City Dump: Avian Turnpike

A good half of the Brisbane dump looks innocuous enough: a grassy field, a little weedy and unkempt, lined with boulders and enlivened with random piles of rock. It offers a resting place in winter to weary flocks of geese traveling the Pacific Flyway, like a tired rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Here, the original tidal marsh has been filled to create level ground, and how far it extends only the map reveals. When you think about it, that isn’t very reassuring. Garbage dumps may not be very comfortable to look at, but there is some consolation in the idea that you know them when you see them.

Photo Marijke Rijsberman, 2005

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