Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/28/2014
A New York county legislature passed a resolution last week calling on the Army Corps of Engineer’s Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) to quicken the cleanup of the Niagara Falls Storage Site. The Niagara County Legislature has concerns over the pace of the decision-making process and preliminary site tests, which they feel are moving too slowly. “Whereas, a time frame of 10 years was projected as a "temporary" window in which to decide a final remediation; whereas, it is now over 20 years since that decision and no• final disposition has taken place and no future projected date is available; and whereas, all that time has elapsed and no future date is known and the citizens of Niagara County remain in harm’s way of a serious radioactive health threat, now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Niagara County Legislature, on behalf of all the citizens of the county, cities, towns and villages do hereby request the Corps of Engineers to immediately provide closure to this extremely serious threat to the health of all by June 31, 2014,” the resolution said.
According to Bill Ross, a member of the Niagara County Legislature, much of the discontent with the cleanup stems from the lack of clear answers and the dissolution of a citizen’s action committee in favor of a public outreach committee controlled more by the Corps. “Bottom-line, there is a lot of frustration that the people are not getting the correct answer; that the process has been very slow; and certainly, where there is radioactive waste and where there could be leaking into a river that flows into the Great Lakes,” Ross told RW Monitor this week. “It’s just been a stretched out process. I know their budget is limited, but the concern is there. Those people, even though they don’t have their own group that is recognized by the Corp, are still very motivated, and they still want answers.”
From the Corps’ perspective, the timeline cannot move any faster due to the investigation and response framework established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District acknowledges the legislature’s desire to reach a final remedial decision for the Niagara Falls Storage Site as soon as possible and the Corps shares that desire,” FUSRAP Buffalo District spokesman Bruce Sanders said. “This statutorily mandated process requires a remedial investigation and then a feasibility study to identify and evaluate alternatives in order to make an informed decision. The Niagara Falls Storage Site is divided into three operable units (Interim Waste Containment Structure, Balance of Plant [the remaining site soils], and groundwater) that are going through the steps in this framework. Currently we are developing a feasibility study for the Interim Waste Containment Structure at Niagara Falls Storage Site,” he said.
According to Sanders, the Corps also meets with the community regularly to provide information about what is going on with the site. “We do value input from the community,” Sanders said. “The Buffalo District divided the feasibility study for the Interim Waste Containment Structure into technical memoranda so that the community could be informed and involved as the document is developed. We also, at the request of the community, hired a technical facilitator to work with the community throughout the development of the feasibility study for the Interim Waste Containment Structure.”
The Niagara Falls Storage Site operated as a storage facility for the U.S. government in the 1940’s. The government stored radioactive residues and wastes from uranium ore processing on site until 1952. The Department of Energy began cleanup operations at the site in 1982, involving the construction of a containment cell.
