Corps of Engineers says radioactive waste now going to Texas

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has confirmed that the lightly radioactive waste from Lewiston, NY, that was going to be buried in Van Buren Township, is heading instead to Andrews, TX. Shipments by rail began July 15 to the site, 350 miles west of Dallas.
The lightly radioactive material from the Manhattan Project in Niagara County was generated during the 1940s, when the U.S. government built an atomic bomb to put an end to World War II in the Pacific.
The Waste Control Specialists site in Texas has accepted the contract to store the radioactive waste.
A lawsuit filed Sept. 16, 2024 by local communities and a temporary Wayne County Circuit Court restraining order blocked the planned shipments of the latest material to Wayne County. The court order was to be discussed again on July 28.
The shipments now will travel via specialized railroad cars on the long route to Texas after being hauled out of the site by truck.
Brent Lasada, project manager for the NiagTexasara Falls storage site, explained the logistics.
“Now it’s a combination of trucking and rail. So the trucking outside, coming out of the site, looks very similar.
“It looks identical to what it would have been going to Michigan. Just now, we’re going to a transload facility to load it up via rail and take it to Texas.
“So it is dependent on the rate at which the material comes out of the site to go to the rail. Once to rail, I believe it’s a couple of days, a handful of days down to make that trip down to Texas.”
Lasada said this has added on costs: “Our feasibility study had the cost at just under $600 million. As we go through our design, we’re getting updated costs.”
Wayne Disposal, owned by Republic Services based in Phoenix, is licensed to receive 722 different types of hazardous waste compounds not suitable for disposal in a conventional landfill.
It is one of only 12 landfills in the U.S. licensed to receive PCBs, and the only such facility in the Midwest.
When asked by the public about the level of radiation at the Wayne Disposal landfill, the EGLE (Michigan Department of Environmental, Great Lakes and Energy) representative said the normal level is 0.4 in a home and 0.41 at this landfill.
The waste from the World War II Manhattan project was due to start arriving Sept. 25, 2024 via a route from Niagara Falls, NY, through Canada to the Blue Water Bridge and then to Van Buren Township.
The defendant in the law suit is Wayne Disposal, Inc. Listed on the complaint, filed by Canton Township attorney Brandon Michael Grysko, were plaintiffs Canton Charter Township, City of Belleville, City of Romulus, Van Buren Charter Township, and Van Buren Township Fire Chief.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing the removal of low-level radioactive soil from Lewiston, NY, a legacy of the Manhattan Project, the secret government project to develop atomic bombs during World War II featured in the 2023 movie “Oppenheimer.”
Wayne Disposal in Van Buren Township was considered to be the closest licensed facility that can take the hazardous material, according to the Army Corps.
Republic Services, owner of Wayne Disposal since 2022, released the following statement:
“Wayne Disposal Inc. has been safely receiving and managing technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TNORM) for several years, and our management of this material poses no risk to the community. The landfill meets or exceeds all regulations and is designed to safely manage this type of material, which can be generated through a variety of industrial and other processes.
“The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have stated that the material from the Niagara Falls Storage Site does not pose a risk to public health or the community.
“Many industries rely on Wayne Disposal Inc. to responsibly manage waste material, and the court ruling, which was issued without a hearing, impacts our ability to serve these customers. It also hinders important environmental remediation activities and interstate commerce. We look forward to presenting our position to the court in the very near future.”
The Corps of Engineers said in order to keep its site cleanup going, it decided to stop waiting for an approval for the Van Buren Township site and find another landfill to use.
In May 2018, TNORM waste began being sent to Wayne Disposal from the Brush Beryllium site near Luckey, Ohio. The plant was built by the government in 1949. Wayne Disposal was owned by US Ecology at the time. In 2022 the hazardous landfill was sold to Republic Services, the second-largest landfill company in the nation. Waste Management, which also has a landfill in Van Buren Township, is the largest landfill company in the country.
The Army Corps of Engineers started sending informational letters to the press in 2018 and the Independent regularly published the updates on the transfer of the Luckey, Ohio, waste.