Landfill Search for WTC Remains Ends

— -- Landfill Search for WTC Remains Over

N E W Y O R K, July 15 — Workers and victims' family members gatheredtoday at a Staten Island landfill to mark the end of a gruelingand emotional 10 months spent searching for human remains from thecollapsed World Trade Center.

"We see the best and the worst," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said,standing a few feet from a heaping mound of debris at the FreshKills landfill. "We are here because of the worst of humanity, theterrorists who caused so many deaths and so much pain."

"We will not forget 2,800 people who died … to make this thebest country in the world," said Bloomberg, who also praised therecovery workers for helping "to give us some closure."

John Tedesco, a firefighter from Engine 9 in Manhattan whosifted through the debris with hundreds of other firefighters,police officers and sanitation workers, was philosophical aboutfinishing up the work.

"It has to end sooner or later. You can't keep going on. Therehas to be a stopping point, but there will never be closure becauseso many people haven't been found," Tedesco said.

The landfill became the final stop for debris after Sept. 11 astrucks and barges began hauling rubble from the World Trade Centerto be sifted one last time for remains, personal property andcriminal evidence.

Remains from about 1,200 victims have been identified.

Workers expressed mixed emotions as the job ended, said Col.John O'Dowd, commander of the New York district of the Army Corpsof Engineers, which supervised the operation.

"It was not very pleasant, what they had to do," O'Dowd saidSunday. "On the other hand, the people that worked there workedunder some pretty trying conditions, and that tends to bring peopleclose together."

O'Dowd said the focus always was "to bring something home tothe families of those that were lost."

The excavation of the ruins in lower Manhattan ended last month,and the last truckload of debris from a building near Ground Zeroarrived at the landfill June 28.