From dumps to doves, how cleanup efforts transformed the Meadowlands into a bird sanctuary

Chris Takacs was convinced the Meadowlands had begun to recover from a century of environmental abuse when he spotted a snowy owl years ago near Disposal Road, once used by hundreds of trucks each day to haul garbage to landfills.

The owl, an Arctic native and favorite among birders for its striking white feathers, had rarely been seen this far south and avoided densely-populated areas.

“That was it,” said Takacs, one of the more prolific wildlife photographers of the Meadowlands. “That’s when I felt you could see just about any kind of bird down here.”

Once known only for its landfills, contaminated waterways and football stadium, the Meadowlands has slowly become one of the most successful environmental comeback stories in New Jersey. 

The biggest indicator of that resurgence is the dramatic return of migrating birds that have made the Meadowlands one the biggest stopovers along the Atlantic Flyway. 

More than 285 species have been identified across the 8,400 acres of wetlands and riverbanks in 14 Bergen and Hudson County towns, placing it among Cape May and Sandy Hook as a top destination for birders.

On Saturday, more than 400 people are expected to gather in Lyndhurst for the annual Meadowlands Birding Festival. It’s a chance for them to see some of their favorite species during the fall migration. But it’s also an opportunity to celebrate the decades-long effort it took to bring the Meadowlands back to life.

“Growing up here you saw the worst things that could be done to the environment,” said Don Torino, president of Bergen Audubon. “Everybody was writing it off as gone forever – a place that was left for dead. But it wasn’t dead. And we found out it could be brought back to life.”

Here’s how it was done:

Step 1: Control the dumping

By the late 1960s, the Meadowlands was home to 1,900 acres of unregulated garbage dumps where an estimated 5,000 tons of trash was deposited each day from New York City and 118 New Jersey towns.

That began changing when Assemblyman Richard DeKorte, a Republican from Bergen County, fought to create what would become the Meadowlands Commission in 1969 to regulate the landfills.

And one of the biggest battles occurred when the commission stopped Bergen County in the 1970s from opening a mega-landfill that would have stretched across 1,400 acres of wetlands and mudflats from what is today DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst to the western spur of the New Jersey Turnpike.

“If that had happened, you would have nothing here today,” Torino said of the wetlands and wildlife. “You may have a few pockets here and there, but the Meadowlands we know today would have been wiped out back then.”

Ten years ago the failure of the $1 billion EnCap proposal to build 2,600 luxury housing units, golf courses and hotels on massive garbage heaps in Lyndhurst and Rutherford lead to $149 million insurance payment to finish the clean up landfills abandoned by the project.

Today all but one landfill in the Meadowlands have been closed — a process many have criticized over decades as moving too slow. Most have been capped with a protective layer to keep the garbage from leaking out. Waste water called leachate is now diverted to sewer treatment plants.

Grass has been grown on the top of some of the biggest landfills in an area where green patches are few. Grass brings insects. Insects bring birds like kestrels and Savannah sparrows that had rarely stopped in the Meadowlands during migration.  

Step 2: Clean the water

The first major move to clean the Meadowlands did not take place in Rutherford, Carlstadt or any of the other dozen towns that make up the region.

It took place in Washington in 1972 when Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act. Not only did it offer protections to wetlands, but it forced sewage treatment plants to increase their capacity so less human waste would pour into the Hackensack River and Newark Bay, whose waters slosh back and forth tidally through the Meadowlands.

Lack of sound sewage control led to decreased oxygen in the waters, which moved up the food chain, first killing worms, crustaceans and other small invertebrates called benthic organisms that are eaten by fish. The fish die or move on. Soon birds like raptors that eat fish disappear. “These waters were by all means dead,” Torino said.

Water takes time to get cleaner. And in the Meadowlands, it took decades. But a study in 2002 found that the number of benthic organisms increased threefold since 1987. Fish moved back in. And for the first time that anyone can remember, ospreys, hawks and even bald eagles returned to feast on the now abundant fish supply.

“A few years ago if you saw an osprey, you were beside yourself,” Torino said. “Now you’re leading a field trip and if you see an osprey, you go, ‘OK, that’s nice.’ That’s how common they’ve become.”

Step 3: Clean up the toxic sites

The Meadowlands is dotted with some of the worst toxic sites in the nation: Scientific Chemical Processing in Carlstadt, Universal Oil Products in East Rutherford and Ventron/Velsicol in Wood-Ridge, all of which poured a cornucopia of industrial pollution into the wetlands.

Not much was being done to halt the pollution until the early 1980s when the federal Superfund program was created. Over the next decade workers removed hundreds of chemical drums, tens of thousands of tons of soil laced with heavy metals were excavated and millions of gallons of water contaminated with PCBs and other pollutants were treated.

Still the sites were not fully cleaned up. And the waterway that bore the brunt of all the pollution was a key tributary of the Hackensack River that twists its way through six Meadowlands towns and MetLife Stadium: Berry’s Creek.

Mercury levels in Berry's Creek are among the highest ever recorded in a freshwater ecosystem in the United States, much of it leached from the Ventron/Velsicol site where the dangerous metal was removed from discarded lab equipment, batteries and other devices. Fish and crabs became contaminated.

In April, the EPA announced a $332 million plan to dredge about 100 acres of waterways and marshland in Berry's Creek.

SPOTTED:A butterfly rarely seen in New Jersey is found in the Meadowlands

EARLIER:Feds approve $128 million gas pipeline plan in Meadowlands and upper Bergen County

LISTEN:How the Meadowlands went from a North Jersey dumping ground to environmental gem

Step 4: Restore the land

Even with all the landfills, there were still smaller patches of land scattered throughout the Meadowlands that were in recoverable condition though still heavily damaged.

Plans for massive developments in the Meadowlands fell apart including a "mini city" of 6,200 housing units,1.4 million square-foot regional shopping mall, two hotels, and 3 million square feet of office space fell apart in the 1990s after significant opposition.

The state agency that oversaw the region - The Meadowlands Commission  - took the word "development" out of its title in 2001 and began focusing more on restoration several years later with the adoption of a new master plan for land use.  

A movement began by the state to acquire undeveloped plots, clean up the pollution and get rid of phragmites — the tall grass that many believe is a symbol of the Meadowlands but is actually an invasive species that drives wildlife away.  

“Once people started realizing there was more to the Meadowlands than garbage dumps and development, that’s when it took off,” said Bill Sheehan, director of the Hackensack Riverkeeper advocacy group.

Like most things in the Meadowlands, restoration took a while but it paid off.

Before the 77-acre Harrier Meadow underwent restoration in 1998, scientists had observed 41 bird species in the former dumping ground for rocks and soil sandwiched between two large landfills in North Arlington. By 2014, 88 species were spotted, according to a sports authority report.

Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus was once slated for 2,750 townhouses. It was purchased by the state in 1996 and restored. More than 80 different kinds of birds were found in 2014, up from 50 in 2001.

Challenges ahead

The Meadowlands still faces many threats.

Millions of gallons of sewage still pour into the region during heavy rainstorms each year due to old, combined sewage and wastewater pipes in Hackensack, Ridgefield Park, North Bergen and Jersey City.

Although the Superfund sites are not an immediate threat to the Meadowlands, they are still heavily contaminated and are years away from being fully cleaned. The EPA is examining whether to place the lower Hackensack River on the Superfund list.

And despite efforts to preserve land, plans for developments on environmentally sensitive, privately held land still sprout up.

A subsidiary of Mitshubishi is asking Gov. Phil Murphy's administration to approve plans for a gas-fired power plant in North Bergen on the banks of a Hackensack River tributary.

But that doesn’t take away those moments that can strike awe like when Drew McQuade, a naturalist for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, saw as many as 60 eagles in one day, most of them perched on a tree in Little Ferry.

“I think if people realized what the Meadowlands actually is they would be less likely to release their balloons that find their way here or dump oil down storm drains,” McQuade said during a recent tour of the region. “I think if they knew where that stuff ends up there would be a lot of improvements going forward.”

If you go 

The Meadowlands Birding Festival 2018

8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 15

Meadowlands Environment Center

2 DeKorte Park Plaza

Lyndhurst, NJ 07071