Lewiston residents will get another update from the Army Corps of Engineers on plans for cleaning up the Niagara Falls Storage Site.
The next public session is scheduled for 6:30 to 9 p.m. April 23 at the Lewiston Senior Center, 4361 Lower River Road.
During the session, attendees will get the chance to:
• Meet the Integrated Technical Office team, who will share work plan details.
• Learn about the state of NFSS-related activities.
• Learn about the components of the selected remedy of phase I of removal.
• Receive details on the project schedule, with crew mobilization starting mid-May.
• Get updates on the design and future work for the site.
The site was previously used to store radioactive waste from uranium ore refining for the Manhattan Project from 1944 to 1952. It is now listed under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, which manages and cleans contamination from early United States Atomic Energy Commission activities.
The Army Corps held its last informational meeting at the Senior Center in October, where Site Project Manager Brent Laspada said the removal of radioactive materials from 1397 Pletcher Road would start this spring and the full cleanup would take at least 10 years.
Radioactive elements present there are uranium, radium and thorium, with other non-radioactive carcinogenic substances there including chlorinated solvents, polychlorinated biphenyls, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
When Phase I of removal starts, 640 trucks would carry material outside of the Interim Waste Containment Structure, which contains most of the radioactive material, out of state over a 16-week period.
Phase 2 focused on the IWCS involves building new infrastructure to safely transport the remaining radioactive materials. Designs for the phase, including a new processing facility and for preventing radon gas from escaping, will be complete by 2027.
The Army Corps first released its proposed plan for the site in 2015, making the decision to ship the materials out of state in 2019.
The site will be turned over to the Department of Energy when work is complete.
The total cost of cleanup, based on a feasibility estimate, is half a billion dollars with the funding coming from the federal government. Most recently, the site was earmarked to receive $9.55 million for this remediation work in President Biden’s proposed budget.