SCA Cleans Up Staten Island Dumping Site

By Tara Lynn Wagner | NY1 | 9/18/2008

Volunteers Clean Up West Shore Dumping Sites

A group of students, volunteers and conservationists spent the last week removing trash and debris from Old Place Creek and other illegal dumping sites along the West Shore. NY1’s Tara Lynn Wagner filed the following report.

The Fresh Kills landfill may be closed but garbage continues to pile up at sites across the Island. Residents and businesses alike seem to be using remote locations as their own personal dumping sites, leaving behind everything from construction materials to household trash.

"Most of this is house construction and they took out some old wiring," said Betsy Ukeritis of the NY Department of Environmental Conservation. "They were painting, so they just dumped it over the side because nobody was here to monitor."

Such dumping is illegal, but according to conservationist Tanner Snell, it usually amounts to a crime of convenience.

"It's a remote road," said Snell. "It makes it easy for them to back up and dump there trash and thinking that no one is going to find it. But we find it."

Snell works with the Hudson Valley AmeriCorps Student Conservation Association, which this week brought 34 interns from across the country to clean up illegal dumping sites, including one off Gulf Avenue.

"I'm really saddened by it,” said worker Christy Wurmstead. “It’s just people see an open space like this and want to dump their garbage. It's really disheartening."

Conservationists say pollutants that are left by the road travel downhill to the wetlands, affecting not only the quality of the water but the wildlife as well.
"A lot of times you see cans floating in the water and plastic bags floating in the water that turtles and fish and birds try to eat,” said Snell. “So it makes its way from up there into the water system."

The group also tested water quality and is monitoring the local fish population. They intend to take some of the DEC-owned land and open it up to nature-lovers.

"We're opening up the old creek place so people can use it for canoeing and birding. Apparently there is a lot of interesting birding on Staten Island," said Kathy Schmidt of Hudson Valley AmeriCorps SCA.

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