September 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 56

people started using immediately
for boating. But in 1986, drums of
paint sludge and toxins were discovered in the park and later in the lake,
Kaschinske says. When the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources
and the county health department
investigated, they found chemicals
on the site. The park closed and the
corporation performed an $8 million
environmental cleanup that included
soil removal, water testing and removal of the drums. The park stayed
closed, even after the cleanup was
completed in the 1990s.
City officials knew they wanted to
reopen it as a park, but they needed
funds, Kaschinske shared. Grants
from state agencies allowed the city to
install benches, a fishing pier, launch
sites for kayaks and canoes, a parking
lot and pathways connecting the park
to the city's larger trail system.
Crego Park opened this summer
with families paddleboarding, boating and fishing on the water (fish
were tested for contaminants before
the park opened). The 200-acre park
is already a focal point in the city.
For many communities, it's about
getting those funds to get the land
cleaned up and infrastructure built.

Crego Park in Lansing, Michigan, is
finally open again and safe for recreation after being closed for more than
25 years due to toxic conditions.

Lansing Parks and Recreation

mer industrial sites is happening across
the country. It's especially common in
dense urban areas like Newark where
there isn't a lot of land, but people especially need parks, Dvorak says.
One neighborhood near the new
Riverfront Park used to have only .5
acres of open space per 1,000 residents, when normally the goal is seven acres, Dvorak says.
" There's no other place to get the
recreational land, and green space
and parks are important for quality
of life, " he says.
Communities without the density
issues of Newark also find that some
of the most-prized parkland is worth
the work required to restore it.
For years, Lansing, Michigan's biggest
park sat quiet and unused. In the 1950s
through the early 1970s, FMC Corp.
fabricated agriculture sprayers and firefighting equipment that they tested,
spraying orchards and igniting and extinguishing fires, on a swath of land that
would eventually become Crego Park, a
jewel in the city's park system, says Brett
Kaschinske, the city's parks director.
In 1973, the city bought the land
from the corporation. It made a perfect expansion of adjacent park land
and provided a 15-acre lake that

Someday, Miami-Dade County park
staff hope a soccer field will sit where
there once was a landfill. The Florida
neighborhood where a landfill used to
operate needs soccer fields, says Jorge
L. Moor, chief of design, construction
and maintenance with the county.
The designated brownfield site is
closed while the county tries to find
partners to help with the construction costs and even operate the facility once finished. It's common for
the county to partner with the private
sector, Moor says. " We do that all the
time with certain parks. "
The county has experience with
cleaning up contaminated parks. In
2011, chance testing found high concentrations of lead in the soil at Olinda Park. It took months and about $2
million to remove soil and add fill and
a surface barrier as well as reconstruct
the park. The park reopened last summer with a clean bill of health and kids
swarming the new play equipment.
In Rock Island, the addition of the
children's garden is great for the botanical center, but Jenkins, the director, says it's also important to her as a
community resident.
" The before and after of the site
and quality and conditions of the
land - it was just a stunning change
to the landscape, " she says. " We all
want the communities where we live
to be beautiful and accessible and
awe-inspiring. "
The children's garden features water-play elements and plantings that
give a strong sense of place - all
found along the Mississippi River. It's
also designed to encourage intergenerational play and get people of all
ages unplugged and outside.
" I think humans are designed to be
outdoors a whole lot more than we
are, " she says. " This helps. "
Kelsey Dayton is a freelance writer based in
Missoula, Montana (kelseygdayton@gmail.com).

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Parks & Recreation

September 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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