Analysis of the socio-ecological constraints and implications for stewardship of a rust belt urban watershed, USA

Background/Question/Methods Combined sanitary/storm sewers of the Rust Belt convey raw sewage to urban streams with direct hydrological connectivity to the Great Lakes.  Rather than serve as a local resource connecting people to nature, they add to 1) inner city blight, particularly in already poor neighborhoods, 2) stream and lake ecological degradation, and 3) government expenditure for waste water treatment. As part of our ULTRA research entitled “Positioning Rust Belt Cities for a Sustainable Future,” within the context of the Great Lakes ecosystem, we look at the neighborhood-level socio-ecological constraints and implications for stewardship of the urban Onondaga Creek watershed in Syracuse, NY.  Stewardship in the form of green infrastructure to “Save the Rain” has had some success in cities around the world and is proposed in Syracuse as a means for the County of Onondaga to meet the prescribed requirements of a Clean Water Act-based citizens’ law suit to reduce nutrient loading to Onondaga Lake. This lake is receptacle of both the city’s treated sewage via METRO and untreated sewage, most of which derives from combined sewer overflows into the lake’s major tributary, Onondaga Creek.  Constraints to success in achieving compliance may include citizen knowledge, attitudes  and willingness to participate, lack of adequate urban forest canopy to positively effect the hydrological budget, and lack of adequate science to inform the decision making process.  To assess these issues we measure via survey instrument, and map, neighborhood attitudes; measure existing canopy cover across three demographically and biophysically different neighborhoods of the city, and build a green infrastructure module for the existing EPA storm water management model (SWMM) to test various green infrastructure scenarios. 

Results/Conclusions

We find that citizen knowledge of the problem is fairly low, but that they are receptive, among a variety of options offered, to planting additional trees or installing rain gardens (but only if provided for free), and that existing tree canopy in some neighborhoods would have to be increased by 50% or more in order to prevent sewage overflows to the city’s urban creek.     An increase in more costly solutions such as green roofs or pervious paving could reduce storm overflows entirely, whereas less costly solutions such as rain barrels or rain gardens could reduce storm overflow by only 1/3 current levels. From this systems analysis local government can weigh cost effective, ecologically sound and politically palatable alternatives to restoring clean water to the city and the region.