Cherokee Investment Partners, a Raleigh company that specializes in cleaning contaminated land before flipping it to developers, said it regrets ever getting involved in a delayed New Jersey landfill redevelopment. Cherokee's CEO also said there's a chance the project won't be profitable to its investors if additional funds aren't obtained.

"It's very painful watching something like that unfold," Thomas F. Darden, Cherokee's chief executive, said in an interview Tuesday. "It's been an extremely expensive education. Clearly we would not do it again."

Darden's comments come days after New Jersey's inspector general released a report that painstakingly chronicled mismanagement and misrepresentations made by EnCap Golf Holdings, which since 1999 has spent at least $314 million in private and public funds to clean up 785 contaminated acres in the Meadowlands just outside New York City.

Cherokee, which says it has invested $67 million, is EnCap's majority investor. In 2000, it jumped to invest in East Rutherford, N.J.-based EnCap's high-profile plans to bring a golf course, offices, hotel rooms and homes to the land.

The state's report, released Feb. 28, says EnCap overstated its experience and financial backing to win the bid. It describes EnCap as a company with limited remediation experience that hired unproven contractors, a company that got in over its head and at least $70 million over budget.

The report says EnCap was less than transparent about its financing when it sought funds to finish the job from the state and several municipalities. But it also said state and town governments could have been more organized in their dealings with EnCap.

"The project is a study in what can go wrong when a public body with high-minded public policy goals, and compelled by its status to engage in fair dealing, joins forces with a private entity whose primary goal is to maximize its profit, and operates in a buyer-beware atmosphere," New Jersey Inspector General Mary Jane Cooper said in a statement.

The report came at the request of New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who wanted a detailed accounting of the project's financing to determine whether EnCap endangered the financial health of towns from which it sought financing for cleaning up the land, which had been an illegal and legal dumping site since the end of 19th century.

The inspector general's findings have been sent to the state's attorney general for review.

In the 277-page report, Cherokee is described as a background investor in the early stages of the work. But in late 2006, when an apartment developer walked away from a contract to buy cleaned-up land from EnCap, Cherokee stepped in. "This thing just ran aground," Darden said.

Cherokee replaced EnCap's management team early last year, before eventually handing over management of the project to New York real estate tycoon Donald J. Trump in November.

Darden said Tuesday that he wished Cherokee had taken a more active oversight role earlier in the process and that his investors are "as depressed as any investor in a tough situation.

"Clearly they're not happy about it," he said. "We're working mightily to try to continue the project."

About half the remediation work is finished. EnCap has completed four miles of barrier walls preventing landfills from leaking into adjacent waterways, installed dozens of gas-collection wells to prevent the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and constructed collection and treatment systems designed to keep 3 billion gallons of waste from entering the Hackensack River. Meanwhile, state environmental regulators said some of the land is clean and ready for development. "It's hugely better than it was," Darden said.

But to finish the rest -- and to turn a profit -- Cherokee must obtain about $100 million in new financing. That could prove tricky as commercial lenders tighten standards. But Darden said he is confident the funds eventually will come through. If that happens soon, the clean-up, which is about 18 months behind schedule, would wrap up by early 2011.

"A lot of investors would have walked away from this," said David O'Neill, a Cherokee vice president. "We did not."

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.