Burnsville mayor endorses vision to develop Freeway Dump

The long and complicated history of Burnsville's Freeway Dump could soon fade into the background as a new vision for its future takes center stage.

The former dump, just northeast of the Interstate-35W and Cliff Road interchange, is home to the Chalet Golf driving range and roughly 30 acres of buried trash dating back to the 1960s.

Presenting to the Burnsville City Council on Tuesday, a development team representing property owner Mike McGowan put forth their vision to bring a state-of-the-art golf and pickleball entertainment complex to the land.

Fargo, North Dakota-based Suite Shots would anchor the proposed development, with its complex featuring outdoor driving range bays and indoor, multi-sport simulators, large conference rooms and a restaurant.

The concept plan also includes a venture named Pickle-Palooza, which would operate both indoor and outdoor pickleball courts.

Following a presentation to the Burnsville City Council on Tuesday, Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz offered her endorsement of the vision.

“What you bring to us tonight is really a wonderful economic development concept," she told the team. "It’ll be great for the city of Burnsville to have something like this.”

The development team will require various approvals from state agencies and environmental regulators before it can submit a formal application to the city, but Tuesday's informal support gives the team good reason to continue on with the process.

"From my perspective, I’m in support of what you’re doing," Kautz said, eliciting nods of agreement from the City Council.

Environmental remediation

While the proposal remains in the early concept plan stages, the team is aiming for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and other regulators to sign off on the Freeway Dump becoming the underground waste's final resting place.

According to the concept plan discussed Tuesday, a new cap would be installed over the former dump to prevent rainfall from infiltrating the waste materials.

The development would then be built over the shallowest area of the dump and the deepest area would remain undeveloped for now.

The development team's vision for environmental remediation at the Freeway Dump is significant because it avoids excavating the waste, which the MPCA has studied for years.

The MPCA's two stated proposals to clean up the Freeway Dump include the “dig-and-haul” method, which would completely remove the trash and carry it off to be landfilled somewhere else.

The MPCA also designed a “dig-and-line” scenario, in which the waste would be dug out, the landfill would be lined, and the waste would be dumped back in and sealed off.

It's important to note the MPCA's clean-up scenarios were designed to also apply to the much larger Freeway Landfill, which is located on the other side of the highway and not impacted by the new development proposal.

While the concept plan proposes to install a better cap over the waste at the dump, the developer's consultants contend its unnecessary to line the waste underneath.

In an email Wednesday, MPCA spokesperson Stephen Mikkelson cited the 2019 study that identified the dig-and-line and dig-and-haul remedies as the appropriate clean up options for the Freeway properties.

Mikkelson said the MPCA "continues to pursue those two options" and confirmed the agency is aware of the property owner's proposed development.

"The details of the redevelopment project provided to the MPCA have been at the concept level and lack the level of detail needed for the MPCA to fully evaluate its protectiveness," Mikkelson wrote.

He continued: "The MPCA continues to collaboratively work with the proposer, city, and other stakeholders to best determine a pathway forward that addresses long-term environmental concerns at the dump while supporting the community’s desire to reimagine that site."

Developing landfills

John Hink, a civil engineer with Solution Blue, told the Burnsville City Council he's worked on more than 200 developments across the country involving contaminated land.

“The Twins stadium is a Brownfield development," he said. "The Gopher football stadium is sitting on a lake of oil – it’s a Brownfield development.”

In South St. Paul, the shoreline of the Mississippi River was stabilized in order to turn a former construction and demolition waste landfill into the scenic Kaposia Landing .

"Landfills are constructed on all the time," Hink said.

Bryan Murdock, a former Minnesota Environmental Quality Board member and owner of environmental assessment company Condition Services, is also on the development team.

Murdock said the team's plan for remediation aligns with the latest data, allows taxpayer money to go towards more urgent clean-ups and avoids the greenhouse gas emissions produced by excavating the waste and hauling it elsewhere.

Murdock also contends some of the longstanding concerns about the waste threatening groundwater contamination in the future aren't supported by current data.

"You're seeing an aged dump that may not have the high level of concern that it once did," he said, adding native soils below the deepest portions of the dump were tested in 2019 and found to be "completely clean."

There's currently no timeline for when the development could gain full approval, but the development team confirmed talks with the MPCA are ongoing.

More about the proposal can be found on the project website betterforburnsville.com .