During its operation, the landfill was a dumping site for toxic chemicals and waste oil, and served as a hazard to nearby John F. Kennedy International Airport by attracting birds.

[7]: 32  Just south of the eastern parcel is Conch Playground, located adjacent to Public School 105 between Beach Channel Drive and Elizabeth Avenue.

[38][41] The park and landfill are served by the Q22 and Q52 SBS bus routes, which operate on Beach Channel Drive at the south end of the Edgmere Houses.

The Q52, which terminates at Beach 54th Street, travels north via Woodhaven and Cross Bay Boulevards through Broad Channel to "mainland" Queens.

[44]: 83, 95−96 In 1916, the New York City Waterfront Company acquired 359 acres (145 ha) of land on the north shore of the Rockaway Peninsula in Arverne and Edgemere, including the area around Little Bay.

[61][74] During a tour of the Edgemere Dump on February 11, 1939, Commissioner Carey claimed that it was "four and a half times more expensive" to dispose of waste through incinerators than to bury it in landfills.

[74] On March 28, 1939, Sanitation Commissioner William F. Carey and Health Commissioner Dr. John L. Rice were indicted on charges of violating the New York City Penal and Sanitary Codes, specifically of "unlawfully dumping raw garbage and maintaining a public nuisance" and of "dumping under or on top of water, or on land, any refuse in which...offensive and unwholesome material is included.

[64][75][76] Carey and Rice, both cabinet members under Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, surrendered to the Long Island City Courthouse and were released without bail.

[89] Following a lawsuit by Gordon, on December 26, 1939 city Commissioner of Docks John McKenzie was ordered by the Manhattan Supreme Court to award a permit to the airport.

[97] In January 1941, Bayside resident Charles G. Meyer proposed converting his farm along Little Neck Bay into a city-operated airfield to train civilian pilots.

[103][104] In October 1941, soldiers from Fort Tilden in the western Rockaways began using the airport for ten days to conduct air raid drills.

[63][65] The new dump, proposed by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, was intended to receive most of the garbage from southern Queens and replace smaller landfills in other areas of the borough.

Crisona criticized Sheridan, Corporation Council Peter Campbell Brown, and Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. for their roles in the purchase.

[136][137] On October 16, 1958, ground was broken on the Edgemere Houses project, with Robert Moses, Borough President James Crisona, and Governor W. Averell Harriman in attendance.

[139]: 8 [140][141] In December 1959, the Board of Estimate allocated $144,650 to add an additional 160,000 cubic yards of sand to the Edgemere Landfill, which would extend the site up to 2,000 feet (610 m) north into Jamaica Bay.

[8]: 37 [16] That year, the Department of Sanitation opened the landfill for public use on a trial basis, accepting large items such as appliances, furniture, plumbing, and automobiles.

[164] In late 1975, the city began experimenting with methods to discourage birds from feeding off the Edgemere Landfill, in order to prevent them from interfering with planes at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The initiatives were motivated by an incident in November 1975, when an ONA DC-10 aircraft crashed upon takeoff after colliding with seagulls, which were sucked into the right-wing engine destroying it.

[165][166][167][168] Following the crash, on March 8, 1976, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended closing the landfill due to potential dangers for aircraft from the airport.

[166][169][170] On May 18, 1976 the Sanitation Department informed officials from Queens Community Board 14 and the Gateway National Recreation Area that the Edgemere Landfill would remain in operation until 1985.

As opposed to traveling to the Fountain Avenue Landfill in Brooklyn, Parks Department garbage trucks collecting waste from Rockaway Beach would deposit their loads onto a parking lot at Beach 64th Street and Larkin Avenue in Arverne (now part of the Arverne by the Sea development) and wait until Monday to deposit the trash in Edgemere.

FAA Regional Director Murray Smith had previously met with Mayor Ed Koch on October 5 of that year to discuss the correlation of the bird hazard with the presence of the landfills.

In March 1982 Kenneth Mansfield, a plant manager and truck driver for an oil refining and disposal company operating in the metropolitan area, pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy concerning the dumping.

[175][177][178][179][180][181][182] Mansfield and company owner Russell W. Mahler later pleaded guilty in New Jersey District Court for dumping oil and chemical wastes into the Hudson River.

[185][186] Following the discovery, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection began testing the air, soil, and ground water of the local area for runoff from the drums.

[6][194][195] With the eventual closure of Edgemere and Fresh Kills imminent, the city planned to replace the landfills with several "resource recovery facilities" in the future.

In addition, gas recovery plants to extract methane would be created at several inactive landfills including Fresh Kills and Pelham Bay.

[42][195][199][198] That year, the Department of Sanitation's Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling (BWPRR) began a pilot composting program at the Edgemere Landfill, handling 1,000 tons of leaves.

[214] In 2009, Queens Community Board 14 district manager Jonathan Gaska proposed using the Edgemere Landfill as a solar panel field.

The portion of the pathway on the Sommerville Basin in the west natural area would be paved, and extend south to Beach Channel Drive to improve access to the park.