A series of projects funded in the wake of the Honeywell agreement to clean up Onondaga Lake has ended with construction of a new ADA-compliant fishing jetty.
Onondaga County Parks Commissioner Brian Kelley said this is the latest of several projects meant to offer greater access, for more people, to the lake, once called the most polluted in the country.
"We started with a deep water fishing pier over there in the West Shore Trail and then we improved this section of this jetty," Kelley said. "If you saw the before pictures they were just big stone slabs that were not accessible. Now, folks have the opportunity to fish and as you can see by these railings here they're accessible. So if you're in a wheelchair and you're sitting right here you can cast over the edge.”
The new silver jetty juts into Onondaga Lake in the Willow Bay Section of the Park. Kelley says while this may be the last project funded through Honeywell, the county’s next plan for Onondaga Lake Park is the renovation of the Marina.
"The next portion of all of this will be our proposed Marina project down at the other end of Onondaga Lake," Kelley said. "We go for bonding in January on that and that will get folks another opportunity to get out of the water and take advantage of it.”
More than a million people visit the park every year.
