Plans for Van Buskirk Island County Park grew from community input gathered on November 19, 2009, as Oradell and New Milford residents shared ideas to help reshape the former Hackensack Water Works into a park combining historic preservation, education, and recreation. Once a collection, purification, and delivery site for Hackensack River water, the Water Works transformed a natural resource into clean drinking water for the community and played a pivotal role in the growth of Bergen County. Its scenic landscapes and buildings preserve layers of cultural and industrial history, including intact pumping engines showing a 100-year progression from steam to electrical power, a large-scale Filtration Plant identified as the oldest surviving example of the American method of mechanical filtration, and red brick Romanesque Revival buildings linked to America's industrial heritage. Proposed features for the park include preserved historic buildings with sustainable new uses, heritage education programs, an open section of the pipe system, a restored intake canal, paths through the site of former workers' housing, an outdoor classroom, a sensory garden, a canopy walk, primary and secondary pathways modeled in part on the water system's pipe network, rain gardens to treat storm water runoff, tunnel access to the basin, a playground, a bird blind for observing species such as the black crowned Night Heron, and a canoe launch connecting to the Hackensack River Trail and nearby park and conservation areas.