Syracuse sewer overflows lessen

For several days in hot mid-July weather, Onondaga Creek was victim to a sewage pipeline leak, prompting environmental concerns from local residents. The leak occurred right next to the frequently visited Onondaga Creek walk, a few feet away.

Following publicity surrounding the leak, Onondaga County says they are instituting updates to major pipelines, including the Ley Creek pipeline, which leaked the sewage into the creek.

Shannon Harty, the county’s water agency commissioner, said that the force mains in Camillus, Liverpool, and Ley Creek will get reinforced in an effort to stop future leaks. For context, force mains are critical points within the pipeline to transport sewage with pressure.

“What we’re talking about doing is installing a line inside the existing pipe,” Harty said. 

Earlier this year, Harty said her agency tested the pipe lining strategy on the Midline/Colvin sewer line It proved to be a success. 

“When you reuse the carrier pipe rather than digging up and installing a brand new pipe,” she said. “There’s a whole lot less environmental impacts and legal issues.”

In the context of the Ley Creek incident, Harty said it showed the problems in emergency preparedness. The leak was near the publicly accessible Onondaga Creek Walk.

“It certainly did highlight the need to continue advance inspections of large diameter force mains, improve our emergency response, and our contracted services,” Harty said. “So that when we have a failure, we can respond quicker.”

The leak occurred along the Ley Creek force main and leaked sewage intermittently near Onondaga Lake Creek Walk for nearly a week. According to Harty, the leak was minor and did not cause environmental issues. 

Additionally, the agency is in the process of signing leasing agreements with local municipalities as part of their Sewer Consolidation project that began in 2019. However, progress appears to be coming along slowly with only seven out of 19 counties committed to contracts. 

“A lot of them are eager to sign lease agreements,” Hardy said. “We have not offered them those [agreements] yet as these things take time.”

The county has been working with the firm Jacobs, which specializes in green infrastructure for sewer and water projects. In addition to working on the rehabilitation project, Jacobs will also take on sewer separation initiatives in advance of the I-81 viaduct project, said Zachary Monge, a project manager for the firm.

Photo by Ankit Bandyopadhyay

Sewage builds up near the Onondaga Lake Lounge, the outlet where the lake connects with the creek.

“They’re going to connect to our storm sewers, pick up stormwater and take it to their [sewer pipeline], and discharge that into the [Onondaga] lake,” Monge said.
Monge explained that there would be several benefits of these projects, including an increase in recreational activity in Onondaga Creek.

“When there are fewer overflows, less bacteria is entering the creek,” Monge said.

Dr. David Matthews, Director of Research at the Upstate Freshwater Institute, echoed a similar sentiment saying it wouldn’t have caused much damage in that short period. 

“Untreated sewage definitely has high levels of bacteria, but the good news is they don’t live very long in the natural environment,” Dr. Matthews said.

Dr. Matthews said that since the lake already contains a high percentage of treated sewage, algal blooms, which are harmful to wildlife and people in general, wouldn’t occur.

“There are 60 million gallons of treated, sequential phosphorus and nitrogen in the lake anyways,” Dr. Matthews said.

Harty said that after the Ley Creek incident, routine tests were conducted to examine any ecological effects of sewage. 

“We’re doing daily sampling and water quality analysis to monitor the creek,” Harty said. “Monitoring fecal levels and biological activity.”

“The majority of what we’re doing is on the preventative side of things,” she added. “When we know we’ve got a failing section, we do a lot of bypass pumping.”

Monge said that the Save The Rain project, their main initiative, has helped prevent overflows by lessening untreated sewage from entering the creek, including sewer reconfigurations, and installations of green infrastructure like rain gardens and green roofs.

“All of our Save the Rain accomplishments have eliminated 97% of sewer overflows since our baseline year,” Monge said.

“If you reference back to how polluted our lakes and creeks were 30 years or so ago, where it was just nasty stuff, we couldn’t even use the water, and there was a limited fish supply,” Monge added. “That’s how bad it would be if we didn’t abate sewer overflows.”