By Casey Jordan
Onondaga County Legislator
As we begin a new decade, we are starting a new chapter in Onondaga County history. For decades, Onondaga Lake has been a major focus of spending in our county. Neglect in the mid-1900s and an aged sewer infrastructure prone to overflows caused Onondaga County to find itself embroiled in a legal battle at the end of the 1980s with the Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF). This served as a wake-up call, leading to the county entering into an agreement with the ASLF to remediate contamination in Onondaga Lake and mitigate further pollution in the years to come.
In the 30 years since the original consent judgment, Onondaga County has invested $660 million into over 200 green and gray infrastructure projects and has adjusted with changes in standards over the lifetime of the agreement. Having substantially met all requirements imposed upon us by the Amended Consent Judgment (ACJ) long before their deadlines, we as a county are now able to transition out from under the ACJ and into a new form of partnership with the ASLF to maintain and support a long-term control plan.
The impact of the Amended Consent Judgment has been strenuous and costly, but through diverse and far-reaching efforts, most of the damage to Onondaga Lake has been remedied and steps have been taken to avoid future harmful events.
Gray infrastructure projects, such as the Clinton and Harbor Brook treatment and storage facilities, work to efficiently clean and temporarily store waste water. Others efforts utilize innovations in green infrastructure, enhancing and mimicking the natural processes of infiltration, evaporative transportation, and capture and reuse. The War Memorial Cistern system is one such green infrastructure project that captures runoff from the roof of the War Memorial and treats it to be used as ice for the Syracuse Crunch hockey rink during hockey season. The Carrier Dome also utilizes a capture system, catching runoff from its roof and utilizing it for the toilets in its bathrooms.
The Atlantic States Legal Foundation and Onondaga County are moving from perceived adversaries to confirmed partners with the shared goal of working together for efficient maintenance and continued improvement of water quality in Onondaga Lake. The County showed over the years that it is committed to investing in projects that have slashed the phosphorous and nitrile-N levels in the lake and contained 97.7% of combined sewer overflow events annually.
We are proud of the work we have done in the past 30 years, and thrilled to alleviate the burden of the ACJ on Onondaga County taxpayers. We are stepping into a new chapter; one where we work alongside community partners for water cleanliness and show our diligence as an example to others around the country. Our predecessors set us up behind the eight ball. We paid the price, put in the work, and have reached a result far better than most thought possible.
