Dear Mike of the Mountain:

I'd like to refer you over to the other thread where the Robert Moses Parkway is being discussed with a Mr. James Hufnagel. Not so much for the power plant safety aspects, but more so for the statement that there are documents that exist, that say things are leaking upstream of the LOOW-- Lewiston-Porter Schools and Youngstown, but are not being presented for a look-see.

I guess it's ok for things to drain on down towards and past L-P. You know, gravity, the river and all. You'll see where one member of an "environmental" group is now telling me that there are EPA documents that they have withheld "That I'd cream over." 

This is a wonderful situation to deal with isn't it?

Maybe you can make some sense of all this. I'm baffled why these documents were only mentioned now, as some sort of poke-in-the-eye, and never offered before. Please keep in mind that I have provided this same environemtnal group with hundreds of hours of research over the last seven or eight years. Imagine that.

Best,

Lou Ricciuti

CONTACT NIAGARA HERITAGE PARTNERSHIP at: NiagaraHeritage@aol.com

(You may want to ask for an electronic receipt if available to you.)

.

. no comment

i was told not to speak......

Thursday, 8/24,  the Somerset Group, its owner John Syms and his wife Eileen filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York against the federal government and Olin Corporation due to environmental contamination of the former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works (LOOW) in the Towns of Porter and Lewiston, Niagara County. 

In 1970, the  Somerset Group acquired 132 acres of LOOW property without knowledge of the contamination, and still owns 39 acres of the contaminated property. The Syms property was contaminated with radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project, as well as toxic and explosive chemicals from various defense programs conducted at LOOW, including a TNT factory, and a rocket fuel plant operated by Olin. It is less than one half mile from the Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS), the government storage area for radioactive waste from nuclear weapons. The plaintiffs' efforts to develop an industrial park on the site were stymied by a 1972 abatement order issued by the New York State Department of Health, prohibiting any use of the site due to radioactive contamination.

By 1992, the Government presented that the radioactive contamination had been removed from the Site to the NFSS. However, with recent reports that the NFSS is leaking, which is connected to the property via a drainage ditch, and through recent testing conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers, which discovered explosive, toxic and asbestos waste contamination on the property, plaintiffs filed the action to demand immediate remediation of their property. 

Although the Syms have cooperated with ongoing efforts of the Department of Defense to conduct an investigation of the contaminated property, the investigation has been ongoing for many years with no remediation in sight.  The government has failed to address numerous environmental concerns on the property and in the community surrounding the site and the LOOW.   "The time has come for the government to start cleaning up the property and the LOOW in order to protect this community", said John Syms. The plaintiffs seek $25 million in damages, largely arising out of their inability to use the land or conduct business on their property due to the contamination.   Their claims arise under federal and state environmental statutes, and common law theories including public nuisance. 

The plaintiffs are represented by environmental lawyers Linda Shaw and Alan Knauf from the Rochester law firm of Knauf Koegel & Shaw, LLP.  Ronald Kuis, an environmental attorney and registered professional nuclear engineer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been acted as a technical expert on the case.  "The property at issue in this case should have never been sold by the government to private citizens. Given the new information being revealed about radiation levels outside of the NFSS, the Syms site, the NFSS and all of the contaminated LOOW property should be a top priority for immediate cleanup by the federal government", said attorney Linda Shaw.  A trial date has not been set.  (8/25/

Environmental News   AUGUST 2002
... Olin & US Sued For Contamination In At Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. Thursday,
8/24, the Somerset Group, its owner John Syms and his wife Eileen filed ...
www.lockport-ny.com/enviro.htm - 67k - Cached - Similar pages   August 2002

See also: www.atomicniagara.wny.org

quote:

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Originally posted by: Eagle
"Down in a cave lives four divided area's known as the NFSS.The clay seals these,but you know that.Should always be at the top.Just incase IT comes to the top!"

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it has been shown that the clay under the various dump sites in side of the LOOW site has imperfections and also "leaks"   ,    right now one of the operaters is sucking ground water from the site and after testing the water , sending it to the niagara river under the JD state park , this ground water is drawn from within the LOOW site but away from the areas of contamination , so as the water flows from the areas of contamination it is filtered by the soil and much of the contamination stops in the soil on the LOOW site   ,    the reason they do that is to create a "vacuum" in the local aquifer ,  ground water from the area surrounding the LOOW site flows INTO the LOOW site   .      so what ? you say ?

      because if ground water from the surrounding area is always flowing in to the LOOW site ,  THE CONTAMINATED GROUND WATER UNDER THE LOOW SITE can not flow outwards and infect the aquifer [in theory anyway].     any more than has already been done before the wells were installed .

               and so that the nasty stuff that has leaked already from the permeable clay layers will be absorbed in the soil between the wells and the area of contamination .    thus rendering the LOOW site to be un repairable , no amount or remediation could recover all of the contamination already dispersed throught the RADIACTIVE WASTE DUMP SITES ,  including the NFSS area .            all this a few hundered meters from the LewPort Schools ....

          if the powers that be did not believe the above statements , they had no reason to ever drill the wells and begin evacuating the ground water in the first place ..... the wells are there .                 so are the schools .....