Good morning, It’s Tuesday. We’ll get an update on radioactive backyards in upstate New York. And it’s Election Day. We’ll take a last look at what’s on the ballot.
Last month my colleague Christopher Maag wrote a disturbing article about a little girl with a radioactive backyard in Niagara, N.Y. Her parents’ property was among 38 that officials had determined might need an extensive cleanup. The house is only a few miles from the infamous Love Canal, remembered nationally for an environmental disaster in the 1970s but known locally as one of dozens of landfills in the area.
I asked Christopher — who, with our photographer Brendan Bannon, went to at least six “red hot” zones they found on radiation maps — for an update.
What has happened since your article was published? What’s the latest?
The day the story was published, the E.P.A. sued one of three companies believed to have dumped radioactive waste at sites that were referred to the E.P.A. for cleanup in 2013. This suggests that resolution may take time.
The search for radioactivity began with planes flying overhead and then men in hazardous-materials gear digging holes in people’s yards. What were officials looking for?
Beginning in 1970, the federal government went looking for radioactive waste from the World War II-era Manhattan Project that may have gone missing from a dump near Niagara Falls. In addition to nuclear weapons waste, scientists were surprised to find other types of radioactive waste scattered in unexpected locations all around the Niagara Falls area.
By 1981, state and federal agencies reported that a large, areawide survey was necessary to find all that waste. That work finally began when the E.P.A. scoured the area by plane, beginning in 2023.
Is even the grass in people’s yards potentially radioactive?
There’s still a lot of testing to be done, but yes, it does appear that even the grass may be radioactive.
Technicians who dug into one yard were surprised to find radioactive waste within a few inches of the surface — usually it’s deeper down, they said. The concern is that small disturbances in the soil can cause radioactive particles to rise and bond with dust, and then settle on the grass and get tracked into someone’s house.
What happens to the people who live in the “red hot” zones? What provisions for health problems are there?
The response by the government so far has been for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to offer voluntary relocations to four families whose yards are “red hot.” The Corps plans to rent furnished homes for the families until the E.P.A. does more studies and removes or otherwise treats the radioactive waste.
Some family members have experienced serious health problems for years. There are no plans for determining whether those illnesses are related to the waste, or for medical treatment.
What about their finances? Can they sell their houses?
The four families have all moved into rented homes, but otherwise they remain in crisis mode. Some hope that after the waste is removed, they can return home. Others want to sell and never look back. All of them fear that the publicity about radioactive waste has rendered their homes worthless.
Where did so much toxic material come from? Did contaminated material from the Love Canal disaster spread more widely than had been thought, or were there other sites?
That’s a somewhat complicated question.
Besides waste from the Manhattan Project and other early nuclear weapons programs, there was waste from commercial projects, like turning low-level radioactive ores into nose cones for spacecraft.
That waste spread because a nearby weapons dump offered material to contractors as gravel and dirt for construction projects, as did local chemical companies.
Radioactive waste was also used to build roadbeds throughout the area.
The recently discovered radioactive sites that we know about are not related to Love Canal. But separately, a number of families who live near Love Canal have sued chemical companies and the government, claiming that Love Canal’s waste containment system failed and that it is sending waste that’s toxic but not radioactive onto their land. Those allegations have not been confirmed.
This is a heartbreaking story to read. You went to “red hot” zones that were marked on radiation maps. How did reporting the story affect you?
I was definitely nervous to spend so much time in these homes and yards. The air in Niagara Falls is brown and yellow from all the chemical company smokestacks. I’ve had a light case of asthma since I was a kid, and I used my inhaler more in Niagara Falls than ever in my life.
Combining that with radiation, which you can’t see or smell, made me worry for my sources. They’ve spent most of their lives with these risks.
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny with a high near 70. Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low around 54.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended (Election Day).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This use of city property in furtherance of federal immigration enforcement is unauthorized and is therefore illegal, endangers city residents and sows fear among those who seek to access city property.” — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in a letter to federal immigration officials, accusing federal agents of staging their operations from parking lots owned by New York City.
The latest New York news
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Diversifying the city’s public schools: Students at Hunter College High School, a prestigious and highly selective school in Manhattan, are taking matters into their own hands to diversify the school. The effort comes amid a larger reckoning over continued segregation in the city’s public schools.
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The flu arrives early: More than 10,000 flu cases have already been reported in New York State. In New York City, cases have been especially prevalent in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and on the East Side of Manhattan. Public health experts are urging people to get flu shots now.
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Pitch-rigging trial begins: Emmanuel Clase, a star pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, and two others are being tried in federal court in Brooklyn on charges of defrauding betting companies. If convicted, they face decades in prison.
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How a priest affords Manhattan: Father Brian Jordan of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in Midtown makes $43,000 a year, but he doesn’t see any of it. He and about a dozen other friars he lives and works with pool their salaries to pay for food, health care and other household expenses — a communal way of life he described as “a fraternity in ministry.”
It’s Election Day, and the governor’s race is on the ballot
It all comes down to today
Few races will be watched more closely in New York than the contest between Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, and her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive. She is hoping to improve upon her showing in 2022, when she won by only six percentage points. This time around, polls have given her a lead of between nine and 14 points.
If you’re not one of the 691,000 voters who cast ballots early in New York City, you can vote today.
Of course, you have a million other things to do. The Board of Elections says that you can save time if you take along the Fast Pass tag from the mailing sent to every registered voter several weeks ago. It has a QR code that can help guide you through your polling place.
Also, don’t forget that the ballot has a back as well as a front. The five ballot proposals for New York City voters are on the back. Here’s a breakdown of what they call for. Many of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s allies support them.
METROPOLITAN diary
His golden horn
Dear Diary:
I was born and raised in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. I always wanted to play the trumpet and dreamed that someday I would play like Harry James.
When I turned 13, my parents rented me a trumpet from a music store on Manhattan Avenue. Group lessons followed at Boys High School in Bed-Stuy.
In 1962, when I was 16, my family moved to New Jersey, where I continued to play in the high school band.
I got a job as a busboy and saved enough cash to buy a new horn. Taking my $200, I rode the bus into the Port Authority terminal. My destination was Manny’s Music on West 48th Street, also known as Music Row.
After making my purchase, I returned to Port Authority to catch the bus back home. I felt like a million dollars. I boarded the bus and took a seat in the back, with my new horn tucked safely in its case.
Five or six construction workers were sitting nearby. They were on their way home from work. They wanted to know what was in the case.
I told them proudly that I had bought a new trumpet.
Well, they said, play us something.
And off we went down the road to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
— Douglas Felden
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post In Niagara, Even Grass May Be Radioactive appeared first on New York Times.
