The Onondaga Lake Amended Consent Judgment (ACJ) specifies projects to be undertaken to improve the water quality of Onondaga Lake and achieve full compliance with state and federal water quality regulations.

Origins of the ACJ

The Onondaga Lake Amended Consent Judgment (ACJ) was signed in January 1998, and stems from a 1989 Judgment on Consent settling litigation between the State of New York, the Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF) and Onondaga County in connection with alleged violations of state and federal water pollution control laws. The conditions of the Judgment on Consent required the County to perform a series of engineering and scientific studies to evaluate the need for upgrading the Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Plant (Metro) and for providing treatment of the combined sewer overflows (CSOs) that occur in the Metro service area.

The Municipal Compliance Plan

Based on the results of those studies and in consultation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), the County developed a plan for upgrading the Metro plant and addressing the CSOs. The County submitted the proposed Municipal Compliance Plan (MCP) to the State and ASLF on January 11, 1996. Following submission of the MCP, there were numerous discussions and negotiations with regard to the proposed MCP. The result was the execution of the ACJ, which was signed in January 1998 by all the parties—NYSDEC, the State Attorney General, ASLF and the County. The provisions of the ACJ resolve a number of controversies that grew out of the 1989 Consent Decree, and the ACJ takes the place of what historically has been referred to as the "Municipal Compliance Plan" (MCP).

The ACJ reflects, to a large extent, the objectives established by a policy resolution passed by the County Legislature in 1995 (Resolution 95-158) which was intended to guide negotiators in developing the Municipal Compliance Plan. The principles outlined in the policy resolution called for a plan based on the "phased implementation" of the various upgrades to Metro and the CSOs, and the measurement of water quality improvements to the lake resulting from each phase of construction.

ACJ Projects

The ACJ is designed to improve the water quality of Onondaga Lake and achieve full compliance with state and federal water quality regulations by December 1, 2012. The ACJ specifically includes a listing of more than thirty projects to be undertaken over a 15-year timeframe. The ACJ describes the intent of each project and sets time schedules for specific work related to each project to be completed (minor and major milestones). These milestones relate to such activities as completion of environmental review, start of construction and commencement of operation.

The ACJ projects can be divided into three main categories:

Improvements and upgrades to the County's main sewage treatment plant—Metro
Elimination and/or reduction of the impacts of the CSOs on the lake and its tributaries
• Lake and tributary
monitoring program designed to evaluate the impacts of the improvement projects on the water quality of the lake and tributary streams.

ACJ-Management Plan Relationship

On September 9, 1999, the Onondaga Lake Management Conference (OLMC) approved and endorsed the ACJ and incorporated it into and made it part of its 1993 "A Plan of Action," the Onondaga Lake Management Plan. It was further resolved that any portion of the 1993 Plan that was not consistent with the ACJ was to be removed and deleted.

For More Information

The full text of the Amended Consent Judgment (ACJ) is available for browsing and downloading in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.