RRG session focuses on LOOW site

by Terry Duffy
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, February 24, 2007

Last weekend, Residents for Responsible Government held the first in its series of public information programs aimed at providing increased education to the community on various environmental issues affecting the northern Niagara County community.

Walter Garrow, chair of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Restoration Advisory Board, presented to the two-dozen in attendance at the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown the various historical elements of the LOOW site, a much discussed land area in past years in Lewiston and Porter. “We want to work to find answers, build relationships, share partnerships and reach goals on the LOOW site,” he said.

Garrow detailed at length the many past activities of LOOW; how it first came to be; its involvement in World War II; its various land filling uses in subsequent decades; the controversies that resulted; and its current state and future objectives. He said, for example, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the government agency charged with overseeing various portions of the once 7,500-acre LOOW site, is now in the midst of surveillance projects at the highly contaminated, 191-acre Niagara Falls Storage Site, located on Pletcher Road, just east of the Lewiston-Porter School District. Garrow said the Department of Homeland Security is engaged in an ongoing examination of the various radiological and chemical contamination found at the site to determine future remediation and long-term objectives – which he did not elaborate on.

Garrow closed his hour-long discussion by informing the Army Corps has, and continues to, work with the LOOW RAB group of citizen volunteers on both addressing the ongoing risk assessments as well as the long-range future goals at LOOW, which he said remains a work in progress.

RRG reports that the March 3 session, titled the “Great Lakes Water Quality Conference,” will feature a panel of international experts and focus on the topic of water quality and environmental concerns in the Great Lakes region. Presentations and a roundtable discussion with attendees will also be included.

For details, contact RRG program coordinator Bill Choboy at 745-3462.