Removal of the debris left after the collapse of the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center will take months and require billions of dollars, government officials and waste company executives said.
The effort will cost "hundreds of times more" than the recovery after the Oklahoma City bombing, and could rival the San Francisco earthquake in expense, said Robert Isakson, managing director of closely held DRC Inc, an Alabama-based company specializing in disposal of disaster debris.
Waste Management Inc and Republic Services Inc say they will bid on the contracts. Waste Management, the largest waste company in North America, has sent its Atlanta-based emergency response group to New York. Republic Services, the third-largest, is preparing equipment for the work.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"We're taking an inventory of available resources, taking a head count and equipment inventory to see what we have available," said Will Flower, Republic's spokesman.
Thousands of people were killed or injured when hijackers crashed airliners into the two buildings Tuesday. Disposal workers will have to sift through debris for body parts and personal effects. Congressional leaders say they are preparing to approve US$20 billion in emergency funds to help deal with the aftermath of the attacks.
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the city has removed about 6,000 tonnes of debris from the World Trade Center site on its own.
Most of it went to the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island where workers are looking through the debris. More than 200 truckloads were removed from the city last night, he said.
The city won't be able to handle the whole cleanup with its own workers, industry and government officials said.
After a disaster, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) usually gauges damage, then tells the Corps of Engineers to handle debris removal, Corps spokesman Homer Perkins said. The Corps will then take bids for the work, he said.
More than one disaster-recovery and waste-disposal company will be hired because the World Trade center project is so large, said John Skinner, chief executive of the Solid Waste Association of North America, an industry trade group.
Waste Management transports garbage in the New York area, and owns dumping stations in the city and landfills in neighboring states. Republic Services, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has operations in New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York.
Houston-based Waste Management helped clean up after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City as well as after a number of hurricanes and tornados, spokeswoman Sarah Voss said.
FEMA spokeswoman Aileen Cooper said the agency hasn't yet estimated the cost of getting rid of the debris. It is ``premature to discuss'' when contracts will be awarded, she said. FEMA has 3,000 workers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to handle emergency efforts.
FEMA estimates the amount of waste to be removed totals 450,000 tonnes. Skinner said his "ballpark estimate" of the New York wreckage is 1 million tonnes.
"That's the amount of debris normally generated in the US over 10 days," said Skinner, whose association speaks for big waste companies.
Hauling experts expect it will take at least two months to transfer the wreckage to a site or sites where it can be sifted through. It will take weeks or months after that to determine what to do with it.
After the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, Norcal Waste Systems Inc, based in San Francisco, set up a center where workers sifted through debris. They salvaged photographs, wallets and other items lost in the disaster, said Steven Jones, a member of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which oversees landfills and recycling operations in the state.
"It put a human spin on the catastrophe," said Jones, who was Norcal's vice president of operations. "There may be ways to do that in New York so people have a chance to recover a memory and not just have a bad memory." The World Trade Center site is now considered a crime scene and is being scoured by the FBI for evidence. Rescue crews are searching the wreckage for victims.
Only when they are through will the long and expensive work of getting rid of the debris begin, industry and government spokespeople said. Much of the steel and concrete could be recycled, Skinner said.
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