By Gina Castellani
LEWISTON — The federal government wants the corporate successor of a long-closed Niagara Falls manufacturer to pay for digging radioactive waste out from under two homes on Upper Mountain Road.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued NLI Holdings Inc., which is based in Dallas, in federal court last Thursday, Oct. 23, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency. The suit falls under the Superfund law, formally the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. NLI Holdings, formerly NL Industries and before that National Lead, is the corporate parent of Titanium Alloys Manufacturing Co., Investigative Post reported.
The EPA removed roughly 10,000 tons of radioactive sands, refractory bricks and other contaminated material from 783 and 789 Upper Mountain Road between 2021 and 2023.
How much the government wants
Published accounts of the bill don’t match. Investigative Post described a three-year, $7 million cleanup. Buffalo Toronto Public Media reported the government is seeking $12 million, and EPA Region 2 Administrator Michael Martucci gave a figure above $12 million in an interview with WGRZ.
“Part of the federal Super Fund law equips the EPA with cost recovery,” Mr. Martucci said. “On this particular cleanup the agency spent over $12 million to clean up this property and its our responsibility to make sure that taxpayers aren’t paying for pollution caused by companies.”
He made the same point in a studio interview with BTPM.
“We use Superfund dollars that are allocated to us by Congress to go out and execute those cleanups immediately, and then we have a responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and pursue companies. That are responsible for that pollution, and that is the essence of the complaint that we filed,” Mr. Martucci said.
What the complaint alleges
According to the suit, as described by Investigative Post, Titanium Alloys processed “heavy mineral” beach sands from Florida and Australia into zirconium and titanium products. NL Industries bought the company in 1948. It held federal Atomic Energy Commission licenses to recycle thorium and uranium in its furnaces.
The waste was found in what the complaint calls “a former quarry that spanned the two residential properties, including underneath both homes.” The complaint says aerial imagery shows the pit was filled “sometime between 1938 and 1951.” The house at 789 Upper Mountain Road was built on that fill in 1957.
Among the material, the EPA’s crews found eight metal plates stamped with the company’s name. Investigative Post reported that chemical analysis also tied a white, chalky layer to barium titanate, which Titanium Alloys was the only U.S. company producing from 1940 to 1951.
The suit was filed just inside CERCLA’s three-year deadline for cost-recovery claims, Investigative Post reported. The EPA closed the cleanup on Oct. 26, 2023.
NLI Holdings didn’t respond to Investigative Post’s requests for comment. Neither did the DOJ attorney who filed the case. The company hasn’t filed a response in court.
A family that couldn’t sue
The government is trying something a former owner couldn’t do.
Philip Palmeri, whose family owned 789 Upper Mountain Road, sued NL Industries in 2024, alleging the waste caused the cancer that killed his wife, Tracey Palmeri, in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the case as untimely in May 2025. The judge wrote that by the time Mr. Palmeri learned which company to sue, “the statute of limitations had run, Tracey had died, and plaintiff was left without any legal recourse,” Investigative Post reported. The judge said he did not regard the ruling as “a fair result.”
The EPA first got involved after a consultant hired by the homeowners measured gamma radiation more than 30 times background levels in 2019. A September 2021 EPA community update said the contamination let radon into the home. It also said the source of the fill was “unknown and is the subject of an ongoing investigation.”
State and local officials react
Gov. Kathy Hochul backed the suit in a written statement reported by BTPM.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be left on the hook for cleaning up environmental dangers caused by irresponsible polluters. This is an important step toward holding a polluter accountable,” Ms. Hochul said.
State Sen. Rob Ortt, a Republican from North Tonawanda, credited the EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin.
“During my meeting with EPA Administrator Zeldin last month, I was made aware of a signature that could lead to the identification of an entity responsible for the contamination,” Mr. Ortt said in a statement. “I continue to stand with affected property owners throughout Western New York, and I commend the EPA in their efforts to hold those that caused this accountable.”
State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton, who sat beside Mr. Martucci in BTPM’s studio, said the agencies would keep working together.
“These families deserve answers. We launched this effort to be proactive, to be protective, to answer the question if there is radiological waste here, and we found it. Now it’s critical that we’re able to deliver for these families to clean up what’s there and to hold the polluter accountable,” Ms. Lefton said.
The wider survey
The lawsuit lands in the middle of the Niagara and Erie County Radiological Assessment, a joint state and federal screening effort. Since July, the agencies have screened 1,094 properties in 31 municipalities, WGRZ reported. More than 900 needed no further action, 40 were referred to the EPA for more testing and four owners were offered temporary relocation.
Last week, the Chronicle reported on radioactive slag documented at a former drive-in on Witmer Road in the Town of Niagara. Read that story here.
The next public information session is set for Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Calvin K. Richards Senior/Youth Activity Center, 7000 Joe Rotella Way, in Veterans Memorial Park in the Town of Niagara, Ms. Lefton said.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the EPA for the amount sought in the complaint and the case number, and has asked NL Industries for comment. Responses will be added here.
Featured image: EPA cleanup work at a residential property near Holy Trinity Cemetery in Lewiston, one of the town’s earlier radiological removal sites. Photo: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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