Cascades Park (Tallahassee)

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Cascades Park
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Added to NRHP: May 12, 1971
Postcard of Cascades Park (1912)
Postcard of Cascades Park (1912)

Cascades Park is a 12-acre[1] park along the stream known as the St. Augustine Branch in Tallahassee, Florida, south of the Florida State Capitol. It is a Nationally Registered Historic Place[2] because it influenced the territorial government's choice of the capital city's location.[1]

As of 2006, most of the park is closed to the public because of soil and water contamination by coal tar released by a manufactured gas plant.[3]

Contents

[edit] History

A drawing by Comte Francis de Castelnau depicting the waterfall (1839)
A drawing by Comte Francis de Castelnau depicting the waterfall (1839)

In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. A territorial government was established, but the two largest cities, Pensacola and St. Augustine, were too far east and west, respectively, for either to make a good permanent capital. Territorial governor William Pope Duval appointed two commissioners, one from Pensacola and one from St. Augustine, to choose a location roughly halfway between them to build the new capital. When they saw a beautiful waterfall in what is now Cascades Park, they chose a nearby hill as the location for the future city of Tallahassee.[1]

John Lee Williams, the commissioner from Pensacola, wrote of the waterfall:[4]

Doct. Simmons has agreed that the site should be fixed near the old fields abandoned by the Indians after Jackson’s invasion, but has not yet determined whether between the... old fields, or on a fine high lawn about a mile W. In both spots, the water is plenty and good....Directly east of the old fields runs a...stream of water which you must recollect. This stream, after running about a mile south, pitches about 20 or 30 feet into an immense chasm, in which it runs 60 or 70 rods to the base of a high hill which it enters among clefts of Amorphous argilaceous...rocks full of shells and other fossils.

– John Lee Williams

The Florida State Capital now stands where this waterfall and pond once were. The area was used as a meeting place back in the earlier portion of the 1800s, for hunters, travelers, etc. During the early 1900s, it was home to Centennial Field, formerly used to play minor league baseball and football, as well as a Korean War memorial. In 1971, Governor Reubin Askew and the Florida Cabinet recognized the park’s significance in a resolution.

[edit] Contamination

The city operated a manufactured gas plant in the southwest of the park from 1895 to the late 1950s, when they switched to natural gas and propane.[5] As part of its normal operation, the MGP produced coal tar which was not valuable enough to be sold or reused, so it was simply discarded.[3] Potentially harmful components of this coal tar, in particular polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes), have been detected in the soil and groundwater.[5] A downward hydraulic gradient prevents the contaminants from spreading, but at the site itself, there is "a current or potential threat to public health and the environment".[5]

In addition, a landfill on the southern edge of the park was used to dispose of municipal solid waste.[6] The landfill was originally indended for biodegradable lawn waste such as tree limbs, but later it was reportedly used for other trash including construction and automobile waste and ash from the city incinerator on the east side of the park.[5]

[edit] Remediation project

In September 2005, the city made an agreement with WRS Infrastructure & Environment to clean up the site for $7.8 million.[7] The plans are to excavate over 70,000 tons[8] of contaminated soil and transport it to an EPA-approved landfill in Valdosta, Georgia,[3] to remove three inches of sediment from 950 feet of the stream and install a protective liner,[8], and to place a clay cap over 5,750 square yards of the landfill.[8]

Remediation in progress May 2006
Remediation in progress May 2006

The project is currently reported to be ahead of schedule,[3] and completion is expected by the end of October.[9] When complete, the park will have an amphitheater, a baseball field, historic building renovations, and open green space for trails and community gatherings.

Also see Capital Cascade Greenway.

[edit] References and external links

  1. ^ a b c Florida Department of Environmental Protection. "State Deeds Downtown Tallahassee Park to City", The Post, February 11, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-08-25. 
  2. ^ Florida — Leon County. National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  3. ^ a b c d City of Tallahassee. Frequently Asked Questions (PDF). Cascades Park Remediation Project. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  4. ^ Quoted in Hauserman, Julie (August 28, 2004). "Florida's Lost Waterfall: Cascades Park", Between Two Rivers: Stories from the Red Hills to the Gulf, 157–159. ISBN 0-9759339-0-6. Retrieved on 2006-08-25. 
  5. ^ a b c d Environmental Protection Agency (March 2002). Cascade Park Gasification Plant/Cascade Landfill Removal Action Memorandum (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  6. ^ Environmental Protection Agency (December 2005). Sites in Reuse: Cascade Park Gasification Plant Superfund Site (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  7. ^ City of Tallahassee (September 26, 2005). "City Reaches Agreement on Cascades Park Cleanup". Press release. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  8. ^ a b c City of Tallahassee. Cascades Park Clean Up: Get The Facts (PDF). WRS Infrastructure & Environment. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
  9. ^ City of Tallahassee (August 17, 2006). Cascades Park Remediation Bulletin (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-08-26.

Coordinates: 30°26′4″N, 84°16′38″W