Comparing “The Fairgrounds” to the Commonwealth’s Other Redeveloped Landfills

by N. Anderson
with Caitlin St Claire

Representatives from the Fairgrounds have repeatedly stated that landfills are “developed all the time” in Massachusetts.  How would The Fairgrounds compare to some of these other redeveloped sites?  We compiled a list of 21 such landfills, detailing how their remediation was funded, how the sites were built, the extent of environmental restoration efforts, what public amenities are available, their economic impact, and a source for this information.

The Fairgrounds is not flattered by these comparisons.

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Massachusetts Landfill Redevelopment SurveyDownload

Remediation Funding

The Mechanic Street landfill was capped in 1997 through a state grant, and Leominster residents have paid for nearly the entirety of the requisite 30-year maintenance and monitoring period.  The capping grant placed this site under a deed restriction through Article 97, requiring open space on the site in perpetuity.  As part of the HCA, The Fairgrounds requires the City Council and the Mayor to overturn this deed restriction to enable commercial use of this property.  The HCA also requires that the city seek grants that could offset the costs of construction.

Most of the other landfills remediated with exclusively taxpayer money have been converted into public parks, like Seekonk Meadows, Danehy Park in Cambridge, and Conway Park in Somerville.  Others were developed through public/private partnerships and now hosts a mix of public amenities (such as nature trails and community solar arrays) and private businesses, like the Industri-Plex site in Woburn and Iron Horse Park in Billerica.  Sites that now primarily host commercial activity required private developers to absorb the costs of capping and maintenance from the outset, such as the Crossings at Walkers Brook, Granite Links, and the Tracy Golf Course. The Fairgrounds is distinct in that the funding and maintenance were funded by taxpayers, but public use of the site will be at the discretion of a private developer who swooped in near the end of the 30-year monitoring period.

Means of Site Redevelopment

The intended means of redeveloping the Mechanic Street landfill into The Fairgrounds is also unusual.  The capping, monitoring, and maintenance of the landfill has been routine. Leveling and raising the 30 acre site to 360 feet almost 30 years after cap installation is unprecedented, especially in light of what little we know of the landfill’s contents.  A 1984 EPA inspection, triggered by plastic manufacturer Borden Chemical’s admission of dumping vinyl chloride and trichloroethylene on the site, notes that “town officials highly suspect that many industries contributed hazardous […]materials to the landfill over the years.”  The same report highlights the high risk of the site contaminating groundwater and the nearby Nashua River. 

Most sites harboring contaminated soil and hazardous waste are excavated prior to redevelopment, particularly those lacking bottom liners and located on wetlands or bordering rivers.  For example: 45000 cubic yards of sediment were removed from the Nyanza site, 3500 tons from Wells G & H in Woburn, and 4000 acres in Fort Devens. Larger developments have been built on some less contaminated landfills, with the Crossings at Walkers Brook in Reading as a notable example.  The town offered the site (formerly a swamp) for development if the developer absorbed the $5 million capping cost.  The developers, Haley Aldrich, designed a cap that was integrated with retaining walls, gas management, and stormwater retention systems.  They then built a pair of unconventional vertical retail buildings on top of the outlet, including a Home Depot, Jordan’s Furniture, and IMAX theater.  This site was designed as a commercial venture from the start – it was not retrofitted 30 years after capping (and after taxpayers had absorbed the vast majority of the associated costs). 

Other notable examples of sites built on top of landfills include the Granite Links in Quincy and Tracy Golf Courses in Yarmouth.  Like The Crossings and unlike the Fairgrounds, these sites were public/private partnerships from the outset, with the developers absorbing capping and monitoring costs.  These golf course developers noted that “deep fill” (3+ feet) was required in some areas – a far cry from the 20+ feet of fill needed across the Fairgrounds.  Building Granite Links required 900,000 truckloads of material and 13 million tons of fill.  This material was provided by the Big Dig, the $21 billion megaproject in Boston that rerouted the central artery of I93 and built the Ted Williams Tunnel underneath Boston Harbor. The lead architect of Granite Links stated that “if the dirt had not been available, the project would never have happened.” One has to wonder what megaproject will be required in order for VHB to level the site.

VHB has performed some landfill reclamation work, such as converting a previously capped municipal landfill in Canton into a 12 acre solar farm.  Permitting documents submitted to the DEP indicate that the 20,000 solar panels were installed “within the vegetative support layer” of the original landfill cap, on top of the liner.  This solar array now generates $16.3 million in lease & energy generation revenue for Canton annually.  While that project was obviously successful, the scope of the Fairgrounds development is far beyond what VHB has previously accomplished.

Environmental Considerations

Many of these outdoor projects worked with the terrain of the landfill, as opposed to leveling the surface completely flat.  The lead Granite Links architect highlighted the challenge of building a golf course around the steep slopes of the landfill domes, which are sculpted during cap construction to promote the proper flow of stormwater off the site.  These designs reduce the risk of flooding and leachate production caused by water infiltrating the cap.  It is not clear whether the construction of The Fairgrounds will include any stormwater controlling measures to mitigate the risks introduced by the flattened site design, a concern rendered especially pertinent in light of the 2023 Leominster Flood.

Historically landfills were often built on wetlands, including the landfill on Mechanic Street.  Wetlands have since been recognized as essential ecological zones and as buffers against storm surges.  Over three quarters of the landfills on this list included wetlands restoration as part of their redevelopment, and most that did not were less than 10 acres in size (Conway Park, Lawrence Metals, Seekonk Meadows).  The Fairgrounds distinguishes itself from other developed landfills by destroying, rather than restoring, surrounding wetlands.

Lobbyists for The Fairgrounds have claimed that this project would “preserve open space.”  This assertion contradicts the HCA’s requirement that the City Council and Mayor repeal the Article 97 deed restriction on the site.  Article 97 is titled “An Act Preserving Open Space in the Commonwealth,” and “establishes a right to a clean environment including its natural, scenic, historical, and aesthetic qualities.”  Enormous swathes of redeveloped landfills have been preserved as open space, including 60% of the SW Naval site’s 1442 acres in South Weymouth.  An empty lawn inside a racetrack has no conservation value, and it is deeply misleading to claim this lawn represents “open space.”

What We Lose with The Fairgrounds

The Fairgrounds would eliminate many of the possibilities presented by other redeveloped landfills.  Danehy Park and Seekonk Park feature nature trails, community gardens, and sports fields.  The Blackburn & Union site hosts a variety of public amenities, including a new police station, senior center, and co-operative bank.  Many feature community solar arrays, like the W.R. Grace site in Concord and the Charles-George landfill in Tyngsborough and Dunstable.  Others have been developed into economic engines, like the Crossing at Walkers Brook in Reading, which employs 1200 people and produces $750,000 in property tax alone to the city annually.  At the 7 acre Cannon Engineering Corp site in Bridgewater, a propane distribution facility generated over $62.7 million dollars in revenue in 2024.  According to their economic impact report, The Fairgrounds expects only $7.5 million in annual revenue once the track is operational.  Despite occupying six times as much land, The Fairgrounds would produce an eighth of the revenue yielded at the Bridgewater site.

Some sites include “everything”.  The 35-acre Nyanza site in Ashland hosts solar arrays, a commuter rail station, an apartment complex, businesses, a nature walkway, and a commemorative memorial garden in honor of residents impacted by cancer. If the Fairgrounds is built, we would never have something like Nyanza.  The racetrack barely fits on the site, and its interior must be kept empty to provide space for grandstands and temporary stables.  Public amenities like nature trails, solar arrays, or sports fields couldn’t be built there, nor could more productive businesses establish themselves.  Its communal use is at the discretion of Baystate Racing, despite the public’s role in the site’s remediation.  

Compared to other redeveloped landfills in Massachusetts, The Fairgrounds is not only an extraordinarily inefficient use of space, but quite frankly an embarrassment. Out of all of the sites, only The Fairgrounds stands to be handed to a private developer after the site was rendered “safe” with exclusively taxpayer money.  Only the Fairgrounds would pile 20+ feet of fill on a 30-year-old cap, risking seepage of industrial waste into the groundwater and rivers.  Only the Fairgrounds makes its host city more vulnerable to flooding and opts to destroy wetlands instead of restoring them.  Only the Fairgrounds occupies so much open space for so little revenue.  Leominster can do so much better than The Fairgrounds, and we should look to these other developments for inspiration. 

What We Could Have

Mayor Dean Mazzarella dramatically asserted that if The Fairgrounds isn’t built, we’ll have “nothing, forever” on the Mechanic Street landfill. Would that be so bad? Even as it is now, the landfill serves an essential but easily overlooked function: safely containing toxic industrial waste. Preserving that is the city’s foremost responsibility. The landfill is a direct consequence of prioritizing economic development over all else, and The Fairgrounds is asking for more of the same.

If the site can be safely redeveloped, we have possibilities far beyond what The Fairgrounds offers. We could restore wetlands to reflect the site’s ecological history and buffer the town against extreme weather. We could reflect the taxpayer’s role in funding the site’s rehabilitation by building public trails, sports fields, community gardens, and solar arrays. We could recruit more relevant and productive industries that offer better jobs and amenities beyond drinking and gambling. We could have a conversation with each other about how best to utilize this space.

We could have more.

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