IA.ScooterTramp

2 city governments, 2 state governments, federal government, unions, and out of state contractors.... nope don't see any problems ahead....

gm Tramp

agreed ..... a sure recipe for success. (Words that should elicit more shrieks than the shower scene in Psycho: "I'm from the government. I'm here to help you.")

The debris hauled to the site by the Army Corps is being combed over by workers for the Environmental Protection Agency, then trucked over to Staten Island, put on a barge and floated up the Hudson river to a landfill near Albany.

At the site, the EPA workers don full-body suits and gas masks and then scramble through the piles of debris to pick out hazardous materials like aerosol cans and electrical appliances.

It's a nasty,

ugly,

hard,

toxic job....

and I'm glad our government takes the precaution.

Other EPA workers test the air for a range of hazards including bacteria, viruses and fungal agents, hazardous fumes, and lead paint. Workers on the site are drawing on experiences from Hurricane Katrina and the devastating tornado that hit Joplin, Mo., over a year ago.

mob &political curruption at its worst! even no bid contracts and fees are waived for them ,its amess out here in staten island, also the debris should be getting recycled,but its not,they even take and crush refridgators/AC units without removing the gas and freon ,a violation of both local laws and federal EPA rules,seen truckloads of metal scrap going to companies who have no business getting it in the first place

1.3 TRY READING THE ARTICLE..... my post (1.2) just gave you the gift of highlighting what your are BURPING NONSENSE about.

Disasters have a way of humbling mankind..... but we still believe we are in control.

Sandy will show that no president can fix things overnight and the American people will still blame him, although I am sure some will still blame Bush (chill, it's a joke;o)......)

One of the issues after a disaster of this proportion,comes up when people talk about recycling and why counties or governments don't appear do it. There are some precautions which do take place to remove hazardous materials. Cleanup does involve removing dangerous items to some extent. But many things end up being turned down for recycling for two major reasons which people may not be aware of.

The first is due to the threat of spreading diseases which the Center for Disease Control tracts. Learned because of past experiences which helped to form regulations which have been put into place to ensure outbreaks don't occur again. Especially since bacteria thrive in the water logged materials found from both consumer products and the building materials use to construct home and commercial building of various ages.

The second is the effect and damage done to items one might try to recycle. Furniture and consumer products includes mattresses,lazy boy chairs, couches, pillows, pictures,paper products,fabrics or textiles like drapery,clothing and stuffing materials, toys and other objects which have sat in water. Building materials include sheet rock, wallpaper, wood,composite materials,insulation and other materials which absorb water leading to growing mold and dangerous bacterial. This leads to destruction and contamination of the product. Recycling centers are not set up to clean these materials once damaged in such a manner and not all plastics can be recycled.Those which can, normally need to be cleaned before recycling can be done.

The high biological hazards disqualify them as the resources to wash and disinfect them are not normally available. The cost to do so is more then the benefits saved long term. The longer the material lays around exposed from a disaster, the higher the risk of an outbreak of a major disease to human life. So the faster the need to bury and get things back on track.

As the article stated, some items are specifically sought out and screened for so as to not cause certain environmental problems.But unfortunately, the degree of recycling people would like to see, usually just can't take place when massive disasters like Sandy happen, due to the damage done by water, wind and freezing with the biological hazards it presents as humans are exposed to the materials. Lives are more important at this point. Last there are companies which had already bid to do the work.

So when someday they remove this trash from this site, does that site then become a super fund site?

how much could be recylced instead ? within reason of course. im guessing at least half.

IA.ScooterTramp- I agree. Not only that, companies that deal with recycling can make a profit on usable materials. This article really points to how bad our recycling implementation is.

AG99

A landfill? They should drag an incinerator up there and burn it to dust. How long are we going to continue destroying acreage and contaminating our groundwater by burying our garbage?

That has the makings of a great philosophical argument: Which is better, contaminating the groundwater or filling the air with CO2? (Actually a false dilemma. I prefer a third alternative: Ship 100 lbs of garbage to Mexico with every illegal immigrant that is deported.)

Collapsing in 3...2...1...

You can put scrubbers on incinerators like they do in Europe (which doesn't have room for landfills anymore). It's expensive, but a better long-term solution. And perhaps we could even use the heat for power generation.

The landfills are going to turn into mines someday, when we go back for the valuable stuff we threw out. They are burying stuff that thieves strip out of standing homes. Outfit some copper thieves with Tyvek suits, gloves and goggles and turn them loose on the pile of trash, they will recover plenty of recyclable materials and it will give them an honest day's work in the process.

As Joe and others mentioned, recycling saves municipalities a fortune. I grew up in Brooklyn right across the bay from the Rokaways, and spent a LOT of time in Breezy Point, Riis Park, etc. (exercise nut-rode bike up and down-gorgeous area-can't believe you are not in The ultra-rich Hamptons). These are wonderful people there in the Rockaways, it is a magical place where regular folks can live like Hamptonites, sort-of. I understand why people are willing to risk things, esp since NY never had this stuff before climate changes have forever changed NY and NJ (our gov announced that this is the new reality-get ready). It is disgusting money that could help them is getting stolen here with the recyclables.

Out here, in a high-tax area of Long Island, the Town makes enough on selling the bottles and papers to pay for many of the costs of dealing with reg garbage. I don't understand why we are not doing something at least with the metal collected from Sandy (and whatever else can be recycled). We know it is worth a lot-there are lots of cases where skevatzes will come in and rip out copper pipes and anything else when they see a foreclosed house sitting there. Imagine how much this debris is worth? The money could do a LOT of good.

However, as a Staten Island resident reported here, he is seeing companies getting the stuff, esp metal, seemingly free. I'm sure there is a boatload of corruption in this mess, perfect for skevatzes to take advantage of. But come on-can't they do SOMETHING here to sell the debris legit and turn over the money?

Please get on your lawmakers' butts about this, even if you are not a New Yorker, since this garbage situation involves fed agencies, not just NYS and NY City. Believe it or not, it works and one person CAN make a difference. Granted, I usually choose pre-election time to push for laws...However, in a classic case of one person getting things done, a client's kid alone, standing up in the Legis, was able to get 18 lawmakers to sign up on the first Animal Abuser Registry in the country (Suffolk County, Long Island). The bill had been tabled b/c they didn't think it would have enough votes that day but after I said she could go up there with photo of her and her now-dead dog, the proponent untabled it, it was voted on and passed. Of course, now we just have to get the state criminal laws fixed so we can actually get some perps on there.

A few people can make the difference also; on this new abuse case, we have to harass the DA on this new abuse case, but that will be coming in the next few week, I believe. We will hound the DA not to make a deal and keep at least ONE charge so this scum gets on the Registry, and we will be out there in front of criminal court, Ch 4 news, to announce it. "Shirley animal abuser" search can give anyone interested the details and it would be great if anyone reading this is from Long Island and help put his/her 2 cents in.

For those unconcerned about animals, esp after Sandy, remember, animal abusers commit violent acts against people 84-100% of the time (and that is just what we know of) depending on the crime. Sexual homicide perps and serial killers start on animals 100% of the time and if locked up then, lots of human suffering, incl rapes and murders, including little kids, c/h been saved.

Sorry to preach but the victims need all we can give them.

People advocating recycling this mess, much like those who advocate the massive deportation of illegal aliens, have not applied any common sense to the problem.

Did you seen the number? 4,500 TONS. That's just ONE parking lot.

Germany is the most efficient recycler in the world. Yet they only handle about 48 million tons over an entire country for an entire year.

Do you see the problem? No?

How about multiplying that 4500 tons by ALL the places that are collecting. Then looking at the specific challenges to these items ... biohazard due to standing water, not separated into nice neat bundles (as the Europeans do), and sometimes jumbled together and messed up beyond all recognition. Then look at the sheer amount that was generated in a very brief period of time. Now finally, realize that while the US has SOME recycling, it's no where near the capacity of Germany or the other European countries.

So yes, I agree that recycling is the BEST answer. But the BEST answer isn't always possible. In this case, the BEST result might be just controlling the biohazardous material, heavy metals, etc.

It won't be that hard, I've been thru it.

4.5 tons? TRY 4500 tons, and that is just what the Army hauled in.

From the article, "The Army Corps said it has hauled 4,500 tons to Jacob Riis already; the sanitation department, which is also using the site, said it has cycled through ten times that amount."

Another misleading/wrong headline from the media.

will be?

Yeah, right 'cause 2 world wars,The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were just walks in the park.

whoa....WTF was that..........?

Your a ....well never mind, you just don't have a clue do you ....Bush had nothing to do with the Shah, go to the DNC website maybe they'll applaud your liberal dribble..

There's a reason why they call it garbage. Mostly because it's not very useful. When your home is built from McDonald's sandwich boxes, send me a picture.

now now bill, audrey probably has a point in there......somewhere.......

not sure how the energy plants are powered there but here in NH we have a few wood burning energy plants, logging companies from VT, NH and ME truck in semi trucks loaded full of chipped up wood to be burned 24/7, surely the wood could be separated, ground up in to smaller pieces and sent some place to be burned as fuel for energy.

@storm: separate out the wood from this 4,500 tons plus the other 45,000 tons they mentioned (that's just this site), pull out the nails before you can grind it up... oh, I forgot. Separate out the wood that was soaked in seawater and has been sitting around growing toxic molds and bacteria for a few week. You want to be the one to do the nail pulling? Then, invent a scrubber for the power plant smokestack to remove the toxins from the burnt molds.

All these people screaming Recycle! need to Think!

or perhaps snookied would be more appropriate..........

mtblond.....FEMA ? Why do you think FEMA should be involved with this ? You need to do some minor research and understand what the role of FEMA is. They are not a Waste Management Company.

They have not done anything worth while in this mess. They should have been their at the beginning to help these people. What about food, water and housing? The American Red Cross got there and Billy Grahams trucks got there and where was FEMA. These people needed help at the beginning so this pile of garbage would not have been so overwhelming.

Not all of it, not yet.

you mean spending money on our infrastructure. i wonder who would be against that. hint re— — — lic — Ns

Most sea walls are counter productive. The surging water that can't cross the sea wall, simply goes to the end of the sea wall and floods there. In other words, the flooding and erosion is just moved to another area. Now, the people that get flooded, simply sue NYC for diverting the problem with a sea wall.

The debris would rot and settle unevenly, it does not make for good construction material. The city of Amsterdam was built on wooden pilings and fill that has decayed. The streets are hard to walk on because they are so lumpy and bumpy, and it's not something that can be paved over and smoothed out.