SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- The long, painstaking effort to recover human remains from the World Trade Center debris will officially end next week when a Staten Island landfill site is closed, officials said Tuesday.
The death toll from the Sept. 11 attacks will stand at 2,813 unless there are new discoveries or revisions. City officials said they were considering a ceremony to mark the end of the work.
The Fresh Kills landfill has been the final stop for debris since Sept. 12, when trucks and barges began hauling rubble there to be sifted one last time for remains, personal property and criminal evidence. Some 1.62 million tons of material were examined.
The last truckload of debris from ground zero in Manhattan arrived at the landfill on June 28. Next Monday, the Army Corps of Engineers will begin to dismantle the conveyor belts, screening equipment, storage trailers and food service facilities at a site that once bustled with more than 1,000 workers.
``We were given a mission. We have completed that mission,'' corps spokesman Peter Shugert said.
The city medical examiner's office has received 19,691 body parts in the 10 months since the Sept. 11; only 1,215 victims have been identified.
Closed by the city in March 2001, the landfill was reopened a day after the attack on the trade center. Thousands of wrecked vehicles were stacked in rows, next to heaps of broken concrete and twisted steel. Boxes of rings, watches, wallets and ID cards filled trailers parked on the 160-acre site.
At the height of the operation, 7,000 tons of rubble was processed each day as forensic experts in respirators manned the conveyors, ready to stop the debris flow when they spotted a bone shard or other remains. Officials used fireworks to keep seagulls and vultures from scavenging the pile.
