Contaminated ash found at Niagara Falls housing site
Falls authority pledges Center Court work will comply with requirements for soil
NIAGARA FALLS — Soil tests at a former park scheduled to be redeveloped as a public housing complex show the land near Centre Avenue contains up to 10 feet of contaminated incinerator ash in some areas, Niagara Falls Housing Authority representatives said Monday.
The ash — believed to be from a 1930s incinerator in the North End — contains contaminants that exceed levels allowed by the state in residential areas, said Linda Goodman, director of project development for Norstar Development USA.
Plans call for using the park and other land west of the Center Court housing complex as the site of the first phase of a $72 million project to replace Center Court with 282 mixed-income housing units under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI housing rehabilitation program.
Because of the new test results, the developer has extended its soils management plan to cover the entire 22-acre site of the first phase, Goodman said.
Under the plan, contaminated ash and soil up to 2 feet deep will be removed and replaced with 2 feet of clean soil.
Once the apartments are built, digging on the site will be restricted, Goodman said.
The soils management plan initially was limited to a strip of land south of Centre Avenue where earlier environmental tests showed elevated levels of arsenic near a former railroad yard.
But tests completed last week showed a “significant amount of incinerator ash under a layer of surface soil” in areas north of Centre Avenue, Stephanie W. Cowart, the Housing Authority executive director, wrote in a letter to The Buffalo News.
“We are doing everything we’re supposed to do,” Cowart wrote. “We are following industry and government standards on all environmental procedures for HOPE VI.”
Soils that have tested above acceptable limits set by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation will either “be covered with hard surfaces such as roads, buildings driveways or sidewalks, capped with 2 feet of suitable soils; or removed from the area entirely according to [state Department of Environmental Conservation] standards,” Cowart wrote.
Goodman did not identify what contaminants were found in the ash.
Work is under way on foundations and buildings in areas not affected by the recent soil testing and “poses no health risk to those who live in the area,” Cowart wrote.
James J. Devald, Niagara County director of environmental health, said he had not received the report on the recent soil tests.
Mayor Paul A. Dyster said the city received the report Monday morning and city staff members were reviewing the results.
“It’s going to take a while to get through this and digest it,” Dyster said.
Plans call for rebuilding public infrastructure in the neighborhood and constructing 115 rental units during the first phase of the HOPE VI project.
Goodman said Norstar and the Housing Authority were reviewing the impact of the soil management plan on the project budget.
“It is going to add to the budget cost,” Goodman said. “We’re still getting estimates on that.”
The project’s financing partners — which include private investors, the city, the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal and HUD — have been given copies of environmental reports, Cowart wrote.
“In the long run, all of us are fortunate that we discovered this problem when we did,” Cowart wrote. “Revitalization of industrial cities, such as Niagara Falls, mandates the clean up of what others left behind decades ago.”
