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From Dumps to Destinations:The Conversion of Landfills to Parks

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Imagine sun bathing, playing baseball,or flying a kite on top of a huge pile ofgarbage. Actually, theres no need toimaginesimply head out to Bostons

Millennium Park. Fifteen years ago,known as the Gardner Street Landfill,it was a dumpliterally. Today its 100acres host sports fields, playgrounds,an outdoor classroom and amphithe-ater, six miles of walking and bikingtrails, and river access. As Mayor Tom

Menino stated at its opening Decem-ber 7, 2000, it is a place for people ofall ages and backgrounds to come fora picnic, a friendly ballgame, or somesolitude.

No one has tabulated all the parks

and public recreational sites createdon old landfills. There are certainlymore than 250, and there may well bemore than 1,000. They range fromthe famous, such as Flushing Meadowin New York (site of two WorldsFairs) and the appropriately named

Mt. Trashmore in Virginia Beach, torelatively obscure inner-city basket-ball and tennis courts, suburban golfcourses, and soccer fields. One con-

verted landfill in Berkeley is home toan international kite festival; anotherin Albuquerque hosts a celebration ofhot-air balloons.

It would be an overstatement tosay that some of the nations besturban parks have been created fromlandfills, or even that capped landfillsautomatically make terrific parks. Butin a time of severe urban space andresource constraints, closed landfillspresent excellent new park sites forthree reasonssize, location and cost.Communities from coast to coast havebeen jumping at the chance to convertthem.

An Urban MissionThe San Francisco-based Trust

for Public Land (TPL) has developeda particular interest in old landfills.

The nations second largest land

Peter Harnik,Michael Taylor andBen Welle

Projected use of some of the 2,200 acres of currently

open land at the site of the former Fresh Kills Landfill

on Staten Island, New York. Photo courtesy of the

New York City Department of City Planning.

Places 18.1 83

These Forum pages were produced under

agreement between the Design History

Foundation and The Trust for Public Land.

For more information on TPL programs, contact:

The Trust for Public Land116 New Montgomery Street

San Francisco, CA, 94103

www.tpl.org

Peter Harnikis director of the Center for City Park

Excellence at the Trust for Public Land and author of

Inside City Parks(Urban Land Institute, 2000). Ben

Welle is program assistant at the Center.Michael

Taylor, a 2005 intern with the Trust for Public Land, is

a masters student at the University of Texas in Austin.


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living, and as older suburban areasbecome more built up, old landfillsites become increasingly valuable andoffer similar potential.

To study the complexities of thisand other issues affecting urban greenspaces, TPL has created an internalresearch arm, the Center for CityPark Excellence (CCPE). Since 2003,the center has conducted in-depthresearch on a range of topics from dogparks to the design of skateboard facil-

ities; it has analyzed how park agencybudgets affect park maintenance anduse; and it has developed new meth-odologies for counting the numberof park users and understanding their

various needs.Based on CCPE research, TPL has

also launched a national campaign topromote the conversion of landfillsinto parks. Landfills are so appropriatefor conversion to parks, TPL believes,that recreation planners and landscapearchitects should not wait until they

are closed to get involved. New land-fills could even be pre-envisioned andpre-designed as parks before the firstbag of trash is ever disposed.

The Earliest Landfill ParksLandfill parks go back to at least

1916 (many years before the wordlandfill was coined), when Seattlecreated Rainier Playfield from itsformer Rainier Dump. In 1935another conversion transformed thatcitys 62-acre Miller Street Dump into

a portion of the now-famous Wash-ington Park Arboretum. The follow-ing year, New York closed the putridCorona Dumpsfamously called theValley of Ashes by F. Scott Fitzger-ald in The Great Gatsbyand beganpreparing the land for construction ofthe 1939 Worlds Fair.

Following World War II, thevolume of trash and the number oflandfills in America mushroomedas

conservation group (after the NatureConservancy), TPL approaches itsland-for-people mission in two ways.

In rural and suburban areas TPL maybuy virgin land for park agencies topreserve it from development. But in

urban areas its most valuable role maybe to acquire previously used land andhelp communities recycle it for new

public purposes.TPLs roster of urban land rec-lamation and reuse projects todayincludes old rail yards in Los Angelesand Santa Fe, abandoned piers anddocks in Brooklyn and Oakland,decayed factory sites in Chicago and

Atlanta, an abandoned gas station inBoston, and an oil storage depot inSeattle. As people across the countryrediscover the benefits of urban

Harnik, Taylor and Welle / From Dumps to Destination

Known contaminated areas of Mabel Davis Park in

Austin, Texas. The park was opened in 1979 over

parts of an old landfill. In March 2000 city workers

discovered elevated levels of lead in the parks soil.

Further investigation revealed elevated levels of

pesticides. Map courtesy of the City of Austin.

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did the number that became filled tocapacity. The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) today esti-mates that as many as 3,500 landfillshave closed since 1991. The numberfrom earlier years has never beentracked.

In theory, turning a landfill intoa park transforms a noxious liabilityinto an attractive asset. As a sustain-able recycling of urban assets, inmany cases it works beautifully. Evena superficial investigation of American

big cities by CCPE reveals more than4,500 acres of successful landfill parks.However, compared to a green-

field site, an old landfill almost alwaysrequires more time and planning to

turn into a park. Indeed, complexissues of toxicity, liability, and groundsettlement often conspire to preventmunicipalities and private land con-servancies from pursing such projects.But these challenges are not insur-mountable. In a similar effort over thelast twenty years, the rails-to-trailsmovement has converted thousands ofmiles of former railway right-of-wayto nature and bike trails.

In the heart of a dense metro area, aformer dump may today be one of only

a few large, open locations remainingon which to build a new public park.And its conversion may present anopportunity to correct longstandinglocal patterns of environmental injus-tice. Moreover, there is a good chancethe landfillwhich may be as small asdozens of acres or as large as 1,000 ormorewill be inexpensive to buy, orfree, or possibly come with some sup-porting funds for maintenance.

There are many financial modelson which to base a successful landfillconversion. In Portland, Oregon, theparks department is getting a freepark with all closure and conversioncosts prepaid by the citys solid wastedepartment, which built up a reserveby assessing a per-ton fee on garbagedisposed there. In Virginia Beach, theoriginal capping and the 1986 recap-ping of Mt. Trashmore were paidfor by the public works department;only the 2003 recappinghope-

fully the lastwas financed by theparks department through its capitalimprovement budget. In Fresno, own-ership of the old municipal landfill

wont officially be transferred fromthe public utilities department, butthe parks and recreation department

will operate a new park there under amanagement agreement.

A cheap purchase price is impor-tant because conversion and main-

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Future promenade and barge gardens at the Fresh

Kills site, which will now be called Fresh Kills Park.

Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of

City Planning.

Places 18.1 85


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tenance can expensive, even if costsare shared with the former landfillowner/operator. Depending on theage and contents of a landfill, theamount of groundwater or soil con-tamination present, and the plannednew recreational uses, constructioncosts have ranged from $500,000for a two-acre site to $30 millionfor a regional park of more than onehundred acres. Costs further dependon such factors as topography, avail-ability of materials, cover design, and

quantity reductions. Overall, CCPEhas arrived at a rough average cost forlandfill-to-park conversions of around$300,000 per acre.

Regulations and ResourcesThe case of fifty-acre Mabel DavisPark indicates some of the difficul-ties faced by park planners whenthey attempt to convert landfill sites.Located about four miles south ofdowntown Austin, Texas, half thepark sits atop a landfill that closedin the 1950s. The site was first con-

verted to a park in 1979, before ade-quate regulations were put in place,and shortly afterwards its coveringbegan to erode and leachate pollution

emerged from illegally dumped fertil-izer and battery casings.After years of mounting problems,

the city was forced to close the parkin 2000 and begin an $8.5-millionremediation program. According toChristina Calvery, Project Managerfor the Austin Parks and RecreationDepartment, this meant a comprehen-sive redesign to bring it up to currentEPA standards.

The example highlights the impor-tance of research and regulation.Although the story of Mabel DavisPark ended happily and the parkreopened in December 2005, years ofpollution followed by costly repairscould have been avoided if illegaldumping had not taken place, and ifthe conversion had been accomplishedin a way that prevented leaching.

Today many new safeguards are inplace. And since November 1991 theconstruction of municipal landfills

has been regulated by the Environ-mental Protection Agency. Federallaw further stipulates that, no laterthan six months after a landfill isclosed, an owner/operator must installan approved cap to minimize waterinfiltration and erosion. This mustincorporate an 18-inch clay layer toimpede water infiltration and at least6 inches of vegetated earthen materialto prevent erosion of the infiltration

Harnik, Taylor and Welle / From Dumps to Destination

The south part of Fresh Kills Park will feature restored

wetlands as well as hiking and biking trails. Photo

courtesy of the New York City Department of City

Planning.

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layer. There usually must also be a gasventing layer and a layer of stone orgeosynthetic material to keep out bur-rowing animals.

Federal policy also now requiresthat the owner/operator maintainthe integrity of this cover, monitorgroundwater contamination, andmanage methane gas and leachateproduction for thirty years after thelandfill is closed. Finally, there is afinancial requirement to cover post-closure care as well as clean-up if

groundwater contamination occurs.In some cases government grantsor loans may be available to ensurethat these obligations are met. In onesuch case, TPL received a $200,000

EPA grant to assist in capping a two-acre landfill in Providence, R.I., thatprovided a critical link in the four-mile Woonasquatucket River Gre-enway. TPLs Daria Ovide says theEPA grant was a significant factor inmoving this project forward.

Technical ConcernsOnce an adequately designed cap

is in place, two significant challengesremain to reusing a landfill as a park:gas production and ground settle-

ment. Landfill gases such as methane,carbon dioxide, ammonia, and hydro-gen sulfide are created when buried

waste decomposes. Methane may bereleased for thirty or more years afterclosure. Indeed, in early parks built onlandfills there were occasional storiesof picnickers being stunned when acolumn of flames erupted alongsidetheir barbeque grills.

EPA now requires gas collection

systems, but in some cases this gascan be sold to generate revenue. Oneexample is the former St. Johns Land-fill, Portland, Oregons, primary wastedisposal site for more than fifty years.In 1991 Portland Metro closed the240-acre dump, essentially an islandof trash within the 2,000-acre Smith-Bybee Wetlands Natural Area, tobegin long-term restoration. Today,most of the methane produced by thelandfill is piped two miles to heat thelime kiln of a cement company. The

revenue, averaging $110,000 per year,helps pay for landfill closure operations.Ground settlement can also be

a difficult problem. Like cereal in abox, municipal landfills settle from5 to 20 percent over a two- or three-decade period. Such settlement maycause foundations to break and sink,utility and irrigation pipes to burst,roads and paths to crack and heave,light poles to tilt, and sports fields to

Forum

The south portion of the proposed park will also

house recreational spaces such as soccer fields. Photo

courtesy of the New York City Department of City

Planning.

Places 18.1 87


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crumple. Obviously, if a landfill siteis to be converted to a natural area,none of this matters. But most recre-ational reuses require construction ofat least trails, if not fields and varioustypes of buildings. And more intensivereuses may require amphitheaters, proshops, eating and drinking facilities,and meeting rooms.

The only real solution is carefulplanning. Since waste sits only incells within most landfills, park

facilities can still be safely con-structed over undisturbed areas of asite, leaving the rest to support grassand shrubbery. For instance, in thecurrent conversion of New YorkCitys gargantuan Fresh Kills landfill,the city proposed building numer-ous significant structures. Accordingto Planning Department Project

Manager Jeffery Sugarman, the chal-lenge was to locate them properly. Inthe end, this wasnt overwhelminglydifficult since only about 45 percent

of the land area had actually been usedfor waste disposal.Utility systems can be more of a

problem. While flexible electric andtelephone cables can be buried withinthe upper layer of a landfill cover,that doesnt work for rigid gas, waterand sewer lines. Irrigation pipe canbe especially troublesome. Alterna-tives to buried irrigation pipe includeabove-ground watering systems, usinggrasses that require little or no irriga-tion, or eliminating active recreation

over much of a site.Careful planning may again be theonly real answer. Calvery says muchof Mabel Davis Park is now plantedonly with flowers and grasses nativeto the Central Texas plains. Thisreduces the need for irrigation andmaintenance, and also limits the pos-sibility that irrigation water will filterthrough the landfill to create leachate.Recreational areas can still be included

in carefully located areas of such a park.It can also be attractively landscaped iftrees are planted far enough away fromthe cover to prevent their roots frompuncturing it.

Putting It All TogetherWith a surfeit of trash, a shortage

of urban green space, and improve-ments in land-conversion technology,the landfills-to-parks movement hasa huge future potential. However,

much more planning must be under-taken if this resource is to captured tomake new public spaces, particularlyones that allow the emergence of newnatural areas within cities, or adjacentto them.

Even before the first truckful ofgarbage is disposed at a new site,careful consideration should be givenby solid waste agencies, municipalpark departments, and landscapearchitects to how the site will be con-

verted at the end of its expected life as

a dump. For example, the solid-earthwalls between trash-filled cellscould be made thick enough to latersupport not only underground pipesand conduits but above-ground build-ings and structures.

Even without such comprehen-sive preplanning, however, TPLbelieves there is great potential forphased conversions at existing land-fills. According to this model, oldersections could be converted intoparkland sooner, on a rolling basis,

even as newer areas are still acceptingdeliveries of waste. Such a programwould allow a more natural programof tree and plant growth. The impactson park users might be mitigated byconstructing permanent or tempo-rary berms to screen ongoing landfilloperations. And in some cases, phasedconversion might even allow on-siteenvironmental education about thereuse process.

Like retail and housing activities,the landfill business is sprawling andbig-boxing in the U.S. todayshift-ing to gigantic operations that seemever more dispersed and distant fromurban areas. For example, CorpusChristi, Texas, is about to open a2,000-acre landfill ten miles outsidethe city, with projections that it

wont be filled for one hundred years.Colorado Springs three landfills havea centurys worth of capacity left.

Seattle now loads its waste onto trainsand ships it over the Cascade Moun-tains to eastern Washington.

Yet, no matter how distant thesedump sites may seem, it is impos-sible to predict where they will fitinto potential patterns of populationgrowth by the twenty-second century.

Will todays exurban landfill locationsbe surrounded by settlement the same

way urbanized areas of Manhattaneventually displaced the farms arounddistant Central Park?

Before the U.S. finds itself involvedin a broad-scale, seamless landfills-to-parks movement numerous chal-lengestechnological, political andlegalstill need to be better under-stood. As long as urban and suburbanland was relatively cheap and avail-able, it made little sense to pursuethese. But today many of these costequations have shifted.

With a three-pronged efforttodesign safer, more easily reclaimabledumps, work more closely with com-

munity activists, and assure protectionfrom legal liabilitiescommunitiesand nonprofit groups like the Trustfor Public Land may someday create a

vast new network of urban and subur-ban parks from areas once best consid-ered out of sight and out of mind.

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