Niagara County IDA and Kidneys
On Niagara's "new" renal center and IDA tax breaks

One of the major ailments associated with exposure to Uranium is kidney disease. We have lots of kidney disease around Niagara, the County once beautiful. According to the US Department of Energy, Niagara Falls, NY, was the free world's largest supplier of Uranium metal for the Manhattan Project and well beyond into the days of the Atomic Energy Commission. Much waste remains in our area.

That being said--There used to be a vocal opponent to the awful environmental conditions around Niagara-Lewiston-Porter-Youngstown, NY. Those protests were voiced prior to the opening of Niagara renal center and then stopped coming from this prominent Niagara County business individual & NFTA Commissioner. This same individual has an office located on Hyde Park Boulevard, on the Northern end near to College Ave., Rt. 31 and only about a mile from Niagara University.

When Albany sanctioned NFR first came to the city of Niagara Falls, they were charged with developing the downtown area. Their first monetary obligation for the development of Downtown went to repave a dead end road attached to this same person's business property at the Town of Niagara line, fully three miles from the development area. A pile of illegally disposed of truck tires (from Cerrone trucking) was removed at taxpayer expense, along with a general cleanup of years worth of industrial debris. Were these truck tires a result of some radiological or other hazardous waste cleanup project from times past and therefor a problem to dispose of?

This property is located adjacent to one of the most famous early atomic sites in America (recently deeded to Smokin' You Know). Was this particular road contaminated? It's anybody's guess. Mayor Irene Elia, a Republican, was directly involved with this Albany level "quiet cleanup" and her family's company, Sevenson Environmental may have benefited in various aspects. Please keep in mind that these same people are very close to the state governor George Pataki.

Now, this same Millionaire is seeking Niagara County Industrial Development Agency tax breaks and "assistance" because Niagara needs another kidney dialysis company--not actually a new business--just a further monopoly on Niagara Countian's health--and with tax abated help!

When I first wrote of this in Artvoice magazine, there was a threat made with regard to a lawsuit. Well, here I am Mr. Henry Sloma, come sue me directly!

Excerpted from Artvoice available here.:

http://www.ask.ne.jp/~hankaku/english/niagara_fall.html

THE BOMB THAT FELL ON NIAGARA
Why is Niagara Falls Burning?
July 12, 2001
Paragraph heading:

Red Headed Step Children-

...Now they live--and die--among the mess companies like National Lead, Union Carbide and Hooker Chemical left behind.

If you drive through the neighborhoods of Niagara Falls you can see that the houses downwind of the chemical and metallurgical plants have aged much more quickly than houses upwind. The paint is peeling, the clapboards are dry and cracking--exposure to the poisons pouring into the air has withered them. It does the same thing to people.

Nobody invests in these neighborhoods because people with money to invest are savvy enough to realize that these areas are unrecoverable. The City of Niagara Falls recently decided to apply a $790,000 grant to paving three seldom used roads near where Fridays fire took place. None of the roads has ever been paved before, and none leads anywhere you'd want to go. One of the roads, Delaware Avenue, runs behind Ferro Electronics (previously Titanium Alloys Manufacturing, an Atomic Weapons Employer) and adjacent to the back lot that is home to tons of radium, thorium and uranium wastes. (Next to Niagara University.)

The other two roads dead end in fields much like the one that caught fire last Friday. There are great decaying hulks of old factories, piles of truck tires, unidentified metal barrels, garbage, twisted steel, asbestos tiles--all nature of refuse spread out in these fields.

Sevenson Environmental, which is a leading government contractor for hazardous chemical and radioactive waste remediation, stores old vehicles, trailers and equipment along one of the roads on what is most likely city property. (Interestingly, Sevenson Construction was the company that the Army Corps of Engineers contracted to help them shut off the Falls in 1969.) Sevenson is owned by the family of Niagara Falls Mayor Irene Elia.

Much of the property along the other road is owned by NFTA commissioner Henry Sloma, who runs a small audio-visual business out of an office there.

Oddly, the $790,000 grant comes under the auspices of an enterprise zone that is in downtown Niagara Falls. The three roads to be paved are miles away from the zone; one of them is not even inside the city limits.

The argument is that improved road access will encourage creative reuse of the brownfields. But last Fridays fire illustrates precisely why that is wishful thinking: No private investor is going to assume the liability that comes with property heavily contaminated by nobody-knows-what. The only way that land will ever be used for anything other than a dumping ground is if some government agency comes in, investigates the site and cleans it up to a guaranteed pristine condition. Otherwise, who wants to buy land that might be poisoning the neighborhood? That might poison you and your workers? That might spontaneously burst into flame?

It's just too bad that all of the members of the IDA are a part-and-parcel of this reoccurring problem around Niagara that of tax breaks for cronies--and it's too bad that the IDA Board all don't sponteaneously burst into flames...just like the suspicious fires that happen in the old factory fields around Niagara, the county once beautiful.

Now, does anyone wonder why Niagara County politicians, lawyers, etc get their health insurance paid for and YOU don't have that same luxury?