Engineers anticipate that the wastebed surface will sink about 11 feet under the weight of the sediment.
Work is underway at Wastebed 13 in the town of Camillus for the water treatment plant. Stone is being brought to prepare the site for the treatment plant. The plant will process the water in sediment taken from Onondaga Lake.Work is underway to get Wastebed 13 in Camillus ready to receive contaminated sediment from Onondaga Lake, a plan opposed by many people living near the wastebed.
Construction crews started earlier this month at the site, an old AlliedSignal waste dumping area off Airport Road in Camillus several miles from the lake. The sediment, which contains mercury, PCBs and other contaminants, will be piped from the lake to the wastebed and buried there.
The work is part of the overall project to clean up Onondaga Lake. The project has been approved by the EPA and is being supervised by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
EPA project manager Robert Nunes said Wednesday he expects to meet next week with members of the Camillus Community Coalition to talk about the sediment project, including new technologies. Residents at a hearing July 29 asked officials to look into using the chemical oxidation, nanotechnology and other new technologies.
The initial work at Wastebed 13 includes surveying, grading and road upgrades. The location of an on-site water treatment plant will be “pre-loaded” with clean fill to compact the soil and speed-up the settling of the Allied wastes buried there.
Engineers anticipate that the wastebed surface will sink about 11 feet under the weight of the sediment.
The on-site plant will treat water that drains from the sediment, which is about 90 percent water when first removed from the lake.
Pipeline construction will begin in the spring, and the first sediment is to be dredged from the lake in 2012.
Honeywell International, the successor to AlliedSignal, will pay the estimated $451 million cost of the cleanup.
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.