Onondaga Lake is located in Central New York, immediately northwest of and adjacent to Syracuse, New York. The southeastern end of the lake and the southwestern shore are industrial areas and expressways; the northeastern shore and northwestern end border a series of parks and museums.
Onondaga Lake is a dimictic lake, meaning that the lake water completely mixes from top to bottom twice a year. The lake is long and wide making a surface area of . The maximum depth of the lake is with an average depth of . Its drainage basin has a surface area of , encompassing Syracuse, Onondaga County except the eastern and northern edges, the southeastern corner of Cayuga County and the Onondaga Nation Territory, and supports approximately 450,000 people.()
Onondaga Lake has two natural tributaries that contribute approximately 70% of the total water flow to the lake. These tributaries are Ninemile Creek and Onondaga Creek. The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (METRO) contributes 20% of the annual flow. No other lake in the United States receives as much of its inflow as treated wastewater. The other tributaries, which include Ley Creek, Seneca River, Harbor Brook, Sawmill Creek, Tributary 5A, and East Flume, contribute the remaining 10% of water flow into the lake. The tributaries flush the lake out about four times a year. Onondaga Lake is flushed much more rapidly than most other lakes. The lake flows to the northwest and discharges into the Seneca River which combines with the Oneida River to form the Oswego River, and ultimately ends up in Lake Ontario.
The lake is sacred to the Onondaga people. The Onondaga had control of the lake taken from them by New York State following the American Revolutionary War. During the late 19th century, European-Americans built many resorts along the lake's shoreline, as it was a destination of great beauty. The Onondaga Nation continues to have a religious and cultural presence on the shores of the lake, today.
With the industrialization of the region, much of the lake's shoreline was developed; domestic and industrial waste, due to industry and urbanization, led to the severe degradation of the lake. Unsafe levels of pollution led to the banning of ice harvesting as early as 1901. In 1940, swimming was banned, and in 1970 fishing was banned due to mercury contamination. Mercury pollution is still a problem for the lake today. Despite the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1973 and the closing of the major industrial polluter in 1986, Onondaga Lake remained one of the most polluted lakes in the United States until several initiatives, including a 15-year multi-stage program completed in late 2017, allowed the lake to reach criteria required by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This includes implementing a long-term operation, maintenance, and monitoring program to ensure the effectiveness of the remedy.
The lake is included in an ongoing land rights action filed by the Onondaga Nation, which seeks the return of its ancestral homelands to promote environmental protection in conjunction with affirming Haudenosaunee sovereignty: "Onondaga Lake is the birthplace of Haudenosaunee democracy. Subsequently and consequently, the lake is the founding site of democracy for the U.S. people and, as such, should be protected as a national treasure instead of the chemical cesspool it has become."
History
Haudenosaunee history and land tenure Onondaga Lake is the birthplace of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a Confederacy of Indigenous Nations made up of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca, and after 1772, the Tuscarora. The names of the Nations are directly connected to their ancestral homelands in current northwest New York State. Mohawk translates to people of the flint, Onondaga to people of the hills, Oneida to people of the standing stone, Cayuga to people of the marshy area, and Seneca to people of the great hills. According to Grand River Mohawk scholar Susan M. Hill, "Among the Haudenosaunee, the names that the nations call themselves (and each other) denote key geographical features of their home territories… The recognition of geographic identity demonstrates the relationship to the land the people came from, the land they belonged to."
According to Joyce Tekahnawiiaks King, a Mohawk Turtle Clan member who served as a political administrator, Federal Justice of the Peace, director of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, and advisor to the New York State Department of Conservation Environmental Justice Committee throughout her career, the Haudenosaunee have responsibilities to the land and water they came from: "We speak in terms of responsibilities with respect to water, not in terms of water rights… From time immemorial, we have held the view that the 'law of the land' is not man-made law, but a greater natural law, the Great Law of Peace. This law, in our view, is divine. The Haudenosaunee have a deep respect for the waters of the Earth." For the Haudenosaunee, law is made in cooperation with land and water.
Onondaga Lake is central to The Great Law of Peace, or Kayaneren’kowa. According to Haudenosaunee histories, the five Nations had fallen away from the Original Instructions of Skyholder, or the Creator, who mandated that humans cultivate the land and live alongside "all things that grow" and game animals. Included in the Original Instructions was the Thanksgiving Address, or Ohenton Kariwatehkwen.
Water, including Onondaga Lake, is central to the Thanksgiving Address: "We give thanks to all the Waters of the world. We are grateful that the waters are still here and doing their duty of sustaining life on Mother Earth. Water is life, quenching our thirst and providing us with strength, making the plants grow and sustaining us all. Let us gather our minds together and with one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Waters."
The Nations, who had "lost sight of the harmony and balance provided for in the Original Instructions" split into warring factions. The Peacemaker brought the Nations together on the shores of Onondaga Lake, where he united them under the Great Law of Peace and formed the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
The Haudenosaunee, or people of the longhouse, was founded as a conscious league based on principles of mutual respect and peaceful communication. The Onondaga Nation website describes this event as the formation of "the first representative democracy in the West."
The event was recorded with the creation of the Hiawatha Belt, a wampum whose design would later be used as the Flag of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This belt conveys the guiding principles of the Haudenosaunee, the story of the Great Peacemaker, and the founding of the league at Onondaga Lake.
Onondaga Lake remains a sacred site for the Haudenosaunee, which King directly connects to Haudenosaunee environmental protection and sovereignty: "The value of water and the meaning of water law for the Native American called the Haudenosaunee cannot be separated from a yet-more foundational discussion on Haudenosaunee sovereignty and the right to protect land and Creation must be understood… Views on sovereignty are dependent upon the level of regard one has for the land itself (water, of course, included)."
Early European settlement
Europeans began to learn about salt springs in the area in 1654, when the Onondagas revealed their presence to French explorers. Jesuit missionaries visiting the Syracuse region in the same time period were the first to report on salty brine springs around the southern end of what they called "Salt Lake", known today as Onondaga Lake. The brine springs were reported to have extended around much of the lake for a distance of nearly 9 miles. They extended from the present-day towns of Salina through Geddes and from Liverpool to near the mouth of Ninemile Creek. European settlers, mostly trappers and traders, followed the Jesuit missionaries and French explorers into the Syracuse area during the 17th and 18th centuries. After the French and Indian War, British traders replaced the French, but encounters were limited.
British-American colonists began salt production in the area in the late 18th century. Following the victory of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, it made the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1788 with supposed Haudenosaunee negotiators who were unauthorized by the Nations.
Among its provisions was the transfer of the lands around the lake from the Onondaga Nation to local salt producers on the condition that the salt would be produced for the common use of everyone. By 1822, due to a high incidence of malaria, the lake's water level was lowered after its outlet to the Seneca River was dredged. The low-lying swampy area, located in what is now the northern end of downtown Syracuse, was drained. The completion of the Erie Canal through New York State in the mid-1820s and the commercial production of salt brought an increase in settlement of the area. The lake's western shore became increasingly industrialized as the nineteenth century progressed.
Onondaga Lake also became a popular resort area. By the late 19th century, its shoreline was dotted with hotels, restaurants, and amusement parks. The area was so popular that people traveled by railroad from as far as New York City to visit the lake. Fish from the lake were harvested and served in restaurants across the state.
Industry
Salt brine and limestone were the key raw materials for the production of soda ash, used to make the industrial products of glass, chemicals, detergent, and paper. The abundance of salt brine and limestone in Onondaga Lake's watershed area attributed greatly for the industrialization along the lake's shoreline. Beginning in 1838, New York State authorized the drilling of deep wells at several locations around the lake. The wells were intended to locate the source of the brine, but no source was located.
The Solvay Process Company, incorporated in 1881, began drilling deep test holes in the area south of Syracuse in 1883. The company's main product was soda ash, integral to several industries. Eventually Solvay found halite deposits at a depth of below land surface in the southern end of Tully Valley. From 1890 to 1986, more than 120 wells were drilled into four halite beds on the east and west flanks of the valley. Soda ash production began in 1884. The company was producing about 20 tons of soda ash per day, dumping most of its waste material directly into Onondaga Lake. Eventually wastebeds were built along the southwest perimeter of the lake to contain the by-products of soda ash production. In 1907, the New York State Attorney General threatened the Solvay Process Company with legal action over the direct discharge of Solvay waste material into the lake.
As Syracuse's population began to grow in the 20th century, a surplus of pollution hit the lake hard. This lake was so close to the city that the effects of people's sewage, exhaust fumes, and dumping of unnecessary products all caused the lake to decline in popularity, fishing, and even swimming.New York. Department of Environmental Conservation .New York State DEC. New York, New York:, 2014. Print. <http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8668.html >.