9/11 Victim Burial. What Would You Do?

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/10/wnyc10.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/10/ixworld.html

Remains of 9/11 victims 'to spend eternity' in city rubbish dump
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 10/10/2004)

The remains of hundreds of victims of the September 11 attacks are to be permanently buried in the world's largest rubbish dump, to the consternation of their grieving relatives.

In the aftermath of 9/11, more than half a million tons of dust and ashes from the Twin Towers were taken to the sprawling Fresh Kills landfill site on Staten Island.

More than 100 years' worth of refuse from New York City had accumulated at the dump before it was finally closed just six months before the attacks. The rubble from the World Trade Center ended up covering some 48 acres.

Relatives were assured that ashes would be returned after they were sorted, but city authorities have since balked at the estimated $450 million cost of transferring them again. Instead they have promised to lay a 2,200-acre park on top of the dump, whose rotting contents smell strongly of methane, and to erect a memorial to the victims.

Relatives of 1,169 of the 3,000 who died have yet to receive any remains, and many are outraged at the authorities' decision.

Diane Horning, whose son Matthew, 24, died in the North Tower, where he worked for the insurance company Marsh and McLennan, said: "We were promised the remains - any and all remains of the victims - and now we discover that my lost son is to spend eternity in a rubbish dump.

"This is morally reprehensible and emotionally unacceptable, and we are going to fight it all the way."

Continued.... See link above

What do you see as the right thing to do?

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Have lots of sympathy for those families of lost ones - but wonder how you tell the ashes of the departed ones from the other million some tons of ash? Looks like a no win situation - unless there were really body parts - unidentifiable to be in a single respectable grave somewhere???

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Unimaginable situation to be in, and not sure which would satisfy me.

I took the choice to be either the two mounds the city authorities want without grave markers, or what the families want is for the dump to be made into a cemetary complete with markers.

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Interesting and somewhat horror-full situation.

I certainly see the need for a joint grave, given the reality of the event. And I see the sense of having it a park/meadow, and think there would need to be markers, whether it is a series or one big and respectful monument.

Further, I guess I would not feel right having people play there... as in a regular park.

There is a lovely arboretum built over a landfill in Southern California, in Palos Verdes. I could see something like that being pretty and meaningful.

I have saved a few articles over the years about burials in italy, or some burials in italy - not sure how common this is. But in a few places they have remains be in individual settings for a certain number of years, then at somepoint they are transferred to a group setting. It makes sense there, in a land with thousands of years with human settlements.

This would be a direct transfer to the group "setting".
I think the connotation of dump is unfortunate, even if the 'cemetary' would be over an existing landfill. They would be burying the remains as a group with accompanying material from the scene of the tragedy.

Still, as I say that, I can imagine being an anguished wife or mother... I feel for the families, and their shock, given their understanding they would be having individual family burials.

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I don't see a way to accomodate by returning the ashes, based on what I've just read. The common burial and a park over it seems the best solution. I would feel the same emotions as the relatives and might even fight it, but there has to be an end to this eventually.

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Be REALISTIC here... the pulverized remnants are thoroughly mixed into the rubble from the building and are irretrievably lost... and even the expenditure of $billions cannot change that, nor separate them from the millions of pounds of gypsum dust and crushed concrete and wood pulp.
It seems a bit frivolous to persist in a morbid obsession to change what cannot PRACTICALLY be altered.

A Memorial Park (at no expense to the victims' survivors or estates) seems to be a more than acceptable compromise... especially since MOST people are burdened with substantial expenses when they are bereaved.
Note that few of the victims' survivors were compelled to spend the many thousands of dollars required for the usual embalming, caskets, vaults, interment, cremation...

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I know this is a tangent to the concerns of the thread, but since I mentioned group burial before and ran across the link for one of the burial sites, I'll post it here -

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/amoretticalvi/index.htm

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