Tags: case studies

A recent look at a centuries-old landfill – the eighth hill of Rome – presents new insight into the variety of uses and cultural identities reclaimed landfills today might strive toward. On Places, architect Michael Ezban explores the history and current status of Monte Testaccio as an integral part of the Roman urban fabric.

The 7.5 MW Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm was the first wind power facility built in New Jersey and the first urban coastal wind farm in the United States.  It is located within the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) Wastewater Treatment Facility site and has been in operation since December 2005.

The American Society of Landscape Architects has put together an online exhibition called Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes.

[The exhibition] highlights real-life examples of sustainable landscape design and its positive effects on the environment and quality of life. These spaces use natural systems to clean the air and water, restore habitats, create healthy communities, and ultimately provide significant economic, social, and environmental value.

Spectacle Island, part of the Boston Harbor National Recreation Area, was home to a horse rendering plant and a city waste incinerator from 1857 to 1937.  When the incinerator closed, the island served as a landfill until 1959.  Though the island’s original size was approximately 49 acres, landfilling increased its size to 85 acres (with an additional 28 acres in the intertidal zone). 

On Friday, the Freshkills Park Development Team took a field trip to the town of Hempstead on Long Island to check out the Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve, formerly the Merrick Landfill.  We were drawn to the site by its herd of Nigerian dwarf goats, purchased in 2009 and herded by park rangers to eradicate invasive weeds and overgrowth at the site (The initial herd of five had recently given birth to nine kids, and the names of these kids were announced on Friday, too). 

Vulgare runs another eye-popping photo feature, this time on the 200-acre Parque Atlantico (“Atlantic Park”) in Santander, Spain.  Situated in a thalweg called La Vaguada de las Llamas (“The Valley of Flames”), the site was once a marshy estuary fed by a stream from the Atlantic Ocean. 

Yes, its official name is Mount Trashmore Park. Virginia Beach is home to one of the earliest conversions of a contemporary sanitary landfill to parkland in the US.  The 165-acre site operated for many years as a landfill for waste originating from all over the east coast. 

27-acre Stearns Quarry Park opened in 2009 in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.  The site was used as a limestone quarry from 1833 to 1969 by the Illinois Stone and Lime Company, after which it served as a municipal landfill: from 1969 to 1974, dirt, gravel, brick and construction debris were delivered to the site, filling the hole excavated by mining operations.

Gas Works Park in Seattle, WA is located on the 19.1-acre site of a former Seattle Gas Light Company coal gasification plant.  The plant opened in 1906 and closed in 1956 when the City switched to natural gas.  The site was abandoned for several years until the City purchased it in 1962; a design combining elements of historic preservation and park design was commissioned from landscape architect Richard Haag in the early 1970s.

As part of its waterfront redevelopment plan, multi-governmental agency Waterfront Toronto is currently in construction of Sherbourne Park, a $28 million storm water treatment facility and public park, near the Lake Ontario shore.  Much of the water treatment infrastructure will be visible to park visitors, making more transparent the purification process through features like an ultraviolet treatment pavilion, dramatic channelizing sculptures and biofiltration beds.

Mayor Thomas W. Danehy Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts is a 50-acre site with a similar history to the Freshkills Park site: clay deposits onsite attracted brick manufacturing uses in the 19th century; wet, low ground led to landfilling operations in the mid-20th century; local activism and political pressure led to late 20-th century landfill closure and, ultimately, to park construction.

When we first caught sight of London’s Northala Fields Park, which opened in May 2008, the similarity in topography to Fresh Kills set off instant recognition–this is filled land.  The park’s construction included the creation of four man-made hills filled with construction debris from local projects including the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium and the construction of a nearby shopping center. 

City planners in Guelph, Ontario have approved a master plan to transform a 200-acre decommissioned landfill into the world’s largest pollinator park.  The former Eastview Road Landfill, which operated as a municipal dump from 1961 to 2003, has been capped and outfitted with a methane capturing system that converts landfill gas into usable energy. 

Another poster child for the reclamation of disturbed lands: AMD&ART Park in Vintondale, PA.  By the mid-’90s, coal mining in this part of Appalachia had resulted in severe acid mine drainage (AMD) into waterways and general public resignation to a major environmental hazard. 

For our Freshkills Park Talk two weeks back, Dr. Steven Handel shared insights into the emerging field of urban restoration ecology, which focuses on the challenge of bringing ecological diversity back to degraded lands like brownfields and landfills.  He discussed his research at the Freshkills Park site and others in the region and went on to describe how his expertise has informed the design of Orange County, CA’s Great Park.

The 30-acre Bethlehem Steel Mill on Lake Erie was in operation for almost 80 years and was closed in the mid-1970s.  Contaminated with steel slag and industrial waste, the site was idle for 30 years.  In May 2002, the EPA awarded the City of Lackawanna a $200,000 grant to investigate the site’s potential for reuse. 

The Hiriya landfill in Tel Aviv, a 2,000-acre site adjacent to the city’s airport, has a lot in common with the Freshkills Park site.  From 1952 to 1999, the landfill was Israel’s largest garbage disposal site, at one point receiving one third of the country’s waste. 

We’re often asked whether there are other landfills in the world that have been turned into parks and natural areas.  There are, in fact, a lot of them, including many hundreds to thousands of unofficial dump sites and historic landfills whose operation preceded any type of government regulation (Flushing Meadows, we’re looking at you). 

Another case study we’re looking at: The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) has proposed the construction of a 5 MW solar farm to be built on top of the Erie Landfill.  This would be the largest solar array built in New Jersey to date and could potentially power up to 600 homes per year. 

Republic Services, Inc. has covered portions of its Tessman Road Landfill in San Antonio, TX  with 1000 flexible, laminate-type photovoltaic (PV) solar collection strips that are configured to maximize the hours of sunlight exposure throughout the year, based on the landfill’s design and site contours.