USA: DEC, EPA Officials Visit Onondaga Lake

The head of the state Department of Environmental Conservation will visit Onondaga Lake today to mark the start later this summer of a long-planned dredging project.

According to syracuse.com, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens will be joined by Doug Garbarini, chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program for New York, Mayor Stephanie Miner, Honeywell International Inc. executives and others for the event at the Onondaga Yacht Club in Onondaga Lake Park.

Once the operation starts, three dredges will suck the material from the lake 24 hours a day, except during wintertime, for the next four years.

The polluted muck will be pumped four miles through a double-walled pipe for permanent storage in heavy-duty plastic tubes in a former Allied landfill off Airport Road in Camillus. Water that drains from the tubes will be treated to remove contaminants and then pumped back into the lake.

[mappress]

Dredging Today Staff, May 31, 2012; Image: onlakepartners