Title: Landfills - Fact is more ominous than fiction It has long been believed that the largest entity brought upon the Earth by humankind is the Pyramid of the Sun, constructed in Mexico around the start The mammoth structure commands nearly thirty millioncubic feet of space. In contrast, however, is the Durham Road Landfill,outside San Francisco, which occupies over seventy million cubic feet of thebiosphere. It is a sad monument, indeed, to the excesses of modern society[Gore 151]. One might assume such a monstrous mound of garbage is thelargest thing ever produced by human hands. Unhappily, this is not the case.The Fresh Kills Landfill, located on Staten Island, is the largest landfillin the world. It sports an elevation of 155 feet, an estimated mass of 100million tons, and a volume of 2.9 billion cubic feet. In total acreage, itis equal to 16,000 baseball diamonds [Miller 526]. By the year 2005, whenthe landfill is projected to close, its elevation will reach 505 feet abovesea level, making it the highest point along the Eastern Seaboard, Floridato Maine. At that height, the mound will constitute a hazard to air trafficat Newark airport [Rathje 3-4].Fresh Kills (Kills is from the Dutch word for creek) was originally a tidalmarsh. In 1948, New York City planner Robert Moses developed a highlypraised project to deposit municipal garbage in the swamp until the level ofthe land was above sea level. A study of the area predicted the marsh wouldbe filled by the year 1968. He then planned to develop the area, buildinghouses and attracting light industry. Mayor Impelliteri issued a reporttitled "The Fresh Kills Landfill Project" in 1951. The report stated, inpart, that the enterprise "cannot fail to affect constructively a wide areaaround it." The report ended by stating, "It is at once practical andidealistic" [Rathje 4]. One must appreciate the irony in the fact thatRobert Moses was, in his day, considered a leading conservationist. H...
