GEMS landfill, once a notorious NJ Superfund site, to be transformed into a productive solar energy field without public funding

A former federal Superfund site will now be the source of clean solar energy and generate revenue for a town it had polluted, officials said.

A groundbreaking Wednesday at the GEMS landfill in Gloucester Township kicked off the transformation of the former dump into a 25-acre solar panel field. The panels will sit on top of hulking hills of dirt and other sources of pollution remediation.

When completed, the site will produce up to 4.5 megawatts of electricity and offset 4,313 metric tons of carbon dioxide, officials said.

None of it will be used to power homes and businesses in Gloucester Township, a sprawling municipality in Camden County, eight miles from Philadelphia. The juice will be sold into a grid run by Atlantic City Electric, which supplies power to towns largely to the south and east.

“It’s a great story, it really is,” said township Mayor David Mayer. “What this once was was unusable. We’re taking a polluted site and turning it into a positive project.”

No public funds are being used for the project. Syncarpha Capital, a New York City private equity firm, will pay for the installation and operation of the site. It operates 100 megawatts of ground and rooftop solar arrays in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Vermont, and Arizona, a statement from the company said.

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