BUFFALO, N.Y. — Western New York's legacy as a waterfront community and unfortunately a dumping site for potentially dangerous radioactive waste are both responsibilities of the Buffalo District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Now the agency is getting a good amount of federal funding to continue that work.
Staffers at the Buffalo District headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers will be very busy in the coming year.
They will oversee a nearly $140 Million long list of federally funded projects already approved by Congress in part by the Infrastructure Bill.
That includes dredging and repair money for Sturgeon Point Marina in Evans and Buffalo's Outer Harbor to help enhance past work at Ralph Wilson Centennial Park.
And then big-ticket items like the Black Rock Channel Lock and Tonawanda Harbor.
U.S. Representative Brian Higgins notes "We have made incredible waterfront progress in the last decade but to maximize the potential for recreational, commercial, and fishing boat activities investments in the water are just as important."
The $21 Million contract work on the over 110-year-old channel Lock begins later this summer.
The Engineer Corps has much bigger concerns with contaminated cleanup sites in the region dating back to the Second World War.
Army Engineer Corps Buffalo District Commander Lt. Colonel Colby Krug points out.
"Seven of those ten (sites) have already been remediated and restored and given back to the community for appropriate use."
Now $103 Million is slated for the former Guterl Steel Plant Site also known as Simond Saw in Lockport. That is where highly radioactive uranium ore from Africa was processed and rolled to make nuclear weapons in the 1950s.
And then in Lewiston, there is $10 Million allocated for the Niagara Falls Storage Site and overall Lake Ontario Ordinance Works. Money is also set aside for similar sites in Tonawanda.
Bill Kowalewski is the Manager of FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program). He spoke about the Niagara Falls Storage Site. "It was a TNT factory in World War Two which quickly became obsolete before the end of the war. The particular wastes that are buried at the Niagara Falls Storage Site are very highly radioactive. They were a very valuable commodity for the early nuclear program. That's what makes them so special. The other sites have much, much lower concentrations of uranium and other radioactive elements."
Kowalewski says the cleanup program and removal of radioactive-laced soil require careful coordination.
"All of our cleanup actions are very protective of the groundwater, the soil, the air. We have very robust monitoring and control programs in place that make sure that that material does not move offsite. And we've got years of investigations and current monitoring to make sure that what was placed there decades ago hasn't moved offsite."
Higgins says he will seek more funding to finish the projects.