Fox Point State Park
| Fox Point State Park | |
| Delaware State Park | |
 A view of the Delaware River from Fox Point State Park.
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| Named for: S. Marston Fox | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Delaware |
| County | New Castle |
| Coordinates | 39°45′22″N 75°29′23″W / 39.75611°N 75.48972°WCoordinates: 39°45′22″N 75°29′23″W / 39.75611°N 75.48972°W |
| Area | 108 acres (44 ha) |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Management | Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control |
 Location of Fox Point State Park in Delaware
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| Website: Fox Point State Park | |
Fox Point State Park is a Delaware state park on 108 acres (44 ha) along the Delaware River in New Castle County, Delaware in the United States. The park, which opened in 1995, has been built atop a former hazardous waste site that has been rehabilitated under an adaptive reuse program that was spearheaded by S. Marston Fox and the Fox Point Civic Association. Fox Point State Park is open for year-round use from 8:00 am until sunset. The park offers recreational opportunities on biking and pedestrian trails with picnic facilities, a playground and volleyball and horseshoes facilities. Fox Point State Park is just off Interstate 495 and is the northern terminus of Delaware's Coastal Heritage Greenway.
The creation of Fox Point State Park is largely the result of one man's dream. S. Marston Fox spent the last twenty-five years of his life working to transform a stretch of land along the Delaware River in northern Wilmington. The land on which Fox Point State Park sits was created by land fill by the Pennsylvania Railroad along its right of way on the bank of the Delaware River. The railroad was seeking to create additional industrial land for potential customers. Mr. Fox began his efforts to stop the filling process in 1958, and sought to have the land turned over to the people as public use land. The four mile (6.4 km) stretch of shoreline was not turned over to New Castle County until the late 1970s. Mr. Fox died in 1982, after which his crusade was taken up by David Ennis and Eugene Snell of the Fox Point Civic Association. The state of Delaware acquired the land in 1990 and began the process of remediating the hazardous waste site.
The soil at Fox Point State Park had been contaminated by industrial waste and sewage sludge. Environmental specialists were called in to construct the park in such a way that the health of employees and visitors would not be threatened. Funds provided by the State of Delaware's Hazardous Substance Cleanup Act were designated to use a commonly employed strategy to contain waste a landfills: a cap system. The cap system plan called for an impermeable layer of plastic to cover the 15 acres (6.1 ha) of contaminated land. Layers of clean fill, sand, gravel and topsoil were placed atop and underneath the protective plastic.
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