Shelby Township’s Holland Ponds Park is an environmental success story with chapters of local history.

Today, the park boasts one of the largest great blue heron nesting sites in southeast Michigan. It also welcomes white egrets, green herons, and various turtle species in the park’s succession of ponds and many more native plant and animal populations. It was not always a site that celebrated the great outdoors, though.

According to a September 2011 report from the Environmental Protection Agency, Holland Ponds was part of the G&H Landfill Site that comprised roughly 60 acres of a former landfill, 30 acres of neighboring wetlands and “other impacted areas” south of 23 Mile Road and east of Ryan Road.

The report states, "from 1955 to 1973, G&H Industrial Landfill Inc., accepted industrial waste oil and solvents, and municipal waste for disposal. State authorities noted groundwater contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) seeping out of the landfill in areas south of the site and prohibited further disposal of industrial solvents in the mid-1960s."

The site was referred to the EPA in 1982 and placed on the National Priorities List in December 1982.

In cooperation with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the EPA remediated the site with numerous endeavors, such as the installation of various barriers to contain polluted soil and groundwater, removal of contaminated soil, installation of a groundwater extraction and treatment system, restoration of impacted wetlands and establishment of new wetlands, and restrictions on the development of the landfill and groundwater use in off-site areas.

In 1999, crews finished the remediation, and the EPA declared the site free of contaminants in 2001.

Officials transferred the property to Shelby Township from the state in July 2001. Holland Ponds was formally dedicated as a park on Nov. 4, 2001, and named in honor of former assessor Don Holland.

Along with the environmental remediation and the thriving local wildlife, Holland Ponds features local history with one of the most extensive remaining sections of the historical Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal.

Holland Ponds also claims some of the township's privately-owned park history. Roughly 72 acres of the 224-acre park was the former Swiss Valley Park from 1921 to 1974 and 35-acres of the former Green Glen Park, which operated 1924-1974.

Swiss Valley was on the north side of the Clinton River, and Green Glen was on the south side. It's estimated that the combined two parks at times drew as many as 12,000 to 15,000 people per day.

The MDNR acquired the two parks and closed them because of the contamination leakage from the G&H Industrial Landfill Inc. site. The MDNR tore down all the existing buildings on the property at that time.

Following environmental remediation, the old Clinton River park property returned to Shelby Township for all to appreciate, and the land is preserved for future generations to enjoy.