Amanda Puitiza MHC Seminar 3- Freshkills Park Reflection
Freshkills Park in Staten Island is a sanitary landfill turned national park. It was an experience to see first-hand an environmentally safe answer to a growing problem in our lives: where do we put our growing amounts of trash? This park was once a major dump site for our city and the largest landfill in the world. As a park, it will definitely surpass Central Park in size. Our job that day was to get a basic count of a particular species living in Freshkills Park. Although it was extremely humid and involved long distance hiking, I think it was a good experience for Seminar 3 students to have as we entered into environmental discussions in class.
Freshkills Park is not the first sanitary landfill to be converted into a park in the United States. After doing some research, I found some in VA, IL, WA, MA, and PA. Honestly, I really wasn’t familiar with this practice—I had never been to Staten Island, let alone heard of the progressive creation of Freshkills Park. At the park (the North portion is the only one of the four sections to be really open at the moment), our two guides pointed out the pipes that release gas and told us the methane gas released by the trash is harnessed. The residents of Staten Island can then use this as natural gas. This is a great innovation that uses a smelly by-product of the covered trash as a source of energy. It has been about 20 years since they started capping off the four landfills; progressive on the park is moving slowly but there are many people working on long-term plans.
The group I was in analyzed the Lichen population in the park. Our two guides were both Lichen specialists working on doctorates. As one of them told us, “Lichens are not a popular topic.” It was truly amazing to see how many bio specialists volunteered time to help us students and help the park itself by assisting in the environmental profile of Freshkills Park. This profile will serve as the basis for further analysis of the species living in the park. Our guides showed us how to spot these symbiotic bacteria-fungus on rocks and trees. We all had seen Lichen before (they are kind of hard to miss), but basically none of us knew what they were. Since we were supposed to be counting the number of a species and how many different types of species we found, we walked up a hill and down by the lake (two different parts of the environment). We found them much easier to spot growing on the trees bordering a large pond. In our findings, we indicated what side of the tree they were growing on and how high from the base of the tree their colonies were located. Although, personally, my findings were small, I did manage to count more than one species—an indication that life is thriving in this newly developed park.
By holding the BioBlitz Macaulay event at Freshkills Park, we were able to add our own input into this ongoing environmental project. As we learned about a particular species, we were able to see the potential this huge park has. The experienced, well-educated, and outgoing guides that led us also added their knowledge to help the park keep flourishing. Collaboration is definitely the key in getting an enormous project like this one from foundering. First, the EPA, the city, and the state had to agree on guidelines to follow after the landfill was closed in 1996; group activism and politics were some reasons for the closure of the landfill. Then all the workers hired to plan and construct—the architects, engineers, and landscaper planners—needed to get together and agree. Today, they are still constructing while keeping environmental tabs on any problems that arise from the garbage underneath; scientists regularly test the ground and water for any chemical toxins that could potentially harm the new ecosystem. This kind of testing will probably need to be carried out on a continuous basis for the safety of all who reside or visit the park. Perhaps Freshkills Park will meet its finish date of 2036 if people continue to work together.
