The Greensboro City Council will meet to discuss what can be done to eventually reopen the contaminated and closed Bingham Park in order to make it safe for parkgoers again.  The soil in the park was discovered to be badly contaminated and now the big question for City Council members is how to dispose of all that chemical lacked soil.

 To that end, the City Council will be exploring it’s waste disposal options at a meeting to be held at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, July 23 in the Council Chamber of the Melvin Municipal Office Building at 300 W. Washington St. in downtown Greensboro.

Bingham Park – currently closed to all for any use – is the site of a pre-regulatory landfill and household waste incinerator. That incinerator was in use for about three decades on the site – from the 1920s to the 1950s.

And that led to the dangerous matter now trapped in the park’s soil.

Currently, the city is working with the NC Department of Environmental Quality to figure out the best way to clean up the site, which will include removing the soil that contains arsenic, iron, manganese, lead and a group of other dangerous chemicals called “semi-volatile organic compounds.”

 If you want more information on the contamination issues at the park, you can visit www.tinyurl.com/BinghamParkGSO.

One option – the cheapest reasonable one, apparently – is to put the contaminated soil into the White Street Landfill in Greensboro – an option which, of course, isn’t highly popular with those who live near the landfill.

The city has been attempting to inform people about the options this summer through a series of tours of the landfill that explain how the dirt would be disposed of at that landfill safely.

It’s not clear yet how much, if any, those tours have allayed residents’ concerns.

That will be better known after the July 23 meeting, where people will have a chance to voice their opinions on the matter to City Council members.

Residents are invited to register in advance online to speak to the best course of action To sign up to speak via Zoom, you should submit a request by 5 p.m. on the day before the meeting.

You can, however, also sign up in person at the meeting.

All of those who wish to speak have to check in with the courier as they arrive.

Those who wish to watch the meeting can do so on YouTube, Spectrum channel 13, Lumos channel 31, AT&T U-verse channel 99, or via Roku.

The City of Greensboro built the park in the 1970s without realizing the soil had been contaminated decades earlier.

In April of this year, the city offered an update on the conditions at Bingham Park, which consists of about 12 acres of land at 500 Bingham St. in Greensboro, bordering South English Street.

In that update, city officials stated that guidance from the US Environmental Protection Agency – in addition to a new risk management review – had led the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department to close down the park, put up signs to that effect and take other measures, such as fencing, to keep people out.

In April, the statement from the city read: “Bingham Park is the site of a pre-regulatory landfill and household waste incinerator. The City of Greensboro is working with the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to evaluate and remediate the site. The DEQ informed Parks and Recreation of the change to federal soil screening level for lead in soil at residential properties in April following the closure of an EPA public comment period lasting from January through March.”

Greensboro Parks and Recreation planners have already begun working with neighbors to come up with a new park plan that includes future attractions and new amenities.

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