2020 Vision: Engaging the public in the future of Onondaga Lake, New York

Onondaga Lake, near Syracuse in upstate New York, has a reputation as the most polluted lake in the United States.  A century of pollution from industry has left the lake’s water and sediments charged with mercury and other toxic materials, and domestic wastes have made it highly eutrophic.  Concerted efforts to address and remediate the lake’s problems began in the 1990s and are currently coordinated by the Onondaga Lake Partnership (OLP), a consortium of local, state and federal agencies.  Remediation efforts, planned and on-going, will cost in the neighborhood of 1 billion dollars.  Under contract to the OLP, our group is engaging the local public in creating a community vision for the future of a restored Onondaga Lake.  Through a series of one-on-one interviews with 17 selected technical stakeholders, 5 focus groups of community organizations, a phone survey of registered voters, and outreach to the public at large, we have assessed the community’s current knowledge about Onondaga Lake and their concerns for its future.  We have found guarded optimism that the lake will be restored and widespread concern that it become a sustainable public resource with its natural qualities in tact, to be used largely for recreation and education.  The community’s perceived impediments to realization of this vision include both cultural issues—political ineffectiveness and public apathy—and technical or scientific issues—that certain aspects of the restoration of the lake and its environs will be technically difficult.