The newest Passaic County park is home to a multipurpose athletic field, a river walk, a playground, a spray park, community gardens, a concession stand and a field house. (At right is a rendering of the park from MKW Associates.) There also are six rain gardens, designed to filter water and return it to the Passaic River.

Dundee is the first phase of Passaic’s riverfront restoration. The second phase is planned as an expansion of the river walk.

The transformation from “a patch of ground that a little more than a year ago was a shantytown filled with homeless people and vagrants,” according to northjersey.com, was partially funded by dollars from a Natural Resource Damage settlement.

And now, a look at 2016 …

In 2016, the state awarded $53 million in grants to communities in the Lower Passaic River watershed to improve public access and help restore wetland ecosystems in the historically industrialized Passaic River corridor.

The funds came from Natural Resource Damage settlements reached in 2013 and 2014 with Occidental Chemical Corp. – successor to the Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Company – and other companies deemed responsible for decades of sediment contamination of the Passaic River and Newark Bay with pollutants such as dioxin, pesticides, metals and PCBs. The lawsuits were originally filed by the DEP and the N.J. Attorney General’s Office in late 2005.

New Jersey defines natural resources as all land, fish, shellfish, wildlife, biota, air, waters and other such resources owned, managed, held in trust or controlled by the state for the benefit of all its citizens. As the designated trustee for the state’s natural resources, the DEP is committed to ensuring not only the restoration of damaged natural resources, but also to seeking compensation for their loss.

Projects funded by the Passaic River settlements included wetland restoration, expansions of riverfront parks with new walking trails, riparian habitats and gardens, and launch points for kayaks and boats. That same year, in partnership with the DEP, the federal Environmental Protection Agency also finalized its $1.4 billion plan to remediate the most heavily polluted stretch of the lower Passaic River.

At a press conference in Newark, the state acknowledged its commitment to “taking the necessary steps to ensure the remediation of the Passaic River, making sure that those responsible for the pollution pay for the cleanup, and reconnecting people to this resource.”

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