Lake Ontario Ordnance Works

File:Dormitories - Lake Ontario Ordnance Works (1943).jpg

The War Department purchased {{convert|7500|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} of farmland east of Youngstown, New York, in 1941 as a location to manufacture TNT. The location was selected because of its proximity to chemical manufacturing plants, to Fort Niagara, to the New York Central Railroad, and to water and electrical power.{{cite book | last1 = Dietz | first1 = Suzanne Simon | last2 = Freiermuth | first2 = Amy Lynn | title = Lewiston | publisher = Arcadia |location= Charleston, South Carolina |isbn=978-0-7385-4461-8| year = 2010 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=P0dilUvVCsEC&pg=PP1 | pages = 43–45}}

The LOOW headquarters were at first located in a vegetable canning factory at the site.

The 149 private landowners living there—mostly farmers and orchard growers—were given 30 days to move out, and most of their 125 farmhouses and 538 barns were torn down or burned. Some homes located on the periphery of the LOOW boundary were kept.{{cite web | title = An Interim Report to New York State Assembly Speaker, Stanley Fink | publisher = New York State Assembly Task Force on Toxic Substances | date = January 29, 1981 | url = http://www.factsofwny.com/fedcon1.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150411223924/http://www.factsofwny.com/fedcon1.pdf |archive-date=April 11, 2015 |access-date=August 27, 2015 }}

Construction of the TNT plant began in January 1941, and employed over 7,500 workers. The production and storage areas occupied approximately {{convert|2500|acre|ha|abbr=on}} near the center of property, and the remaining {{convert|5000|acre|ha|abbr=on}} was undeveloped and used as a "buffer zone". A hospital, dormitories, fire department, power plant, USO hall, water supply system, and waste treatment facility were located at the LOOW, and TNT was manufactured for about 9 months, until the plant was decommissioned in 1943.{{cite book | last = Strand | first = Ginger | title = Inventing Niagara |location=New York | publisher = Simon and Schuster | year = 2008 | url = https://archive.org/details/inventingniagara00stra | url-access = registration | pages = [https://archive.org/details/inventingniagara00stra/page/242 242], 243, 245, 246 |isbn=978-1-4165-4656-6 }}

Uranium used to produce the first atom bombs from 1942 to 1948 was processed by Linde Air Products in nearby Tonawanda,{{cite web | title = Linde Air Products | publisher = National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health | date = March 31, 2011 | url = https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oerp/linde.htm |access-date=August 27, 2015}} and in 1944, the Manhattan Engineer District began using the LOOW site for the storage and transshipment of radioactive residues and wastes created through the processing of uranium ore at Linde.{{cite web | title = Niagara Falls Storage Site, New York | publisher = U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | date = August 31, 2011 | url = http://www.lm.doe.gov/Niagara/Fact_Sheet__Niagara_Falls_Storage_Site.pdf | access-date = August 27, 2015 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170223003831/http://www.lm.doe.gov/Niagara/Fact_Sheet__Niagara_Falls_Storage_Site.pdf | archive-date = February 23, 2017 }}

The War Assets Administration had by 1948 sold or transferred {{convert|6000|acre|ha|abbr=on}} of the original property, and the remaining {{convert|1500|acre|ha|abbr=on}} were given to the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission.

More than {{convert|1300|acre|ha|abbr=on}} were sold or transferred between 1955 and 1975, although the area on which the Niagara Falls Storage Site is located remained in the possession of the U.S. government.

File:Building 401 - Niagara Falls Storage Site, Lewiston, New York.jpg

Beginning in 1943, Building 401 was used as the powerhouse for the production of TNT, though operations lasted less than a year. Building 401 was renovated, and from 1953–59 and 1965–71, it was used as a Boron-10 isotope separation plant. The interior of Building 401 was gutted in 1971, and its hardware and instrumentation were disposed of. Building 401 was demolished in 2010.{{cite web | title = Demolition of Building 401 at Niagara Falls Storage Site, Lewiston, New York | publisher = U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | url = http://www.lrb.usace.army.mil/Portals/45/docs/FUSRAP/NFSS/Documents/nfss-fs-bldg401-2009-09.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130221091449/http://www.lrb.usace.army.mil/Portals/45/docs/FUSRAP/NFSS/Documents/nfss-fs-bldg401-2009-09.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = February 21, 2013 |access-date=August 27, 2015}}

File:Lake Ontario Ordnance Works - west view (1944).gif

A {{convert|166|ft|m|abbr=on}} concrete silo was erected within the east boundary of the LOOW, immediately next to Porter Center Road, which was publicly accessible. A fence with signs warning of "radioactive material" ran next to the road. In 1952, drums containing {{convert|3869|ST|kg|abbr=on}} of highly-radioactive K-65 residues were loaded into the silo.{{cite book | title = Safety of the High-level Uranium Ore Residues at the Niagara Falls Storage Site, Lewiston, New York | publisher = National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Remediation of Buried and Tank Wastes |location=Washington, D.C. | year = 1995 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e2QrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1 | pages = 7 |isbn=978-0-309-58669-6 }} The concrete silo was dismantled sometime after 1979.

===Interim waste containment structure===

File:Aerial view of Niagara Falls Storage Site, Lewiston, New York (2002).jpg

Construction of the interim waste containment structure was completed in 1991, and is located entirely within the Niagara Falls Storage Site. The {{convert|10|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} mound is used for the storage of radioactive waste and residues, and the grass-covered "interim cap" is designed to retard both rainwater infiltration and radon emission.

All of the contaminated and radioactive materials stored at the former LOOW site—including thorium, uranium, and the world's largest concentration of radium-226—were placed into the structure.

{{cite journal | last = Jenks | first = Andrew | date = July 2002 | title = Model City USA: The Environmental Cost of Victory in World War II and the Cold War | url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249292863 | journal = Environmental History | volume = 12 | issue = 77 | pages = 552–577 | doi = 10.1093/envhis/12.3.552 |access-date=August 27, 2015}}{{cite web | last = DePalma | first = Anthony | title = A Toxic Waste Capital Looks to Spread It Around; Upstate Dump Is the Last in the Northeast | work = New York Times | date = March 10, 2004 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/nyregion/toxic-waste-capital-looks-spread-it-around-upstate-dump-last-northeast.html |access-date=August 27, 2015}}

In 1951, laboratory waste and animals that had been injected with plutonium during experiments at the University of Rochester were shipped to the LOOW site for burial.{{cite web | title = The Community LOOW Project: A Review of Environmental Investigations and Remediation at the Former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works | publisher = Niagara County | date = September 2008 | url = http://www.niagaracounty.com/Portals/4/Docs/CLP%20Final%20Report%20Sept%2008.pdf | access-date = August 27, 2015 | archive-date = September 17, 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210917040633/http://www.niagaracounty.com/Portals/4/Docs/CLP%20Final%20Report%20Sept%2008.pdf | url-status = dead }}

The United States Army was given an {{convert|860|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} parcel of land from the original LOOW property, located on the northeast boundary. Beginning in 1957 it housed 36 Nike surface-to-air missiles intended to protect the nearby Niagara Hydroelectric Power Project. The property is currently licensed to the New York Army National Guard, and is used as a weekend training site.

A {{convert|98|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} parcel of land from the original LOOW property was given to the United States Air Force, on which they located an experimental rocket fuel plant called the Youngstown Test Annex Site.

• Hooker Chemical Company purchased a large portion of the original LOOW property from a private landowner in 1975 to use as a dump site.{{cite web | title = Remedial Investigation Fact Sheet: Occidental Chemical Corporation Property | publisher = U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | date = May 2013 | url = http://www.lrb.usace.army.mil/Portals/45/docs/DERPFUDS/LOOW/loow-fs-oxyri-2013-05.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131228200639/http://www.lrb.usace.army.mil/Portals/45/docs/DERPFUDS/LOOW/loow-fs-oxyri-2013-05.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = December 28, 2013 |access-date=August 27, 2015}}
• Waste Management, Inc currently owns and operates a {{convert|713|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} treatment, storage, disposal, and recovery facility near the center of the former LOOW property. It is the only hazardous waste landfill remaining in the Northeastern United States, and was the location where the anthrax-contaminated desk of news-anchor Tom Brokaw was disposed of in 2001.
• Modern Disposal Services operates a landfill on the former LOOW property.

Approximately 380 private residences and a mobile home park are located within the footprint of the former LOOW site. A school, several small farms, a {{convert|13|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} campground, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, which attracts thousands of visitors annually, are also located in the former LOOW site.

In 1981, the New York State Assembly Task Force on Toxic Substances wrote that the LOOW was "born in the crisis of war", and that:

{{blockquote|Federal mismanagement at the site was manifested by sloppy and deficient record-keeping procedures, inadequate mapping of buried wastes, and technological primitivism with regard to waste storage and removal. Moreover, it is clear that the site should never have been chosen for the storage of radioactive materials in the first place.}}

The report added that radioactive waste had been stored "in rusting barrels stacked along the roadside".

Author Ginger Strand wrote about the LOOW in her 2008 book Inventing Niagara: "the Army Corps engineers, currently charged with the cleanup, readily admit they don't know everything that went on there".{{rp|242}}

An extensive study conducted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers concluded in 2014 that there was "no evidence of potential source areas or releases of contamination to groundwater, surface water, or soil associated with any of the ground disturbances evaluated" at the former LOOW site.

Currently, approximately {{convert|7000|acre|ha|abbr=on|adj=on}} or 93 percent of the original LOOW site meets the criteria of a Formerly Used Defense Site, making it eligible for environmental restoration funds available from the U.S. Army. One portion of the property containing contaminated groundwater is listed as a Superfund cleanup site.

A 2005 article in the Niagara Gazette alleged that radiation at the site was causing an ongoing hazard for the nearby Lewiston-Porter Central School District.{{cite news |date=2005-07-24 |author= Rick Forgione and Aaron Besecker |title=What lies beneath |newspaper=Niagara Gazette}}

{{reflist}}

Category:Geography of Niagara County, New York

Category:Manhattan Project sites

Category:Project Nike

Category:Radioactive waste repositories in the United States

Category:United States Army arsenals during World War II

Category:Military installations of the United States

Category:Superfund sites in New York (state)

Category:Landfills in the United States

Category:Environmental issues in New York (state)

Category:United States Department of Energy facilities

Category:1941 establishments in New York (state)

Category:History of Niagara County, New York