STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Along the 8.5-mile span that is Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Road, you’ll find strips of bustling businesses, clusters of homes, and acres of unbothered natural land. It’s a hub of restaurants and strip-malls, a two-lane thoroughfare that slices through 12 towns and winds past landmarked burial grounds, an historic mansion, a storied German eatery and an ice-skating rink before eventually passing underneath a small span of the Outerbridge Crossing.

The road is bordered by bridle paths and a 265-acre nature preserve, where butterfly habitats and bird colonies thrive. But Arthur Kill’s character is far from pristine: The remote wilderness has often been disturbed by illegal dumping, and most recently it has been scarred by excessive amounts of car storage and burgeoning

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