Fresh Kills, the sanitary landfill
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VObNlRHgQZ8&w=507&h=370]
An informative early-1980s video primer on the development of the contemporary sanitary landfill, with Fresh Kills as the prime example. Some interesting footage of the landfill in operation.
Important note regarding the narrator’s concerns about the quality of drinking water in the vicinity of landfills: Staten Island’s water supply, like that of the rest of New York City, comes from upstate New York and not from the immediate environment. There is also a naturally occurring clay liner at the bottom of the landfill mounds at Fresh Kills, which keeps leachate from seeping into the water table (in sanitary landfills without clay liners, synthetic liners are now installed). A vast infrastructure is in place within the mounds at the site to collect and process both leachate and landfill gas–you can read more about it under the ‘About the Site’ tab on the Freshkills Park home page.
