The Hartford Landfill has come a long way. Once a smelly eyesore, today it is an expansive grassland meadow — a haven for rare and endangered bird species, from grasshopper sparrows and snowy owls to bald eagles and indigo buntings. This dramatic transformation may not be over yet. There are those who believe that the nearly 100-acre site — which is owned by Hartford but is not open to city residents — is suitable for public use, including nature trails and an observation platform.
“The landfill could connect people to this rare habitat and provide a sense of civic pride,” said Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society. “It is not just about seeing birds; it’s a really neat place to hang out. There are few spots in Connecticut where you can go and experience such an open sky.”
The view, indeed, is spectacular from atop the man-made mountain: one can see the Hartford skyline to the south and, on a clear day, all the way to Higby Mountain in Meriden and Mount Tom in Massachusetts.
The landfill’s remarkable metamorphosis over the past decade was anything but a sure thing. Fifteen years ago, the Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority, which leased the site from the city, was proposing a major expansion, an increase in its allowable height from 138 to 188 feet in order to extend its lifespan. To neighborhood activists who had been battling management of the landfill for years, this was akin to a declaration of war.
What they and their fellow North End residents had been coexisting with for decades had grown increasingly troublesome. Opened in 1940, the landfill was a relentlessly growing, smoldering and putrid dump overburdened with trash trucked in from more than 60 towns in Connecticut and neighboring states.
In addition to the persistent odor, ash from a trash incinerator was dumped there and occasionally grey dust would waft into the North End, covering cars and yards. Eerie flames rose from dozens of pipes that vented and burned off the methane gas oozing from the rotting ground. Dump fires, which are notoriously hard to put out, periodically added acrid smoke to the strange brew.
Residents sometimes found flocks of dead birds littering their lawns and front porches. High levels of asthma and even “hot spots” of cancer were documented in the largely African-American and Latino neighborhoods west of Trashmore.
Cynthia Jennings and her family lived within a mile of the landfill until a large dump fire in the early 1990s motivated her not only to move to a Hartford neighborhood farther away, but also to become a political activist. “Landfill fires were my worst nightmare, because you don’t know what’s in that smoke,” Jennings recalled. “There were no fire hydrants around the landfill then. It burned for weeks. There were dead sparrows all over my neighbor’s porch. Three weeks later he died. Black people were dying.”
Jennings would enroll in the University of Connecticut Law School, graduating in 1998 with a concentration in environmental law. That same year the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice was formed and Jennings chaired the board. Later she was elected to the Hartford City Council.
When expansion of the landfill was proposed in 2003, she became one of the leaders of the resistance. Before they were through, they had enlisted the help of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, the Hartford health director, local residents and medical students — whose house-by-house canvases documented high levels of pollution-related diseases in neighborhoods near the landfill.
And together they prevailed. In 2004, it was decided that the landfill needed be closed, rather than expanded. The last load of refuse was deposited in 2008, and a plan was developed to cap and reclaim the site, which now boasts not only varied wildlife but also nearly 4,000 solar panels, with room for more. The commercial recovery of methane gas to generate electricity ended this past July (the remaining gas will need to be burned off on site for decades to come). The landfill was declared officially closed in 2015 after it was fully capped with an impervious membrane and covered with soil.