UNC students plan to transform former landfill

ROANOKE ISLAND

Six students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill want to see a former dump turned into a tidy place of playing fields, nature trails and community garden plots - with room left over for a housing development that is both friendly to the environment and the wallet of the local worker.

The students - juniors and seniors with the university's Institute of the Environment who have spent the semester studying at the Albemarle Ecological Field Site on Roanoke Island - presented a plan to the public Friday on how to transform the former Bowsertown Landfill.

The 13-acre site served as a landfill from the 1960s until 1982, back before landfills had to be lined. It was a dumping site for construction and demolition waste during the following decade, said David Campbell, one of the students. It served as a transfer station in its last life, until the station relocated to the Dare County mainland earlier this year.

The public was asked in early 2006 what they'd like to see happen to the property, which sits within about 100 acres owned by the county. The Manteo Rotary Club spurred the reclamation efforts, and in August, the students from Chapel Hill took it on as part of their semester-long study here.

Their focus is sustainable development - development with the least amount of environmental impact, said student Gant Bowman. A 120-page report will be made available to the public and local officials in January, with the hope that it will serve as a resource for reclamation of the landfill, he said.

The plan includes playing fields at the western end of the site, surrounded by walking trails and a boardwalk at the southern edge. The students recommended public restrooms at the front of the site, with a playground, public art projects and even a "trash wall," which would be a cross section of the landfill showing what was dumped there over the years.

Such a wall would serve as a "window to the past," student Dylan Sandler said during the presentation, held at Roanoke Island Festival Park.

Affordable housing could anchor 4 acres at the northeastern edge of the property where trash was never dumped, said student Gray Jernigan. Public gardens would be planted amid the housing units.

When the landfill was first constructed, it didn't have to be lined, Campbell said. Trash was simply dumped, compacted and covered over. But, he said, "no toxic waste was permitted, to our knowledge."

A toxicology report of the land seems to back that up, revealing that the land is "pristine under local water quality standards," he said.

Still, trash remains exposed on some parts of the site, and removing it all could cost some $18 million. That's why it will probably be covered instead.

In keeping with the emphasis on "green," the students suggested wind turbines and solar panels to help power facilities built on the property, permeable pavement and boardwalks and playground equipment made from recyclable materials. And Jernigan recommended urinals in the public restrooms that operate without water.

"I found the Taj Mahal uses these," he said during the presentation. "I figured if they're good enough for the Taj Mahal, they're good enough for Bowsertown."

Students from UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of the Environment have studied at the ecological field site each fall semester for the last six years, said Robert Perry, interim director of the program.

The project "sums up and integrates their studies with a real-world challenge," Perry said.

The students developed a "great affection for Bowsertown... they even thought of sleeping on it" to get better acquainted with the land.

They did spend a lot of time on the property, walking, kayaking, snapping pictures and touring it from the air.

Kristin Davis, (252) 441-1623, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com