{"id":11842,"date":"2019-07-27T06:01:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-27T06:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:#clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/?p=11842"},"modified":"2022-11-11T21:23:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T02:23:38","slug":"would_you_swim_in_onondaga_lake_1842","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/articles\/would_you_swim_in_onondaga_lake_1842\/","title":{"rendered":"WOULD YOU SWIM IN ONONDAGA LAKE?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Graphic: Elaine Denton<\/font><\/div>\n

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On June 26, the Onondaga County Office of the Environment held the second of three meetings to report progress of a feasibility study on a swimming beach on Onondaga Lake. Held at the Lakeview Amphitheater, an inconvenient and inaccessible location (it is not near the center of any community area and there is no public transportation outside of entertainment events), the meeting was sparsely attended by less than 30 people. The $330,000 feasibility study, funded by a grant from New York State\u2019s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, will produce conclusions about the desirability of a beach as well as suggest a site, a shovel-ready design, and draft construction contracts. At the June meeting, the county government announced Willow Bay (near the outlet to the Seneca River at the northern end of the lake) as the recommended site. Contractors also presented the results of an unscientific, non-random, and leading online survey from January, which they claimed represented the \u201clikelihood\u201d of the proposed beach\u2019s public use.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The county government does not seem to be interested in gathering or considering information which demonstrates that the promotion of widespread use of the lake endangers public health. Government officials are, in fact, encouraging a swimming beach on the edge of a closed industrial landfill. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The fact that the lake is a closed industrial landfill may be surprising, since there have been years of public discussion led by county government, the State, and Honeywell of a lake \u201cclean-up\u201d under the Superfund program. However, the goal of the plan that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) supervised was toxic containment, not a clean-up. This is true not only for the lake bottom, but for the several sites around the lake that still contain toxic chemicals. Dredging some two million cubic yards of contaminated sediment sounds impressive, until you learn that 80-90% of the contamination is left in place. Toxic levels of mercury, chlorinated benzenes, benzene, toluene, coal tar, chlorinated dioxins, PCBs, and many other hazardous chemicals remain in and around Onondaga Lake. This makes the idea of creating a swimming beach on the shore of such a polluted lake reckless. Building a beach, and thus inviting people to wade into and swim in the lake is a threat to public health.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The main objective of the dredging was not to eliminate pollution in the lake. Instead, its goal was to make room for a cover, or cap, over some of the most contaminated areas. This cover encompasses about 1\/7 of the lakebed and consists of several inches to 4.25 feet of sand, gravel, and soil. While it was designed to last a thousand years, it has failed at least three times already between 2012 and 2014, releasing mercury into the water.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Two of the four samples taken on the northern shore of the lake in 1992 had levels of chromium, cadmium and mercury that exceeded the criteria set by the DEC for evaluating lake and wetland contamination. Additional sampling in the northeastern part of the lake has been inadequate for the purposes of assessing any contamination present, and was not done with regard to human recreation. The Onondaga Lake Monitoring and Maintenance Plan, under which Honeywell is required to monitor the status of the lake and the remediation measures, does not include any further sediment sampling in the Willow Bay area. Without such sampling, it is impossible to determine what chemicals would be churned up by people walking and playing on the lake bottom. Members of the public would have no way of knowing what health risks they would be taking by using the beach.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n