Parking Lot to Address Pedestrian Safety, Pollution Concerns at Fields

Madison plans to pave over a contaminated portion of the 10-acre Bayley Ellard recreation fields property as a way to deal with some of the pollution at the site and improve pedestrian safety at the same time.

Officials say covering part of the polluted, fenced-off land with a parking lot will satisfy state-mandated environmental remediation while creating 150 parking spaces.

Having the additional parking will improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety, said Councilman Bob Landrigan, who gave a presentation about the plan at a Borough Council meeting in June.

He said he became aware of safety issues about a year ago when he was at the fields with the Madison Volunteer Ambulance Corps for a rugby tournament and noticed cars parked on both sides of the street, hindering access for emergency vehicles and making it hazardous for pedestrians, including residents of a nearby assisted living facility going for walks.

The borough also plans to finish a new, one-way access road to the fields off Danforth Road to further improve the traffic situation.

The Madison Borough Council approved by a 5-1 vote spending $250,000 in Open Space funds for the work at the fields, including the planned parking lot, access road, and the cost of erecting a chain link fence that was installed around the contaminated portion of the property. Other fencing that divided the athletic fields into quadrants was removed to improve safety for athletes and allow for greater flexibility of field arrangements, Landrigan said. A pad also could be installed for a possible future restroom.

Improving the facility will help Madison compensate for the loss of the Green Village Road School fields when the former school property is sold to a developer, Landrigan said.

Councilman Robert Catalanello cast the "no" vote, saying Madison's entire recreation master plan ought to be reviewed and updated before the borough decides how to spend its Open Space funds and how to proceed with improvements to the borough's recreational facilities. He said the master plan is outdated and does not include the addition of the Madison Recreation Center.

The Borough Council also has unanimously introduced an ordinance to spend $100,000 from its capital improvement fund toward the Bayley Ellard fields improvement plan. A hearing and vote on that proposal is scheduled for the governing body's July 22 meeting.

Officials said the $100,000 in the proposal is from a credit in that amount the borough received from the Diocese of Paterson to deal with environmental contamination at the site. Madison bought the fields, part of the former Bayley Ellard High School, from the diocese in 2010.

Madison paid $2.65 million for the fields, funding the purchase with a $1.75 million grant from the Morris County Open Space Preservation Fund and $910,000 from Madison's Open Space Trust Fund.

A 2010 report by an environmental consultant said documents showed landfill operations were conducted on the property in the 1970s, and, in 1982, 30,000 cubic yards of soil material from the Schering/Plough site at Giralda Farms was used to add athletic fields. Historic aerial photos also indicated "extensive site clearing and re-grading occurred in the northeast corner of the property between 1963 and 1970," the report by PK Environmental said.

Testing "confirmed that this area was filled with historic fill material consisting of mostly soil and construction debris including brick, concrete, wood, metal, pipe, electric wiring, rug, glass, slate, asphalt, ceramic tile, styrofoam, ash, and plastic pipe," the report said.