Who knew? Half the world’s supply of Radium is stored underground  near Buffalo, remnants of a 1944 atomic project at the long-gone  Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. And now there is concern that the underground storage tanks may be leaking into the water supply.

“It’s really important for the community to be paying attention,” said Gardella, a chemistry professor at the University at Buffalo with decades of experience working on environmental issues in Western New York.

“If you’re minimizing the potential for leaks,” he continued, “that starts to factor into the argument about the stability of the temporary storage site. And the stability of the storage site is going to be critical in arguing whether [the radioactive material] stays here or not.”

Neither the Corps of Engineers nor the advisory board has said it believes conditions constitute a public health risk at this time.

But the results of a plethora of studies and risk analyses are the building blocks for the final decision on whether to keep the radioactive materials buried in Western New York or to ship them somewhere else for disposal.

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