GEMS Superfund Site Set To Become Solar Park In Gloucester Twp.

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — Once a contaminated superfund site, the Gloucester Environmental Management Services (GEMS) landfill site will soon become a Solar Park.

A groundbreaking for the park, located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Hickstown Road and New Brooklyn-Erial Road, took place Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

Officials estimate that the Solar Park will produce 6,086,000 kWh of clean zero emissions power per year, and that it will yield about $1 million in lease revenue to Gloucester Township over 25 years. Construction will start on Nov. 19 and is expected to be finished in the spring.

It is being built in partnership with Syncarpha Capital and the township’s Energy Consultant, Blue Sky Power.

“We are extremely excited to break ground on the GEMS Solar Park this November,” Gloucester Township Mayor David Mayer said. “This joint project with Syncarpha Capital will bring about 4.5 MW of clean sustainable energy produced in Gloucester Township. I’m thrilled to see what had been one-of-the-worst-polluted superfund sites in the country in the 1980s becoming the shining beacon of renewable energy source in our town.”

The landfill covers about 60 acres of land, and is bordered by a stream called Holly Run, which flows into Briar Lake a quarter mile away from the site, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“The site was used as a landfill by a series of operators, starting with the township, which has owned the parcel since the 1950s,” the EPA said in its profile of the site. “Information collected by EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) showed that municipal and industrial wastes were routinely disposed of at the site from 1969 to 1980. The landfill was last operated by Gloucester Environmental Management Services, Inc. (GEMS) until it was closed by NJDEP in 1980.”

The EPA added the site to its National Priorities List in September 1983, and a plan to address the site contamination was selected in 1985.

Under the 1985 Consent Decree, the landfill is undergoing long-term remediation, including the operation of a groundwater extraction and pretreatment system, maintenance of the landfill capping system and the gas extraction and treatment system, and various monitoring programs, township officials said.

The majority of the site’s cleanup activities were completed in 2004, and long-term cleanup operation and maintenance (O&M) is ongoing, according to the EPA.

The project to install solar panels at the GEMS landfill site was first approved in 2012. It ran into a few roadblocks along the way, and the township has had to go back out to bid to name a redeveloper.

It appears as though work on the site is finally set to move forward.

“Transforming one of the nation’s most polluted landfills into a clean energy producing solar park has been Mayor Dave Mayer’s mission for the last nine years,” Blue Sky Power CEO Ben Parvey said. “With his leadership and that of the Gloucester Township council, this project and the many solar projects on municipal and school district property across town have cemented Gloucester Township’s place as one the most sustainable communities in the United States.”

“We are very excited to see this GEMS project finally ready to begin construction,” Syncarpha Capital Managing Partner Cliff Chapman said. “Our partnership with Gloucester Township dates back to 2016 when we were selected as the redeveloper of this former Superfund site. We have worked together tirelessly since then to complete all necessary state, local and environmental permitting as well as the process of interconnecting through Atlantic City Electric to the wholesale electric grid. When construction wraps up in Spring 2022, this 4.5MW solar facility built on a capped Superfund site will turn this environmentally sensitive unproductive real estate into a solar facility producing clean energy for the residents of NJ and income for the township.”

As part of the project, solar panels that cover about 25 acres will be placed across the top of the existing landfill cap. The equipment to build what the township is referring to as a non-penetrating solar photovoltaic generation system is composed of photovoltaic solar modules, solar inverters, a steel and aluminum racking system, non-penetrating ballast blocks, transformers and associated wiring/conduits.

Once completed, the clean energy produced at the GEMS Solar Park will annually offset 4,313 metric tons of Carbon Dioxide, according to officials. This is the equivalent of emissions from 10,839,527 miles driven by a typical passenger vehicle, or 4,767,134 pounds of coal burned, which is also the amount of carbon sequestered by 5,284 acres of U.S. Forest in one year.

In order to have a productive renewable use for the nation’s first Superfund site, Gloucester Township created the Superfund Redevelopment Area at GEMS landfill in 2014.