Thanks to Brett for letting me know about efforts in Syracuse, New York to assess and clean up industrial, household + agricultural contamination including mercury, PCBs, raw sewage, ammonia, phosphorous, oil + other chemicals in Onondaga Lake, one of the United States's most polluted waterways.

Onondaga Lake used to be a popular tourist destination, ringed by grand resorts and an amusement park. It was spoiled by decades of industrial + urban pollution which have introduced untreated sewage, reduced levels of oxygen and poisoned aquatic plants + animals.

The situation started to improve in 1994 when the lake became a federal Superfund site (with $380 million allocated to stop municipal sewage from fouling the lake) and a federal court has since ordered that the lake must be cleaned up by Dec. 1, 2012. As part of this clean up, Honeywell International, who merged with AlliedSignal in 1999 and became responsible for pollution that Allied dumped in Onondaga Lake and along its shoreline have said that they will publish specific recommendations on possible cleanup options by May 30...

Earth-Info.Net will endeavour to return to this story once the Honeywell report is made public in order to hear how they intend to minimise the re-release of pollution into the water column (often associated with dredging up sediment) as well as where + how contaminated material will be disposed of safely.