Port Authority gives $4 million toward 32-acre Jersey City park

[MCA™]

Almost three decades later, a once-simmering Jersey City landfill site is poised to become city's largest park
Published: Monday, September 24, 2012, 7:20 AM
Updated: Monday, September 24, 2012, 8:25 AM
Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal




PJP Landfill Throughout the Years gallery (23 photos)

On March 24, 1985, about 20 Jersey City firefighters began pouring roughly 300,000 gallons of water on the PJP Landfill, a 70-acre site in the shadow of the Pulaski Skyway where underground fires had raged for three decades.

Smoke from the blazes had been getting worse, according to a Jersey Journal report from the following day, and city officials decided that their attempts to extinguish the blazes might spur state and federal officials into action.

But the city’s attempt only made the smoke problem worse. About a month later, the state finally gave the OK for a plan to excavate the site and douse the underground fires which often sent smoke billowing toward the now-demolished A. Harry Moore public-housing complex once and for all.

“It was a mess,” Mayor Jerramiah Healy said last week on a tour of the former landfill.

Flash forward 27 years, and half of the former PJP landfill has been cleared of the contaminants that caused the notorious fires. The city awaits a decision by federal environmental officials that would remove the 32-acre property from the list of Superfund sites.

The city plans to transform the former dump into the Skyway Riverfront Park, a mostly passive park that would include a pedestrian bridge connecting it to a planned extension of the waterfront walkway on Jersey City’s western border. It would be Jersey City’s largest public park.

The other half of the former landfill is set to become a trucking warehouse.

The city and Hudson County just received $800,000 in grants from the state to fund the new park, which the project’s architect said in May will cost about $10 million, though some of the original plans have since been curtailed. Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis said this week the cost will probably stick closer to $5 million.

The park will not feature amenities like baseball fields or a playground there will be another public meeting this fall to seek input from residents but there is a plan to build a pedestrian bridge over the stream that runs along the western edge of the property.

Sen. Robert Menendez, seeking re-election this November, wrote a letter to the federal Environmental Protection Agency in September asking it to remove the site from the Superfund list, saying the former landfill is now “virtually unrecognizable as its former self.”

Indeed, in portions of the park where abandoned truck trailers and soiled mattresses were once piled, there are now swaths of black-eyed susans and spartina (also known as cordgrass) and tall, dense areas filled with phragmites.

That last plant, an invasive weed, is not optimal New York City parks officials have enlisted the help of goats to get rid of the weed by eating it. But it’s a far cry from how the former landfill used to look, according to Morris Verdibello, a city environmental commissioner who was the lead engineer back in the 1980s when the city finally extinguished the fires on the site.

“It’s an incredible transformation,” Verdibello said last week.

Healy agreed: “You used to see the fires, the dump. Now you see nothing but green, open space.”

An EPA official said the agency is looking into Menendez’s request.

[MCA™]

Forty Jersey City residents briefed on new 32-acre park to be built on cleaned-up landfill
Published: Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 3:00 AM
Rafal Rogoza / The Jersey Journal

A Jersey City landfill in the shadow of the Pulaski Skyway is slated to become a park and roughly 40 residents gathered at the Ethical Community Charter School on Broadway earlier this month to get briefed on amenities planned for the site.

"It's a much better ending to the PJP saga than I could have imagined," Mayor Jerramiah Healy said May 17 to the residents inside the school's lunchroom.

PJP Sanitary Landfill Co. leased the property, located between the Hackensack River and Route 440, from 1968 to 1974 and engaged in the disposal of solid waste. The EPA designated the landfill, which for years was the site of underground fires, a federal Superfund site. The clean-up is complete, city officials said.

The city has hired T&M Associates, an architectural firm based in Middletown, to design the proposed 32-acre park. So far, plans include a "riverwalk" path with benches and site furnishings, rose gardens, multipurpose fields, parking, and a pedestrian bridge over a stream that runs from the Hackensack River through the center of the park, officials said.

The city also plans to build a pedestrian bridge to the park across Route 440.

"We watched that thing burn for 40 years," said Mike Manzo, a retired firefighter who lives on Wright Avenue. "Something like this, where you watch the grass grow and geese is wonderful."

Residents suggested adding more facilities for children. Some residents raised concerns about traffic and crime. Phase 1 of the project is expected to cost $2.5 million, and the entire project will cost roughly $10 million, according to T&M Group Manager Evan Stone.

Officials hope to begin construction in early 2013 and are exploring county and federal grants to help with the costs.

Two more public meetings and a tour of the site are being planned for the summer, officials said.

[jcgov]

"bump" 

[jcgov]

Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy invites residents and homeowners of both the Marion and West Side Neighborhoods of Jersey City to attend a Public Meeting which will be held at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 17th, 2012, at the cafeteria in The Ethical Community Charter School, 95 Broadway.

The City has fought to turn this Superfund site and former junkyard into a park. Now it's your turn Jersey City! Tell us what you want in your backyard!

Any residents who are  unable to attend, should  send an email to mayorhealy@jcnj.org.

Read more.

[MCA™]

First phase of Jersey City public park project to be completed by end of August, and consultant says park could be open by summer 2012
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
By TERRENCE T. McDONALD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

An independent consultant hired by Jersey City to help create a public park on a former Superfund site underneath the Pulaski Skyway told the City Council Monday that the first phase of the project should be completed by the end of August.

State and federal environmental officials will then need to certify that the project was constructed properly before the park can be opened to the public. Jersey City Corporation Counsel William Matsikoudis said the park could be open by summer 2012.
 
Jersey City paid $12.4 million to acquire the property last year, with the intention of turning the former PJP landfill into 32.5 acres of open space called Marion Greenway Park.

The project has recently received a $1 million grant from the Hudson County Open Space Trust Fund, which was added to an earlier grant in the same amount from the county, and a $4 million grant from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Workers have nearly completed removing debris and relocating waste to create even plateaus throughout the proposed park, said Gerard Spiesbach of White Plains, N.Y., firm Malcolm Pirnie.

Work will soon stop for the winter, but will pick up again in April, weather permitting, Spiesbach told the council at its caucus Monday.

"You'll have a successful park on your hands," he said.

Waste Management was responsible for this first phase of the cleanup, which will cost them roughly $10 million, Matsikoudis said. The additional phases, which could include the construction of ballfields and a walkway along the Hackensack River, will cost approximately $10 million, he said.

[MCA™]

Jersey City Council approves $12.4M park purchase
By Melissa Hayes/The Jersey Journal
November 10, 2009, 7:31PM

A former landfill is one step closer to becoming a public park.

The Jersey City Council approved purchasing 34.52 acres of the former PJP Landfill for $12.4 million tonight. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is contributing $4 million toward the acquisition and Hudson County gave $1 million. The City Council authorized bonding up to $8.7 million for the remainder, if grants are unavailable.

“It’s about time. I’m glad we’re here today to see this,” Ward B Councilman David Donnelly said Monday night. “I think the people of Jersey City will have a debt of gratitude if we can make this happen.”

The property is bordered by the Hackensack River and Route 1 & 9, with Hartz Mountain Warehouse to the north and the AMB Warehouse, which is under construction, to the south. It sits under the Pulaski Skyway.

The first phase, estimated to cost $8 million, includes capping the landfill, planting grass and wildflowers and creating access roads. It would be paid for by Waste Management of New Jersey Inc. who is responsible for closing out the landfill, which hasn’t been used for decades.

The council also voted to assume responsibility for future maintenance of the site from Waste Management and CWM Chemical Services LLC. In exchange, CWM will place $1.15 million in an escrow account for maintenance. The city has been pursuing the site for about two years and first contemplated relocating the Department of Public Works and Jersey City Improvement Authority there.

Jersey City Corporate Counsel William Matsikoudis said Waste Management had proposed a plan to the state Department of Environmental Protection that would have capped the landfill but prevented future use.

Under the city’s proposed plan the site will now include soccer fields, jogging trails and a walkway along the river that could connect it to Lincoln Park. There would also be a pedestrian crossing at Route 1 & 9. Future plans could call for a golf driving range and indoor sports facility. Matsikoudis said the initial phase should be completed next year, but the sports fields, trails and restrooms would likely be completed by 2015.

Lawyers and environmental engineers have been working on the plans for some time and professionals presented conceptual drawings during the council’s Monday caucus meeting. Matsikoudis said an exact expenditure was not available, but at least $250,000 was spent on environmental engineering out of the city’s environmental trust fund.

The council has paid Red Bank-based T & M Associates $50,000 for design work. It was set to vote on another $125,000 tonight but tabled the resolution after resident Philip Carrington questioned whether the firm was in violation of the city’s pay-to-play ordinance for donating to Councilman Mariano Vega’s campaign this year.

[Soshin]

wow, this is great, just wonder toxic the land is 

Probably about as toxic as LSP and that lovely golf course at Chromium Point.

[shahaggy]

wow, this is great, just wonder toxic the land is 

[MCA™]

JJ:


Port Authority gives $4 million toward 32-acre Jersey City park
by Amy Sara Clark / The Jersey Journal
Thursday May 07, 2009, 5:16 PM

T&M Associates

The park will include soccer fields a quarter-acre extension of the Hackensack River Walkway, an open lawn/fairgrounds, a 1.5 mile-long jogging/walking path, and acres of wildflowers and newly planted trees, officials said.

Standing against a backdrop of the Hackensack River, Jersey City and Port Authority officials announced that the agency will contribute $4 million toward the creation of the 32-acre Marion Greenway Park on the former Superfund site underneath the Pulaski Skyway.

"We can take this land back and give it back to the people," said Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Susan Bass-Levin said at the event Wednesday afternoon. The money is coming out the authority's Hudson-Raritan Estuary Resources Program, which supports the conservation, environmental mitigation or creation of public access for wetland sites.

The park will include two soccer fields, plus an additional practice area, a quarter-acre extension of the Hackensack River Walkway, an open lawn which can be used as fairgrounds, a 1.6 mile-long jogging and walking path, and acres of wildflowers and newly planted trees, officials said.

"You have 32-acres of open space being brought to the community in an area where every acre, where every pocket park is well used said," said Gregory Remaud, deputy director of NY/NJ Baykeeper. He said most of the future projects in this region are going to have to be a mix of commercial and public use.

Jersey City plans to purchase the site for $12.4 million paid over three years. It expects to pay for it through grants, said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy.

The park will cost about $10 million to build, said Jeff Bottger of T&M Associates, the lead landscape architect on the project.

The park, which abuts the busy truck Route 1 and 9 is not currently accessible by public transportation, but will include 75 parking spaces. The city is planning to build a pedestrian bridge over 1 and 9, said Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis, who helped push through the project. There is talk of a ferry to the park, but no immediate plans for a bus route to the site.

The site of the park was once salt marshes and tidal wetlands, but in the late 1960s it became part of the 87-acre PJP Landfill site, accepting drums of chemical and industrial waste. For the next decade and a half, site was plagued with almost continuous below-the-ground fires as the toxins combusted and the waste decomposed. In 1983 it was declared a Superfund site and in 1986 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection stopped the fires and began cleaning up the site, according to Matsikoudis.

Most of the toxic waste was removed and most areas of the site capped in the late 1980s, said George Pavlou, acting regional administrator of the EPA, who also attended the news conference.

Fifty-five acres of the site was purchased by the AMB Company to become a warehouse in 2007. AMB's site will include 5 acres of open space on its site and a portion of the Hackensack River Walkway.

Remediation will begin in the fall of 2009 and be completed by fall 2010, at which point the walking/jogging trail, lawn/fairgrounds, wildflowers and trees will be available for use, Matsikoudis said. The soccer fields and other amenities should be completed by 2011 or 2012.

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