Land is scarce. Battle lines are being drawn for access to the short supply of available open space in counties in the Chicago metropolitan area. Local governments and municipalities are fighting with developers and land owners over the small amount of remaining open space.

Recent reports about the closing of Fort Sheridan in the North Shore community of Lake Forest has developers and local governments drawing battle lines with law makers to gain access for various uses.

Local governments (Northfield Park District, Glenview Park District and the Northbrook Park District) are disputing the legal rights to over 1,100 acres of Techney area land. This dispute is over land assessed value and how it will affect revenues realized by the respective agencies, should development occur.

The desire for the open space crunch can be softened through the calculated use of retired sanitary landfills. An EPA study notes that 70 percent of the 14,000 landfills operating in the U.S. in 1978 have closed.

To ease some of the land use pressure, the concept of land reclamation has commanded a great deal of attention. The argument is advanced that sanitary landfills or dumps can be used for a new purpose. Many times they are located in low areas in order to reclaim the land for these alternative purposes.

The Elmhurst Park District owns a 46 acre park site on the Salt Creek flood plain that has been raised by a sanitary landfill. Waukegan constructed a new park in what was formerly considered a useless swamp.

In St. Petersburg, Florida, the city's former garbage dump will be transformed into an 18 hole municipal golf course. The filling operation will cost nearly $500,000 and will produce 170 acres of prime real estate from an area that was once an unsightly wasteland. St. Petersburg is taking the recycling concept a step further, however, and will actually irrigate the course with treated sewage effluent from the city's Northeast Sewage Treatment Plant across the street.

Loyola University plans to operate a Lake Michigan Shoreline landfill to increase the size of open space on their campus. The site, which will have no buildings, will add 25 acres of green space to the university to protect lake front buildings from damage and shoreline erosion, as well as create a more attractive, spacious campus in the congested North Shore neighborhood.

Evanston, Illinois had a problem finding badly needed space to locate park and recreation facilities in a densely populated area bordering Lake Michigan. Land values were high and, because of the large population, tracts of land big enough to accommodate parks never became available.

To solve this dilemma, Evanston used a resource usually regarded as a liability, the municipal landfill. To date, Evanston has built three parks on top of closed landfills. This practice not only saved the city the cost of acquiring land, but also converted an eyesore into an attractive and functional landscape.

There are instances where the use of retired landfills have not been successful for open space applications. The settling of land around housing communities in Denver, Colorado and South Brooklyn, New York is evidence enough that precautions need to be taken when determining open space use applications of retired landfills.

Additionally, there are situations which prohibit or discourage the open space use of the retired landfill. In Highland Park, residents opposed a plan to build a 333 unit condominium complex on 38 acres that was once a landfill between 1963 to 1973. The residents feared toxic chemicals and gases could escape from the site as a result of the construction.

In Chicago, another closed landfill site is being contested as a site for the construction of home sites. There is concern that methane gas leaks and water contamination will affect the subdivision. Most of the fears are a result over concerns that the landfill was used prior to 1974 EPA regulations and control.

Landfill technologies, regardless of the type used, are occupying considerable acres of land to dispose of America's garbage. It seems that little thought has been given to the use of the land once the landfill is closed. Fears have surfaced regarding the hesitancy to use the land because of the many by-products: methane gas, toxic wastes, seepage, and settling of landfill sites.

Americans have been inattentive to disposal alternatives and have squandered resources. Over the next decade, careful planning and changing attitudes will be necessary to avert a garbage and open space crisis.

We must become accomplished in our landfill management efforts at four fronts.

1. Determine a method of clean up of old closed waste collection locations.

In the United States, as of October 1987, EPA had placed 951 landfills, impoundments and other waste sites on its National Priority list. This list covers sites needing urgent attention. The agency estimates that the list will grow to not more than 2,500 sites and that clean up costs may total some $23 billion. The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) estimates, however, that the number of priority sites could climb to 10,000 and expenditures to $100 billion — roughly $400 for every U.S. resident.

2. Improve operations and insure that current waste sites are managed correctly.

Recent EPA requirements to improve and toughen landfill operations will help to insure that current and future waste sites are managed correctly. Under the new guidelines, landfills must have a way of collecting leachate, the toxic liquid that all landfills produce as garbage deteriorates . . . that landfills have a liner of compacted clay, polyurethane, or other material that would prevent leachate from seeping into underlying ground water. Monitoring wells must be installed at the site and a sampling schedule set up to ensure that contamination is not leaking into ground water. A method for collecting methane gas produced by rotting trash must also be incorporated in landfills.

3. Continue research and efforts to address future method of disposal.

By not producing waste, industries obviously avoid all the costs and risks of treating, storing, transplanting and disposing of it. Strategies to reduce waste focus on the production process itself — to examine where wastes are generated and explore how they can be reduced. The new strategy should approach a more cost effective way to save dollars in the manufacturing process, rather than to spend it on disposal. In the United States, landfill prices have skyrocketed to $240 per ton — a sixteen fold increase since the early seventies! Incineration costs between $500 and $1,200 per ton.

4. Make every effort to preserve available open space and protect it from needless development.

Locally, in a three county region of Northeastern Illinois, there are 551 landfill sites identified by IEPA that are known to have been, or may be, operating. These landfills encompass a total of 8,972 acres and 170 sites. "Table I" identifies the three counties researched and gives the site numbers and acreage data available per site. Upon closing, much of this acreage could be returned to local park and recreation agencies and be used for various open space alternatives.

Sanitary landfill is an effective economical and proven method for the permanent disposal of garbage, dry trash and combustible rubbish. The result of an effective process is a reclaimed site that can be used for recreational or industrial purposes.

Sanitary landfill areas can offer land-starved cities new sites on which to build golf courses and parks. The necessity to eliminate the "old city dump" is an issue recognized by all levels of government. New regulations spurred by public pressure are forcing local governments to reclaim these offensive heaps for public use.

The golf course is most suitable, because of its revenue-generation potential. It seems reasonable that with any development of open space, part of the redemption qualities are derived from the potential to recover the capital development costs. This would be done through a fee structure to use the course after construction.

Sanitary landfill golf courses are a relatively new phenomenon. While some of the early prototypes proved unsuccessful, golf course architects now have the experience, research and technology to mold fine golf links from discarded trash. The American Society of Golf Course Architects, made up of the leading architects in the United States, Canada and Mexico, sees a promising future for landfill golf courses.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 6,000 landfills will reach their capacity and close by 1992. This presents an opportunity for local governments to devise creative solutions to the increase in available land.

Converting landfills to parks and golf courses is one of the features that will help to sell a landfill to residents that oppose the idea. "As a nation, we are producing an ever increasing amount of solid waste, while at the same time, there is a decreasing number of sites available for creation of new parks," says Barry Tindall, Director of Public Policy for the National Recreation and Park Association. "In as much as these are trends, secondary uses, such as conversion to parks, follow as parallel trends. I keep hearing enough references to landfills being converted to parks that, if it is not a trend, it is certainly a highly popular, technically feasible land use."

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While converting landfills to parks is revered for eliminating unsightly landfills and making wise use of space, it also can spur economical growth in a floundering community.

This was the case in Southwest Charlotte, North Carolina where the city, along with a local engineering firm, Woolpert Consultants, transformed a municipal landfill into the York Road Renaissance Community Park. The park includes an 18 hole golf course with driving range, putting greens and club house, a 17 court tennis center and club house, five illuminated softball fields and four lighted soccer fields.

Charlotte Park's Superintendent, Thomas McDermott, says "the new park and new adjacent coliseum are encouraging economic growth in the once stagnant area." McDermott says, "The new facilities have attracted a number of businesses and caused land values to increase."

Land Preparation
Tom Lowry, a civil engineer and recognized authority in the field of sanitary landfills, is convinced that the key to developing a successful landfill to golf course conversion is through proper planning. "Every community should develop a master plan for growth. Each should decide where its sanitary landfills will be located and hopefully determine what it eventually wants to see there. The second step is to engage the services of qualified architects and waste disposal experts who will ensure that the best methods of operation will be carried out to meet that community's needs."

While there are a great many positive considerations when the landfill is converted to a golf course or park site, it must be understood that various problems can occur as a result of the transformation.

Problematic Considerations
One of the most common problems is emission of methane gas from the landfill. If the gas becomes too heavily concentrated in a small area, an explosion can result. Methane gas is only dangerous when it is contained in a closed structure. In an open environment it is not dangerous.

To avoid these problems, most parks converted from landfills are equipped with methane gas collection systems. The gas can be burned off or is often sold to a local utility, which uses it to generate electricity.

Another method used to avoid methane gas leakage is to increase the depth of the final cap that is placed over the landfill. Earlier landfills were capped with three feet of top soil. In a brief survey of various landfill golf courses across the county, it is suggested that the cap be between five feet and eight feet deep.

Settling on a site can be a problem on converted sites. In most cases the settling occurs as a result of an insufficient cap. An increase in the cap depth along with a waiting period of up to 15 years after the site is closed to filling should be sufficient to avoid settling.

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