Bringing Together Active Recreation & Nature Conservation at a former Superfund Site

Caption:  From left, Francesca Mundrick, Pitman Environmental Commission, Amanda Brockwell, ANJEC, Joseph Postorino, LSRPAF, and Kenneth Goldstein, LSRPAF are pictured in front of Alcyon Lake – once contaminated through leaching from the nearby Lipari Landfill.  After extensive remediation, the lake is once again home to a variety of wildlife and enjoyed by the community for boating and fishing.

Pitman Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey – When you visit Alcyon Park today, you will experience carefully manicured Little League fields, walking trails, a boat launch, and places to enjoy a beautiful day. It’s hard to imagine that the lake was once contaminated and the park closed due to the remediation of the Lipari Landfill Superfund Site located upstream. The park is now a thriving environmental and recreational part of the community. The Pitman Environmental Commission (EC) recognized the park's popularity as an opportunity to raise awareness about environmental conservation with the many people who frequent the park for sporting events and the lake. Thanks to the power of several partnerships, the Pitman EC has secured two grants to launch community projects at the park, once a contaminated site, now a hub of the community, thanks to support from the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions and the New Jersey Licensed Site Remediation Professionals Association Foundation.

Meadow Habitat Restoration Project

In 2023, the Pitman Environmental Commission (PEC) designated an area of the park needing habitat restoration to convert an overgrown meadow into a riparian buffer zone. By extending the riparian buffer adjacent to Alcyon Lake, runoff coming off the sports fields in this area is mitigated and provides increased habitat for wildlife through increased native plantings. The buffer zone is located at an important access point near a trail intersection and sports field, providing an optimal view of a wide variety of wildlife. The community has been integrated into the project through tree-planting events and interpretive signs indicating the plants and wildlife to look for along the area's perimeter.

Hitting4Habitat Tournament Project

In 2024, the PEC secured funds to launch Hitting4Habitat, a sports for nature concept where inter-municipal baseball and/or softball teams join a tournament where they play to fund the installation of a new biodiverse community garden space within viewing distance from the fields.  Thanks to the support and partnership of the Pitman Parks and Recreation Department, a tournament will be hosted to connect the popular use of the park for sporting events with the critical need to increase nature conservation behaviors on the landscape.  In addition to funding a new native garden space through fees from the tournament, each player will receive a gift bag providing packets of native seeds and a pamphlet with instructions for a plant growing competition. This will encourage players to take their seeds packs home, plant them on their properties, submit photos, and enter to win through a photo competition.  The tournament will take place in spring 2025 with the photo competition concluding in September 2025.  

History of Alycon Park

Alcyon Park is historically, culturally, and environmentally a staple of the Pitman community. Throughout the early 1900s, Alcyon Park was a fully functioning speedway featuring a lakefront boardwalk with carnival entertainment elements. The former Alcyon Park speedway and lakefront boardwalk cemented Pitman as a Summer tourist destination for Philadelphians, shaping much of the town's modern cultural and spatial aspects today. The Alcyon Park speedway and lakefront boardwalk closed in the late 1950s, leaving the area vacant for a few decades. After being vacant for years, Alcyon Lake and the land surrounding it were purchased by the Borough of Pitman and incorporated into a public park. Disaster struck when poor decision-making occurred at the neighboring Lipari Landfill in Mantua, NJ. Chemical contamination leached into the subsurface and surficial watershed, polluting Alcyon Lake and its tributaries. Soon, the Lipari Landfill and Alcyon Park area became one of the most polluted sites in US history. In the 1980s, the USEPA and NJDEP began remediation protocols, establishing the Lipari Landfill Superfund Project. Rising from the ashes, now utilized by both people and nature, Alcyon Park is an example of successful remediation.

Alcyon Park is truly special because it signifies an active balance between recreational space for people and habitat space for nature. Alcyon Park showcases a wide variety of important ecological communities, including upland forest habitat, successional meadow habitat, wetland habitat, and aquatic habitats. Due to the unique attributes of Alcyon Park, the PEC has focused many efforts within the park space, specifically habitat restoration projects, and looks forward to more in the future.

These projects were made possible partly through funding from the New Jersey Licensed Site Remediation Professionals Association Foundation (NJLSRPAF), administered through the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) Open Space Stewardship Grant Program. The grant program provides a source of funds for Environmental Commission projects located on municipal open space areas and is offered annually.

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