They miked up the podium, set up some folding chairs and faced the cameras on the edge of what was once labeled the most pollute lake in America. State officials, Honeywell corporate execs and some politicans had come to announce the next big phase of the lengthy Onondaga Lake clean up. By late summer deep dredging will begin to pull much of the toxic sediment from the bottom of the lake. That will turn into an around the clock process that will continue for four years straight. And even then all that contaminants will not have been removed.
Onondaga Lake sits on the edge of Syracuse. It is the most underutilized body of water attached to a significant city in the nation. 100 years ago even as the industrial pollution had begun it was still a recreational asset. An amusement park on the northwest shore. Restaurants on the west shore. And people would actually enjoy jumping into the water on the eastern shore as it ran along the old Oswego Canal.
As a child growing up in Liverpool I recall enjoying the park, but seeing pieces of broken china littering the shoreline. The summer smell of the lake could be overwhelming. Fishing was not allowed. Although it hosted the biggest party of the year in the annual Regatta.
Great progress has been made in recent years. The water is clear. Fish are abundant. The odor has been reduced. The lake is finding new life as the pollution stopped and it was no longer used as a region's toilet bowl.
The goal tossed about today by the politicians on the shoreline included making the lake swimmable and perhaps drinkable. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan had articulated that goal 30 years before. Swimmable is almost here. It may take another generation or two before anyone is comfortable drinking the water that so long carried a toxic label.
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