For a Superfund site, Burlington's Barge Canal is teeming with life. On a recent July morning, cattails swayed in the breeze as birds swooped overhead. A frog jumped across a path dotted with yellow flowers, and a woodchuck scurried to its den. A cargo train rumbled by, a reminder of the area's industrial past.

The peaceful scene beside Lake Champlain was proof that, for all the toxic coal tar buried in its depths, the canal lies in one of Burlington's most beautiful natural areas. It's also nearly impossible to visit.

Largely hidden from public view, the canal is on city land that's separated from busy Pine Street by two privately owned parcels. Those lots, at 453 and 501 Pine, are either fenced off or might as well be, given the thick vegetation that covers them. There is one well-worn path, but to take it requires trespassing.

A developer may finally provide public access to the scenic spot. Burlington entrepreneur Jovial King has a contract to buy both Pine Street lots and several smaller slices of land from the current owner. She is seeking city permits to build a Nordic spa at 453 Pine and plans to donate the rest of the land — a combined eight acres — to the city, which would conserve it as open space. The 501 parcel would provide the now-missing link from Pine Street to the canal beyond.

The plan will take time and is far from a done deal, but King, Burlington officials and conservationists are hopeful that someday more people will be able to appreciate what the canal property has to offer.

"It's actually incredibly beautiful in this very wild, untamed way," King said. "We're really excited to honor that history and to create this opportunity for public access."

The land may be beautiful today, but its history isn't so pretty. From 1908 to 1966, the property between Pine Street and the lake was home to Burlington Gas Works, a coal gasification plant that extracted fuel from coal to light the city's streetlamps. Workers dumped oil, cyanide and coal tar — a toxic black goo — into the Barge Canal, a narrow waterway that was once used by ships carrying lumber.

The city discovered the pollution in the 1970s during permitting for the Champlain Parkway, which had to be rerouted. In 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated a 38-acre area around the canal as eligible for cleanup under Superfund, a federal program that cleans up hazardous waste so the land can be reused. The agency later constructed a cap of sand and clay to contain the coal tar and still tests the area regularly to ensure the muck is staying put. Any development there must be done in a way to keep the contaminants from seeping to the surface.

Previous efforts to build on the nearby parcels have failed, but King is undaunted. Their current owner, Stowe developer Rick Davis, has listed the land for $2.5 million, but neither Davis nor King will say what she's agreed to pay.

King wants to build a 30,000-square-foot bathhouse she calls Silt Botanica at 453 Pine. That land also is contaminated and carries development restrictions, though it lies just outside the Superfund boundary.

Inspired by spas popular in Nordic countries, Silt would have hot pools and cold plunges, steam rooms, a greenhouse, and a restaurant serving plant-based dishes. A bowling alley was once part of the plan, but that's been axed. Instead, a second, three-unit commercial building would anchor the lot, which is across from the Dealer.com campus and south of the Maltex Building.

A study is under way at the site to determine what environmental fixes, such as removing the top layers of soil, would be needed to ready it for redevelopment. The state has committed to chip in $6 million toward this work as part of a brownfield cleanup program. A report that includes a full cost estimate is due this fall. Meanwhile, the city's Development Review Board was considering King's plans at a meeting on Tuesday as Seven Days went to press. She hopes to break ground in the spring, with a planned 2025 opening.

King, the founder of herbal tonic brand Urban Moonshine, said she's excited by the prospect of green space in a bustling area of the city. Just north of the land is the Pinery, a new seasonal beer garden that overlooks the Barge Canal. Every Friday in the summer, the South End Get Down takes over the Pinery's parking lot with food trucks and live music. The Burlington Farmers Market is held just up the street on Saturdays.

"Open space in urban areas is really important," King said. "I think that's fundamental to healthy ... and vibrant communities."

Indeed, the city has long envisioned a park along the Barge Canal. A 2016 brownfield plan described creating a "publicly accessible open space destination" with boardwalks and signs that highlight the site's history. The city recommitted to that goal in planBTV, a wide-ranging blueprint for the South End, in 2019.

It could be a long road to make a city park. Samantha Dunn, assistant director of community works for Burlington's Community & Economic Development Office, said the city is assessing the legal and health risks of allowing even passive recreation on the site. The EPA last studied such risks in 1992, and a new report is due later this year, Dunn said.

"[We need to] first understand what's possible, and then we will be seeking funding to do detailed planning and public engagement for what makes sense," she said.

The red tape doesn't end there. To build the Champlain Parkway, the city years ago purchased 11 acres around the canal with federal money that was designated for transportation use. Officials are working with the state and feds to change that requirement. There are also large swaths of wetlands with which to contend.

"It's not an easy site," Dunn acknowledged.

Still, state officials are optimistic that both 453 and 501 Pine can be repurposed without disturbing the contaminated groundwater. Graham Bradley, who oversees both parcels as a hazardous site manager at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said the state, EPA and the "performing defendants" — the parties responsible for maintaining the sand cap — will review King's plans and any future proposals from the city.

"There's going to be a lot of eyes on this in the next month," he said.

Members of the grassroots Friends of the Barge Canal advocacy group are among those watching the process unfold. The activists would prefer that 453 Pine remain undisturbed, but instead of fighting King, they're supporting her plan to conserve 501 Pine.

They're also the primary stewards of the sensitive land. The group has hosted two Green Up Day events there to remove trash from homeless encampments and thin out invasive buckthorn, a woody shrub that crowds out native plants. University of Vermont scientist Jess Rubin, who leads MycoLab, a "sister group" of the Friends, has helped college students map the land with GIS coordinates and is leading a project to catalog the flora and fauna on the site. Her team has found more than 200 species, some endangered and vulnerable.

"Anybody can document what's there and start to fall in love with the land," Rubin said.

Andy Simon and Ruth Perry, who are also members of the Friends, agree. With King and Davis' permission, the South End couple regularly lead walking tours on the property to show off the scenery. Many people have no idea what they're missing, they said.

On a walk through the site earlier this month, Perry paused to listen to the birds. The traffic on Pine Street seemed miles away.

Correction, July 20, 2023: A previous version of this story misidentified the group that is researching the Barge Canal.