Niagara Watershed Alliance

Press Releases & Editorials

Press Releases

May15, 2010 - Corporate Campaign Contributions Exposing Us to Disaster - Bob Giannetti

            Right in our own back yard a disaster worse than the Gulf oil spill may be waiting to happen, and it has a lot to do with political contributions that give companies involved in the waste disposal business in Lewiston and Porter favorable treatment from elected officials and regulatory agencies. Let us hope it will not take a tragedy to galvanize our state and federal representatives to do what is needed before a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or the breakdown of containment materials in the huge toxic dump known as the LOOW Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Site (already implicated as a threat to public health) unleashes nuclear and other hazardous waste materials into our air, the Niagara watershed, and the Great Lakes. The area in question is located between Balmer and Pletcher Roads and less than one mile behind the Lewiston-Porter schools. The Army Corps of Engineers, Waste Management and the Modern Corporation are all involved with the site.
            Niagara Watershed Alliance is holding a rally in front of the Niagara Falls Storage Site at 1397 Pletcher Road (approximately 1.7 miles east of Creek Road) on Saturday at 10:30 a.m., May 22, at which the residents can send a strong message to Albany and Washington that weve had enough.
            Some recently disclosed statistics tell a sordid tale about where big corporate money from companies involved in waste disposal, particularly Waste Management, goes. Some of the biggest recipients statewide, says a recent Buffalo News article, include the State Republican Committee, the State Senate GOP Committee and the former campaigns of Governors George Pataki, Eliot Spitzer, and David Paterson. Why would Waste Management engage in this bi-partisan effort? For the good of the residents of this community, or for its own financial self interest?  
            Waste Management wants to expand its facilities at this grossly overburdened toxic dump.  Its application to the N.Y. State Department of Environmental Conservation has faced energetic challenges from this community. Bills were proposed in Albany in both 2006 and 2007 that would have banned hazardous waste landfills in the Great Lakes Basin. Although each bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate, each was vetoed, first by Gov. Pataki and then by Gov. Spitzer. Pataki received a total of $5,000 in campaign contributions from the Waste Management in 2002 and 2004 and vetoed the bill in 2006; Spitzer got $32,000 from Waste Management in 2005 and 2006 and vetoed the bill in 2007.
            Within the same toxic parcel of land we also have the presence of other hazardous and nuclear wastes from WW II and the Manhattan Project (the infamous LOOW and NFSS sites). The communitys long-standing Restoration Advisory Board on the proposed cleanup has been arbitrarily dismissed  by the Army Corps of Engineers, leaving our community without due representation on matters directly related to their health and safety. Our local elected leaders have spoken out in one voice demanding re-instatement of the community board but have been ignored at the federal level.  Enough is enough!
            When our state governors veto important regulatory legislation and our federal representatives turn the other way when asked to have the Corps of Engineers live up to its community responsibility, it is simply unconscionable and un-American.
            Please join your neighbors and elected officials at the community rally on May 22, 10:30 AM, (rain date June 5^th) at the front gate of the LOOW at 1397 Pletcher Road, Lewiston, NY.  You owe it to yourself and to your family, and to the Niagara watershed.

Had Enough? 

The Niagara Watershed Alliance, NWA, is sponsoring a rally at the Niagara Falls Storage Site, NFSS, on Saturday, May 22^nd at 10:30 am.   

• If you are tired of the federal government turning a deaf ear to the concerns of residents and ignoring long-standing environmental conditions at the LOOW Site, please join us. 

• If you are angry that the Army Corps of Engineers no longer recognizes the established LOOW RAB, join us.
• If you are outraged that our watershed and the Great Lakes continue to be at risk by the storage of radioactive and toxic wastes, join us.

The NWA is a non-partisan group of elected officials, public health and safety officials and concerned citizens formed to complement and support the efforts of existing groups and those committed to the protection of the Great Lakes and the Niagara Watershed. 
 

Mayor Neil Riordan of the Village of Youngstown and Clyde Burmaster, Niagara County Legislator are co-chairs of the rally.  Please call 745-7790 if youd like more information or would like to volunteer.  Updates on the rally will be posted on this website regularly.    

November 10, 2009 - NIAGARA WATERSHED ALLIANCE SUPPORTS RRG

Youngstown, N.Y On Tuesday, November 10^th, 7 p.m.. the Residents for Responsible Government will be holding a public information meeting to discuss the upcoming DEC Public Hearing  on Statewide Hazardous Waste Siting Plan. The RRG seeks to hear the publics opinion, concerns and comments with regard to living in a community that hosts a hazardous waste site and how that hazardous site is and has impacted their property values, commerce and tourism, the cost of health care, the impact on our environment, i.e., the Niagara Watershed and Great Lakes and the health and safety of the people living within the host community.

The Niagara Watershed Alliance supports the RRG in seeking public input and urges all concerned citizens to attend this important meeting on Tuesday, November 10^th, 7 p.m. Cora Gushee Room, Red Brick School, 240 Lockport Street, Youngstown.

The Niagara Watershed Alliance asks that you visit www.had-e-nuff.com to learn more of this and the upcoming DEC Public Hearings.

October 7, 2009 - NIAGARA WATERSHED ALLIANCE

Youngstown, N.Y. Concerned with the failure by federal officials to seek the United States Defense Department involvement in addressing the impasse with regard to the serious and long established disposition of hazardous, radioactive and chemical waste at the lake Ontario Ordnance Works (L.O.O.W.), the Niagara Watershed Alliance announced today that it intends to hold those individuals accountable.

The Niagara Watershed Alliance is concerned that without assistance from federal officials the Niagara Watershed and Great Lakes region will continue to be effected by the runoff and leakage from stored and transported hazardous, chemical and radioactive waste sites. Failure to address these concerns endangers the health and safety of more than 7 million people.

Referencing a July 22nd letter sent to Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Charles Schumer and Congresswoman Louise Slaugther, the NWA cites their failure to respond to local officials and Niagara County residents concerns regarding the storage and transportation of hazardous, radioactive and chemical waste into the Niagara watershed and Great Lakes region, specifically at the CWM and L.O.O.W. sites. The Niagara Watershed Alliance has placed a response clock on its web page, www.had-e-nuff.com, that will display how long it takes our federal officials to respond to local officials and residents concerns.

The Niagara Watershed Alliance asks all concerned to contact federal officials urging their personal involvement in addressing this serious and potentially life threatening risk.

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Asked to respond to the Parkway Closure issue, the Niagara Watershed Alliance has released the following:

October 13, 2009 -NIAGARA WATERSHED ALLIANCE 

     The Niagara Watershed Alliance believes that our watershed and great lakes are being affected by many existing environmental concerns. The most serious of these concerns is the storage of hazardous, radioactive and chemical waste sites with the potential of leaking into our watershed and great lakes. It is the Niagara Watershed Alliances mission to educate the public with regard to these concerns through public information forums. The Niagara Watershed Alliance began doing this in June through its first public forum at Niagara University, and will be planning future forums on various topics affecting our watershed and great lakes.

    With regard to the Parkway, the Niagara Watershed believes that to simply single out its closure as the reason for existing environmental problems facing our watershed and great lakes is not fully educating the public. In order to fully address those existing environmental concerns facing the Niagara Watershed and Great Lakes all means of transportation throughout several states and within Canada would have to be closed and the likelihood of that happening is impossible. Further to shut down all means of commercial transport would run counter to one of the Niagara Watersheds goals, i.e., protecting and restoring economic viability.

     The Niagara Watershed Alliance would hope that all concerned would work together in addressing all existing environmental concerns affecting our watershed and great lakes and not single out one particular issue as the cause. By working together to curtail the importation and storage of all hazardous, radioactive and chemical waste we can address the potential of placing more than 7 million people at serious risk.

     The Niagara Watershed Alliance asks those concerned with ridding our watershed and great lakes from potential harmful affects to visit its web site, www.had-e-nuff.com or to attend a future public forum.

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Editorials

Comments made by Vincent Agnello, Town of Porter resident regarding CWMs SPDES permit and the 3,740pounds of toxics dumped into the Niagara River by CWM

January 22, 2010 - YOUNGSTOWN, NY. I am here to comment on the SPEDS permit for Chemical Waste Management.  Each year CWM discharges between 20-30 million gallons of liquids into the Niagara River.  The EPA mandates that firms report toxic chemicals that have been released into the environment each year.  The numbers reported by CWM of what was dumped into the Niagara River are staggering.     In the last ten years of data that is available to the public (1998-2008) CWM reported that they dumped 3,740 pounds of toxics into the river.   This includes the following:

Barium Compounds                           83           pounds

Copper Compounds                            218         pounds

Arsenic                                                  7              pounds

Chromium                                            59           pounds

Lead                                                       3              pounds

Manganese                                            407         pounds

Nickel                                                    439         pounds

PCB                                                         3              pounds

Nitrate                                                   2,511      pounds

Benzo-Perylene                                   1              pound

Cadmium Compounds                       2              pounds

Polycyclic Aromatic                           1              pound

Cobalt                                                    4              pounds

Each of these is toxic to humans.  Most, if not all, are cancer causing.  3,740 pounds of toxics dumped into the water that 43 million Americans and millions of Canadians rely on for safe drinking water; into the water that we and our children swim in each summer, and dumped into the water where people come to fish.

I read an article in the Sunday Buffalo News that left me totally shocked.  According to the American Cancer Society 9,500 people will be diagnosed with cancer this year.   What is shocking is that this number is the number of patients in Western New York that will be diagnosed with cancer.

In April 1997, President Clinton issued an Executive Order requiring each federal agency to assess risks of toxics that disproportionately affect children, many of which was on the list I just read.   On April 7, 1997, the United States and Canada signed the Binational Toxics Strategy, developed under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The Binational Toxics Strategy was designed to reduce toxics in the Great Lakes. 

Where do your revised standards fit with this Binational Toxics Strategy, and with the Toxic Substances Act?  Is this within the strategy and goals of the US EPA Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Pollutants (PBT) action plan?

According to several research articles radionuclides that have been leaking from West Valley have now found their way into the Niagara River.  In fact our annual reporting notices pursuant to the clean water act reveals that our drinking water in Niagara now has radionuclides. 

CWM recently threatened to sue the Federal Government if it did not immediately clean up the radioactive contamination on CWMs property.  Given this recent admission by CWM that its land is radioactively contaminated,  are there any safeguards against radionuclides being discharged into the Niagara River in violation of the clean water act?

Now that we know what they have dumped into the River I can understand why they want to connect to the sewer system.  Radionuclides cannot be cleaned by the sewage treatment plant.  In many cases, neither can the toxics that are being released each year into the Niagara River.  CWM simply wants to pass the liability and cost of their mess to the Town of Lewiston residents.  This cannot be allowed under any circumstance I applaud the Town of Lewiston for passing a local law banning such liquid wastes from entering their sewer system.  We as residents must make sure that you, the DEC, never allow this to happen.   Can you imagine a back flow into residential homes of toxics and possibly radioactive water?

I ask that you revise the standards for the SPDES permit that allows for no additional toxics or radionuclides to enter the Niagara River and Great lakes system.  We need your help to shrink the number of diagnosed cancers in our area.  This is within your control and your public charge.  It is time to stop the corporate greed and start protecting the residents.

I will be sending these remarks to Gov. Patterson who states that he is fighting for the citizens of New York.  I ask that he also step up to the plate and end the insanity we have faced in our area for the past 69 years.

Sincerely,

Vincent Agnello, resident
Town of Porter

Enjoy your drink of water 

The next time you drink a glass of water think about all that has been done to keep that water clean.  Water is the key to life.  Are you doing anything to insure that your children and grandchildren have that same opportunity?  Prior to 1972 we assumed that nature would continue to bless us with good water.  Unfortunately, chemical dumping and raw sewage overwhelmed the Lake Erie ecosystem and the Lake Erie was declared dead.  Thankfully Congress stepped forward in the 1970s and began enacting environmental laws to protect of water, air and soil.  The Clean Water Act now prevents such uncontrolled discharges of contamination into our water. 

In recent years, we have seen a resurgence of interest in protecting the Great Lakes, the worlds largest supply of fresh water.  The Great Lakes States and Canadian Provinces recently signed a compact which was subsequently solidified with U.S. and Canadian Legislation to severely limit removal of the water for commercial purposes.  In that agreement the states stressed the significance of our fresh water resource as important to life, health, economic stability, and business.  The New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Council Act was enacted to oversee protection of this great asset for future generations.  New Yorks coastal ecosystems are critical to the states environmental and economic security, and integral to the states high quality of life and culture.  Healthy coastal ecosystems are part of the states legacy, and are necessary to support the states human and wildlife population. (Section 14-0103 NY Environmental Conservation Law.)

Will we still have fresh drinkable water for our grandchildren?  It really depends on how well we protect the watershed of the Great Lakes.   A watershed can be defined as the area of land that drains to a particular body of water.  When rain falls on this area it either flows along the surface of the ground towards a body of water or is absorbed into the soil and eventually finds its way to that body of water.

Everything eventually drains into a body of water; we drink what others dump.   Today, a major area of concern is persistent toxic wastes.  These are wastes that do not breakdown in water and will continue to pose the same threat years from now.  In 1977, the EPA banned the production of PCBs in the United States because they are very toxic and do not break down over time.  Unfortunately we must now live with fishing advisories because PCBs have made their way from leaking toxic landfills into our fish.

Surprisingly, our biggest threat to our precious fresh drinking water is government.  Our environmental laws tightly control toxic wastes and sewage through a government permit system.  Unfortunately, this system is reliant upon governmental units making good decision in the granting or denying of environmental permits.  While the U.S. Government and the Great Lakes States and Canada have made great progress in recognizing the need to protect the Great Lakes, governmental agencies and local decision makers have failed.  What else could explain why decision makers continue to grant permits to landfill PCBs and other toxic wastes a short distance from the Niagara River and Lake Ontario.  Why does the NYS DEC still continue to plan for more toxic waste landfills for this same area?  Did they fail to understand what a watershed is? But the blame must be spread to others as well.  Recently the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disbanded its Restoration Advisory Board, local citizens experts who continued to challenge bad decision making by the Corps.  Why else would the worlds largest supply of K-65 uranium still be sitting in a basement with a clay cap one that is now years beyond its original life cycle?  I recently attended a hearing on West Valley (south of Buffalo, NY).  This was the site of a failed nuclear reactor core reprocessing plant.  Nuclear waste was transported to this site, which is near Lake Erie, to be reprocessed.  Now this problems rests with State and Federal government, neither of which is willing to take responsibility to protect the local citizens or Lake Erie from the radioactive leaking that continues to occur there.  At a recent hearing, the government disclosed its proposal to dismantle some buildings and keep all of the radioactive waste there for another thirty years while it explores what to do next.

Niagara Watershed Alliance is committed to exposing these bad decisions and to educating the public on the need to protect our watershed for our health, life, and economic prosperity.   We urge everyone to accept the stewardship of the environment by being proactive by insuring that the government always makes the right decision.  Let us not fail to protect our drinking water for future generations. 

Vincent Agnello, member
Niagara Watershed Alliance