Daily News | At Camden’s Whitman Park, an $8 million youth sports complex opens on a formerly contaminated site
The Camden Laboratories site began as a city hospital in the 1920s before ending up as an abandoned wreck, its buildings housing the homeless and patrolled by feral cats, as mercury-tainted grounds became an illegal dump site that school children had to walk by daily.
“We spent a lot of time, a lot of money gathering this football program together, trying to find resources to fund it,” Hawkins said. “It’s been challenging throughout the years.”The site of what became Camden Laboratories was first developed by the city in the 1920s as the Camden Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases. In the 1950s, it was transformed into the South Jersey Medical Research Foundation Laboratory and became the home of the Coriell Institute for Medical Research.
Investigations by the state Department of Environmental Protection found that a mercury spill contaminated a 24-foot by 34-foot patch of soil and penetrated 23 feet deep. About 1,000 tons of soil had to be removed for cleanup. Other contamination has also been cleaned. Overall, demolition and cleanup cost about $3 million. Renovations and new construction at the complex cost another $5 million, funded by the DEP, Camden Redevelopment Agency, Camden County, and other sources including a contribution from Jaworski’s foundation.
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