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URBAN FORESTRY PROJECT COMPLETE IN OSWEGO COUNTY

10/15/2021
By Haichao Wang

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ASLF is proud to announce that after over 2 years of planning, community engagement, and tree planting, we have successfully completed our latest Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) project funded by the US Forest Service, which saw the planting of over 300 native trees and shrubs in Fulton and Oswego. ASLF was not immune to the consequences of COVID-19. The shutdown posed several roadblocks, forcing us to delay the project by 2 planting seasons. Despite these difficulties, we were able to reach our initial goals and objectives without compromise.

ASLF is a longtime advocate for urban forestry in the Central New York region. Over the years, we built many meaningful partnerships with government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community groups who share an interest in keeping our water and air clean through tree planting. Prior to this newly completed project, ASLF had planted over 1,300 trees in Central New York to manage stormwater runoff, with over 600 of them located in Oswego County. This new project built on what we had already accomplished and continued to target degraded urban sites with large surrounding impervious surfaces and proximity to Lake Ontario’s tributaries. These new trees will not only reduce the amount of contaminated stormwater flowing directly into the waterway, but also help increase urban canopy coverage, restore wildlife habitat, boost biodiversity in the urban ecosystem, improve air quality, build local resilience to climate change, and improve visual quality.

ASLF recognizes the importance of community input and goes to great lengths to ensure that the desire of the local community is the main drive for all of our projects. This GLRI is no difference. We spent the first year of the grant period working closely with municipal agencies, community organizations, and private entities in the County to determine the best available sites for planting. We organized three public meetings to discuss the purpose of the project and hear from local residents. Eventually, six sites in Fulton and one site in Oswego were selected for based on our analysis combined with community input. Among them, two sites are current brownfield reclamation projects: the Oswego Health’s new behavioral health facility on the former Price Chopper site in Oswego, and the redevelopment of the former Nestle parking lot in Fulton. The rest are park lands in Fulton. We used a selection of native trees suitable for the site conditions, with consideration of the community’s preference of tree species and placement. As of May 2021, all planting work has been finished. ASLF is currently working to add the newly planted trees to an interactive map (https://arcg.is/0rKLTm) of our Central New York tree planting projects.

The work is far from finished in Oswego County. The County’s proximity to Lake Ontario and overall low urban canopy coverage make it a crucial location for future planting efforts. With the help and support from City of Fulton and Oswego County Department of Community Development, Tourism, and Planning, ASLF is actively seeking more opportunity for tree planting in Fulton. For GLRI 2021, we have submitted a new proposal to plant 250 street trees in underserved communities in Fulton. Stay tuned for more on ASLF’s continuing work in Oswego County!

ACJ AWAITS CLOSURE. WHAT’S NEXT?

10/15/2021
By Hongbin Gao

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Amended Consent Judgment (ACJ), initially entered in 1998 between Onondaga County, NYS DEC and ASLF, has governed Onondaga County’s water quality improvement obligations for over three decades to tackle the pollution in Onondaga Lake and its tributaries caused by the sewage discharged from the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro) and its Combined Sewer System owned and operated by the Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection (WEP). ACJ represents a pioneer case in the nation, which, in its latest stipulation in 2009, mandates the inclusion of green infrastructure as complementary technologies to the gray infrastructure, such as treatment and storage facilities, to manage Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). This Gray-and-Green approach helped Onondaga County to achieve a systemwide CSO capture of 97.9% on an annual average basis, meeting and exceeding the ACJ requirement of 95% for CSO reduction by December 31, 2018. The capture rate has been recognized by DEC and ASLF as the last ACJ Annual Report was approved by DEC in 2019.

Per Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s CSO Control Policy (1994), following the abatement programs, a CSO Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) should be developed and implemented to make sure the continued compliance with the applicable water quality standards (WQS). However, the water quality monitoring data collected by Onondaga County indicate that even after achieving 97.9% CSO capture, there are still water quality standard violations for bacteria in Onondaga Creek, Harbor Brook and Ley Creek, both before and after CSO occurrence.

The WQS for a waterbody include the designated uses of the water and the associated water quality criteria that protect and support such designated uses. For instance, by the state fresh surface water classification, all three tributaries mentioned above are mostly C water near their mouths to the lake, with some B in Onondaga Creek; the water quality criteria for bacteria for these waters should allow safe use by primary and secondary contact recreational activities, meaning swimming, boating and fishing, etc. But the accessibility, channelization and other sources of pollution from the urban and suburban landscape render such activities simply unrealistic in these waterways even in any foreseeable future. So, are the current water quality standards still applicable?

This question has been recognized and negotiated by the ACJ parties, and was reflected in the latest administrative consent order entered earlier this year between DEC and Onondaga County. The order lays out a 5-year interim post-ACJ framework to guide continued restoration efforts before an LTCP is fully developed and in place. The state order reaffirms that the County’s CSO discharges still cause or contribute to violations of WQS in the receiving tributaries, and requires the County to develop and implement interim CSO corrective measures, including building more green infrastructure projects, till an approved LTCP is ready for implementation. More importantly, the state order allows the County to perform a Use Attainability Analysis (UAA) for Onondaga Creek, Harbor Brook and Ley Creek, starting a procedure to review and potentially revise the WQS for these CSO receiving waterways.

EPA regulations prohibit removing an existing or actual use from the designated uses for a water body, but for a designated use that has not been attained, it may be removed under limited circumstances, and associated WQS consequently changed. A key component of this procedure is a UAA that needs to demonstrate that the current designated use(s) cannot be achieved using the best available technologies and/or in cost-effective and reasonable way without causing substantial environmental damage or widespread social and economic impacts. The review and revision for WQS require active public involvement in the procedure, to engage citizens, municipalities, industries, environmentalists, universities and other entities in collecting and evaluating information for the decision-making process. More information about the procedure can be found in this Water Quality Handbook.

While DEC, ASLF and Onondaga County had agreed to close the ACJ, COVID delayed its closure. Now that the state consent order has been entered and ready for implementation, judicial closure of this landmark case is on the horizon. The CSO program will enter a new era when the County will be developing a final LTCP and conducting a UAA in the next four and half years, while implementing interim CSO measures. ASLF will continue its involvement in the post-ACJ course of action, assisting the County in public engagement process and implementing green infrastructure through our OMG! program. More information about ACJ, UAA, LTCP and the upcoming public engagement process will be available at www.onondagalake.org.

Skunk City Rain Gardens Take Shape

7/16/2019
By Haichao Wang

Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF) is pleased to announce that our rain garden project is under construction. The first four gardens, all located in Syracuse’s Skunk City neighborhood and funded by the Environmental Facilities Corporation’s Green Innovation Grant Program (GIGP), are being built this summer. Once finished, these gardens will capture up to half a million gallons of stormwater runoff annually from nearby hard surfaces, such as driveways, sidewalks, roofs, and roads. The diverted runoff will slowly infiltrate into underlying soils rather than flowing into and potentially overwhelming the combined sewer system.

ASLF adopted a design with 2.5 feet of soil media above 1 foot of drainage stones. The thick soil media layer allows the gardens to handle the higher level of contamination found in the street runoff, and the drainage stone layer provides vast void space to store captured runoff. The end result will be less contaminated stormwater runoff and reduced discharge of untreated sewage into area streams.

These projects will produce other community benefits as well. Each garden is planted with native species, creating habitat for insect polinators, birds and other urban wildlife. Plants were chosen to ensure a vibrant and long-lived display with bloom times scattered from spring through fall and varicolored, textured leaves and branching structure adding all season interests. ASLF is also experimenting with different design forms. Two of our gardens feature rectilinear borders lined with concrete bricks and a more industrial flavor, while the other two are designed with gentler and more organic curves. ASLF will observe whether the design language affects public reaction to green infrastructure, vandalism rates, and project longevity.

This project, which is part of our CEDARS (Creating Ecologically Dynamic And Resilient Spaces) program, was only possible with the help and collaboration of many other organizations, including the Environmental Facilities Corporation, the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, the Syracuse Land Bank, Syracuse University, SUNY-ESF, Syracuse United Neighbors, and Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today. ASLF invites anyone who is interested in rain gardens, green infrastructure, urban green spaces, native plantings – or just beautiful gardens – to visit these sites for themselves. Our first four rain gardens, which will be completed by the end of August 2019, are located at 124 Hoefler Street, 125 Hoefler Street, 305 Herriman Street, and 322 Cadwell Street in Syracuse. Don’t forget to check out the interpretive signage that will be installed at Herriman Street site for more project-specific information! If you have additional questions or want more information about the project, you can also contact us at atlantic.states@aslf.org.

Community-Driven Restoration of the Wolcott Creek Watershed

6/10/2019
By Paul Harris

While much of our work at Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF) focuses on Syracuse, NY, we have been expanding our efforts to protect water resources on a regional scale in both urban and rural areas. As part of this plan we have been reaching out to various communities in Central and Western New York. Some of these communities are located in areas identified as high-priority for water resource protection by the Great Lakes Action Agenda (GLAA), and include the Wolcott and Sterling Creek watersheds.

With this identified community priority in mind, we pursued and received funding from the New York Sea Grant program to conduct a community-driven restoration planning process in the Wolcott Creek watershed. Since project initiation in January of this year we have been hard at work on the first phase of our Community Driven Restoration of the Wolcott Creek Watershed project.

Community participation is a cornerstone of this project. ASLF – in partnership with the Village of Wolcott – is facilitating a stakeholder-driven process to define community goals related to water resources in the Wolcott Creek watershed and then identify and prioritize the water resource-related assets to be enhanced and barriers to be overcome to reach those goals. ASLF will take the high-priority issues identified by the community and develop a portfolio of design and/or planning solutions to address them. With additional community input, ASLF will select one of those concepts to be developed into an actionable design/plan.

The process will be based on a series of three stakeholder workshops, the first of which occurred on April 30 of this year in Wolcott. For this workshop, we asked participants to set overarching goals for the water resources located in the watershed. Participants identified four key goals:Improving water quality in Wolcott Creek and Mill Pond
Making Wolcott Falls Park a more attractive, useable space
Expanding tourism in the area
Increasing local use of outdoor recreational resources

We also asked participants to identify and then prioritize the assets/barriers that should be targeted in our conceptual designs/plans to help achieve the above goals. The following were identified through a discussion and voting process:Address upstream runoff into Wolcott Creek and Mill Pond, perceived to be predominantly from agricultural practices;
Address Japanese knotweed and other invasive plants in Wolcott Falls Park;
Enhance and publicize Wolcott Falls Park;
Improve signage and marketing around these natural areas;
Leverage community organizations to help create, maintain, and monitor the restoration projects.

A complete summary of Workshop 1 is available on our website.

The second workshop will be held in early Fall 2019.At this event, ASLF will present drafts of the design/planning solutions for community feedback and will seek input to improve and tailor these ideas and to determine which project should be further developed. At the third and final workshop (late 2019/early 2020), ASLF will present the final actionable design/plan and the portfolio of additional conceptual projects.

If you live in the Wolcott Creek watershed and would like to be notified of future meetings, please e-mail us and we’ll put you on our mailing list. You can also send us your vision for the Wolcott Creek Watershed or additional suggestions on assets/barriers to be addressed in our conceptual design/planning portfolio. And, if you’re not a Wolcott community member, ASLF is always looking for feedback, so please feel free to reach out to us via our contact form about this project or any of the other work featured on our website.

Going Native for Mother Earth – Gardening as if Life Depended on It

4/23/2019
By Alma Lowry

Professor Doug Tallamy, award winning author of numerous books and articles on the benefits of native gardening, speaks at the ground=breaking ceremony of ASLF’s Urban Tree Nursery

Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF) is committed to green. Our core mission includes greening the urban core through green infrastructure, like rain gardens, to channel and manage stormwater, and tree plantings to buffer contaminated run-off and to provide shade, habitat, and other benefits. But our work extends beyond simply greening the urban core – ASLF is committed to using native shrubs and trees to reach this goal.
Today, the benefits of urban greenspace are widely understood. Trees, shrubs, and other greenery can help purify the air and water. Increased tree canopy provides shade and reduces local temperatures. Vegetation can act as a noise buffer. Access to green space reduces anxiety and provides opportunities for active pastimes, improving both mental and physical health. Native and non-native plants alike may provide these benefits. Native plants, however, provide more.
Because native trees and shrubs have evolved along with local insects, birds, and other wildlife, they may be particularly hospitable to these populations. For example, a 2010 study found that native maple species (red maple) support three times as many butterfly and moth caterpillars as did non-native maple species (Norway maple). Because native species were naturally selected for local conditions, they tend to require less maintenance, fewer chemical interventions, and less watering than non-native species.
Many non-native species have become so common that we have forgotten their origin. Norway Maples, for example, are among the most common street trees across New York State. Japanese Cherry, Callery Pear, and other flowering trees are widespread due to their showy spring displays and elegant shapes. However, many have become invasive, spreading beyond our gardens and out-competing native plants. Common invasive species include the aforementioned Norway Maple and Callery Pear, as well as the Tree of Heaven, Japanese Barberry, and Autumn Olive.
Luckily, native trees, shrubs, and flowers can be both beautiful and environmentally sustainable, and there are varieties available to suit every need. Consult with your local chapter of Wild Ones or check on-line for advice from organizations such as National Wildlife Federation to find appropriate native plants for your locale. The Habitat Gardening Club of Central New York is a fantastic resource for incorporating native plants into your residential landscape, including an annual native plants shopping guide, landscape design workshops, and local garden tours. The 2019 shopping guide was just released.
And, if you’re in the Syracuse area, ASLF’s tree and shrub nursery can help you bring the benefits of native greenery home. While we hope to include genetically local seedlings from our Mother Tree program soon (see our October 2018 web article for more information), we maintain a stock of native trees and shrubs from a trusted partner. Check out our current inventory on-line. And join us in committing to native trees, shrubs, and other plants. As Professor Tallamy, an entomologist and author of the award winning book, Bring Nature Home, says – let’s garden as if life depended on it!