Radioactive slag was documented at a Town of Niagara drive-in in 2020. Neighbors are still waiting for answers

By Staff Reporter

TOWN OF NIAGARA, N.Y. — In June 2020, a consultant hired by Niagara County’s land bank walked a vacant former drive-in at 4287 Witmer Road with a radiation meter. Some readings came in at more than three times background. Two months later, its report put the price of digging out the contaminated soil and hauling it away at about $1.25 million.

Six years on, the families living just across Gill Creek are still waiting for answers, and some of the most important ones aren’t due until after Election Day.

The August 2020 Witmer Road Action Plan, still posted on the land bank’s website, shows how much was on paper years before state letters reached nearby homeowners.

What the 2020 report found

The plan was prepared for the Niagara Orleans Regional Land Improvement Corporation, known as NORLIC, by Ecology and Environment Engineering and Geology of Lancaster. It describes a 1.72-acre parcel bounded by Witmer Road, an industrial park and Gill Creek, a direct tributary of the Niagara River. Homes, the report noted, sit “approximately 300 feet to the east, on the other side of Gill Creek.”

The radiation survey was done June 12, 2020. Background readings at nearby Reservoir State Park averaged 7,000 counts per minute. On the drive-in site, the highest dose rate was 24 microroentgens per hour, three times the park’s 8, and the areas reading above 21,000 counts per minute “were only surveyed along the boundaries,” according to the report.

Chemicals were already a known problem. Buried resin-like fill held toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, phenol, benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic, copper and lead above state cleanup levels, the report says, and a lime-like material held chromium. A 2008 state Department of Environmental Conservation report had documented much of that contamination but found no radiation, WGRZ reported.

Of four options, the consultant recommended the most expensive: excavating to residential standards at an estimated $1,251,438.96, which it said offered “the maximum protection for human health and the environment.”

The report also found that Gill Creek’s water and sediment “do not appear to have been significantly affected by site contamination,” though some metals in the creek bed exceeded state sediment criteria.

A developer, not a cleanup

According to NORLIC minutes quoted by WGRZ, the land bank was told in June 2020 that fieldwork had revealed “high radioactive levels,” and in August 2020 that “the property is contaminated with higher than allowed levels and that some radioactive slag exists on the site.” The board sought a developer. In August 2022, the minutes said “significant contamination exists at the site.” WGRZ found no later updates.

The Niagara Falls Reporter reported that no developer answered the request for proposals, and that the County Legislature voted 14-0 in October 2022 to transfer the county’s tax lien on the parcel to the land bank for $1. The resolution said only that the land required “environmental remediation,” the paper reported.

The Chronicle found no public record of a cleanup at the site since.

The neighbors

Lexi Hawk’s Chester Avenue home sits about 1,500 feet from the old drive-in. It is among the homes where the DEC has identified radioactive hot spots, WGRZ reported.

“It’s extremely frustrating, especially after you have children and you let your children play back there, because they’re more susceptible than adults are,” Ms. Hawk told WGRZ. Her neighbors’ request, she said, is simple: “We want them to fence off the property with warning signs.” They also want the site considered for federal Superfund status.

Environmental attorney Christen Civiletto, who is helping residents near Gill Creek, said the state needs to find out whether contamination traveled. “They need to get to Lexi’s property and to all of these residents and start figuring out if it migrated offsite,” Ms. Civiletto told WGRZ.

Four households on Chester and Fox avenues were cleared for temporary relocation in September, the Niagara Gazette reported, and Ms. Hawk moved out the weekend of Sept. 19-20, according to WBEN. A 99th Street family whose yard tested positive for lead, DDT and hexavalent chromium was told the data did not support relocation, Ms. Civiletto has said.

Rep. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat, has backed the families. “Households requesting to be relocated because of the elevated levels of contaminated material on their properties should be immediately approved,” Mr. Kennedy said in an August statement reported by Buffalo Toronto Public Media.

The bigger survey

Witmer Road is one piece of the Niagara and Erie County Radiological Assessment run by the DEC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with the state Health Department. In its most recent community update, dated Sept. 18, the DEC said more than 1,060 owners had signed access agreements and more than 1,020 properties had been screened. More than 760 had been told no further work was needed. More than 200 were still under review, and 37 had been referred to the EPA for more assessment.

“We have found material on 30 different properties, and right now we’re making sure that as we move forward, we’re doing everything that we can to investigate those further, and support those property owners with any mitigation that’s going to be required,” DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton told WBEN in August, when that count stood at 30.

EPA Regional Administrator Michael Martucci said cleanups would vary. “We expect that some properties could be remediated by removing relatively small amounts of soil, those cleanups could happen in a few week period,” Mr. Martucci told WBEN. “There are likely other properties that will involve more extensive cleanups that could encompass a few months.”

Results of soil tests for chemicals on the residents’ properties are not expected until after the Nov. 3 general election, the Gazette reported. Ken Lovett, an adviser to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who faces Republican Bruce Blakeman, told the paper the timeline had been cited publicly since surveying began and had nothing to do with politics.

A campaign issue

The records have also landed in the race for the open 145th Assembly District seat. Democrat Nate McMurray posted the minutes this summer and has faulted Republican Becky Wydysh, who chaired the County Legislature from 2020 through 2025. The county manager, who answered to the Legislature, chaired NORLIC, the Reporter noted.

“How can you be shocked when your own meeting minutes show you discussing the contamination, estimating cleanup costs, and putting the property out for an RFP to attract developers?” Mr. McMurray wrote, as quoted by the Niagara Falls Reporter, which disclosed that his campaign has advertised with the paper and supplied some of the material it reviewed.

The Chronicle found no public response from Ms. Wydysh to the land bank questions and could not reach her campaign for comment before publication. The Chronicle is seeking comment from the DEC, the EPA and NORLIC.

What’s still unanswered

Questions remain. Has the DEC sampled Gill Creek between the drive-in and the Chester Avenue yards? Will the Witmer Road parcel be fenced and posted, as neighbors have asked? Who will pay for the cleanup the land bank’s own consultant recommended six years ago? And will residents get their chemical results as soon as they are ready, rather than all at once?

The NECRA hotline is 844-612-8144, weekdays 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the project email is NECRA@dec.ny.gov.

Featured image: Power lines near the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant, seen from Interstate 190 in the Town of Niagara between Lockport Road and Route 31. Mr. Matté, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped.