Canadian landfill to be world’s largest pollinator park
Honeybee (Apis mellifera), photo by macropoulos via flickr
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. Filled land, which constitutes about half the site, will host some recreational amenities but primarily shrub and meadow plantings that provide habitat for pollinator species such as bees, butterflies, bats and birds. These species are surprisingly vital to food production: pollination research suggests that three out of four flowering plants require animal pollinators in order to produce seed and fruit.
Pollinator populations have been in decline in recent years. Honeybees, in particular, have experienced what beekeepers call “colony collapse disorder“; other causes for decline include pesticide misuse, light and air pollution, hive destruction and farming practices that destroy habitat.
In conjunction with non-profit group Pollination Guelph, the city is developing a plant palette with a wide enough range of blooming seasons to accommodate both early and late pollinators. Other park amenities include toboggan runs, a trail network, demonstration gardens, basketball and volleyball courts, soccer and football fields, a natural ice rink and a playground.
AMD&ART Park
Images by Julie Bargmann showcase the site's acid mine drainage and how its passive water treatment ponds now filter out contaminants.
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. A long-neglected 35-acre site that had hosted both a coal mining operation and a town dump was particularly riddled with AMD and caught the imagination of historic preservationist T. Allan Comp. Over the following 10 years, and with the eventual financial support of the EPA, Comp brought together a diverse group of residents, scientists, artists, and volunteers in an effort to use art and ecological design to rehabilitate the contaminated land and return it into the custody of the local community.
Open since 2005, AMD&ART Park includes picnic areas, baseball and soccer fields and a volleyball court; a series of passive water treatment ponds that progressively draws contaminants out of the site’s water; seven acres of now-vibrant wetlands that thrive on the treated water; and various ecological art installations that reflect on the site’s history and transformation, including a native tree arboretum called “Litmus Garden” whose trees range in fall foliage to mirror the colors of the water at each stage of the treatment system (red, orange and yellow, green and white). The park recently won a prestigious Phoenix Award for excellence in brownfield remediation and redevelopment. This 2007 article in Orion Magazine offers a more complete narrative about the site and its transformation.
(via Pruned)
Steven Handel on urban restoration ecology
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.
Much of his discussion centered around concepts of ecological sustainability. Some key takeaways: At a site as large as Freshkills Park, it would be costly and unsustainable to plant and maintain the type of landscape found in a more traditional park landscape like Central Park. Dr. Handel emphasized the bang-for-buck of planting small, pioneer clusters of trees and shrubs that could attract bees and birds, which act as pollinators and seed spreaders. He also detailed the value of mosaic plant populations, in which some species can thrive while others shrink in response to evolving conditions. In the face of climate change, this adaptability, he said, would be essential for park resilience over time.
The talk covered much more. We’re grateful to Dr. Handel and to the big crowd that came out to hear him speak. Below are a few audio highlights. Each is 3 to 5 minutes long.
Clip 1: The “ecological services” and other benefits provided by green, sustainable landscapes.
Clip 2: On Dr. Handel’s soil restoration work in the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Clip 3: The importance of pollinators and the challenge of aligning engineering goals with ecological goals.
Steel mill to wind farm
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. It was ultimately developed into a wind farm, limiting the excavation of contaminated soil (the site remains closed to the public) and making use of existing power transmission infrastructure. BQ Energy, UPC Wind and the City of Lackawanna chose 2.5 MW wind turbines developed by Clipper Windpower. 8 turbines were installed, generating 50 KWh worth of wind energy and powering 9,000 homes annually.
Like Freshkills Park, but in Israel
The Hiriya Landfill and the master plan for Ariel Sharon Park.
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. Its closure is taking a big strain off of the airport, whose skies were clouded by flocks of birds hovering around the dump.
Hiriya is currently undergoing a transformative re-design process to become Ariel Sharon Park—a productive landscape that will serve as a symbol of Israel’s growing environmental awareness. Energy will be harvested from landfill gas and leachate outflow will be curbed. The park is scheduled to start welcoming visitors to enjoy its wildlife and walking and biking paths in 2011. There’s already an education center at the bottom of the mound that’s decked out in recycled furnishings and artwork. Even the lingering smell of nearby garbage (which is where the similarities to Freshkills Park end) can’t seem to keep curious minds away. The project has attracted a lot of attention; here’s an article in the New York Times and another, more recent one in the Jewish Week.
The long tradition of garbage to green
Clockwise, from top left: Freshkills Park, Pulau Semakau, Bukit Tagar, Freshkills Park
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). Today, reclaiming landfill sites for recreational use and nature preserves is a popular and out-of-the-closet method of turning ecological liabilities into assets for their surrounding communities. WebEcoist has posted ten great examples of contemporary projects from around the world, including Freshkills Park. The variation in methods and ambitions between different international projects is interesting.
In planning and designing Freshkills Park, teams of planners, designers, and engineers have researched numerous landfill-to-park reclamation projects in order to identify which methods have worked well in the past and to mitigate potential hazards.
NJ Meadowlands landfill to go solar
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. The NJMC has put out a Request for Information from companies who would be interested in working on the project. The company chosen would close and cap the landfill, manufacture and operate the panels and, subsequently, sell the resulting energy to the Public Service Electric & Gas energy grid.
Solar covered landfill
Aerial and ground views of solar panels at Tessman Road Landfill.
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.
The flexible solar laminates, which capture the sun’s rays for conversion into electricity, are adhered directly to a Firestone manufactured synthetic green-colored geomembrane used to cover and close a landfill as it reaches capacity. Unlike the more traditional rigid solar panels, which are bulky and frequently cost-prohibitive to install, Republic’s system uses flexible nonreflective collection strips less than 1/4 inch thick.
The energy produced by the strips, combined with the landfill’s existing biogas harvest, is estimated to total about nine megawatts of power – enough to power 5,500 area homes. The Tessman Road installation is just 5.6 acres of the 680-acre landfill, but Republic is looking to expand the practice to its other landfills as well.
Landshaftspark Duisburg-Nord
This awesome 200-hectare public park in Duisburg Nord, Germany was transformed from a coal-fired steel production plant into a giant industrial playground. Latz + Partner’s design emphasized the value of memory: the goal was to create a space former mill workers could explore with their grandchildren and still be able to identify the form and function of the old machinery. Concrete bunkers have been transformed into gardens; a former blast furnace into an observation tower. A derelict gas tank is now the biggest artificial diving center in Europe. Rock climbers hang from concrete walls. Landshaftspark is playful and, at the same time, encourages serious exploration of the industrial past. A lot of the pollutant clean-up was achieved through phytoremediation.
George Trakas on Urban Omnibus
Urban Omnibus has posted a terrific project portrait and interview video with artist George Trakas about his Newtown Creek Nature Walk in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. As a Percent for Art artist, Trakas piggybacked on the Department of Environmental Protection’s $3 billion upgrade of the wastewater treatment facility to create a handsomely designed waterfront park/plaza where employees and locals can relax. This is a great example of art and architecture work that both facilitates reflection on a contentious waste management site and provides a beautiful space to hang out and appreciate incredible urban infrastructure, nature and the future of the city. Maybe needless to say, this is what we’re aiming for with Freshkills Park, too.
We would include the video here, but UO has posted so many other useful resources on this project, as well as an active forum thread about it–you should really visit their page.
