As I have stated in the past few weeks, there is a real issue concerning the health of the residents that live on Hackett Drive in the City of Tonawanda. We walked the landfill and took readings with a Geiger counter. Look at the pic and then tell me that we are wrong.

This is what I have called for to be done immediately….

Landfill’s Tonawanda neighbors call for remediation

The Tonawanda Landfill has a chain-link fence around it, keeping people out.

But for decades, there was no fence. Children played freely on the site, with their parents unaware a top-secret program begun during World War II had left behind potentially life threatening contaminants.

Linde Air Products Co. had enriched uranium for use in the atomic bomb under a contract with the Army’s Manhattan Project.

“Everyone played on the landfill,” said Carleton R. Zeisz, Tonawanda City Council president. “Kids rode their dirt bikes, there was even a pit where people swam. We knew there was garbage up there, but it was just garbage — we didn’t think anything of it.”

The idea of radioactive garbage — or soil, or swimming holes — never crossed anyone’s mind then. Today, more than 60 years since those experiments began, it does.

So far, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has concluded no costly site remediation is necessary. But residents — with the backing of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, despite finding no signs of radioactive contamination in a recent survey of neighboring residences and the grounds of Riverview Elementary School — are insisting on full cleanup and remediation.

With the federal government nearing a decision on closing the site, Zeisz, County Legislator Michele M. Iannello and Councilman Rick Davis went door-todoor Sunday on Hackett Drive and Brookside Terrace. Many of the modest-sized, shingle- and vinyl-sided houses are just 50 feet from the fence.

The local lawmakers asked their neighbors to sign letters urging the Army Corps of Engineers to do a full cleanup of the site. A public comment period expires next Monday.

Jennifer Reynolds, an original homeowner in the neighborhood, said she had already written a letter expressing her concerns.

“When we moved in 40 years ago, we had absolutely no idea [about the toxic waste]. We were young, my husband and I, and no one tells you these things, so of course you just assume you’re safe,” Reynolds said. “You’re dealing with the government and they are slow, and that’s normal, but it’s about time they showed people they can move and do something when it’s the public health.”