Water quality monitoring
|
|
WEP staff technician samples water from a tributary to Onondaga Lake
|
The goal:
a restored Onondaga Lake with water quality that
supports recreation and nourishes the ecosystem.
State and federal water quality standards are designed
to protect these uses of the Onondaga Lake water
resource-a resource that has been harshly abused in
the past.
In addition to long-term industrial pollution and vast
volumes of over-land runoff that continue to this day,
another source of pollution is the treated wastewater
discharged from the Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro). Because WEP is
responsible for Metro, its water-quality monitoring
program was devised to assay the effectiveness of the
$380 million program of improvements to the collection
and treatment of sewage in the Syracuse urban area.
Some of these improvements are already in place and
some benefits of improved water quality are already
evident.
 See the scope of the improvements completed.
Onondaga County measures many characteristics of Onondaga Lake and
the adjacent streams to assess water quality
conditions. The information helps to determine whether
the lake is safe for water contact recreation and
whether conditions are adequate to protect the health
of the lake's community of plants and animals.
WEP personnel take samples year round, typically every
week. The sewer system still has locations where
raw sewage can overflow into area streams when it
rains and the sewer pipes reach their capacity.
Therefore, intense sampling is conducted during some
storms. (As WEP's improvement program continues, these
overflow problems are diminishing.)
This monitoring program will continue through this
decade. Onondaga Lake's water quality is improving,
and the monitoring program will continue to provide
the facts needed to evaluate the effectiveness of
enhancements in the collection and treatment systems.
The sewage treated by Metro comes from residences,
stores, industries, and storm sewers. Improvements in
the treatment plant's processes are aimed at
controlling nutrients.
Nutrients such as phosphorus and ammonia promote algae
blooms in the water of Onondaga Lake. The algae blooms
lead to drastic reductions in oxygen in the lake's
waters, a condition detrimental to fish. Therefore,
the AMP concentrates on:
-
Phosphorus, a nutrient that fosters the undesirable growth of algae in Onondaga Lake
-
Nitrogen from ammonia that can be toxic to plants
-
Dissolved oxygen, an absolute necessity to support healthy life in the lake.
Since its beginning, the AMP has issued reams of data
about the lake. This information is available to the
public.
Archive of data
For additional water quality information, please contact Jeanne Powers, 315-435-2260.
| 
Onondaga County Dept of Water Environment Protection