Boston’s Big Dig soil helped turn a burning dump island into a park
Boston's massive Big Dig infrastructure project repurposed millions of cubic yards of excavated soil to restore Spectacle Island, which had previously been a burning city dump. This environmental restoration project successfully capped the landfill and created new green spaces for the city.
Why it matters
It serves as a successful case study in urban planning, demonstrating how large-scale infrastructure waste can be repurposed for environmental remediation.
When Boston began work on the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, better known as the Big Dig, in 1991, it was taking on one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the city's history. The project was planned to reduce traffic on an ageing elevated highway and extend I-90 from south of downtown Boston.The work also involved removing a huge amount of soil. According to National Park Service, the Big Dig excavated more than 16 million cubic yards of soil, creating a problem of where all that material should go. Some of it was used to create new green spaces in Boston, including the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Millennium Park and Memorial Stadium Park.But one of the most striking uses of the soil was on Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor. Almost a quarter of all the soil removed during the Big Dig was sent to the island.
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