Bartram’s Garden closes trail because of ‘potential chemical contamination’ nearby

Bartram’s Garden officials say an adjacent former industrial site is being tested for possible chromium contamination, leading them to close part of a widely used trail in “an evolving and potentially dangerous situation.”

The officials posted a notice Tuesday on the Bartram’s Garden website that a visitor told them this week of the possible contamination at an area next to the Bartram’s Mile Trail in Southwest Philadelphia. The property is part of a former petroleum tank farm.

Chromium is a known human carcinogen.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier issued a statement that the privately owned site adjacent to a rail bridge along the Bartram’s Mile Trail was found to contain “total chromium, chromium III (trivalent), and chromium VI (hexavalent)” that possibly leaked into Bartram’s Garden and the Schuylkill from the former Plains Product Terminals site.

The runoff was noticed by a visitor to Bartram’s Garden who reported it to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in April.

The visitor then notified local officials and Bartram’s Garden on Monday.

Gauthier said her office was told by the DEP that there is no immediate risk to the city’s drinking water because the site is downstream from a water intake.

“However, I was appalled and angered to learn that state and local agencies were made aware of the possible contamination in April but did not notify my office, Bartram’s Garden, or any Southwest Philadelphia neighbors,” Gauthier said. ”If a constituent did not bring this to our attention, we would not have known and would have been unable to take any action.”

Gauthier said her office is working with Bartram’s Garden.

The DEP will perform more testing along Bartram’s Mile Trail to find what concentrations of chemicals might be in the area, said Gauthier, who urged residents in the area to stay off the closed section of the trail and to not fish or kayak in the area.

“This community has wrongfully been the region’s dumping ground for decades,” Gauthier said.

DEP officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s office said Wednesday night that the city is monitoring the site and working with the DEP.

In that statement, Randy E. Hayman, commissioner of the Philadelphia Water Department, reiterated that there is no threat to drinking water. And Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson said the Philadelphia Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Unit inspected the area and found no threats to air quality or toxic runoff.

Maitreyi Roy, executive director of Bartram’s Garden, said that the closure affected an entrance used by visitors coming from 51st Street, but that two other entrances are unaffected. Bartram’s Garden remains open, and people are using the open trails.

“That whole area has had a variety of industrial uses in the past,” Roy said of land near Bartram’s Garden.

The site being tested for chemical compounds is along South 51st Street, just off Grays Ferry Avenue next to a train trestle. It is across from Botanic Avenue.

Roy said that only a few hundred feet of Bartram’s Mile Trail is closed, including the northern entrance to the garden.

“Our concern was really for our staff and our visitors so we blocked off the trail right away,” Roy said. “There are many unknowns, and we wanted to be very cautious.”

Bartram’s Garden posted notices about the closure to make sure “people are aware of what’s going on at that location.” The garden’s website is being updated for the public.

“I’m especially concerned about routine park users or people in the community who come to the area almost every day,” Roy said. “So we want to be as proactive about sharing what we know and to keep them away from that area.”

Visitors to Bartram’s Garden can still access the 50-acre property, known as the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, through entrances at 54th Street and Lindbergh Avenue, Harvey Avenue, and 56th Street.

DEP documents show that the 12-acre property at 51st and Botanic, known as the 51st Street Terminal, has had a long industrial history. The site contains a cocktail of chemicals including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and other compounds.

It was first used for lumber storage as far back as 1923. From 1923 to 1945, it was used to make cardboard containers.

From 1951 to 1975, 10 above-ground storage tanks were installed for use as a fuel terminal by Allied Oil Inc. and later Hess Oil and Chemical Corp. In 2009, the site was sold to Plains Product Terminals LLC.

In 2019, it was bought by PBF Logistics.

In 2022, it was bought by Alliance 51st Street LLC, which is based at Alliance HP in Bryn Mawr. Alliance HP is a real estate investment firm.

The site is listed as part of the DEP’s Act 2 voluntary cleanup program and has been undergoing land and groundwater cleanup.

A DEP report from September 2023 showed, for example, that benzene was found in excess of acceptable levels in three soil samples. And the report noted excessive levels for 1,2,4 trimethylbenzne.

Alliance 51st Street planned to address the issues, according to the document.

In April, a visitor to Bartram’s noticed “a green-colored runoff from the property” in the equivalent amounts that would be produced “by a few garden hoses” and reported it to the DEP.

The DEP sent an inspector on April 12. The Philadelphia Water Department also responded.

“The material is a potentially polluting substance,” the DEP inspector wrote, and recommended that Alliance 51st Street should figure out what the substance was and prevent further discharges. But the DEP noted that there were no violations.

A follow-up inspection on May 2 noted that a “yellow-green-colored runoff persists on-site,” but that a berm had been formed around the ditch, preventing the liquid from leaving the property and that no violations had occurred.

In a statement Wednesday, Alliance 51st Street said that “the issue is not the result of any recent spill, but rather a historic issue that was triggered by the recent heavy rains in the area.”

“While we are not the cause of the problem, having purchased the site as an environmental brownfield, we have been working closely with PA DEP on a remediation strategy as required by state law,” the company said.

Philadelphia residents Rahul Harris and Taunya Serrano were tossing a football in the shade Wednesday at Bartram’s Garden to escape the blistering summer day. They were about a quarter-mile from the red tape that read DANGER.

”It’s scaring the living daylights out of me,” said Harris, 51, who had not seen signage while he was walking into the space.

Inside the garden’s administrative building, staff tried to continue operations as best they could while fielding calls from concerned users of the public space.

Public fishing and boating programming were canceled, while youth programming at Sankofa Community Farm continued.

Claudia Ramirez, 40, was picking black nightshade with her sister when they stumbled on the closed section of trail. After learning of the trail closure nearby, the sisters opted to play it safe and skip their foraging plans.

The area around Bartram’s Mile is linked to Philadelphia’s industrialized past.

In May, the EPA announced $2 million toward cleanup of 1700 South 49th Street, a former oil terminal, separate from, but near the 51st Street Terminal. Officials called the EPA cleanup site a “last piece of the puzzle” to a large redevelopment planned along the Schuylkill waterfront near Bartram’s Garden.

The parcel to be cleaned is part of a planned Lower Schuylkill Biotech Campus, which would be fronted by the Bartram’s Mile trail, a 1.55-mile paved path that stretches through the garden.

The project, led by the nonprofit Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. (PIDC), aims to bring jobs and recreation to a once heavily industrialized and contaminated section of the river’s west bank.

» READ MORE: EPA targets $2M cleanup of Schuylkill riverfront property near Bartram’s Garden

Kevin Lessard, a senior vice president at PIDC, said the surrounding area “is one of the oldest, historically industrial corridors,” in the city. PIDC has acquired, remediated, and cleaned approximately 40 acres of real estate along the Lower Schuylkill.

Bartram’s Garden, which dates to colonial times, was the home of an eponymous botanist and aristocrat who turned his manor into an early botanical garden.

Bartram’s land was later donated to the city for use as a public park. But as the city grew around what was once the rural fringe of Philadelphia, so did industry — eager to use the nearby Schuylkill as a water source and waste outflow.

By 1910, the river had become a major petroleum hub. A city atlas from that year shows that the Gulf Refining Co. — a subsidiary of Gulf Oil — and the Atlantic Refining Co. — a Standard Oil successor, later acquired by Sunoco — had established plants immediately south of the park.

Staff writer Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.