Among the theories to explain the lack of growth are lack of water, presence of toxins.
View full sizeTwo months ago, crews working on Honeywell International’s Onondaga Lake cleanup built a series of low mounds between Interstate 690 and the lake, and covered the mounds with soil and seed. So far nothing has grown on the mounds, not grass, not even weeds.
Camillus, NY -- Two months ago, crews working on Honeywell International’s Onondaga Lake cleanup built a series of low mounds between I-690 and the lake and covered them with soil and seed.
So far, next to nothing has happened.
Honeywell spokeswoman Victoria Streitfeld said grass will grow on the heaps, created mainly from the chalky calcium carbonate industrial waste that AlliedSignal Inc. and its predecessors dumped along the lakeshore for most of the 20th century. “The area is ready and able to grow grass right now, with additional seeding and a regular watering schedule,” she said.
In March, after the mounds were covered with gravel, soil and a seed and fertilizer mixture, she predicted the seeds would sprout into native grasses, flowers and shrubs. When contacted recently, she would not discuss why the seeds never grew.
The seeds were planted by Lawn-Tech of LaFayette. Owner Phil Ciarmella declined to discuss the project, referring all questions to Honeywell.
The owners of two other local companies that hydroseed said seeds need to be watered almost every day if there isn’t enough rain. They theorized the seeds on the mounds didn’t get enough water.
But Tom Gdula, who lives in Camillus’ Golden Meadow housing development, said he believes the calcium carbonate is contaminated. “It would have to be a miracle that those mounds are safe and contain only calcium carbonate,” he said.
Gdula and other Camillus residents are fighting Honeywell’s plan to dredge sediment from the bottom of Onondaga Lake, pump it to Allied’s old Waste Bed 13 off Airport Road and bury it. They said the sediment contains mercury, PCBs and other toxins and poses a threat to human life and the environment.
Honeywell took over AlliedSignal’s cleanup of the property and the lake when the companies merged in 1999. The calcium carbonate used to build the hills along I-690 came from Waste Bed B, one of a series of sites in Syracuse, Geddes and Camillus where waste from the “Solvay Process” of making soda ash was dumped.
The material from Wastebed B was removed to make way for the third portion of an underground wall that Honeywell is installing along the shoreline. The barrier is designed to separate contaminated groundwater on one side from Onondaga Lake water on the other.
Honeywell officials told the state Department of Environmental Conservation in a March 3 memo that it would test the mounds for mercury, metals, semi-volatile and volatile organic compounds and PCBs. The mounds were modeled after the glacier-created hills that dot the Central New York landscape, Honeywell said.
John Stith can be reached at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.