Community LOOW Project aims to provide insight on old concerns

Project to include development of GIS database

Outside input welcomed for Community LOOW Project

by Terry Duffy
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, December 3, 2005

Interested residents and local government officials heard the latest last week on on-going efforts to provide further insight on the ever-intriguing Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site in northern Lewiston and Porter.

With more than 70 in attendance at the Town of Lewiston Senior Center on Nov. 21, Niagara County 13th District Legislator Clyde Burmaster informed visitors of The Community LOOW Project, a new initiative announced over past months by the Niagara County Health Department.

Created by Health Department Director Paulette Kline, the Community LOOW Project initiative aims to satisfy the long-standing area concerns on the extent of the varied contamination and lingering health issues on the site both from decades-ago war-time research and manufacturing activities, as well as present-day land filling operations – municipal and hazardous waste – which involve significant portions of the once 7,500-acre site.

“We gather tonight to begin a new modern, high-tech approach to problems that surround the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site,” said Burmaster. “With this new science team that has been formed it will study all the past site work, not only on the Ordnance Works site, but also in the adjoining areas.”

Burmaster told visitors the intent of this effort was to offer “a new round of inquiry on LOOW,” by means of utilizing of a macro approach of better analyzing and addressing the site’s many issues and health-related concerns.

Decades of Information

He related this “macro approach” would seek to gather and analyze the decades of information gleaned from past studies and work conducted on the LOOW site – compiled from such agencies as the Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, state Department of Environmental Conservation, state and county health departments, private contracted agencies, and various educational, research and community interests. What is expected to follow would be a broad informational overview detailing the complex history of the site, its many problems, the various remediation efforts performed over the years, remaining problems still to be addressed, and goals to be established. The document would then be used as a sharing tool between the various regulatory agencies and the public.

Such “information in the past has been very difficult to obtain,” said Burmaster, as he expressed confidence in the anticipated team of scientists to bring about a successful outcome and allay community concerns on this very complicated site.

Kline informed that this project, expected to cost some $200,000, aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of literally all the activities, investigations, clean-ups and ongoing activities at the LOOW site.

As area residents have learned from the many, many past accounts on LOOW, the site has a very storied and controversial past, dating from the World War II era.

LOOW History

Originally private farmlands, nearly 7,500 acres were acquired by the U.S. government in 1942 for wartime use, initially as a TNT manufacturing plant. The site was then used as the Northeast Chemical Warfare depot as well as a research facility associated with the government Manhattan Project in the development of the atomic bombs dropped over Japan, which ended World War II.

From the mid-1940s to current day, LOOW became a site that comprised a very large variety of activities and uses. A selection of its historical and ongoing activities include: war-related operations; Boron-10 production; training sites established for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army National Guard; use as a NIKE Missile Base; the development of various private residential properties; the establishment of the Lewiston Porter School District campus; creation of the government remedial Niagara Falls Storage Site for the holding of radioactive and chemical war-time wastes, the continuing development/use of lands for Modern Corporation’s waste and recycling activities, continuing development/use of lands for hazardous waste disposal – covering private companies from Chemtrol to SCA in the 1970s and ’80s to Chemical Waste Management today; along with a number of various private company and community activities.

Collectively, the site’s past and continuing multitude of uses have created a logistical information nightmare to the numerous federal, state and local entities and private interests which have attempted to document its activities. As a result, confusion and uncertainty abounds among many, including the area’s residents.

“There has been a legacy, unfortunately, of mistrust over the decades of past and current operations at LOOW, and they could be impacting health,” said Kline as she explained her reasons for creating the Community LOOW Project. She also cited such issues as conflicts over the fragmentation of material from the dozens of agencies which have done work on the site, sketchy information regarding remaining radiological contamination, and public concern over the potential for conflicts of interest for some agencies supervising the LOOW site.

“That’s what prompted us to put this initiative together,” Kline said.

She then introduced Scott King of King Associates, project coordinator, who said the Community LOOW Project seeks to address this and more.

Study Areas

Both informed the Community LOOW information effort will focus on land issues as well as groundwater concerns throughout the LOOW site, aiming to do this through historical compilations, individual recollections, past clean-up accounts, and maps and various data obtained through the years from many of the aforementioned agencies.

A major component will involve analysis of the radioactive and chemical contamination still affecting various portions of the LOOW site. King said he is now in the process of assembling a scientific team to fully examine the mounds of data, which will include hydrologists, geologists, geophysicists, chemists, engineers, air and water monitors, health physicists and nuclear physicists.

He noted for example, University at Buffalo’s Environmental and Society Institute, led by Dr. Joseph Gardella, is currently working towards development of an elaborate Geographic Information Systems database of the entire LOOW site. Gardella’s team, which comprises UB graduate students, will focus on source analysis from such groups as the Army Corps, Army National Guard, DoE, the U.S. Air Force, and private property owners such as Modern and CWM.

Gardella said additional sources expected to be utilized include the LOOW Restoration Advisory Board, the CWM Community Advisory Committees in the towns of Lewiston and Porter, the Lewiston Porter School District Soils Study, the NYS Health Department Cancer Incidence Study of Lewiston and Porter, the Niagara County Health Department Well Study, and the Lewiston Museum Archives project.

Collaborate Data

“Our goal with this current project is not to do duplicate studies, but rather to collaborate” the existing data, Gardella said.

In developing the analysis, he said he intends to apply 2005 standards to data already available as well as any new information obtained. “We have to take into account what we know now, what exists in 2005,” Gardella said, pointing out for example that the toxicology data obtained throughout the years has changed over the decades.

Kline said the Community LOOW Project intends to have its study completed with final recommendations for further actions by 2007. Her brochure lists as its goal to “Ensure the entire LOOW site is investigated and remediated in a comprehensive manner to a condition and level of activity where it presents no material risk to residents of Western New York, Canada or the Great Lakes.”

Funding

Kline reported that much of the funding for its expected $200,000 cost has come from the Buffalo-Niagara area. Sources include: the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo -- $30,000; the WNY state Assembly delegation -- $25,000; the University at Buffalo’s Environmental and Society Institute -- $15,000; state Sen. George Maziarz -- $10,000; the Town of Porter -- $8,000; state Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte -- $5,000; Niagara County legislators Clyde Burmaster and Lee Simonson -- $4,000; and the Town of Lewiston -- $4,000. She added she was awaiting the approval of $95,000 in funding from the federal government towards the Community LOOW effort.

She closed by inviting still more outside input to the Community LOOW endeavor. Those seeking to assist in this effort may contact King at 913-8950. Other contact participants include the LOOW Restoration Advisory Board Outreach and Historical committees (Web site: www.loowrab.org); Jim DeVald at the Niagara County Department of Health, 439-7444; Norma McQuay at the Lewiston Museum Historical Society, 434-5052, and the CWM Community Advisory Committees in the towns of Lewiston and Porter.