Sandy Molnar
Recently, in a small but important step for Indigenous land back movements across the US, 1000 acres of land has been returned to the stewardship of Onondaga Nation in upstate New York. While these 1000 acres are a relatively minor slice of the nation’s treaty-guaranteed 2.5 million acres that have been forcibly taken since the early 18th century, it marks a major milestone in the Onondaga Lake cleanup.
The pollution of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York is a long and painful story that mirrors many other stories of dispossession and contamination in the United States. The Onondaga, one of the nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, are the original keepers of the territory and have held the lake sacred for over a thousand years. They protect and care for the water, which they hold as a life-sustaining gift. Under their stewardship, the lake ecosystem teemed beside limestone and salt deposits. Alongside the famed whitefish, frogs, turtles, minks, eagles, and hundreds of fish once made their homes in Onondaga Lake.
After federal troops under the orders of George Washington exterminated thousands of Onondaga during the Revolutionary War, reducing populations to just a couple hundred individuals, the Onondaga also lost their promised sovereignty and rights to the land.
In 1884, Solvay Process set up shop for a processing facility, setting their eyes on the salt and limestone-rich environs that can be exploited for mass production of soda ash, a chemical widely used in the manufacturing of glass, detergents, and paper. Wastes from this process were dumped without discretion into the lake. The soluble wastes flowed freely into the lake, and the solid portions floated on top, creating what is known today as the Solvay waste beds, an entirely new ecosystem seeping into and drowning the old one underneath it. As waste beds choked the surface, the growth of rooted aquatic plants suffered. Without plants, the depths of Onondaga Lake grew oxygen-poor, depleting the deep ecosystem and taking with it dozens of animal populations from the locality. In 1960, The Syracuse Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro), also set up shop, letting the sewage from the city run freely into the lake with minimal treatment. Algae thrived in these conditions, fueled by the excess nitrogen and phosphorus. The area began to reek of sewage and dead fish.
Over the years, Solvay Process turned into Allied Chemical and Dye, then eventually just Allied Chemical, and the waste piled up to as much as sixty feet deep in some areas. Asphalt production joined the soda ash manufacturing, and both processes amounted to over two dozen contaminants of concern being released into the lake, including mercury. Across forty years, approximately 75,000 kg of mercury were released. Children were encouraged to spoon up the silver spheres, can them, and sell them back to the company as reclaimed mercury.
In short, Onondaga Lake was transformed into a toxic slew. Swimming, and eventually fishing, was banned. The site was labeled “the most polluted lake in America.” The population of Syracuse saw it as a lost cause and chose to turn a blind eye to the mess, and many didn’t even want to discuss it. While the stench of this crime against the environment was unavoidable, the history was swept under the rug.
Fortunately, there were some who never gave up on the lake and its inhabitants. Onondaga Nation invoked the legal system to reclaim stolen land rights with the express aim of moving restoration of the land forward. One impassioned citizen took to creating a large ‘HELP’ sign just off the highway, impossible to miss when driving past the lake, in an attempt to give the land a voice.
Over time, as environmental departments and organizations developed, Onondaga Lake moved increasingly into the eye of the public as the environmental disaster that it was. Several local, state, and federal organizations made their own proposals for restoration with a range of price tags and outcomes. Honeywell Inc., the successor of Allied Chemical, predictably came forward with its own plan, aiming for minimal cost and minimal outcome. They planned to dredge the most contaminated sediments and enclose them in a sealed landfill within the wastes. However, this plan overlooked that most harmful contaminants are diffused along sediments in the lake bottom and cannot be easily removed.
Nonetheless, the plan was approved and Honeywell began dredging in 2012, covering the waste material with sand and gravel. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the EPA also stepped in to help clear additional contaminants. Among the cleanup efforts were the removal, decontamination, and recycling of mercury processing buildings, construction of barrier walls and groundwater treatment facilities, and treatment of contaminants (on and off-site), among several others.
The Clean Water Act forced Metro to clear floating debris and eliminate harmful bacteria caused by the sewage. In addition, they were mandated to increase treatment to reduce ammonia and phosphorus deposits into the lake, which were then further oxidized and removed via Onondaga County by 2005. These regulations reversed the ecosystem from cyanobacterial dominance, allowing aquatic plants and phytoplankton to flourish, and beginning the gradual return of fish and benthic species. Additionally, long-term monitoring systems were implemented to avoid future contamination.
To many, however, this isn’t enough. Onondaga Nation details what they believe is missing, and what would constitute a thorough cleanup of the sacred lake. There is an additional 18 million cubic yards of contamination that are unaccounted for, and the plan does not include more difficult-to-remove chemicals such as chlorinated benzenes and carcinogens. Furthermore, capping with gravel and sand is not a reliable form of containment, and the sealed chemicals are likely to come free again and recontaminate the lake. Onondaga Nation has put the price of a full-scale thorough cleanup at $2.16 billion, almost five times the cost of the current cleanup plan which stands at $451 million.
Nonetheless, the lake appears much cleaner than it was 25 years ago when restoration began. The lake no longer reeks, and fishing rights have recently been reinstated. The lake cleanup website claims Honeywell has completed implementation of New York State’s cleanup plan - it’s a success, they say.
The restoration of Onondaga Lake stands as a fantastic allegory of restoration projects throughout the world and raises many questions about efforts and approaches.
First, it necessitates bringing to light that all the decisions made about pouring chemical and sewage waste into a lake were not made by faceless corporations. While choices made by executives behind desks to release mercury, carcinogens, and dozens of other harmful chemicals into the sacred lake may seem inane, it raises questions about what we ordain to be acceptable behavior.
It’s not too far off from some of our practices today. Developed countries continue to produce massive amounts of plastic, and over 280 million tons become waste each year. Without the ability to decompose, most plastic just sits in landfills, oftentimes exported to developing countries, and damages soil, poisons groundwater, and chokes marine life. Despite us knowing all the detrimental effects, plastic production is rampantly increasing each year.
Additionally, it raises questions about what we consider to be a restored ecosystem. In many cases, after hundreds of years of change, it may be impossible to return an ecosystem to exactly the way it was before. It can therefore be difficult to parse out when we are ‘done’ with a restoration project. Some models point to restoration being complete when all ecosystem services are once again functional. Many sustainable harvest models, like that of fisheries, state that the maximum yield must maintain enough population to sustain future human generations. Both these definitions only provide descriptions of restoration in terms of how ecosystems can serve us. Is land not worth restoring simply for the organisms that have made it their home for thousands of years? If an incomplete restoration returns all ecosystem services, is it okay to abandon all efforts? It’s important to consider in our restoration efforts going forward whether it is enough to spend our time and resources on restoring the land without it directly benefiting the human population.
The despair and grief many of us feel over the state of our Earth is a start. It means we care, but we cannot stop there. Restoration projects like this one prove that humans can have a positive, productive, and reciprocal relationship with nature. When we repair ecosystems, ecosystems give back to us with life-sustaining air, clean water to swim in, and fish to eat, among thousands of other benefits we don’t even consider.
Citations
The Associated Press (2024, September 30). Onondaga Nation gets 1,000 acres as part of historic lake cleanup settlement. nj. https://www.nj.com/native-american-news/2024/09/onondaga-nation-gets-1000-acres-as-part-of-historic-lake-cleanup-settlement.html?itm_source=parsely-api
Everything you need to know about plastic pollution. UNEP. (2023, April 25). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/everything-you-need-know-about-plastic-pollution
Glaser, D., Moran, E., Rhea, J. R., & Gandino, C. (2022). Onondaga Lake: A Restoration Success Story. Lakeline Magazine.
History. Onondaga Environmental Institute. (2021, March 28). https://www.oei2.org/our-watershed/history/
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). The Sacred and the Superfund. In Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 310–340). essay, Milkweed Editions.
Onondaga Lake Cleanup. Onondaga Lake Cleanup Project. (n.d.). http://www.lakecleanup.com/
Onondaga Nation. (n.d.). Onondaga Nation.
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021, October). Fish and overfishing. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/fish-and-overfishing