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Brownfields Success Stories
Mustard Plants Helping to Clean Up Site
Trenton's Gould National Battery site was home to commercial lead-acid battery manufacturers from the mid-1930s to the early 1980s. Throughout the 1980s, the property was host to a manufacturing plant for Magic Marker Industries, who filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the site in 1989. To assist the City in restoring this and other abandoned sites, EPA awarded Trenton $200,000 under its Brownfields Initiative in September, 1995. In the same year as EPA's brownfields grant, Phytotech, a research corporation developing innovative methods of site remediation, approached the City about conducting a demonstration cleanup project on the Gould site. Phytotech wanted to try a new soil cleanup technique called phytoremediation, in which plants (or trees) are used to extract lead and other heavy metals from the ground. In the case of the Gould site, Indian Mustard plants are being used. Community members joined City and State officials in the first planting of Indian Mustard seeds on the Gould site in April, 1996. Initial tests prove that lead levels on the property have already been reduced. Through the efforts of the Brownfields Pilot, the City, the community, and the Indian Mustard plant, the Gould site will one day return to productive use. For more information on the Trenton Brownfields Pilot, contact Larry D'Andrea at (212) 637-4314.