BURIED SECRETS from the Niagara Gazette DAY TWO

Niagara has long history of environmental missteps

By Aaron Besecker
Monday, July 25, 2005

Tales of swamp monsters and strangely glowing animals living around the land of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works were commonplace when Paul Gromosiak was growing up.

As a child, he and his friends often ventured across the landscape not knowing what was buried under their feet.

“It was the thing to do,” Gromosiak said.

The Niagara Falls historian wishes he knew then what he knows now.

And what he does know — not only about the LOOW but the region’s legacy of environmental pollution — isn’t a pretty picture.

The giant in the story is the Manhattan Project wastes buried at the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works in the 1940s. They contain materials and residue from the making of the atomic bomb.

“Those monsters are here forever,” Gromosiak said.

The first monsters, though, came in the form of early saw mills that dumped waste right into the Niagara River in the early 19th century.

More serious wastes arrived with the advent of the chemical industry in the 1920s.

And what story about Niagara and the environment would be complete without the mention of Love Canal.

“Love Canal was an absolute tragedy,” said Sean Q. Kelly, Niagara University political science professor and chair of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Restoration Advisory Board.

The fact that people were hurt and the government resisted and denied what was going on only made things worse, Kelly said.

The current process is much more open, and the government climate has changed since the 1970s, according to Kelly.

He suspects many people who moved out of Niagara Falls because of Love Canal might have ended up in Lewiston and Youngstown — the areas now in the LOOW line of fire.


Still, the name ‘Love Canal’ serves as an eye-opener, even today.

“That really awakened everyone to the problems,” Gromosiak said.

Two of Gromosiak’s uncles worked at Hooker Chemical, the company that dumped chemicals with known carcinogens into four contaminated sites.

Unfortunately, those relatives didn’t really think about what the odors they smelled at work might be doing to them, he said.

“Ignorance was not bliss at Niagara Falls,” Gromosiak said. “It was dangerous. It was deadly.”

Contact Aaron Besecker at (716) 282-2311, Ext. 2263.

©2004 The Kokomo Tribune
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Lew-Port, LOOW are talk of the town

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/print_story.asp?id=2403

By Rick Forgione and Aaron Besecker
Monday, July 25, 2005

LEWISTON — Charlene Lopacki used to laugh every time her father told one of his tall tales about spotting a giant rabbit or a squirrel with two tails while he was hunting near the former Lake Ontario Ordinance Works site off of Creek Road.

Now she wonders if her father really was exaggerating.

“There’s been so many reports of people becoming sick and dying because of what’s buried there, it’s hard to ignore,” she said.

As a student at Lewiston-Porter 10 years ago, Lopacki never worried about whether chemicals were located behind the school buildings, which sit on the buffer zone of LOOW. She and her classmates used to spend time in the back woods along a roped playground course. She even recalls climbing on a few green barrels from time to time.

“We didn’t know about any dangers back then,” she said, “but it makes me really nervous for the teachers and kids now.”

Thirty years ago, former Youngstown resident John Soltys used to hunt on land that was part of the LOOW site. He often found the land in a state of disrepair, with gates and fences knocked down allowing anyone to just walk right in. Now, Soltys said, there needs to be an investigation done independently of the government.

“It never got the public attention it should’ve got,” Soltys said.

Lewiston resident Karl Terryberry thinks the situation is well worth investigating, but it’s too soon to be calling for any drastic action like some locals have been.

“They’re out of their minds,” said Terryberry, who moved to North Carolina after school but then came back to the area because he likes it so much. “Ignorance is really dangerous in a situation like this.”

“Until all the facts are in, I’m not going to worry about it,” he later said.

Porter resident Phyllis Hastings agreed. She lived on Porter Center Road and attended Lew-Port for her entire school career. She, along with her two siblings and three children, graduated from there. She readily dismissed the health concerns.

“I’ve heard it for years, but I don’t buy into it,” Hastings said, “because I don’t know that many unhealthy people.”

Lewiston-Porter High School senior Matt Janik said the community has the right to know the truth.

“There’s probably something there,” he said. “People need to take tests, get the proper results and show the community everything they found.”

John Long, who owns 61 acres of land on the former LOOW site, now operates a walleye hatchery on the premises.

As a kid, he used to live on Balmer Road, and remembers a high incidence of cancer in residents on the nearby Parker Road. He and his friends used to take their .22-caliber guns and shoot rats on the old LOOW site in his younger days.

His farm was downwind from the dump site, but neither he nor his family ever got sick, Long said. “There’s no reason for me to suspect anything.”

Bruce Pryce graduated from Lew-Port in the mid-1970s, and remembers his neighbors dying from leukemia.

“Back then we all knew the stuff was there, but it wasn’t as publicized,” said Pryce, who used to hunt deer in the area eat his kill.

“But I’m sure it takes 30 to 40 years for that (cancer) stuff to show up,” he said.

Didi Mead had two boys attend Lew-Port. She also realizes the time it takes for comprehensive studies to be done and to connect cancer with a source.

“That, unfortunately, is very hard to prove,” Mead said.

But when she really sat down and thought about what could be happening, Mead said she had a big reality check.

As far as the continuing burden of the area taking in so much hazardous waste, enough is enough.

“I just think we’ve had our fair share,” Mead said.

Meanwhile, the years of rumors and reports of elevated levels of cancer and death have left current students wondering what’s still being kept a secret.

“I definitely think things are being covered up,” said Lewiston-Porter senior Matt Janik.

Some students, like 2005 graduate Matt Agnello, believe that the towns and school district are afraid to dig deep into the mystery because it would result in less financial contributions and gifts from companies like Chemical Waste Management.

“Companies are trying to buy them out by giving money, but we’re the ones who are paying,” Agnello said. “I definitely think the chances of me getting cancer are higher because I went to school in Lewiston-Porter.”

SAFETY: Residents’ opinions mixed about rumors of contamination and danger from LOOW site.

BY rick forgione And Aaron Besecker

LEWISTON — Charlene Lopacki used to laugh every time her father told one of his tall tales about spotting a giant rabbit or a squirrel with two tails while he was hunting near the former Lake Ontario Ordinance Works site off of Creek Road.

Now she wonders if her father really was exaggerating.

“There’s been so many reports of people becoming sick and dying because of what’s buried there, it’s hard to ignore,” she said.

As a student at Lewiston-Porter 10 years ago, Lopacki never worried about whether chemicals were located behind the school buildings, which sit on the buffer zone of LOOW. She and her classmates used to spend time in the back woods along a roped playground course. She even recalls climbing on a few green barrels from time to time.

“We didn’t know about any dangers back then,” she said, “but it makes me really nervous for the teachers and kids now.”

Thirty years ago, former Youngstown resident John Soltys used to hunt on land that was part of the LOOW site. He often found the land in a state of disrepair, with gates and fences knocked down allowing anyone to just walk right in. Now, Soltys said, there needs to be an investigation done independently of the government.

“It never got the public attention it should’ve got,” Soltys said.

Lewiston resident Karl Terryberry thinks the situation is well worth investigating, but it’s too soon to be calling for any drastic action like some locals have been.

“They’re out of their minds,” said Terryberry, who moved to North Carolina after school but then came back to the area because he likes it so much. “Ignorance is really dangerous in a situation like this.”

“Until all the facts are in, I’m not going to worry about it,” he later said.

Porter resident Phyllis Hastings agreed. She lived on Porter Center Road and attended Lew-Port for her entire school career. She, along with her two siblings and three children, graduated from there. She readily dismissed the health concerns.

“I’ve heard it for years, but I don’t buy into it,” Hastings said, “because I don’t know that many unhealthy people.”

Lewiston-Porter High School senior Matt Janik said the community has the right to know the truth.

“There’s probably something there,” he said. “People need to take tests, get the proper results and show the community everything they found.”

John Long, who owns 61 acres of land on the former LOOW site, now operates a walleye hatchery on the premises.

As a kid, he used to live on Balmer Road, and remembers a high incidence of cancer in residents on the nearby Parker Road. He and his friends used to take their .22-caliber guns and shoot rats on the old LOOW site in his younger days.

His farm was downwind from the dump site, but neither he nor his family ever got sick, Long said. “There’s no reason for me to suspect anything.”

Bruce Pryce graduated from Lew-Port in the mid-1970s, and remembers his neighbors dying from leukemia.

“Back then we all knew the stuff was there, but it wasn’t as publicized,” said Pryce, who used to hunt deer in the area eat his kill.

“But I’m sure it takes 30 to 40 years for that (cancer) stuff to show up,” he said.

Didi Mead had two boys attend Lew-Port. She also realizes the time it takes for comprehensive studies to be done and to connect cancer with a source.

“That, unfortunately, is very hard to prove,” Mead said.

But when she really sat down and thought about what could be happening, Mead said she had a big reality check.

As far as the continuing burden of the area taking in so much hazardous waste, enough is enough.

“I just think we’ve had our fair share,” Mead said.

Meanwhile, the years of rumors and reports of elevated levels of cancer and death have left current students wondering what’s still being kept a secret.

“I definitely think things are being covered up,” said Lewiston-Porter senior Matt Janik.

Some students, like 2005 graduate Matt Agnello, believe that the towns and school district are afraid to dig deep into the mystery because it would result in less financial contributions and gifts from companies like Chemical Waste Management.

“Companies are trying to buy them out by giving money, but we’re the ones who are paying,” Agnello said. “I definitely think the chances of me getting cancer are higher because I went to school in Lewiston-Porter.”

Contact Rick Forgione at (716) 282-2311, Ext. 2257.

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Opening Pandora’s box

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/print_story.asp?id=2404

By Aaron Besecker
Monday, July 25, 2005

PORTER — As workers wheeled three sets of radiation detection instruments around CWM Chemical Services property last week, Richard Sturges saw progress.

A lengthy struggle embroiled here on part of the site known as the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, and has sparked up over the past few years.

At issue is whether CWM’s hazardous waste operations at the site — a former federal dumping ground for materials from the Manhattan Project — might be disturbing buried materials and perpetuating health risks.

For Sturges, CWM’s district manager at its Model City site, the testing represents the latest step in the search for answers — answers he believes will help put the concerns to rest and give comfort to concerned citizens in the community.

“The company is committed to working with the community and providing the information necessary to show the facility, first, is safe, properly managed and in compliance with federal, state and local regulations,” Sturges said.

He also mentioned the company’s obligation to protect the health and safety of its workforce as a priority.

CWM, a subsidiary of national waste giant Waste Management, began operations on 710 acres of land in Porter in 1988. On a daily basis, shipments of various kinds of hazardous and industrial non-hazardous waste containing contaminants such as PCBs, metals, acids, waste oils and other materials arrive for treatment and disposal.

But for critics, the real danger arrived long before CWM showed up.

“The major concern is that land was previously contaminated during WWII operations and the period afterwards when it was used as a storage area for government radiological waste,” said Vincent Agnello, president of Residents for Responsible Government.

RRG formed in late-2001 after Town of Porter officials amended zoning laws allowing CWM to expand. Citing a lack of local leadership, Agnello said his group provides information and “a community-generated response for our leaders to follow.”

Members of RRG want a moratorium on all activity at the CWM site until all safety issues are addressed. “If that means shutting them down it means shutting them down,” Agnello said.

Sturges believes the $100 million spent on environmental upgrades to the facility since 1984 indicate the company is acting responsibly toward concerns.

One project, with a total cost of about $40 million, involved the securing of an area known as the “Lagoons and Salts.” Areas where soil and groundwater contamination were found were treated and capped to prevent further problems.

Add to that work the newly implemented radiological site scan — of which 50 acres of scanning has already been completed with nothing above background contamination found — and Sturges believes the scientific expertise will provide real answers soon.

“This is not a helter skelter thing,” Sturges said. “We’re gathering very valuable data.”

Officials at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency in charge of the LOOW cleanup, did not return calls for comment for this story.

The fact that CWM sits on the LOOW site complicates the situation, said Sean Q. Kelly, Niagara University professor and chair of the U.S. Army Corps’ Restoration Advisory Board.

“That’s what makes it difficult,” Kelly said. “The issues become intertwined with one another.”

Sturges called for critics to be reasonable and to put issues in proper perspective.

On the other hand, Agnello said today’s problems could have been prevented if planners thought about what they were doing.

“To build a school next to a radiological deposit makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,” Agnello said. “And then to put a landfill next to the school was totally insane.”

No CWM official would ever be able to convince him that radium and plutonium — two radiological substances found on the site — are safe, Agnello added.

He also responded strongly to Sturges’ call for critics to be reasonable.

“The property immediately adjacent to CWM is available,” Agnello said. “Maybe Dick Sturges should purchase it and build his mansion there if he thinks it’s so safe instead of living outside of Niagara County.”

Contact Aaron Besecker at (716) 282-2311, Ext. 2263.
©2004 The Kokomo Tribune

BURIED SECRETS a Niagara Gazette series, Day Three

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/print_story.asp?id=2407

Too close for comfort
By Rick Forgione
Tuesday, July 26, 2005

LEWISTON-PORTER — Twenty-one-year-old Breanne Sterner bravely walked up to Ralph Nader and asked him “do you think I look pretty?”

When he said yes, Sterner tore off her wig exposing her bald head — a side effect from chemotherapy to treat her cancer, which she believes is a result of going to school in the Lewiston-Porter School District.

And just like that, Sterner sent a message that no longer will people be able to keep the lid on the possible dangers of a school campus and community living next to one of the worst radioactive waste sites in America.

“If it helps make people realize something really needs to be done, that’s really what I care about,” Sterner said about exposing her illness to Nader during his visit to Lewiston in April. “My mom and I wanted to talk to him and let him know what was really going on.”

Lewiston-Porter’s Creek Road school campus sits on what’s considered the buffer zone of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, the site of federal government activity during the 1940s, including the storage of radioactive waste.

Also nearby is Chemical Waste Management, home to the Northeast’s only hazardous waste storage site.

In December, Sterner was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. She’s spent the past seven months undergoing chemotherapy treatments.

“We feel the environment has a lot to do with my illness,” said Sterner, who had no prior health problems. “I never even had a cavity before.”

She isn’t the only one who believes what’s buried on the old LOOW site is making people sick. Local environment researchers, like Lou Ricciuti, have spent the last several years warning about the health hazards of working or going to school in Lewiston-Porter.

A group of residents have been conducting an unofficial study of the number of Lew-Port teacher deaths by sifting through old obituaries. Ricciuti said the search showed more than 60 teachers have died over the past 30 years, an average of 2.2 a year.

“The majority of the teachers who died were below the average life expectancy rate,” Ricciuti said, adding it’s impossible to track the number of student illnesses and deaths because of confidentiality clauses. “There’s definitely a problem.”

The Niagara County Health Department has not collected specific data on cancer and death rates involving Lew-Port students and teachers.

Lewiston-Porter Interim Superintendent Don Rappold said counting obituaries doesn’t confirm the deaths were a result of the environment.

“There could be plenty of other reasons such as family history of illness, whether they were smokers or even other factors in the community,” he said. “I know the teachers in this district better than anyone up here, I hired most of them, and I don’t see anything unusual.”

Rappold added that he’s worked in the district for 18 years and doesn’t suffer from any health problems.

The school district has a health and safety committee made up of parents, school staff, students and other health and education officials that meets about twice a year.

Beth Truax, executive vice president of the Lewiston-Porter United Teachers Union, said the committee always deals with any concerns or problems from the teachers right away. Union leaders have also collected anecdotal data on teacher cancer and death rates, she added.

“We have found nothing of significance to indicate a health hazard at this time,” Truax said.

That doesn’t mean every teacher is convinced they’re working in a safe environment.

“There are some who have varying levels of concerns given the district’s location,” Truax said. “We are always concerned about the health and welfare of our members.”

William Spry, who holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, took a large interest in the environmental concerns while he was a member of the Lew-Port School Board. While he agrees the fear is tremendous — especially over the discovery of plutonium found on the LOOW site — he believes the health concerns have been over exaggerated.

“That site has gotten many different complaints about it mainly because of the secrecy,” Spry said. “It is not unsafe to live next to.”

Spry compared the chances of getting sick from the environment to the chance of dying in a car crash while driving to Youngstown. He does concede, however, there appears to be a higher level of cancer among Lewiston and Porter residents than other areas in the state.

“Statistics are strange things,” he said, adding too many people are trying to create a chaos theory in Lew-Port. “It’s politics working the game.”

Try telling that to Lew-Port students, like Sterner, who are now battling life-threatening illnesses. She remembers going behind the school buildings and into the backwoods area for “Project Adventure” as part of their required physical education class.

Consisting of an obstacle course with ropes and boards, “Project Adventure” tested students on their ability to get across a small pond. Often times, students would fall into the mud or water — all within a stone’s throw of the LOOW site.

That physical education “activity” was stopped a few years ago.

Class of 1999 graduate Nick Baio was among those students who got dirty during Project Adventure. He remembers how students used to tell jokes about Lew-Port, saying how it was built on a toxic waste dump.

Baio is no longer laughing; neither are his classmates, one of which was diagnosed with cancer and a few others battling other unusual illnesses.

“I don’t really like to think about it, I guess,” Baio answered when asked if he’s worried his years as a Lew-Port student may affect his health. “But it’s always in the back of your mind.”

Baio said a lot of students used to go back to the LOOW site to party. The district’s cross country runners went through the area during practices.

Sterner, who was a cheerleader, now looks back at all of the nights she spent at the football stadium behind the schools and asks herself if things would be different if she had attended school somewhere else.

Her illness hasn’t stopped her from living her life. She has become a professional cheerleader and is ready to focus her energies on spreading the word of the environmental dangers of Lewiston and Porter.

“The main thing is me getting better first,” she said. “Once that happens, we’re going to start to get really involved.”

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Connecting the dots

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/print_story.asp?id=2409

By Aaron Besecker
Tuesday, July 26, 2005

LEWISTON — First it was her neighbors from childhood. Then numerous family members. Back cancer, blood disorders, sickness at early ages — strange diseases that never made any sense.

Throughout her life, Jenny Banas has known the impact of cancer. She’s seen it in the faces of people living around Lewiston-Porter and the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works — their fates tied together by a killer.

“It’s endless,” said Banas, of the list of friends, acquaintances, neighbors who’ve fallen from the disease.

But the list goes farther, deeper into the past where memories linger of dying loved ones stricken with a horrible illness.

Banas, who used to live in the area but now resides in Wolcott in Wayne County, believes the sicknesses can be connected to the history of chemical and radiological contamination at LOOW. She blames leaders for putting the Lew-Port schools so close to the dump.

But all the belief and anecdotal evidence in the world can only go so far.

Scientists, cancer experts and health officials have not found any data to link the toxic pollutants from the site with illnesses in residents.

It’s tricky business to make such a connection, said Richard Harvey, chief radiation expert at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.

As the radiation safety officer at one of the country’s top hospitals, Harvey knows the ins and outs of radiation. From his perspective, a lack of data makes it difficult to definitively say the LOOW site is causing cancer in nearby residents.

“It’s hard to say unless you know everything,” Harvey said. And at this point, officials don’t.

The likelihood for an individual to get cancer depends on a lot of things, according to Harvey. Lifestyle, genetics and exposure to environmental contaminants differ for each person.

And the type of cancer that may result from exposure differs based on what type of material winds up inside the body. Certain materials affect the lymph nodes, or the blood or the stomach.

The most likely way people in and around the LOOW site could be exposed is through ingesting materials in contaminated drinking water. The chance that people who live downwind could be exposed through radiation spread through the air — in a process known as re-suspension — is less likely because the process is inefficient, Harvey said.

Much the same for people who live farther downstream if the material is in a water source. By the time the substance reached that person, it would be diluted.

Movement of radioactive materials in contaminated soils through groundwater is possible, but again, dilution occurs and the risk decreases.

“The more radiation that gets delivered, the more likely it would cause biological effect,” Harvey said.

The people most at risk around the LOOW site are workers, who are closest to the source of radiation and likely to receive the biggest dose of radiation.

In order to assuage residents concerned about migration of substances off the LOOW and CWM site, Harvey suggested creating a perimeter of monitoring. Such testing could then provide data to assess risk for students and staff at Lewiston-Porter schools.

For Banas, who went to Lew-Port and thinks the schools need to be moved, the message about past contamination has been on the wall since she took classes on Creek Road.

“Everybody knew,” Banas said. “Nobody did anything.”

On a larger scale, officials say the evidence just isn’t there.

“Statistically, we don’t have any cancer statistics that are greater than anywhere in Western New York,” said Niagara County Public Health Director Paulette Kline.

Locally, cancer rates are related to the area’s history of industrial pollution, Kline added.

State health officials have planned a cancer study for the Lewiston-Porter district. The design of the study has been completed, and will take around two years to complete, according to Kline.

A spokesman for the state Department of Health, Jeffrey Hammond, said Niagara County has never been reported to the Center for Disease Control under the suspicion it might have any “clusters,” or high rates of cancer.

Another DOH spokesman, Robert Kenny, said there are multiple factors that contribute to cancer incidence. He declined to comment on the possible connection between sickness and the LOOW site.

Kline — who said the county’s well-water testing program is progressing and stressed she doesn’t want to cause any undue alarm in the public — believes many in the public are eager to link the LOOW site with rates.

“Most people that suffer from that devastating illness want to know the cause,” Kline said.

 Copyright 2005