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Last night's celebrations ushered in not just a new year, but a new decade. As part of our year-in-review packages this year, we've also taken a look back at the biggest stories of the decade.

These are the stories that showed up, in some form, on multiple annual biggest stories lists. They are the stories that reflect community transformations, and they also promise to remain major topics of local concern and discussion as the new decade gets started.

Owasco Lake water quality challenges

The biggest singular moment in the story of Owasco Lake this decade was arguably the breaking news on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016, when the Cayuga County Health Department disclosed that treated drinking water at the filtration plants for the city of Auburn and town of Owasco had tested positive for algae toxins, a first for a public water system in New York state.

Harmful algal blooms had been confirmed previously in the lake, the drinking water source for more than half of the county's population, but this marked the point when drinking water itself was under threat.

But long before HABs emerged as a major water quality threat in Owasco Lake, lake protection advocates had expressed concerns about elevated phosphorous levels contributing to damaging weed growth, along with numerous invasive species reports. These and other issues had led to the establishment of the lake watershed inspection program, and in 2011, the launch of the Owasco Lake Watershed Management Council. This organization — formed through joint resolution by the Auburn City Council, the Owasco Town Board and the Cayuga County Legislature — is overseeing a process to establish a comprehensive lake cleanup plan and proposed rules and regulations changes for all stakeholders in the watershed, including farms, property owners, governments and recreational water users.

Shortly after the 2016 water supply threat, local officials worked with state leaders to secure funding for new filtration systems that are able to better handle algae toxins. Algal blooms have returned every year, but there has not been any need for a "do not drink" order on the finished water.

As the HABs emerged on waterways throughout the state, including in both Skaneateles and Cayuga lakes, the state committed increased funding and action plans to study and combat the problem. That work will continue at the local and statewide levels into the next decade.

Downtown Auburn's revitalization, growing pains

The biggest local story at the start of this decade was the 2010 controversy involving the development of the Hilton Garden Inn hotel along State Street between the Arterials. After initially requesting and failing to get support to use eminent domain to secure land for the project, the group of community investors backing the hotel ultimately reached agreements with property owners to acquire the needed land. With state and local assistance, the downtown area's biggest economic development project in decades was eventually completed.

The new hotel was one of the first of what turned out to be many major commercial investments in the downtown area over the next decade. Some involved new construction, such as the Plaza of the Arts building on Genesee Street and the NYS Equal Rights Heritage Center on South Streets. Others involved restorations of historic downtown structures, like the commercial properties on State Street between Genesee and Dill streets, several properties on East Hill and the ongoing work to revitalize the Nolan Block.

With many new businesses and more people living downtown, issues have emerged with parking availability at times. In addition, a road reconstruction project on Genesee Street resulted in a much-maligned change to mandatory back-in parking along a stretch of that road.

What's clear at the end of 2019 above all else, though, is that many more people are frequenting downtown establishments that they were when the decade started.

Cayuga County battles the opioid epidemic

"We have an epidemic in our county. People might not want to admit it, but it's true."

Those words from then-Cayuga County Sheriff David Gould spoken in 2014 in an interview with Ë®¹ûÅÉAV about the emerging problem of opioid-related abuse locally and around the nation. Cayuga County had seen heroin overdose deaths climb steadily that year and in the previous two years. Emergency medical responders and police were encountering heroin cases with alarming frequency.

Grassroots organizations such as Heroin Epidemic Action League, commonly referred to as HEAL, and Nick's Ride 4 Friends, formed to raise awareness and call for government and health-care industry action. These efforts grew in numbers and in clout. Soon, state and federal funding began to flow to help combat the problem. But the problem certainly persists as a new decade begins.

Harriet Tubman's emerging national spotlight

In 2010, some people in Cayuga County may have thought they'd never see National Parks Service rangers working at the Harriet Tubman Home site on South Street while renovations were happening at the church Tubman attended on Parker Street. At that time, despite years of effort, legislation to establish the Auburn-area Tubman sites as a national park was going nowhere in Washington.

But that began to change, little by little, over the ensuring years. And in 2014, the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park designation was approved in a defense measure signed by President Barack Obama. About three years later, an official ceremony establishing the park took place in Washington, D.C.

The implementation of NPS site management, in cooperation with the nonprofit Harriet Tubman Home, has progressed to the point where rangers are on site helping with tours and renovation work has progressed at the church. A finalized joint management agreement is still in the works, along with plans for major improvements at the South Street property.

In the meantime, Tubman's profile as a significant person in American history has grown considerably. She was selected to be the face of a redesigned $20 bill in 2016, a move that was put on hold by the Trump Administration earlier this year. She was also the subject of an internationally released feature film in 2019 that focused primarily on her work as a conductor of the Underground Railroad.

Cayuga Nation external and internal tensions

The decade started with Cayuga Indian Nation of New York and officials in Cayuga and Seneca counties waiting on the federal government's decision regarding the nation's land-into-trust application. If granted, the nation could officially take large portions of land off tax rolls and outside the jurisdiction of town and county land use laws.

The decade is ending without any decision on the matter, which remains pending despite a request for information from the counties in 2018 that gave them just a couple of months to comment on a 2005 application that had been dormant for years.

Another matter affecting the Cayugas at the start of the decade also remains in dispute. The long-running leadership struggle between the Clint Halftown council and members of the nation's traditional council has played out over the decade, including a period in 2014 when violence erupted and state police had to intervene at the nation's Union Springs property.

More recently, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs has issued a series of rulings and letters that back Halftown's council, which has moved forward by establishing their own police force and judicial system. But traditional council members continue to challenge this authority, setting the stage for continued conflict as 2020 arrives.