There are places on campus that are hidden treasures, places you don't stumble upon unless you know where to look.

One such place is the Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA). While 74 acres of wildlife area might not be that easy to hide, its somewhat-secluded location across from the IMA sports fields makes it a place many students never visit.

Those who know it find it a wonderful area for walking and bird-watching, but few are familiar with its history. The UBNA literally rose from the lake and was used as a garbage dump for almost 50 years before it was turned into a public wildlife area with a great variety of plants and animals.

The Montlake marsh

The story of the UBNA began in 1916 when the Montlake Cut, the canal under Montlake Bridge, was finished. Before then, the Union Bay shoreline bordered directly on Husky Stadium and Montlake Boulevard, covering the current locations of both the IMA and University Village. The water level of Lake Washington was 16 feet lower, exposing a large area of former lake bottom.

The result was a large uneven marsh, which was partly filled with material from the construction on the canal. In the 1920s, people started putting garbage, earth and rocks in it to level it, said Kern Ewing, a professor of forest resources at the Center for Urban Horticulture (CUH), part of University of Washington Botanical Gardens (UWBG).

The area, called Montlake Landfill, is University property but was operated by the City of Seattle as an official landfill from 1926 until the closing in 1965. It was originally both a regular landfill and a fire dump, where garbage was burned and the soil spread out over the area. In 1954, however, people in the neighboring areas started to complain, and the burning was stopped.

The landfill was mostly used for household garbage, said Karen VanDusen, director of environmental health and safety at the UW, but there were some industries that dumped their waste there. The city also dumped a large amount of debris from the building of Interstate-5 in the early 1960s.

The closure was finished in 1971, and the landfill had then been evened out and covered with clean soil. Clover and grass were seeded to minimize dust and a few fruit trees were planted.

"People tried to make it into an orchard," Ewing said.

The area was returned to the University after the landfill closed. There were different plans for the area and several buildings, including a baseball clubhouse, were constructed. The problem was, having once been a lake bottom and then covered with 25 feet of peat, the area sinks and moves, and the buildings suffered from cracking foundations. It was concluded that nothing could be built there except on piling.

The environmental impact

In the mid-1980s, the Center for Urban Horticulture was founded and became responsible for managing the 54 acres of the landfill east of University Slough, the channel that runs between the IMA sports fields and the UBNA.

Ewing has been working at CUH since 1990 and says a mix of horticulture and ecology is the primary research focus of the center, as well as the effects on urban plants like city park trees. UWBG is headquartered in Merrill Hall in the northeast corner of the area.

In the mid-1990s, people in the surrounding neighborhoods expressed concern about the health and environmental impacts of the landfill. In response to this, the Montlake Landfill Oversight Committee, of which both Ewing and VanDusen are members, was created. The most important task of the committee, VanDusen said, is to remind people that the area was a landfill and needs to be monitored.

The committee regularly directs controls of the area — mainly of the water — but no unusual chemicals have been found, she added.

The only problem that can be traced back to the dump is the large production of methane from the decomposition in the ground. Two metal pipes sticking out of the ground remain from the time when burning was used to get rid of the methane.

Around 1968, a fire burned constantly from the pipes for two years, Ewing said. The methane can be seen bubbling in the slough and the pools in the area, and all buildings within 1,000 feet, like the IMA, have to have methane mitigation systems.

Learning from nature

When the area was returned to University administration, it was decided it should be used according to the University's mission of teaching, research and public service.

"I think outreach is the main reason [the center exists]," said Ewing.

The UWBG offers many courses both for students and the public. The area was named Union Bay Natural Area and is one part of the UWBG, which also includes the Arboretum and four demonstration gardens located around Merrill Hall.

While the Arboretum is more of a "living plant museum" of worldwide species, the UBNA is a natural area of mostly native plants, Ewing said. It is both a public wildlife area and a restoration and research laboratory for UWBG faculty and students.

The studies focus on the restoration and cultivation of plants, and include much fieldwork. Many of the classes work with restoration projects in the area. Ewing pointed out several places where tiny trees are protected by blue plastic and other places where plants now thrive because of earlier student efforts.

Most of the work, both restoration and maintenance of the area, is carried out by students in class at CUH, but there is also a hired gardener. Doug Schmitt, a graduate student in restoration ecology, works there part time during the school year and full time in the summer and has done so for the last two years.

The trail going through the area is a popular place for bird-watchers, joggers and dog-walkers, but Schmitt said he would like to see the area promoted more. Perhaps benches and signs describing the wildlife and various projects could be put up in the area to make it even more visited.

Neither Ewing nor Schmitt have noticed any plants dying because of pollution, but they remain skeptical; even though chemical tests show nothing unusual, both said they would not eat the apples that grow in the area.

VanDusen laughed at this idea: she does not think there is any problem. With mostly household garbage in the landfill, she said, the area is really like a large compost site. Though it has been a garbage dump for decades, the UBNA is bursting with growth.

Reach contributing reporter Clara Good at development@thedaily.washington.edu.