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The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, is spending about $656,000 to repair its landfill gas collection system at John Garland Park in KCK, according to the UG's solid waste office.
The Unified Government says over time, its gas collection system at the park has degraded and gas has naturally migrated underground beyond the collection system's boundaries.
“Gas is sort of lazy like water," said Dave Reno, community engagement officer for the UG's Public Works Department. "It’s going to find the path of least resistance and just go and get itself away from the landfill in that regard. We don’t want that happening because in that situation, the gas might end up migrating into businesses or basements or underneath the streets.”
If methane gas accumulates in a small space, it can be dangerous for humans.
Methane levels at John Garland Park were recently detected to be above a threshold set by officials. When the threshold is met through monitoring, the UG is required to take action.
Residents will pay to replace, repair and add more pipes to the system through their monthly user fee for trash and recycling collection.
"This system uses suction to pull gas to a central location for treatment and works to reduce risk to anyone near the landfill," a Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokesperson said in an email to KSHB 41 News.
The park, considered a brownfield site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), formerly operated as Kansas City Sanitary Landfill from 1972 to 1974.
“There’s all sorts of waste below John Garland Park — couches, papers and all sorts of stuff," Reno said. "It was a model landfill that the EPA and Unified Government and (Kansas Department of Health and Environment) got together and developed."
For two years, municipal solid waste, including industrial and commercial waste, was dumped at the site, according to a spokesperson for KDHE.
After it was closed and capped in the 1970s, it was redeveloped as a park by the 1980s, according to the UG.
Reno said the park was built before pertinent environmental laws were enacted.
Between 1987 and 1989, the state of Kansas and federal investigators identified the need for additional monitoring and site controls at John Garland Park, per the UG.
In the 1990s, the park was closed because of environmental concerns.
By the 2000s, the gas collection system and monitors were installed, which led to the park's reopening.
With oversight from the EPA and KDHE, the UG continues to manage the former landfill site through landfill-gas controls and monthly monitoring.
"Sometimes we get an odor over here," neighbor WD Young said. "We wonder what it is."
Young has lived in Kansas City, Kansas, his entire life. He currently lives a block from John Garland Park.
“Me, myself, I don’t go down there," he said about the park.
Young said he remembers when the park was a landfill.
“Everybody was coming in, throwing their debris into the hole," he said. "Their thought was, we throw it in the hole deep enough, then we cover it up and it’ll go away.”
Young said his first thought when a park was built atop the former landfill was, "Why are they doing this?"
“The ultimate goal was to close it and build a park on top of it," Reno said. "At the time, that was a new thing, people weren’t doing that yet.”
Reno said across the Kansas City metro and in other parts of the country, there are other parks built on top of former landfills.
“You can absolutely use that park, we encourage you to use the park" Reno said. "It just needs some work on the piping system that keeps it safe.”
Reno said the current project shows the UG takes monitoring the park's gas collection system seriously.
“It’s really all about controlling the methane migration underground," he said. "We just don’t want it to get concentrated in such a way that it becomes flammable.”
Young said he is not the only one in his community with questions.
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“Is this going to contain it? Is this a safety issue or is this something we’ve got to worry about later on in life? I don’t know," Young said.
Reno said the UG will have to monitor the landfill gas at John Garland Park for several more decades as waste continues to decompose.
Construction on the project is expected to begin soon, and the park is set to reopen in spring 2027, according to Reno.
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