The parks sidewalk problems

Confederate Park by pedestrian bridge.

The Springfield parks task force has been working to get the sidewalk situation in Springfield’s parks sorted out. Unfortunately, the problem involves a little more than simply replacing the buried or missing concrete.

In Klutho park there is the issue of which sidewalks to restore. The original Klutho walkway along the creek and balustrade has sunk and broken in so many areas it would take a significant investment to replace or repair it. Lorenzo Williams, the Parks and Recreation maintenance chief, has already had crews disinter many of the sidewalks in, and around Klutho. He has shown a real interest in helping us get the parks more up to speed. The areas where the existing sidewalks are broken and buried will be addressed in the near future.

Confederate park is a bit more of an issue. The parks task force has learned from the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection that there are significant environmental concerns in Confederate park. An old coal gasification plant used to exist where the Park View Inn now sits. The plant apparently caused extensive ground water contamination. The DEP and Duval county health Dept are working on planning a remediation of Confederate Park. This will likely be extensive in scope, and take a lot of time to plan.

The task force has been told that SPAR should have no problem with moving forward on the Rose Arbor, but that any sidewalks around the pond will likely be affected during any remediation work. In addition, any soil excavated must be tested, treated, and disposed of in accordance to EPA rules.

The upside to this is that the nature of contamination is not dangerous to anyone using the park for recreation not involving soil excavation. In addition most of the sidewalk repairs will require fill be brought in, not taken out. Add to this that remediation is likely years off, and it is very possible we can convince Parks and Recreating to repair the worst of the sidewalks.