Inland salt marsh is a globally imperiled community of limited distribution in the Northeastern United States. Our objective was to restore inland salt marsh to an historical location near Onondaga Lake, NY, which is an area impacted by industrial activities and development. Some of these marshes were destroyed during the construction of the Solvay waste beds (SWB), a 600 hectare complex of saline landfills, comprising 30% of the Onondaga Lake shoreline. Saline conditions have returned to this site: leachate seeps ring the lower slopes of the SWB with associated soils attaining chloride concentrations up to 115 Cmol_c Cl kg^-1. Restoring this community type in leachate-affected areas will provide remediation benefits by reducing leachate volumes through transpiration. Over the past two years we have investigated edaphic, hydrologic and ecological effects on plant persistence and productivity at the SWB. Across a soil Cl gradient we planted 3037, 5 cm (dia.) plugs of 11 species in mixed and monoculture communities. Within this experimental framework, we were able to develop species-specific Cl response curves and investigate plant compatibility along a Cl gradient. Plant compatibility was assessed by measuring plant persistence, community relative yield totals, and community level transpiration with respect to the traits of the test species. We planted 1602, 5 cm (dia.) plugs of eight species across constructed elevational gradients, which resulted in mean growing season water depths ranging from 100 cm above the soil surface to 40 cm below the soil surface. Preliminary results suggest that plant establishment was most probable at soil chloride concentrations between 6.5 and 16 Cmol_c Cl kg^-1 and growing season water depths between 20 cm above and 40 cm below the soil surface. Plant trait compatibility analyses will be performed following biomass harvests in August 2007, however initial analyses based on non-destructive methods detect significant species interactions.