The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hosting a public information session on future cleanup work at the Seaway Landfill Site in Tonawanda.
The meeting will take place from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Tonawanda Senior Center, 291 Ensminger Road. Officials are expected to outline construction activities due to start next month.
Part of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, the Seaway Site along River Road was previously a landfill operated by Browning-Ferris Industries from 1930 through 1993. The nearby Linde Air Products Division of Union Carbide had processed uranium ore as part of the Manhattan Project. Radioactive residues were dumped in an adjacent site as a result. From 2015 to 2016, 1,121 cubic yards of contaminated soil beyond the landfills leachate was excavated and shipped offsite.
The Army Corps had awarded Niagara Falls contractor Mark Cerrone, Inc. $17.6 million this past September to install a 22-acre engineered cap to cover three areas of the site to limit exposure of radioactive material. Aside from installing caps, work includes grading access roads, stormwater management, erosion control, gas monitoring, and planting vegetative soils.
Air monitoring will take place for 30 days prior to construction, which is scheduled to last from May to the spring of 2025.
The Army Corps is also hosting another public information session on work happening at the Niagara Falls Storage Site on Pletcher Road in Lewiston this spring. It is scheduled for 6:30 to 9 p.m. April 23 at the Lewiston Senior Center, 4361 Lower River Road.