The Solvay Settling Basins, the scene of years of industrial pollution on the shores of Syracuse’s Onondaga Lake, is the setting for a novel approach to restoring brownfield sites for beneficial use. Instead of capping them with clay and plastic, fencing them, and posting “Keep Out” signs, a partnership of engineers, scientists and new corporate owners has taken a different tack on a portion of the site: Restore the ecosystem. Remediate the environmental concerns. Grow and harvest something useful.
Then invite people in.
Read the story. Dr. Douglas J. Daley, who teaches environmental resource engineering at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse leads a portion of the work.
“Humans have developed the area for their benefit but, unfortunately, destroyed a relatively unique environment: an inland salt marsh,” Daley said. “We’re trying to reclaim some of that lost ecological history on an otherwise unusable site, while providing a benefit, both now and in the future.”
“A conventional approach, by itself, won’t solve the long-term problem, so we’re taking a systems approach to it,” he said. “It’s a unique solution to a unique problem.”
Too often, solving problems “by the book” doesn’t help anyone. A multi-discipline solution to a human-caused disaster.
Too often, solving problems “by the book” doesn’t help anyone. A multi-discipline solution to a human-caused disaster.
Sometimes the book needs a new chapter to reflect new thinking.
As an aside, it will only be by trying that we will ever learn if it can be done or not.
Good post Ed.
Brownfield… is that where the shit is buried & then seeps up through the subsoil?
of it is a “vs Board of Education” gathering place?
I bet ya 10 dollars the same people bitching about restoring these lands won’t eat anything harvested in these fields.
So==what is the pollution that needs to be remediated? Article says calcium chloride. Is that a natural precipitate or an industrial waste???
Seems like if they have dry land there, and it used to be a marsh, my multii-disciplinary not by the book solution would be to flood the area with water? ==If the CaCl wont get diluted, then flood it and then pump it to the nearest river in small amounts not to disrupt anything. Simple.
BTW–I won’t eat anything grown or raised on polluted land either, but I’m all for making land productive for the other critters.
Wait — the *right* thing, being done in Syracuse? By a SUNY college? By gadfree there’s hope for NY yet!
Calcium chloride is an industrial waste product that was dump in and around the lake and waterways. I did my research paper on this about 4 years ago when they were just starting. Even though it is natural it was dumped in such high volumes that is a hazard. Also a brownfield site program was developed to help clean up contaminated site that have been abandoned.