School was closed Wednesday for the Veterans Day holiday, but there was plenty of activity on the grounds of Catholic Academy of Niagara Falls and one of the churches that make up the St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Parish.
Crews could be seen drilling into the pavement on the north parking lot and the large parking lot between the school and rectory. Personnel was seen going in and out of the school as well as what most of the locals still call Prince of Peace Church.
Keith Glenn, on-site coordinator for the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and deputy incident commander for Niagara and Erie County Radiological Assessment (NECRA), was among those on the scene.
“We are conducting assessments at voluntary locations throughout Erie and Niagara County, and we came to this location sometime in September, and we performed an exterior radiological screening as part of the NECRA events,” Glenn said. “We identified some slightly elevated readings of radioactivity. They were all away from the foundation of the structures, and they're located in the parking lot areas, and shielded with the parking lot material. Our goal today is to further assess those locations to determine what might be giving off that elevated radioactivity.”
Soil samples were extracted from the parking lots while scoping surveys — initial tests to determine potential radioactive contamination — were beginning inside the school, church, and rectory.
The scoping and soil sampling is expected to take several days, but the analytical results from the samples are not expected to be available for months.
“Most of the elevated readings that we saw were away from the foundations of the structures, and that's why you see most of the sampling being done in the parking lot, away from the structures,” Glenn said. “That will give you an idea of where we're looking.”
More than 1,000 properties have been tested by federal EPA and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation crews working together on NECRA. Officials held their latest public information session the night before in the Town of Niagara.
Word of the scheduled follow-up testing at Catholic Academy went public last week when WIVB-TV obtained a copy of a newsletter sent to parents by Catholic Academy administrators. Later, the parent of a child enrolled at the school spoke out during an online news conference hosted by Save Our Backyards WNY, complaining of being turned back by a security guard when coming to the school to seek more information.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Buffalo, speaking on behalf of Catholic Academy administrators, told BTPM News that parents and the entire school community were notified when initial screening was completed and the results known. The spokesman added once results of the additional tests are known, the school will schedule a session with families, in cooperation with state and federal authorities, to discuss the findings.
Glenn said EPA officials remain in constant communication with school officials and coordinate all activities through them. He also acknowledged the concerns parents have over still unknown information but added if tests revealed imminent danger to students, they would make the necessary notifications.
“We, right now, as a result of what we've seen from the radiological screening, do not feel that there is an immediate threat to the health and safety of the students,” Glenn said. “But we want to further assess what's going on here.”
