WILMINGTON
September 2012
DNREC’s Site Investigation and Restoration Section (SIRS) will hold a public workshop to share plans for the Fox Point Restoration Project from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13, Bellevue Hall, located at 911 Philadelphia Pike in Wilmington, just inside the main gate of Bellevue State Park.
The project under discussion is restoration of the Delaware River shoreline in a small cove area adjoining the 60 acres now open to the public as Fox Point State Park and administered by DNREC’s Division of Parks and Recreation. The park is located in New Castle County north of Wilmington.
“This proposed project is one that will restore a key piece of shoreline in an area where there is very little intertidal habitat. DNREC wants to make sure that this is something that the community would like to have implemented before moving ahead with the project,” said Marjorie Crofts, DNREC’s director of the Division of Waste & Hazardous Substances.
Fox Point is “made land,” which was filled beginning in the 1960s with industrial waste materials including slag, bricks, timbers, waste ingots, castings and ash furnace dust, eventually raising the surface to approximately 10 feet above its natural elevation. In preparation for its new use as a state park, and to protect public health and welfare as well as the environment, DNREC oversaw environmental cleanup measures, capping contaminated surface soil with an impermeable membrane and topping it with clean soil. The park opened in phases, on Earth Day in 1993 and 2009.
Written comments on the restoration plan may be sent to the attention of Robert Newsome at the DNREC Site Investigation and Restoration Section, 391 Lukens Drive, Wilmington, DE 19720.