The nightmare continues

Editor’s note: Dan McKiernan is living a nightmare on 99th Street with his family. A private firm recently digging test wells found non-aqueous-phase-liquid in the ground. At last week’s Niagara Falls City Council meeting, McKiernan appeared to ask the body to send a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul demanding his home be declared a superfund site and his family be immediately relocated. Healthcare agencies have declared the residence too toxic for workers to enter to care for his disabled child. Before he spoke Wednesday, McKiernan expressed sympathy to Jayla Brown’s family over her still-unsolved murder. Here is coverage from WGRZ about migrating waste being denied by the DEC.

By Nate Benson

WGRZ

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — After the federal disaster was declared at Love Canal, plans were drawn up to store more than 22,000 tons of waste in the Niagara Falls neighborhood under a clay containment cap.

In 1980, a 22-acre, three-foot clay cap was installed at Love Canal. Five years later, that containment area was expanded to 40 acres and a high-density polyethylene liner was added, essentially a giant black plastic sheet.

Ever since, the waste that destroyed a neighborhood and the American dream for nearly 1,000 displaced families has sat buried.

In the wake of a family living just a few hundred feet away on 99th Street discovering industrial waste on their property, and the events of this week where independent contractors drilling a monitoring well struck an unknown liquid slurry emerging from the ground, there have been questions about whether contamination contained within the Love Canal disposal site might be migrating away from the facility.

It's a question 2 On Your Side asked the DEC commissioner two weeks ago.

"Is there any worry that the containment facility at Love Canal is leaking in any way?" 2 On Your Side asked.

"We're not concerned about that leaking," NYSDEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton said. "We believe that the containment at Love Canal is working, and I think importantly, we need to understand that this kind of contamination is different."

"We have multiple different investigations that we have going on, and what we're really committed to is making sure that we're doing testing, we're doing an investigation, so that we can quickly clean up any areas of concern, and that's what we're focused on," Lefton continued.

Every five years a report is issued by the EPA reviewing the quality of the containment cap at Love Canal. According to the 2024 report, the containment facility is "successfully capturing leachate from the site and preventing off-site migration of chemicals." Another five-year report won't be issued until 2029.

As for the sources of the contamination at the McKiernan property, and possibly other properties adjacent to Love Canal, Two On Your Side asked state and federal officials:

"How can the DEC and EPA do a broader investigation and find out not just radiological but industrial contamination across the board, to put families at ease that might be concerned about this?" 2 On Your Side asked.

"Well, I'll say that DEC is actually right now proactively looking at some areas to understand if there's contamination of concern, because we know that that is sometimes the story in Western New York," Lefton said. "It's not isolated to just Western New York."

'I should say that there are places in which contaminated fill was used," Lefton continued. "That's something that we're seeing in certain areas. We are seeing that folks dumped things there that they should not have. So we are trying to make sure that we're out on the streets, that we're proactively looking at these things as much as possible, and also that we have the teams needed to clean it up."

As of Friday evening, the unknown liquid that emerged from the McKiernan home has not been identified.