A USACE traffic plan managed the vehicles and heavy equipment at the site to prevent accidents. Corps guidelines guaranteed that hazardous material culled from the debris stream was disposed of properly. Larger items taken to the landfill for processing, such as vehicles and structural steel, required decontamination, and USACE procedures ensured it was done safely. It developed personal protective equipment requirements based on the location and type of work, and it included programs to monitor and maintain air quality and control dust. To protect everyone working at the Staten Island landfill, USACE and its partners established a health and safety plan. New York Governor George Pataki at the podium with officials on the daisĪt the Staten Island landfill closing ceremony. A second conveyor takes the debris away to be collected and disposed of following examination. Here larger pieces have been screened out by the machine at the right and examined by law enforcement officers astride the conveyor belt. Workers are operating one of the individual debris sorting stations at the Staten Island landfill. Some of the steel and larger items inspected separately are visible in the background, with the inspection process of the smallest-sized material in the foreground. Afterward, workers placed the cleared material in the landfill.ĭebris from the World Trade Center was transported by barge via the water visible in the distance. Screens separated the material into three sizes-smaller than a quarter inch, between a quarter inch and 2 inches, and from 2 inches to 8 inches-after which conveyors sent it to law enforcement personnel for inspection. The non-metal debris underwent a similar process. After inspection, metal went to an offsite recycling contractor. Heavy equipment operators set aside the large pieces of structural steel that arrived at the landfill, and they sorted smaller metal pieces by size, all in preparation for examination by city and federal authorities. After debris arrived at Fresh Kills, technicians mechanically separated the material based on its composition. USACE’s first task was to design an efficient processing system to handle the thousands of tons of debris that arrived at the landfill each day for processing. Fortuitously, USACE already had a contract in place for debris management services through its Advance Contract Initiative, so the Corps and its contractor, Phillips and Jordan, were able to begin work immediately. But after managing site clearance operations at Ground Zero and debris inspection and management at the Staten Island landfill for three weeks, the city, through FEMA, asked USACE to manage activities at Fresh Kills so it could concentrate on operations in Lower Manhattan. Perhaps unique among American cities, New York had the capability to respond and recover from the World Trade Center attacks.

To facilitate the movement of the debris, USACE issued emergency dredging permits to enable the barges to dock in Manhattan. There the debris could be carefully examined for victims, personal effects, and evidence related to the attack. From there the city used Department of Sanitation barges to transport the debris to the recently closed Fresh Kills Landfill in the borough of Staten Island. The city trucked the debris from the disaster site, designated Ground Zero, to docks at the southern tip of Manhattan. Although FEMA often tasks USACE to provide debris management and removal, the City of New York elected to remove the rubble from the WTC site itself. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) request, USACE initially provided structural engineering expertise to assist search-and-rescue and recovery activity at the World Trade Center. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) mobilized Planning and Response Teams and subject matter experts from across the country and sent them to New York City. When terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the two World Trade Center (WTC) towers on September 11, 2001, the U.S. Those not selected for preservation in museums were recycled. New York City Fire Department emergency vehicles that were destroyed by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers were removed to the Staten Island landfill for examination and decontamination.

9 11 cleanup