LEWISTON, N.Y. — The federal government is one step closer to cleaning up the legacy of the Manhattan Project in Niagara County.
The Army Corps of Engineers announced that a $40 million contract has been awarded to Enviro-Fix Solutions LLC to remediate the Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS) on Pletcher Road in Lewiston.
The overall cost to fully cleanup and remediate the site is north of $500 million.
The NFSS sits on the former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site. In 1942, in an effort to boost munitions production for the war effort, 7,500 acres of farm land was forcibly purchased by the War Department.
In October 1942, a TNT manufacturing facility opened that produced 390,0000 pounds of TNT per day. The military, however, did not need as much TNT as it originally forecasted and the plant closed in July 1943. Starting in 1944, however, waste from various Manhattan Project locations was shipped to the LOOW site.
Wastes from various nuclear related projects were transported to the LOOW site until 1952. After the war, much of the 7,500 acres was sold as Army surplus to industry and private developers.
A boron separation plant was utilized on the site between 1953-1959 and again from 1965-1971.
As early as 1952, a 166ft concrete silo was constructed to store drums of K-65 residues. K-65 is military code for highly concentrated uranium ore. The silo did not have a top on it and was accessible by the public.
Currently there are 193,000 cubic yards of waste stored at the interim waste containment structure on the NFSS site. The plan selected by the Army Corps of Engineers calls for the complete removal of all waste from the NFSS.
Enviro-Fix LLC will begin removing soil around the interim waste containment structure as early as 2024 — after several public meetings and finalization of plans to transport the material off the site. Work to remove the tons of waste from inside the interim IWCS is still several years from beginning.
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, a public meeting will be held in February 2024 to inform the public how the material from around the IWCS will be removed without endangering the public.