[12] According to Grand River Mohawk scholar Susan M. Hill, “Among the Haudenosaunee, the names that the nations call themselves (and each other) denote key geographical features of their home territories… The recognition of geographic identity demonstrates the relationship to the land the people came from, the land they belonged to.”[12] According to Joyce Tekahnawiiaks King, a Mohawk Turtle Clan member who served as a political administrator, Federal Justice of the Peace, director of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, and advisor to the New York State Department of Conservation Environmental Justice Committee throughout her career, the Haudenosaunee have responsibilities to the land and water they came from: “We speak in terms of responsibilities with respect to water, not in terms of water rights… From time immemorial, we have held the view that the ‘law of the land' is not man-made law, but a greater natural law, the Great Law of Peace.

According to Haudenosaunee histories, the five Nations had fallen away from the Original Instructions of Skyholder, or the Creator, who mandated that humans cultivate the land and live alongside “all things that grow" and game animals.

Following the victory of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, it made the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1788 with supposed Haudenosaunee negotiators who were unauthorized by the Nations.

Eventually Solvay found halite deposits at a depth of 1,216 feet (371 m) below land surface in the southern end of Tully Valley.

New York State and Allied-Signal, Inc. signed an interim Consent Decree detailing the elements of a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study to be undertaken of the lake.

They were protecting dairy products and beer, storing perishable goods, and regulating temperature in office and storage buildings by such water use.

[32][33] Before European settlement and the growth of a large population in the area, the lake was oligo-mesothropic, meaning that it contained low levels of aquatic plant blooms.

[6] The high levels of ammonia and phosphates due to the dumping of sewage wastewater have led to excessive algae growth in the lake.

[33] Eventually anoxic (oxygen-free) conditions set in parts of the lake and anaerobic decomposition takes place which emits harmful and foul-smelling gases like hydrogen sulfide.

[8][32][34][36] In Onondaga Lake the chlorinated benzenes are located in the southwest portion, in the form of a dense oily liquid that has settled into the sediments.

Approximately 6 million pounds (2.7 kt) of salty wastes made up of chloride, sodium, and calcium were dumped into the lake before Allied Chemical closed in 1986.

In 1960, Onondaga County established a sewer district and built the Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Plant ("Metro") on the south shore of the lake.

[32] In 1987, Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF), a Syracuse-based organization providing legal and technical assistance to citizens and organizations dealing with environmental problems, filed a lawsuit against Onondaga County alleging that Metro and the combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges were violating federal water pollution standards established under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

It ordered the group to develop a comprehensive revitalization, conservation, and management plan for Onondaga Lake that recommends priority corrective actions and compliance schedules for its cleanup.

The ACJ also led to the creation of an ambient monitoring program (AMP) to track the effectiveness of the improvements made to the wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure.

Regarding contamination via CSOs, the ACJ required that by 2010 the county eliminate or capture for treatment 95% of the CSO volume generated during heavy rain and snow melt.

[41] The Federal Court approved a Consent Decree in 2007, obliging Honeywell International, Inc. to implement the NYSDEC/EPA cleanup plan for the contaminated sediments in the bottom of the lake.

[41] The cleanup plan called for the dredging of up to 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments to a depth that will allow for a cap to be built without losing any lake surface area.

The dredging was completed in November 2014, a year ahead of schedule, having removed approximately 2.2 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment.

According to Citizen Potawatomi plant biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, who lives in the vicinity of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse,In the Indigenous worldview, a healthy landscape is understood to be whole and generous enough to be able to sustain its partners.

Even though the species are starting to gain numbers in this lake once again, the evidence shows that pollution had a direct impact on the fish that once inhabited this environment.

[14]In 1999, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) lifted the advisory on eating bass, white perch, and catfish from Onondaga Lake.

A newspaper article published in the New York Times on March 31, 2005, states, “What they want is influence in major policy discussions affecting the ecosystem in their ancestral lands.

They also hope to use a favorable judgment to buy land to increase agricultural and housing opportunities, protect ancestors’ gravesites and safeguard the environment.”[57] The Onondaga Nation sought the protection and conservation of the natural resources within and affecting the Nation's land, and the security of Onondaga rights to hunt, fish, and gather resources for subsistence and cultural needs.

[58] According to Sid Hill, the Tadodaho of the Haudenosaunee, the Onondaga people want the water, land, and air returned to its condition prior to being illegally taken by New York State in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[60] According to Kimmerer, “The Onondaga land rights action sought legal recognition of title to their home, not to remove their neighbors and not for development of casinos, which they view as destructive to community life.

Only with the title can they ensure that mines are reclaimed and that Onondaga Lake is cleaned up.”[14] The land rights action was dismissed by a federal judge on September 22, 2010.

[63][64] Kimmerer argues that the precedent of the Kaswentha demonstrates the Onondaga Nation’s negotiating skills: “The Onondaga Nation, perhaps the oldest continuing democracy on the planet, protected much of its land and lifeways from the European settlers’ encroachment through skillful negotiations, beginning with the [Kaswentha] and continuing through subsequent treaties based on the same principles of sovereignty and mutual respect.

[63] Former chief of the Saint Regis Mohawk tribe and first director of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force James Ransom and anthropologist Kreg Ettenger argue for a system of environmental cooperation based on the principles of the Kaswentha and Haudenosaunee teachings: “As in the past, when our two societies would come together to face a common enemy or scourge, the key to success in forming partnerships lies in focusing on the river that we travel, not on the vessels and their differences.

These partnerships would necessitate the recognition and protection of the “sovereignty and autonomy of each society (the ship and canoe) while allowing for the sharing of information and ideas and the creation of mutually acceptable solutions.