#freshkill

Barley has entered ur inbox. (this is in my anthro wc au aka the Poprocksverse.)

Daniel blows open some of Louis's denial at the end of season 1 by talking about the dump:

The Thing Lay Still

Daniel: But, um... there's a feeling that she hated your guts there for a while. Why is that? Louis: I was haunted by my brother's death, by the abandonment of my sister, by the murder of Lestat, I... Daniel: Murder? What murder? It was an act of mercy. You didn't kill Lestat. You spared him, out of some fucked-up idea you had about love. Louis( Scoffs ): Love? I bled him like a pig and waited for the death rattle. Daniel: You were shot point-blank by an alderman. You were dropped a thousand feet and survived. You torched Antoinette just to make sure. Where does the trash go, Louis? You take the trash down to the street and some guys show up in a truck and they throw it in the back, and then, they drive it out to the middle of nowhere, right? No. They take the trash to the dump. And having lived two blocks away from the dump just outside of Fishkill, New York, with my first wife, I can state, with authority, what else you'll find there. Rats. Big fսckin' rats, the size of Kevin Durant's sneakers. Enough blood in them to bring back the dead. Especially one in a trunk with locks on the inside. You knew it, Louis. You had to. The biggest rat-eater of them all.

Lestat de Lioncourt eating rats at the New Orleans dump.

Daniel also points out that Louis spared Lestat, against Claudia's wishes:

Louis: I couldn't burn him. Daniel: But Claudia could. Louis: No, she couldn't. Daniel: She stuck a pen in his neck. She recorded his last words in his own blood. The girl did not have a fսckin' problem tossing him on the grill, okay? Claudia: The sun's comin' up. Louis: No. Claudia: We have to burn him. Louis: No. Claudia: It's the only way we'll know! Louis: No! I said no!

THE FRESHKILL DUMP IN STATEN ISLAND/FISHKILL

If Daniel is actually referring to Fishkill: Fishkill is about ~21 miles from a decommissioned nuclear plant, Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, NY. There's only one dump nearby in Hopewell Junction, which doesn't seem like it's that huge.

Indian Point Energy Center on the Hudson River. The last reactor was decommission in 2021.

But if the writers have transposed it with the Freshkill, NY, Daniel is referring to the Freshkill Dump, which is/was on Staten Island. The Freshkill Dump opened up in 1948; it became the largest landfill in the world in 1955; in the 1960s it was taller than the Statue of Liberty, and at its peak operation in 1986-7 it received 29,000 tons of trash per day. and stayed open until 2001, when it received ashes and remains from the World Trade Center bombings. They say they're gradually rehabilitating that area into a park.

Freshkill Dump//Freshkill Park 2010

The Freshkill Dump:

Animals were also a problem. Feral dog packs roamed the dump and were a hazard to employees. Rats also posed a problem. Attempts to suppress the population with poison failed. The area was declared a wild bird sanctuary, and some hawks, falcons, and owls were brought in. The area became a popular spot for birdwatching. Because of the predatory birds, rat sightings dropped dramatically, especially during the day.(emphasis added) From 1987 through 1988, in an environmental disaster known as the syringe tide, significant amounts of medical waste from the Fresh Kills landfill, including hypodermic syringes and raw garbage, washed up onto beaches on the Jersey Shore, in New York City, and on Long Island. This event forced the closing of beaches on the Atlantic coast.[18] After much deliberation, New York City was required to pay $1 million for past pollution damages as well as pay for the cleanup. No reparations were paid to the business owners on the Jersey Shore for revenues lost during the months of inactivity.[19]

NJ.com: In early June of 1988, beaches on Island Beach State Park and Ortley were closed after vials of blood tested positive for AIDS and hepatitis B virus.

It was also a huge cancer risk while it was open:

Several studies have linked waste sites in the U.S. to higher cancer risks. One study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology analyzed 82,770 census tracts and found that for every 10% increase in proximity to hazardous waste sites, cancer risk rose by 4%. The association was strongest in the Intermountain West, South-Southeast and Northeast regions. While many landfills are considered hazardous waste sites, not all are classified as Superfund sites. Fresh Kills Landfill, for example, was not designated as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List when it closed in 2001. While direct associations are difficult to establish, data from the New York State Cancer Registry shows that from 2017 to 2021, Staten Island had the highest rate of invasive malignant tumors in New York City. It also had the highest rate among all boroughs for 14 of the 23 cancers tracked by the state.

Freshkill was never a Superfund site.

But which dump would the garbage pickup have taken the garbage from 1132 Rue Royale to?

THE AGRICULTURE STREET DUMP:

Neither Rue Royale nor Ursuline Street in the French Quarter on on toxic dump sites, but New Orleans is either in or around Cancer Alley, which might have something to do with the "cancer of the blood" in the guy Lestat drains

The dump the Rue Royale trash likely goes to on Ash Wednesday morning, February 7 1940 is a different story.

If you look up dumps in New Orleans, the Agriculture Street dump props up first.

If the Rue Royale trash goes to the Agriculture Street dump, this proves that Lestat is immune to toxins and likely got the fuck out of the dump quickly because it regularly caught fire above and below ground. The city built low income housing on top of the landfill in the 1970s and 1980s. The area was declared a Superfund site in 1994

It's a little ironic that Louis prevented Claudia from burning Lestat in the incinerator but his coffin was likely taken to a dump that regularly caught fire above and below the ground. If Rolin had decided he was physically injured and burnt this would be an excellent way to do this.

There is a lot of history behind this dump and a ton of environmental racism:

Agriculture Street Landfill

This area in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans was swampy low ground when it began to be used as a dump in 1909. The landfill became one of the area's main dumps for both residential and industrial waste. It often caught fire, with flames and smoke visible for a good distance away, and got the local nickname Dante's Inferno. (emphasis added)

1947. Fires at Agricultural Street Landfill.

October 11 1950 Spontaneous fires were a big problem at the old dump. Things underground caught fire and sometimes blanketed the city with smoke.

Patrick LeBoeuf with a sign saying how he felt about the EPA's remediation. May 16, 1997

The Poisoned Promises of Agriculture Street (The Times Picayune April 2015)

In the urban renewal drive of the 1960s and 1970s, the city and HANO built two communities in the 9th Ward -- Press Park and Gordon Plaza -- as part of an effort aimed at giving low-income families the chance to move out of the public housing projects and become first-time homebuyers. To many it seemed like a life-changing opportunity. The School Board even built a $6 million elementary school in the heart of the neighborhood.

Davis, whose family was one of the first to move into the community, said she experienced a normal childhood in Press Park. She remembers shooting marbles and playing Double Dutch while her mother spent hours in her garden, tending vegetables to feed her 13 children.

But there was something wrong with the land, she said. There was something in the soil that seemed to be making everyone sick.

What the city and HANO failed to tell the residents and what the School Board failed to tell the families of Moton Elementary School is that just a few feet below the grass was 20 feet of compacted industrial waste riddled with 49 cancer-causing chemicals.

The federal government confirmed the danger in 1994 when it declared the communities a Superfund site, one of the most contaminated in the country.

The residents sued in Civil District Court, and in 2006 former Judge Nadine Ramsey ruled in their favor, ordering the city, the school board, HANO and four insurers of the housing authority, to pay them for emotional stress and property damage.

They were still in litigation over the damages and compensation for the Superfund site in 2022.