Bingham Park is an approximately 12-acre facility located at 500 Bingham St. in Greensboro. It borders S. English Street between E. Market Street and McConnell Road. The park is an integral part of three neighborhoods: Eastside Park, Willow Oaks, and Cottage Grove.

The park is situated on top of a pre-regulatory landfill, a depository for garbage built before the government developed rules for how and where trash could be disposed of. There was a trash incinerator on site that burned household waste from Guilford County and the US Military. The materials placed in the landfill were ash and disposal fragments from items burned in the incinerator.

The incinerator, according to reports, operated from 1922 to 1955. The park was built in the 1970s.

In the early 2000s, the basketball court began to crack. This prompted the City to work with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ), which eventually designated the site an inactive hazardous waste/pre-regulatory landfill. The site is called a "pre-regulatory landfill" because it was in operation before 1983 when landfill standards were established to protect health and the environment.

Since the 2020s, the City has been working with the neighborhood group, the Bingham Park Environmental Justice Team, to educate the community about the park. Oftentimes meeting as frequently as twice a month, staff and the EJ Team have collaborated to find solutions to bring a park back to the neighborhood. City, community and elected leaders have worked together to identify funds for a site cleanup and plan for future redevelopment of the park.

2022 NCDEQ Investigation

Read the NC Department of Environmental Quality Fact Sheet for a brief overview of this work.

In 2020, the City requested that the NCDEQ conduct a comprehensive investigation of the park. Prior NCDEQ assessments were primarily focused along the creek and park boundaries and did not fully assess all areas. The investigation occurred in spring 2022.  

The research included:

• Air monitoring. The investigation did not identify any elevated concentrations of lead or asbestos. According to NCDEQ, this is a good indicator that removing the soil from the site to be moved to a lined landfill will have little to no impact on the air quality of the surrounding community.
• 179 waste samples collected in March and April 2022. The tests found that for the samples with the highest concentrations metals, the lead was not mobile and seemed to be fixed (attached/bonded) to the soil.

Based upon its assessment and risk calculations, the NCDEQ advised:

• Park users should not drink water from or wade in the stream channel.
• Digging in or eating the soil could put a child or other park user at risk for exposure to arsenic, iron, manganese, lead, and semi-volatile organic compounds.

The park was permitted to remain open for walking through though amenities were not available. Warning signage was added by the City of Greensboro as guided by the NC DEQ. 

State Environmental Investigation Records

All environmental investigations completed by NCDEQ are available to the public via the state's website. To access those documents:

1. Visit the Laserfiche Weblink Document Center.
2. Type “Bingham Park” in the search bar. This will return all Bingham Park documents.
3. Tip: Sometimes the system will ask you to sign out. Once you click “sign out," the log-in page will have a public username and password already entered. Simply click “sign in" again to access the site.  

2024 City Actions

New guidance from the US Environmental Protection Agency changing the federal screening level for lead in soil at residential properties coupled with an updated risk management review prompted the City to fully close Bingham Park and fence the property.

Learn more about this decision.

Soil Testing

Individuals that wish to test their soil can contact one of the many agencies that specializes in this service. To see the latest sampling guidance from the NC DEQ, visit https://www.deq.nc.gov/ustguidelines-sampling-change-4/download?attachment. 

More resources from NC State Extension can be found here Soil Testing | NC State Extension (ncsu.edu).

February 2023, the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Commission voted to express its support of full cleanup (also called full remediation) of Bingham Park, specifically by removing all contaminated soil to allow for a full rebuild of a park at this location. Another option is a containment and cover system, which would lock in the contaminated soil at Bingham Park so users could not come in contact with it. With this option, the former Hampton School site across English Street would be fully remediated, and park amenities would go there. With the containment and cover system at Bingham Park, amenities could include a nature trail and flowering perennials, but no trees. The City has been working with partners at the local, state and federal level to secure funding to remediate Bingham Park.

Partial funding has been secured:

• Federal Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill: $1.05 million.
• State House Bill 259: up to $11 million. The City of Greensboro will determine final amount allocated for Bingham Park.
• NCDEQ: $7 million.

Additional resources will be needed to close the funding gap and to redevelop a future park.

A critical part of the Bingham Park cleanup process will be identifying a landfill that will accept the contaminated soil. To investigate the options, the City's Office of Sustainability and Resilience researched every landfill within 75 miles of Bingham Park.

To be appropriate for this project, the landfill must:

• Accept municipal solid waste from Greensboro.
• Have capacity to take an anticipated 11,400+ truckloads of waste.
• Be a state-regulated, lined landfill.

Landfill Options

City staff evaluated the landfills on a variety of factors, including costs to transport and dispose of the waste, permitting and other factors. Three options were identified:

• Great Oak Landfill (Asheboro)
• Uwharrie Landfill (Troy)

After several public meetings and community feedback, White St Landfill is no longer an option for waste disposal.

To keep planning for a future when Bingham Park can return to being a public park, the Parks and Recreation Department has started the early phases of a master planning process.

From May to October 2023, the City participated in nine community events to gather feedback on “Building a Better Bingham” after the remediation is complete. Community members learned about the history of the park, shared their memories of Bingham, voted on their favorite park amenities, and added ideas for the future use of the Hampton school site.

See the community engagement report.

City staff has presented to a variety of boards and community groups about Bingham Park. Here are the presentations.

• February 2023 - Bingham Park Remediation Report, presented to Greensboro Parks and Recreation Commission 

• March 14, 2024 - Parks and Recreation staff presentation to the City Council at a work session.

• April 9, 2024 - Staff and City Council members met with community stakeholders to provide an update on the project. See the presentation. 

• April 17, 2024 - Staff and City Council members provided an update to as part of a District 2 Town Hall Meeting with residents. 

• May 22, 2024 - Staff and City Council members met with community members for a Bingham Park update. See the presentation.

• May 23, 2024 - Presentation at District 1 Town Hall Meeting.

• June 12, 2024 - Staff and City Council members met with residents for a Bingham Park update. See the poster boards presented.