Four years after officials discovered Meisel Avenue Park's playing fields were polluted with arsenic and lead, the sprawling greensward is clean and poised for a $2.5 million makeover.
The Union County Parks Department began accepting bids from contractors yesterday to build
walking paths, a running track and football, baseball and softball fields at the 50-acre park straddling Van Winkles Brook.
The site hosted a chemical factory before becoming a county park in the late 1920s or early 30s, and officials closed it in 2001, after soil tests found unhealthy levels of arsenic, lead and the insecticide dieldrin.
The contamination was particularly troubling for Springfield's Jonathan Dayton High School, which held track meets and football games at Meisel. The sprinters were forced to rent a track in Millburn; the football program temporarily folded.
Springfield Mayor Sy Mullman said yesterday it was high time the park renovations began.
"This is long overdue," he said. The county is hoping to break ground in early November and finish work within six to nine months, depending on winter weather, said Charles Sigmund, director of Union County department of parks, recreation and facilities.
Aside from the playing fields and six-lane all-weather running track, the work will include renovating the park's existing bathrooms and building a new parking lot.
A walking path will circle the park's pond, and the gridiron will double as a soccer field.
The funding, approved earlier this month by county freeholders, will come from the state Green Acres program and the county Open Space Trust Fund.
While thankful the renovations are commencing, Mullman bluntly criticized the county yesterday for not starting renovations sooner.
"I'm sick and tired of hearing about how it's going to start in a couple of weeks, or how it's going to start next month, or how it's going to start in a few more weeks," he said. "The delays were extensive and uncalled for. They always had an excuse for why things weren't getting done."
Sigmund, however, maintained that decontaminating the park was a laborious and time-consuming task. The county spent more than $1 million, he said, and workers removed about 8,000 cubic yards of topsoil from the park. "The entire site had to be addressed," he said. "Clearly, this was for public safety."