Stephen T. Watson reports for the Buffalo News
Published November 21, 2019
The arsenic, mercury and other toxins found in the ground on most properties surrounding the former Tonawanda Coke plant generally are at safe levels, according to the scientist leading a court-ordered soil study.
But two rounds of collecting and testing soil samples in sections of the Town of Tonawanda, City of Tonawanda and Grand Island have identified areas of elevated contamination that may need to be cleaned up, though they don’t present an immediate danger to the public.
Researchers from the University at Buffalo and SUNY Fredonia planned to present these findings Thursday evening at a community forum, where they were scheduled to update residents on the progress of the 3-year-old soil study.
Scientists and volunteers have finished collecting samples from hundreds of locations in the three communities. Researchers, working with a private testing lab, for the most part have identified the toxic chemicals and their concentration levels.
Two key questions remain: Which properties are so contaminated that they require cleaning up, and which contaminants can definitively be traced to Tonawanda Coke?
“I feel that people should understand that this is not a clear statement of contamination that is immediately dangerous but worthy of further consideration by residents and community leaders,” said Joseph Gardella Jr., the UB chemistry professor leading the soil study.
Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph Emminger said the study results show residents don’t need to worry about contamination that may have come from the Tonawanda Coke plant and that no cleanup is required.
Emminger and Jackie James-Creedon, a founder of the nonprofit Citizen Science Community Resources, continue to object to how UB conducted the study and to call on the university to provide access to the underlying data. However, whatever their concerns, they say the bigger victory was the plant’s closure in October 2018.
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