Elevated radiation levels have been detected in the yards of over 120 homes in Niagara County, NY. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been conducting the first radiological survey of the area since 1984 and at least four families have fled their homes.
Governor Kathy Hochul has called on the EPA to step up testing and accelerate distribution of resources to those affected
Western New York was a hub for the manufacturing of atomic weapon components during World War II, other industries also used or produced radiological materials, some for the Manhattan Project.
Survey Underway Since 2023
The first phase of the radiological survey took place in late 2023 and summer 2024 and was conducted by a single-engine, low-flying plane called the Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology (ASPECT), equipped with a suite of sensors for measuring potential radiation sources.
The plane flew a linear grid pattern over Erie and Niagara counties at about 500 feet above ground level. The first phase of the radiological survey, DEC and EPA did not identify any areas of immediate concern, but did discover a number of radiological anomalies.
A second phase used an EPA truck equipped with sensors during the summer of 2025 which surveyed about 1,000 miles, 95% coverage of the target area. The remaining segments were expected to be completed this summer.
The third phase started in fall 2025, after landowners were contacted by mail, with on-the-ground surveys by DEC and EPA staff using handheld and all-terrain vehicle-mounted equipment.
Radiation Found
The contamination centers around Fox Avenue and Chester Road (Chester Avenue) in the Town of Niagara. EPA officials have agreed to relocate four families whose homes contained elevated levels of radioactive material. That contamination has been found outside and also inside two of the homes.
News 4 Investigates took a licensed engineer with a Geiger counter onto the properties on July 16, and detected radiation in the living rooms, kitchens and other parts of the homes.
“The levels were at a minimum 10 times normal background radiation in the environment,” they reported. “In some instances, the levels were higher.”
“What we’re dealing with here — which I think is very concerning — is chronic, long-term exposure, because that’s really what increases the risk for cancer and other health concerns, so we’re taking this very seriously, that’s why my team is working this, really quite frankly, every day, night and day on this thing,” NY State Department of Health commissioner James McDonald said.
The Manhattan Project Sites Western New York
The radiation is believed to have come from the Manhattan Project and local metallurgical companies. Established in June 1942 and headquartered in New York City, it took its name from the US Army Corps of Engineers convention of naming districts after the city of their first headquarters.
Western New York was vital to the project to create the first atomic bombs, which were dropped on two Japanese cities during World War Two. Over 40 local companies contributed to the effort with some processing raw uranium ore under what would be considered dangerous conditions today.
Among the most contaminated sites have been:
Linde Air Products in Tonawanda, NY, was contracted by the Manhattan Project from 1942 to 1946 to extract uranium dioxide. This left behind some 8,000 tons of gelatinous radioactive tailings, some of which were dumped into local sewers, storm drains and shallow wells. Solid residues were sent to several nearby landfills sites.
The primary site at 175 East Park Drive has been remediated, and the property functions today as an active industrial gas research and development facility owned by Linde/Praxair.
The Lake Ontario Ordnance Works in Lewiston, Youngstown, and Porter, NY, was a massive 7,500-acre military installation that became a primary storage and disposal site for radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project and other atomic energy programs after it was decommissioned in 1943 after just nine months
The US Department of Energy currently owns 191 acres of the original property, on which the Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS) is located.
Nearly all of the original site is now occupied by homes, a school, a campground, the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, farms, local and federal government operations, and the toxic waste facility.
Guterl Steel in Lockport rolled uranium metal for the atomic program. The former Simonds Saw and Steel Company was contracted by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to conduct work in support of the Nation’s early atomic energy and weapons program.
Between 1948 and 1956 the facility was used for foundry work and rolling mill operations on over 25-million pounds of uranium metals and over 30-thousand pounds of thorium metals. Simonds Saw and Steel was sold to Wallace and Murray, and then sold to Guterl Specialty Steel Corporation.
The 100-acre Seaway Industrial Park along River Road in Tonawanda, NY, near the Grand Island Bridge is a former industrial landfill which included radioactive materials. The contaminated materials were placed in the landfill in 1974 after being moved from the adjacent Ashland 1 site.
The US Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $17.6 million contract to seal the radioactive waste, which included a 22-acre, five-foot-thick engineered cap to isolate and contain the radioactive material.
Read more about the Manhattan Project in New York State.
Illustrations, from above: Angry local residents at a meeting Monday, July 20 with EPA and DEC officials; a map of 2025 DEC EPA radiological roadway survey in Erie and Niagara Counties (DEC-EPA); and the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, Northeast View, 1941.
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