By Hannah Lindqvist
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — On Veterans Day, with classes canceled, federal crews drilled through the parking lots of Catholic Academy of Niagara Falls to pull soil samples. A September screening had picked up slightly elevated radioactivity there. Families have been told the answers are about three months away.
The school on North Military Road is one of more than 1,100 properties screened so far in the Niagara and Erie County Radiological Assessment, the joint state and federal hunt for radioactive waste in Western New York. The same week the crews came to the school, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began its first two yard cleanups under the program. The Buffalo News reported that just two of 40 contaminated properties were set to be cleaned up this year.
What the screening found
Keith Glenn, the EPA’s on-site coordinator and deputy incident commander for the assessment, described the September findings to Buffalo Toronto Public Media on Wednesday.
“We identified some slightly elevated readings of radioactivity. They were all away from the foundation of the structures, and they’re located in the parking lot areas, and shielded with the parking lot material,” Glenn said. “Our goal today is to further assess those locations to determine what might be giving off that elevated radioactivity.”
Crews also began scoping surveys inside the school, the adjacent church many residents still call Prince of Peace, and the St. Vincent de Paul Parish rectory, BTPM reported.
The school’s own Nov. 4 newsletter quoted the agencies’ screening letter. “The cause of the elevated readings is unknown at this time and could be due to variations in radiological materials in natural rocks and soils or building materials,” it said. “They do not necessarily indicate the presence of contamination.” The newsletter said results are expected in about three months.
Glenn said the agency does not see an immediate danger. “We, right now, as a result of what we’ve seen from the radiological screening, do not feel that there is an immediate threat to the health and safety of the students,” he said. “But we want to further assess what’s going on here.”
A newsletter, and a security guard
Many parents learned of the testing from that newsletter, which WIVB-TV first reported. Among them were Daniel and Jocelyn McKiernan, the 99th Street couple near Love Canal whose backyard turned up industrial waste and whose relocation request the state declined this month. Their son attends the school.
“Within that newsletter, tucked nicely between a cookie raffle and an art contest, some sort of nomenclature, was a health and safety section,” Daniel McKiernan said at a Nov. 6 online news conference hosted by Save Our Backyards Western New York, according to BTPM.
Jocelyn McKiernan said a security guard turned her away when she went to the school on the morning of Nov. 6 seeking more information. “We are absolutely disgusted that when we tried to get transparency from our son’s school, we were met by a security guard who is more concerned about our family speaking to the news rather than the health and safety of our children, the staff, and the parents, or even himself,” she said.
The Diocese of Buffalo said it is cooperating. “We welcome the ongoing testing by the EPA and NY DEC, given that the health and well-being of children and teachers of Catholic Academy of Niagara Falls, their families and the broader community are our highest priority,” the diocese said in a statement to BTPM.
A question from 1984
Environmental attorney Christen Civiletto, who attended the school when it was Prince of Peace, said radioactive anomalies there go back decades. She said a mobile gamma scanning survey flagged the site in 1984 at four to nearly nine times background levels.
“I called the authorities and I asked them, ‘is this remediated?’” Civiletto said, according to BTPM. “I was told it was remediated, and apparently has not been.” The Buffalo Chronicle has not reviewed the 1984 survey.
Two yards now, the rest in spring
The first cleanups began the week of Nov. 9 at two residential properties, according to an EPA notice to residents. The Buffalo News photographed crews at work on Liberty Avenue in the Town of Niagara on Nov. 11. Workers dig out contaminated soil, seal it in lined containers and truck it to licensed disposal sites out of state, then lay down clean topsoil and grass seed.
As of Nov. 6, 41 properties had been referred to the EPA, the agency’s site page says. The DEC’s Nov. 10 update gave the program’s broader numbers: more than 1,150 owners have signed access agreements, crews have screened 1,123 properties, and 960 owners have been told no further work is needed. More than 150 results are still under review.
In October, EPA Regional Administrator Michael Martucci told WKBW that the agencies hoped to finish what work they could before winter and use the colder months to plan more extensive cleanups for spring. Officials have not said whether the properties share a common source. The EPA says parts of the region were once used to process phosphate and zirconium-bearing ores containing low levels of naturally occurring radioactive material.
‘My neighborhood is scared’
For the families waiting, the pace is the problem. Lexi Hawk, whose Chester Avenue home in the Town of Niagara is near the old Witmer Road drive-in, has been temporarily relocated, one of four households so far. She got results in early November from soil sampled in July, BTPM reported.
Michael Ketterer, a retired Northern Arizona University chemistry professor who reviewed 18 of her samples, said five showed “what could reasonably be considered extreme elevations” of thorium-232 and uranium-238.
“Why is it just me and three others that were temporarily relocated?” Hawk said. “My neighborhood is scared. There’s more than just my house.”
Save Our Backyards wants more than 1,000 properties added to the federal and state Superfund lists. An adviser to Gov. Kathy Hochul told BTPM the state program cannot be used for sites contaminated only with radioactive material, because state law does not define radionuclides as hazardous waste. That leaves the job to Washington. The DEC, meanwhile, has begun a supplemental investigation at the Witmer Road site that includes sampling Gill Creek.
What comes next
Lab results for the school are expected in about three months. Most of the remaining cleanups are expected in the spring. Residents can reach the program’s call center at 844-612-8144, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., or email NECRA@dec.ny.gov.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the EPA and the DEC for comment.
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