Manhattan Project waste materials in Lewiston being moved to Texas
The materials are being trucked from Lewiston to Buffalo and then being taken by train to Andrews, Texas, near the New Mexico state line. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the transportation began last week.
The radioactive waste has been at a 191-acre site off of Pletcher Road and contains roughly 6,000 cubic yards of soil along with around 4,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater. The area sits roughly a mile and a half east of Lewiston Porter Schools.
Nuclear waste from Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project to be removed from WNY site
According to News 4 Investigates reporting from 2024, the cost is projected at several hundred millions of dollars and could take more than a decade. Future phases include removing 250,000 cubic yards of waste and residue from the Interim Waste Containment Structure (IWCS), and underground vault.
Prep work for removal of Manhattan Project-era radioactive waste begins in Lewiston
The waste materials were supposed to be sent to Michigan, but a judge halted the shipments last year.
The materials are left over from the top-secret World War II project to develop the world's first atomic bomb. The Niagara Falls Storage Site was used by the Manhattan Engineer District to store radioactive residues and wastes from uranium ore processing beginning in 1944, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. Waste materials continued to be brought to the site until 1952. Initial cleanup began in 1986.
Latest Local News
Woman warns others to stay vigilant in viral video following incident on Niagara Falls bike path
Former North Carolina superintendent named Buffalo Public Schools superintendent
Manhattan Project waste materials in Lewiston being moved to Texas
Bills bringing back red helmets for last regular season game at Highmark
2 suffer life-threatening injuries in Amherst crash
Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fast Company
17 hours ago
- Fast Company
The Eames House in L.A. is open again after closing during the fires
After closing for five months due to smoke damage from the Palisades Fire, the Eames House (Case Study House #8) in Los Angeles has reopened to visitors—now with a more determined mission to serve as a place of community. Nearly 7,000 buildings were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and though the Eames House was spared, cleanup efforts have been intensive. A crew took about a week to wipe away flame retardant that had been dropped to slow the fire from advancing from the outside of the home. They also dug up the property's plantings beds so the soil could be replaced due to concerns about toxic materials. 'We were very fortunate,' says Lucia Atwood, the granddaughter of architects Charles and Ray Eames who built the Pacific Palisades home in 1949. The home is a model of resilience, but its stewards were also proactive. Atwood tells Fast Company interventions began in 2011 to better fire- and drought-proof the home, which is a National Historic Landmark and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Those efforts that took on greater urgency after the Getty Fire in 2019. 'At that point it became very clear that there were going to be an increasing number of of extremely damaging fires,' says Atwood, the former executive director of the Eames Foundation. The foundation has worked to harden the landscape, a process that included clearing brush and removing some of the more than 250 trees that were on the property. Subscribe to the Design latest innovations in design brought to you every weekday SIGN UP Reopening events this month with local leaders, neighbors, and fire survivors have turned the Eames House into an Eames home for the community, as is the case for patrons of the Palisades Library, which was destroyed in the fires. After offering the library the use of the property, including the home's studio, which is open to the public for the first time, for events like book clubs and sales, the head of the library got emotional, says Adrienne Luce, who was announced the Eames Foundation's first non-family member executive director in April. 'This place is for you,' Luce recalls telling the library's head, and she says she started to choke up. 'Being so close to the devastation actually is a wonderful opportunity to serve and support the local community and long-term community rebuilding efforts.' Reopening means 'really engaging and serving the local community,' Luce says.
Associated Press
18 hours ago
- Associated Press
Remembering Hulk Hogan: Iconic wrestler's life in photos
Iconic professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, has died at age 71. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
CBS News
18 hours ago
- CBS News
CPS student's essay on youth violence chosen for national summit in Washington D.C.
A Chicago student's essay on youth violence landed her a trip to the nation's capital. Jade Lee, a student going into the 8th grade at CICS Prairie in Roseland, recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where she participated in the national "Do the Write Thing" summit. The annual event brings young people from across the country together with the goal of addressing the root causes of violence and finding solutions. Participants are selected through an essay contest. Jade ended up representing Chicago after her essay was chosen from more than 800 submitted by CPS students. "It (the summit) was really inspiring to me because I also got to hear the other youth voices and how they have experienced it (violence), and we also got to talk about how we can fix it as a community," said Lee. Jade's essay is written from the perspective of a fictional character named Samara, navigating the violence in her neighborhood. It explores the root causes of violence and the unique circumstances that leave young people feeling like violence is their only option. "I personally feel like I have a different, unique imagination, so when I was writing the story, I was thinking based off how I have experienced violence in my community of Roseland, and how my peers have experienced it, and how my mom has also experienced it when she was younger," said Lee. During their visit to Washington, D.C., Jade and her mother, Brittany Powell, met with students from other cities along with elected officials including Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. "One of the things that I took away from the whole summit was all of the youth said the same thing, like listen to us," said Powell, "We have something to say, our life is different from yours and, we want you to listen." Jade says she was inspired by the summit and wants to be part of the solution. She hopes to organize entrepreneurship and mentorship programs for kids like her to offer a space for community and connection. To read Jade's full essay, click here
