About 50 people gathered outside a World War II radioactive waste dump in the Town of Lewiston on Saturday morning as part of an ongoing protest against the federal government’s failure to clean up the site.

Organized by the Niagara Watershed Alliance, the protesters rallied at the Niagara Falls Storage site, which began as the Army’s 7,500-acre Lake Ontario Ordnance Works and was the site of Manhattan Project research during World War II.

The idea was to call attention to the lack of action by the federal government and to call on authorities to seek local input on an eventual cleanup plan, said Vincent Agnello, Alliance secretary.

“Our ultimate goal is to have a clean community,” Agnello said. “This stuff should not be sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario.”

The Niagara Falls Storage Site is a 191-acre parcel in the Town of Lewiston owned by the Department of Energy. It contains a 10-acre “interim waste containment structure” where some radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project is buried.

The dispute between some members of the public and federal regulators over input into the investigation has been going on for several years. The volunteer Restoration Advisory Board for the site has questioned federal regulators about how they’ve handled the investigation and some of their results.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the cleanup, has said it believes the site is not leaking.

But Agnello said Saturday that the Residents Advisory Board formed to provide local input to Corps of Engineers custody of the property has been disbanded.

“Anytime an active citizens board starts asking questions, they disband it,” he said, adding several neighboring towns, villages and the Niagara County Legislature have all passed resolutions calling for a return of the advisory board.

As a result, organizers at the Saturday rally began collecting petition signatures they expect to present to Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, as a way to pressure the Corps into re-establishing the advisory board.

Agnello also said protesters at the Saturday rally demanded in several speeches that their own scientists and technicians be given positions on the advisory board rather than appointed “puppets.”

Others participating in the Saturday rally included Legislator Clyde L. Burmaster, R-Ransomville, Youngstown Mayor Neil Riordan, businessman Bob Gianetti, and Joseph Gardella, a chemistry professor at the University at Buffalo.

“This was all about bringing attention to the government’s failure to listen to us,” Agnello said, “and to start getting the petition signatures for Congresswoman Slaughter and demand that action be taken.”

A spokesman for the Corps of Engineers in Buffalo was unavailable late Saturday.