Buffalo River gets a new image as long road to restoration begins

By Liz Pacheco

Editor’s note: The Buffalo River remediation project and the Great Lakes Legacy Act Program are among the issues discussed Oct. 11-14 during Great Lakes Week in Detroit. Ongoing coverage by Detroit Public Television is at GreatLakesNow.org

Buffalo, N.Y.–A century ago, the Buffalo River was bustling with activity. The shores were lined with automobile, steel and chemical companies. Jobs were abundant. The economy was thriving. Thanks to the Erie Canal, built in the 1800s, the river was ideal for the shipping lanes, lake freighters and grain elevators of the industrial age.

Today’s Buffalo is a different place. In the past 20 years, industries have disappeared and the abandoned lots and vacant warehouses create a markedly quieter landscape. But the industrial heritage isn’t gone–it fills the Buffalo River.

“Literally, there’s hundred of chemicals that have been discharged into the river over the 100 years,” said Jill Jedlicka, who works with local nonprofit Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, a byproduct of burning fuel), lead, and mercury are the main culprits. Jedlicka says there are many more.

Waterways like the Buffalo River are the lifeblood for Great Lakes cities and residents. Yet despite their importance, many are filled with toxic sediments.

The Environmental Protection Agency  has identified those most polluted as “Areas of Concern.” There are 43 areas; 26 in the U.S., 12 in Canada, and five shared by both. So far, only four have been delisted–one in the U.S., three in Canada.

For the past decade or so, Jedlicka has been working to clean her city’s more than six-mile-long wasteland. Along with her position as ecological programs director at Riverkeeper, she’s also coordinator for the Buffalo River Remedial Action Plan.

After years of planning and collaboration with stakeholders, like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Ecology and the Environment, a local consulting firm, remedial action has started.

The Army Corps has been dredging since August, working round the clock to displace some 600,000 cubic yards of contaminated river sediment. Once dredged, sediments are dumped at a contained site nearby.

“[The sediment] can’t be cleaned because so many different chemicals [are] bound to them,” said Jedlicka. “The best management technology is confinement.”

This dredging is only phase one. Riverkeeper is working with stakeholders, like Honeywell, the company partially responsible for contamination, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, as well as Ecology and Environment and the Army Corps, to receive funding from the EPA’s Great Lakes Legacy Act.

“The purpose [of the Legacy Act Program] is to clean up contaminated sediment sites in the Great Lakes Areas of Concern,” said Marc Tuckman, the program’s manager. For Legacy Act projects, a 35 percent commitment from a non-federal sponsor is required. This sponsor can be the state government, industry, or municipalities, “basically anyone who can bring 35 percent to the table,” said Tuckman.

The Legacy Act Program has completed several remediation projects in the Great Lakes area and has another four underway. No official agreement for the Buffalo River is in place, although Tuckman said the hopeful start is next summer or fall.

“[The Army] Corps goes first. They have the authority to dredge within the federal navigation channel to remove contaminated sediments,” explained Kris Erickson, chief environmental scientist at Ecology and the Environment. That dredging should be finished this November. Then, the Legacy Act will go beyond that channel and work to remediate and restore the shoreline area and outside the navigation channel.

The long-term and hands-on involvement from Riverkeeper and Ecology and Environment is unique for this type of project. For them, this cleanup is personal.

Although a global company, Ecology and Environment has its headquarters in Buffalo.

“We’re part of the community here,” said Erickson. “[The Buffalo River] is very important to us. Our kids and our kids’ kids are going to live here.”

For Riverkeeper, the project is also about community specifically, putting the Buffalo River first.  “We use the term ‘creating a paradigm shift for the Buffalo River,’” said Jedlicka. “We live in the third poorest [large] city in the country.” In an economic dire situation, the river’s healthy just wasn’t important, she said.

But now, with Riverkeeper’s help, the Buffalo River is again seen as valuable.

“The Buffalo River really provides a lifeblood to city of Buffalo,” said Jedlicka. “By protecting and utilizing that resource, the spin off from that [are] restoration and recreation economies.”

And, as Jedlicka explained, that will “provide benefit for all.”

See related story: Buffalo brownfields link past industry to future hope