“My property is contaminated. I have confirmed thorium."
Lexi Hawk is one of the Niagara County homeowners who discovered that her property had tested positive for radioactive material. She told BTPM News Monday night that her family still hasn't been relocated while state agencies work to remediate her property.
Kellie Motyka says investigators also detected radioactive material both inside and outside her home.
“They were in my house. They found levels in my home and outside of my home of radioactive material. Yes, the highest level being right in front of my refrigerator," she said.
Hawk and Motyka are among the residents involved in the grassroots group Save Our Backyards Niagara, which organized a community meeting Monday evening to discuss a seven-point action plan and help affected homeowners navigate testing and relocation.
They are two of more than 100 property owners who received letters in March from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, notifying them that radiological surveys had identified potential contamination on their properties. The agencies initially required homeowners to sign property-access agreements containing language that waived potential reimbursement claims against the DEC, EPA and New York state before testing could be conducted.
Residents raised concerns about the agreements during a public forum on July 10. The DEC later removed the waiver language from its property-access forms, allowing testing to proceed after homeowners signed the revised access agreements.
Gov. Kathy Hochul called on the EPA to step in and aid the state in radiation testing for the impacted area.
But Niagara Falls NAACP President Renae Kimble says residents are also calling on Hochul and the DEC to take stronger action.
“We’re really hoping that the governor will eventually give us a Class 1 Superfund designation," Kimble said. "That needs to happen, and it needs to be from the New York State DEC because the protections are much stronger and better for the residents if, in fact, the designation comes from the DEC as opposed to EPA."
The State DEC currently says New York has no Class 1 sites and has never classified a site as Class 1 since the State Superfund program was enacted. Most serious New York Superfund sites are classified as Class 2, meaning they pose a significant threat and require action, but do not meet that “imminent, irreversible or irreparable harm” threshold.
Advocates say that agencies must be more transparent about testing… and accept responsibility for protecting residents.
“I can see where the government would be reticent to want to admit it and take responsibility and do this, but they have to. That is their job, to protect the public," said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Residents are also asking for wider testing, faster access to results and appropriate temporary housing while the extent of the contamination is investigated.
