[Read also – Honeywell ceases dredging on sacred Onondaga Lake]
The New York State DEC ordered Honeywell to clean Onondaga Lake. After negotiations between the State and Honeywell Record of Decision (ROD) was finalized. Honeywell’s cleanup will:
- Dredge up to 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments to a depth that will allow for a ‘cap’ to be built without the loss of lake surface area.
- Dredge in the in lake waste deposit to remove areas within ‘hot spots’.
- Install a cap over 579 acres of lake-bottom
- Treatment and/or off-site disposal of contaminated sediments.
- Treat water created by the dredging and sediment handling process to meet NYSDEC discharge limits.
- Extend the lakeshore and install a ‘barrier wall’ – a steel wall keyed into the clay layer beneath the lake – along the southwest corner of the lake; build a pumping system on the shore-side of the wall to retrieve chlorinated benzenes.
- Operation, maintenance and monitoring program once the plan has been implemented.
- Total estimated cost for an unacceptable, inadequate ‘cleanup’ plan: $451,000,000 dollars.
What Honeywell and NYSDEC’s ‘cleanup’ will NOT do:
- This plan will NOT dredge the additional 18 million cubic yards that the NYSDEC found to be contaminated with dangerous, persistent, and mobile chemicals.
- This plan will NOT dredge the entire in lake waste deposit – a toxic waste dump within the lake as a result of decades of Honeywell’s dumping.
- This plan does NOT effectively contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals that will be left in the lake-bottom sediments. Caps are not a reliable form of containment – they will fail, and whether it is in 10 years or 110 years, it is only a matter of time. And when that happens, the chemicals will be re-released into the ecosystem.
- This plan will NOT dredge the entire in lake waste deposit – a toxic waste dump within the lake as a result of decades of Honeywell’s dumping.
- This plan will NOT remove or even cap the entirety of the lake-bottom. Mercury is found throughout lake-bottom sediments and will continue to methylate, becoming even more dangerous to the lake’s inhabitants.
- This plan does NOT set any goals for making the lake ‘swimmable’ or ‘fishable’ – part of the clean water act.
- This plan will NOT remove all of the chlorinated benzenes. Retrieval wells cannot and will not extract all of the carcinogens.
- This plan does NOT provide a permanent or effective remedy for Onondaga Lake. The plan relies on hopes and dreams that the cap will not fail and that pumping.
Because of the complexity and severity of the toxic waste, in 1994 Onondaga Lake was added to the federal Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). The Onondaga Lake Superfund is broken down into 9 separate sub-sites. Each sub-site will undergo its own remediation and have its own plans and actions to guide each cleanup. Honeywell International is responsible for the clean-up of six of the sub-sites, including the Onondaga Lake-bottom. The nine sub-sites include:
- Onondaga Lake-bottom
- Geddes Brook/Ninemile Creek
- LCP Bridge Street
- Semet Residue Ponds (commonly known as the Semet Tar Beds)
- Willis Ave. plant site
- Wastebed B/Harbor Brook
- Town of Salina Landfill
- General Motors, Ley Creek Dredging
- General Motors, IFG Facility
The Onondaga Lake-bottom site is the best known of the nine subsites. There are 48 different contaminants and stressors of concern in the water, sediment, soil, plants, and fish of Onondaga Lake – intentionally dumped or unintended byproducts of Honeywell and their predecessors’ operations. As a result, Onondaga Lake is commonly referred to as the most polluted lake in the country.
In July 2005 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and Honeywell International agreed upon a Record of Decision (ROD) – the official term for a ‘clean-up’ plan – for the lake-bottom subsite. In October 2006, Honeywell and the state signed a Consent Decree – a legal action memorializing and finalizing the plan. Read the official plan at the NYSDEC’s website.
Click to read Contaminates left in Onondaga Lake
Click to read about the companies that contaminated Onondaga Lake