Removal and recovery of debris are only a part of the story. Sifting for keepsakes, valuables, remains, and evidence is a vital concern to those charged with cleanup in New York City and at the Pentagon.

By Tom R. Arterburn

Thousands of tons of rubble from the September 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon disaster sites are being brought to the recently closed Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, NY, and King George County Landfill in Virginia.

In New York, the landfill is used to conduct a daunting search for clues as New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives, federal agents, and the National Guard painstakingly search the debris for any items or clues that might help explain what happened inside the planes before their devastating impacts with the towers. At the same time, officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Secret Service, and US Customs, which had offices in the World Trade Center, are searching the debris for valuable evidence lost when the towers disintegrated. Some of the lost evidence includes 35 handguns stored in an ATF evidence locker, as well as material pertinent to the case of Matthew "Scar" Allen, whose dispute with rapper "Puffy" Combs sparked a nightclub shoot-out in 1999, reports the New York Post.

To aid the search, Houston, TX—based Waste Management Inc. (WM) has provided screening equipment to New York City. "They were [sifting through evidence] by hand before," says Sarah Voss, communications manager with WM. She adds that the company is still standing by in New York to provide assistance if needed.

At the Pentagon, debris transport is underway from the disaster site to a WM landfill in King George County, VA. WM worked closely with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the surrounding communities to ensure their full support to use the landfill. "It has been very well received so far," Voss reports. She adds that the site was chosen by the Department of Defense after a thorough inspection by military officials. "They came and toured the site and talked to our employees. And one of the main things they liked was the fact that it was just going to be Waste Management drivers hauling debris to a Waste Management landfill. They also liked the fact that all of our drivers have picture ID cards that they have to present upon entering the landfill."

Grapple-mounted excavators pick and sort through piles of debris to remove as much dirt as possible and to pull out material that authorities approve for recycling.

Other security measures include a detailed inventory and scheduling system. "Someone at the scale house has a run sheet of the trucks with the time and date they left the Pentagon, so all of that is being tracked and carefully managed," Voss states. This increase in security resulted after an alleged Mafia scheme to steal scrap metal from the World Trade Center rubble. The New York Post reports that more than 250 tons of crime-scene material mysteriously found its way into three scrap yards, and investigators blame organized crime.

NYPD organized-crime investigators, along with the state Trade Waste Commission, are probing the case. Investigators found 75 tons of debris after searching Mid-Island Scrap Metal in Deer Park, Long Island. No one has been charged in the case, and the Post reported that the yard's operators allowed investigators to search it. The incident isn't the first involving theft from the ground-zero area; looters have also hit abandoned stores in the area, and some onlookers have been caught taking pieces of debris from waste and flatbed trucks as they go by.

To prevent any mishandling of waste in the Pentagon operation, WM officials developed a number of security procedures that are followed after the debris is inspected on-site until it is buried and capped at the landfill. "We have a database comprising all our drivers' information so we know what types of licenses they have, or we receive notifications about licenses they have applied for," points out Voss.

Although airports and hospitals have been criticized for their lax security programs, WM has taken a proactive stance on the issue. Well before the terrorist attacks, the company decided to implement a proprietary electronic access control program planned for all of its 305 facilities. "In our eastern region, we have rolled out a program by which drivers have ID cards that they must swipe prior to accessing the landfill," explains Voss. "This latest situation emphasizes how important this system will be." The program, however, is not in place at King George County.

In addition, all district managers have been put on heightened alert to watch for anything suspicious concerning their drivers or deliveries. This was initiated after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that a number of suspected hijackers attempted to acquire HAZMAT trucking endorsements. "We make sure we know where all of our trucks are at all times because the FBI had a concern about any type of vehicle that might be able to gain access to secure areas: ambulances, fire trucks, police cruisers … even waste trucks," says Voss. The company also contracts with a security company to provide full background checks on all new hires.

Pentagon officials are also impressed with the fact that the King George County facility is fully fenced, has only one entrance, and includes natural barriers, such as trees and bushes that limit visibility from the perimeter. "We also agreed that we would not allow any unauthorized access to the site because one of their concerns, obviously, was people seeking souvenirs."

Another concern is an influx of media interested in taking pictures of the Pentagon debris being placed in its final resting place, but the manager of the facility reported no press requests to enter the site at the time of this writing. "If people want to come and stand outside the gate, we obviously can't prevent people from doing that. But with so many trucks coming and going, for safety reasons we just can't allow reporters with cameras to be inside." If media interest peaks, Voss says the company will hire private security to manage crowds outside the gate. All the debris taken from the attack site has been categorized as MSW, and only WM drivers will be used in the transport.

To prepare residents for the shock associated with a convoy of waste trucks and drivers donning particle masks and possibly chemical suits, the company has maintained close communication with its neighbors, "so everyone knows exactly what we are doing," Voss states. "We talked to a lot of community leaders and held a public forum so concerns could be addressed."

One of the reasons Pentagon officials chose the King George site is its sparsely populated surroundings. "It's a very serene environment, out in the middle of nowhere," Voss describes. As for a storage strategy, one cell of the landfill to be used will be segregated from the rest of the contents. "If for some reason they need to excavate it, it will all be together in one part of the cell." So far the company has provided 31 rolloff containers to transport the expected 18,000 tons of debris.

With security rivaling that of a federal prison, only law-enforcement investigators and WM officials are privy to the ultra-secret work going on behind the razor wire surrounding the 130-ac. evidence site on the grounds of 3,000-ac. Fresh Kills Landfill. One of the few journalists to get a glimpse inside the landfill was New York Times reporter Kevin Flynn, who reported on the police's daunting task of sifting through every ounce of rubble and twisted steel from the collapsed buildings.

"In every sense, the job is enormous," he wrote. "Forty-five thousand tons have already been sorted in 12-hour shifts by hundreds of investigators led by New York detectives who scrape through the debris with rakes and sometimes their hands. A million more tons are on the way. So far the crews, who wear respirators and white jumpsuits, have found 256 body parts, a .40-caliber gun [similar to that used by Port Authority police], box cutters and assorted wallets and other items that might help identify some of the victims."

Paul Tharp, a reporter with the New York Post, called it one of the biggest evidence searches ever attempted. There are hundreds of police officers, firefighters, volunteers, and others carefully combing the debris for clues. He described it as a lunar landscape with men in white jumpsuits, yellow boots, and purple respirators raking over pieces of debris to find thousands of items, ranging from charred fire department helmets to scorched shoes. The workers have also separated at least 100 cars from the rubble. Among the vehicles found, 10 were from fire ladder companies and five from engine companies.

Nonrecycled debris is loaded by bucket and grapple onto screens that further separate out the steel and other debris allowing for easier identification of sensitive material.

Among the 300-400 people involved are about 100 city detectives, 35-40 FBI agents, and representatives of the Secret Service, National Transportation Safety Board, Immigration and Naturalization Service, ATF, and Sanitation Department. At one part of the site, firefighters are pulling apart cars, using the "jaws of life," then examining parts and vehicle identification numbers. "It's nothing we can ever prepare for," remarks Sergeant Ray Sheehan, one of nine members of the crime-scene unit. "Sometimes you find an arm, sometimes a toe. But you've got to try to be professional, to not concentrate on the [victims]."

Each piece of evidence is photographed, cataloged, and sent to the FBI laboratory. Body parts are tagged and put in a refrigerated truck for transport to the medical examiner's office. Personal property is set aside to be returned to families. According to Rich Cahill, spokesperson with the Environmental Protection Agency, workers at the site are wearing Level C protective suits consisting of a Divex suit, gloves, goggles, and air-purifying respirators designed to protect against dust particles. The agency also has eight air monitors on-site and, reports Cahill, grabs samples twice a day.

Although he says it has not been a major issue, if materials containing more than 1% of asbestos are encountered, according to OSHA guidelines, the debris would be "handled only after it has been wetted down, placed into marked bags, and set aside until it could be transported to a landfill licensed to accept asbestos." Cahill adds, "But I'm not hearing that's what they are encountering. Everything was pulverized in the collapse, so we are talking about material being mixed together."

WM officials confirmed the presence of asbestos in some of the Pentagon debris; however, states Voss, "We're not handling that. It is classified as special waste and will be taken to some other facility."

The IT Group Inc. of Monroeville, NY, has been contracted to monitor asbestos content at several lower Manhattan buildings and to advise the New York City Department of Sanitation on procedures at Fresh Kills Landfill. According to spokesperson Bill Mulvey, IT has had a long-standing agreement with the New York City Department of Sanitation to provide monitoring of the walls surrounding the perimeters. "We have been there for over 10 years, so we know the landfill well and we know the people associated with it. We have two people out there right now talking to the Army, the FBI, and the folks responsible for sifting and sorting, and we're able to provide advice on where to place the iron debris, the concrete debris, the asbestos-contaminated material, and the gypsum board, for instance, which gets hazardous when it gets wet." There have also been suggestions concerning where to open the cap on the landfill. Although community reaction in Virginia has been insignificant, Staten Island residents have been very vocal about their support in reopening the Fresh Kills site for attack debris.

A Landfill's Rebirth

The last garbage barge arrived at Fresh Kills on March 22, 2001, when the landfill was officially closed for dumping. Since 1948, according to Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, residents of Staten Island have watched in outrage as Fresh Kills Landfill, the so-called "temporary solution" to New York City's waste disposal problem, grew to a monstrosity as high as the Statue of Liberty and quadruple the size of Central Park. Seemingly, there was no end in sight.

"In the 1990s, the tide began to change with the election of a new mayor in 1993 and a governor in 1994 who understood the abuse we'd suffered," Molinari wrote, "and agreed that the landfill was unjust and indecent. In 1995, I directed my staff to prepare a federal lawsuit to close the dump once and for all. And in 1996 Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki signed the historic mandate to close the dump by the end of this year. Since that time, the level of cooperation we've received and the swift progress we've made in closing the landfill has been nothing short of miraculous."

According to Molinari's Web site, www.statenislandusa.com:

• Since 1997, Bronx garbage (1,700 tpd) has been exported.
• Since 1998, Brooklyn has exported 2,400 tpd of trash.
• Since 1999, 3,000 tpd of garbage from Manhattan and Staten Island have been exported.
• In October 2000, the remainder of Brooklyn's garbage (about 1,900 tpd) stopped going to Fresh Kills.
• The fifth and final export contract began in March 2001.

Tom R. Arterburn is an independent journalist based in St. Louis, MO.