Promise seen in a closed landfill

The vacant waterfront parcel in South Jersey is within walking distance of a historic battlefield and park on the Delaware River.

But its potential for development depends upon a planner's imagination: The 70-acre Gloucester County site is a shuttered landfill.

The land contains twisted pieces of Society Hill homes demolished between 1970 and 1978 for the revitalization of South Philadelphia. National Park Borough residents watched the landfill rise beyond their backyards as workers threw concrete chunks from a razed baseball stadium into the mix.

Now, the borough, where the Revolutionary War Battle of Red Bank was fought, plans to cap the landfill and build a shopping center. Five developers, enticed by government grants, have bid on how they would perform this magic for the tiny, cash-strapped community of 3,000.

The concept of building atop a trash pile is more than two decades old, even though many projects have been stalled or scrapped and litter the nation's landscape.

So far, more than 30 warehouses, malls, golf courses, recreational fields, and other projects have been developed on New Jersey landfills. Stunning examples are the Borgata casino in Atlantic City and a residential area in North Wildwood, said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"No longer do we just want to put a fence around the landfill and put up a skull and crossbones," said Ken Kloo, assistant director for the DEP's Brownfields Remediation and Re-use. Now, the trend is "to turn the properties into productive use," he said.

About 300 other closed dumps beckon developers frustrated by dwindling land in the state.

Similar success stories have been reported in scattered areas in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, Arizona, and Florida. A wildlife area and solar farm are being planned for a closed private landfill in Falls Township, Bucks County.

But a Wal-Mart and other stores constructed on the site of a former landfill two years ago in Garfield Heights, Ohio, show what can go wrong. Potentially explosive methane gas leaked from decomposing trash into the parking lot, and nearby stormwater was polluted, according to news reports. Many of the stores closed this year, though officials say the economy is as much to blame as the environmental issues.

Another failure was the $1 billion EnCap development, which projected a luxury golf resort, hotel, 2,000 houses, and office buildings atop a sprawling contaminated dump site in the Meadowlands, in Bergen County, N.J.

After nearly a decade of planning, the developer declared bankruptcy, and the state inspector general released a scathing report that criticized the developer's expertise, cost overruns, and government oversight. Government agencies had provided more than $300 million in low-interest loans.

Environmentalists caution that landfill contaminants should be removed, not just capped, and that health issues should be weighed before proceeding. There have been reports, they say, of vapors leaching into buildings.

About 18 New Jersey landfills are being remediated or under consideration for potential development.

Still on track is a Salvation Army project in Camden's Cramer Hill neighborhood. With a $57 million gift from the estate of Joan Kroc, widow of the McDonald's founder, the Salvation Army plans to build a community center with a gym, a pool, a health center, and other amenities atop a former landfill.

"I had this picture of a huge, stinking, steamy pile of trash," said Maj. Paul Cain, who is overseeing the project, explaining his initial reaction. "I wondered, 'How is that going to happen?' "

But now, after three years of working through the process and dealing with a "very complicated" DEP review, Cain said he was optimistic that construction would begin next summer. Unlike some hazardous landfills that resemble vast dirt mounds, he said, this landfill looks like a forest and has only a small contaminated area.

Modifying a landfill to make it suitable for development often requires a two-foot impermeable layer, a gas- and leachate-collection system, and pilings driven to stabilize ground. Monitoring wells also are installed to check for pollutants.

In Bellmawr, a project to build a retail center and hotel complex on a municipal landfill was begun last year. So far, the developer has received a mostly no-interest $8 million loan to manage stormwater and begin preparations.

In Monroe Township, Gloucester County, plans are underway to remediate a municipal landfill and reuse the land. Councilman Frank Caligiuri says the landfill would be an ideal spot for a restaurant that would cater to travelers, because it is located off the Atlantic City Expressway near Exit 38. Not only would the new use boost tax revenue, but it also would eliminate the burden of caring for the landfill, he said.

Developer interest in landfills is up, Kloo said.

"We're seeing a real push now for a lot of these landfill areas, because in many cases, the landfills are the last piece of undeveloped real estate in a municipality," he said. More than $100 million in state economic-development money is available.

With no new tax revenue, National Park Borough looked to the landfill, its last vacant parcel. The entire one-square-mile community and its struggling working-class neighborhoods can be seen in one glance from atop the 25-foot-tall mound in the center of the dump.

The landfill contains mostly construction materials and no alarming levels of contamination, according to a May report by Resource Control Corp. of Moorestown. The finding, Borough Administrator Vikki Holmstrom said, is encouraging.

"The site reportedly was undeveloped tidal flats" before it was used as a dumping ground, according to the report. Situated off Grove Avenue, the landfill borders Woodbury Creek, a Delaware River tributary. It also abuts the backyards of about 18 homes along Woodlawn Avenue.

It looks like a woods, with eight-foot-tall cattails and weeds along the edges. Vegetation grew when the construction debris was covered over by soil in the 1970s. The mound in the middle is obscured.

Theresa Giaccio, who has lived on Woodlawn Avenue for 46 years, says the landfill never had an odor and was hidden by trees and marshland.

"We never had a problem," she said. "It was a clean landfill with building debris."

The report found some areas with elevated levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and other substances in the soil, but called these typical of a sanitary municipal landfill and said they should not pose cleanup problems. The landfill was closed in 1978.

Borough officials considered moving the downtown athletic fields to the landfill last year and designating the fields for retail. Residents protested, and officials decided to use the landfill for shops. One portion would be used as a solar field.

"We want to stimulate the growth of the town," Holmstrom said. And the notion that the landfill could fill that role, she says, should not be discarded.