The Road To Staten Island Is Paved With The Unthinkable

Families of 9/11 victims worry that roads in Staten Island may be paved with human remains:

Families members of Sept. 11, 2001, victims filed court papers last week charging hundreds of thousands of tons of debris at the Fresh Kills landfill were not sifted for human remains — and have even been used to pave roads and fill potholes on Staten Island.

The claims were part of a lawsuit submitted in Manhattan Federal Court, and include affidavits by the city’s chief medical examiner, a former landfill director and Eric Beck, a city contractor who oversaw the separation of the pulverized debris or “fines.”

“I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it into tractors and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts,” Beck said.

Beck was a senior supervisor for Taylor Recycling Facility, hired to sift through debris brought to Fresh Kills after the World Trade Center attacks, between October 2001 and July 2002.

The 9/11 family members are suing the city to force them to continue the separation, and to create a worthy burial place for them. Some groups estimate there are about 223,000 tons of debris that were not properly sifted. The city filed to dismiss the lawsuit, and the families filed to counter that motion Friday.

Those documents contained a 2003 letter by chief city medical examiner Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, who wrote it was “virtually certain” that at least some human tissue has been mixed in the dirt at the landfill.