Dozens of property owners sitting on radioactive waste in Niagara Falls and Lewiston have been left in limbo.
Investigative Post, environmental reporter, Dan Telvock tells WBFO News, that the EPA recently shut down and removed clean up equipment at several radioactive hot spots. Telvock says the EPA's local remediation program has run out of money leaving property owners high and dry.
"If you owned one of these properties it's now known. You know. The government knows. You have to disclose it now if you're going to sell, you would think, right? Legally. Who's going to buy it? Even if you can give them a report that says, 'This is very low level, it poses hardly any risk' - if that's true. Who still is going to say, 'all right I'll buy it? Or buy it at full price?" Telvock said.
Telvock says in the 1970s the federal government identified about a hundred hot spots spread out across Niagara Falls and Lewiston. But only about one third have been cleaned-up. He says the EPA will not commit to finishing the work and local governments will not reduce the taxes on the contaminated property.
