EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF CEMETERIES ON URBAN SURFACE WATER QUALITY IN SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

Urban watersheds receive pollutant inputs from a variety of sources including industrial discharges, atmospheric deposition, road salt, and stormwater runoff. These inputs, combined with smaller (or non-existent) riparian zones that facilitate uptake and degradation of pollutants, make urban watersheds particularly vulnerable to pollution. Cemeteries are integral components to urban systems, providing benefits and ecosystem services similar to urban parks. However, the burial products can export nutrients, trace elements, and other contaminants to nearby groundwater and soils, which can subsequently contribute to surface water contamination. Although these pollutants can be harmful to human and ecosystem health, the understanding of long-term trends in nutrients sourced from active cemetery groundwater discharge is largely limited.

In this study, we selected Meadowbrook Creek (MBC) in Syracuse, NY as the study area where previous results show significant nitrate contributions from a local cemetery. Since early 2022, along MBC, we have been collecting surface water quality samples bi-weekly upstream, within, and downstream of a local cemetery that MBC flows through. These samples are analyzed for nutrients and trace elements. Here we aim to: 1) quantify cemetery-sourced nutrients in MBC and assess their decadal trends; 2) examine concentrations of trace elements in the stream in relation to the cemetery; and 3) characterize the flow path of cemetery-origin nutrients to the stream and their control factors using reactive transport modeling. Preliminary results show that Na⁺, Mg²⁺, SO₄^2-, Cl^-, and NO₃^- concentrations have generally stayed consistent the last ten years (2012-2022) with no significant changes in the stream over time. Since 2012, K⁺ and Ca²⁺ show significant increases in concentration within and downstream of the cemetery and F^- shows a significant decrease. This data also shows that NO₃^- increases within and downstream of the cemetery as it did in 2012.