as mountain biking etc. However, one of the biggest factor affecting this is funding and hence the reason that this transformation may actually occur in about three decades.

In all, this has been an eventful day and I have learned how the city tries its best to maintain and reserve this landfill and consequently allows this space no longer be a hazard but recreational and enjoyable.