Onondaga Lake: Clean Enough? — Transcript

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1. 0:00sitting right outside Syracuse New York
2. 0:02Onondaga Lake is a picturesque area
3. 0:04enjoyed by over a million people
4. 0:06annually for its beauty and Recreation
5. 0:08however you might know it by its
6. 0:10National reputation as the most polluted
7. 0:12lake in the country
8. 0:14the lake sits in the Onondaga nation's
9. 0:16territory they hold a sacred
10. 0:18relationship with the lake and never
11. 0:19make environmental decisions without
12. 0:21thinking Seven Generations ahead despite
13. 0:24this in the late 19th century solve a
14. 0:26process began using salt springs near
15. 0:28the lake to produce soda ash a common
16. 0:30industrial product that produced a large
17. 0:32amount of solid white waste this waste
18. 0:35was dumped straight into the lake or
19. 0:36piled onto the Lake Shores in beds 80
20. 0:38feet high in 1950 saw they merged with
21. 0:42Allied chemical and began dumping about
22. 0:4425 pounds of mercury into the lake each
23. 0:46day these inert industrial wastes
24. 0:48combined to make the carcinogen Benzene
25. 0:51in addition Syracuse's combined storm
26. 0:53and Wastewater system meant every time
27. 0:55it rained raw sewage overflowed into the
28. 0:57lake
29. 0:59anybody that lived in Syracuse at that
30. 1:02time will tell you the late stunk
31. 1:04that when you drove by the lake you had
32. 1:07to roll up the window that's Joe Heath
33. 1:10attorney and longtime general counsel
34. 1:12for the Onondaga Nation he's fought for
35. 1:14decades to clean up the lake by 2006
36. 1:17Allied was renamed Honeywell and the
37. 1:19lake was declared a Superfund Site by
38. 1:21Onondaga County honeywell's planned to
39. 1:24clean the lake included dredging and
40. 1:25capping 579 Acres of lake bed removing
41. 1:29over 2 million yards of toxic waste
42. 1:31implementing a steel barrier wall and a
43. 1:34pumping station on the Lake's western
44. 1:35shore to prevent further waste from
45. 1:37leaching into the lake Honeywell also
46. 1:39planted over 1 million plants
47. 1:41surrounding the lake and restored 90
48. 1:43Acres of wetlands while 65 species of
49. 1:45fish reside in the lake up from 9 to 12
50. 1:48in the 70s and 260 total species Now
51. 1:51call the lake and its Shore's home I
52. 1:52think that the work that all the
53. 1:54scientists on the lake did was
54. 1:56incredible
55. 1:57um
56. 1:59it it's not back to what it used to be
57. 2:01and I don't think it ever will be I
58. 2:03don't know if that's really possible
59. 2:06the cleanup of Onondaga Lake is an
60. 2:08undeniable achievement undergoing a
61. 2:10major ecological transformation in just
62. 2:12two decades however is it good enough
63. 2:15Honeywell removed 2 million cubic yards
64. 2:18of waste but left an additional 18
65. 2:20million yards that sit under Saint
66. 2:21Joseph's Amphitheater and walking trails
67. 2:24that Benzene waste I mentioned earlier
68. 2:26vaporizes through the ground Joe Heath
69. 2:28received a call from an Onondaga Union
70. 2:30laborer suffering from Benzene poisoning
71. 2:32after working on the waste beds losing
72. 2:35fingers losing circulation
73. 2:38a lot of really
74. 2:41we're killing eventually
75. 2:43the cap on the lake bed won't last
76. 2:45forever neither will the barrier wall
77. 2:47installed and pollution will continue to
78. 2:49leach into the lake despite Mercury
79. 2:51poisoned fish swimming in the water many
80. 2:53Syracuse residents eat the fish on a
81. 2:55regular basis while a sign exists that
82. 2:58clearly warns people not to eat the fish
83. 2:59the county chooses to use a Happy Fish
84. 3:02sign that doesn't explicitly say not to
85. 3:04eat the fish this isn't just honeywell's
86. 3:06mess either while they're by far the
87. 3:08worst polluters the lake is the site of
88. 3:10eight Superfund sites clearly there's
89. 3:13still a problem at Lake Onondaga but how
90. 3:15do we solve it honeywell's cleanup is
91. 3:17officially over and the county thinks
92. 3:19it's clean enough to the point that a
93. 3:20beach was proposed despite sewage
94. 3:22continuing to overflow into the lake but
95. 3:25cleaning the remaining waste would cost
96. 3:26Untold billions
97. 3:28the Criterion is what was the land and
98. 3:30water like before you polluted it and
99. 3:33how did we get back to that
100. 3:35and that's
101. 3:37um
102. 3:38that's the only acceptable standard
103. 3:41overall the cleanup done on the lake is
104. 3:43impressive it's a gorgeous place and
105. 3:45it's unrealistic to try and clean up all
106. 3:47the remaining waste however the measures
107. 3:50in place to prevent further pollution
108. 3:51certainly won't last seven generations
109. 3:53the county owes it to the residents of
110. 3:56Syracuse to cleanse Onondaga Lake the
111. 3:58best it can