With the help of an energy-efficient technology company, Onondaga County’s $1 billion project to restore Onondaga Lake is in full swing and partially ahead of schedule.

The Onondaga Lake Cleanup project has two facets: lake cleanup and storm water management. The lake cleanup portion falls into the hands of Honeywell, a company that invents and manufactures technologies to address world issues, including environmental stability. The project consists of dredging and capping, implanting underground barrier walls to keep contaminated groundwater from entering the lake, restoring surrounding habitats and maintaining wastewater systems, according to the project’s website.

Deputy County Executive Matt Millea said Onondaga County’s portion of the lake cleanup project lies within restoring and maintaining city sewers and drainage systems.

“Our project revolves around the wastewater treatment plant on the shores of Onondaga Lake, as well as the combined sewer overflow issue in the city of Syracuse,” Millea said, adding that the county has done all the planning, designing and implementing of their strategy.

County Legislature Representative Mike Plochocki said roughly $500 million of the $1 billion is coming from the county and being put into managing and treating human-contaminated water and stormwater.

“What we’re doing is the part of keeping wastewater from going into the lake,” Plochocki said. “Whether it be stormwater or human wastewater, we’re cleaning that as much as possible.”

Onondaga County’s part in the lake cleanup is summarized as the Save the Rain project, which Plochocki jokes is “the less sexy part of the cleanup.”

In addition to keeping stormwater out of the lake by increasing green surface area in the city of Syracuse, the county is making sure the water, when it is returned to the lake, is processed to the maximum extent, Plochocki said.

“Most of the money we spend goes into upgrading our wastewater treatment facilities to make sure that what goes into the lake is very clean,” Plochocki said.

Millea added that the project has been in the works for many years, and has now reached its critical execution phase.

“We’re under a federal court order to have our combined sewer overflow situation pretty much remediated by 2018,” Millea said. “We remain on schedule with that and we’re working aggressively to achieve that target.”

The Honeywell portion of the project aims to stop groundwater contamination, dredge and cap Onondaga Lake and restore natural wildlife habitats.

Factory contamination upland from the lake got into the groundwater, came downhill and into the lake, said Victoria Streitfeld, director of communications at Honeywell. Their first step in cleaning the lake was to stop the flow of contaminated groundwater.

“We built a mile-and-a-half long barrier wall along the lakeshore from Exit 7 down to the city and that stopped the contamination that was in the groundwater from getting into the lake,” Streitfeld said.

The next step is dredging, or cleaning up the bottom of the lake. Onondaga Lake dredging is about 60 percent completed, and is expected to be finished ahead of schedule later this year, as long as the weather permits, Streitfeld said.

“It’s the result of the focused execution of a carefully designed project plan,” she said regarding Honeywell’s project being ahead of schedule.

Millea described the cooperation between Onondaga County and Honeywell as smooth and mutually successful.

“We both share the same objective as far as wanting to get the lake as clean as possible,” Millea said. “We’ve had constant communication with them and they’re making tremendous progress. They’ve been great partners to work with.”

Published on April 16, 2014 at 12:57 am