The Lewiston Road reconstruction project started in August of 2009, and to date $10.l million of combined federal, state, and city money has been expended and the work, which was to have been completed in two years, is a long way from completion and mired in controversy over possible dangerous radioactive levels.

Residents from Bath Ave. to the north city line are literally being held hostage by the unfinished work with no end in sight. And they must ponder the possible health dangers caused by the excavation which is seen by some experts as significant.

The work stopped last fall when the contractor, David Pfeiffer, whose company Man O’ Trees, Inc., has already been paid $7.1 million or 84% of the total price, wanted to up the ante on the job to pay for what he described as the removal of six times more radioactive slag under the road than was originally estimated.

But Pfeiffer’s problems go beyond Lewiston Road. The Niagara Falls Reporter has disclosed that Pfeiffer is swimming in red ink, facing angry creditors who have not been paid on the Lewiston Road project and other construction work for Man O’ Trees.

An angry and clearly frustrated Pfeiffer called the Reporter over the weekend and blamed much of his problems on Lewiston Road on Wendel-Duchscherer Architects & Engineers, hired as the city’s engineering consultant on the job, saying “they really got mad at me because I wanted to put ‘buttons’ on everybody [to measure radiation].”

Pfeiffer said Wendel wanted us “to just cover up and get out of there,” adding he believed they were only interested in downplaying the possible danger.

According to Pfeiffer, “they [Wendel] didn’t want to see another Love Canal. They didn’t want to see that in the falls,”
Wendel had been originally hired in 2001 by the city as the engineering consultant for Lewiston Road reconstruction for $1.395 million and to date has been paid $3.8 million, far in excess of the standard fee which experts say is 5 to 7 percent of the total cost.

The city does not have its own engineer to be a part of that oversight because Dyster’s first hire, Ali Marzban, was found to be unlicensed by the Niagara Reporter and was fired and his second appointment, Tom Radomski, resigned in 2011 after a residency investigation.

There are sharp differences on the possible health risks posed by the radioactive slag uncovered by Pfeiffer, starting with Pfeiffer himself who has retained attorney John Bartolomei to represent him and who has “noticed” the city that it has “failed to pay the impact claims which resulted from the unanticipated increased amounts of radioactive materials handled on the job.”
The State DEC has challenged Pfeiffer’s contentions of the possible health danger, saying the slag poses “no immediate threat” to residents in the reconstruction zone,. State Sen. Mark Grisanti is on record as saying the State Health Department has also found no serious health threat at the reconstruction site.

However, there are experts who believe more should be done to find the truth about what is there, and that’s the view of nuclear engineer Hormoz Mansouri, president and CEO of EI Team, an architectural and engineering firm.
“I don’t know if they have a contamination or a radiation phenomenon, if it is a man-made isotope and if is disturbed,” Mansouri told the Reporter. “We don’t know the data. The people need to know and get independent testing, at least for their own good. Nobody wants to create another Love Canal. However nobody should also cover up the fact that there may be something out there.”

Lou Ricciuti, who has written extensively about Niagara Falls contaminants and the residue from the Manhattan Project, brands the DEC’s contention that there is “no immediate danger” as ambiguous, saying “that language doesn’t cut it anymore around Niagara County and around the state. The state realizes what a cash cow Niagara Falls is, whether it’s the State Parks or the hydroelectricity. Another black eye is certainly not what [Gov.] Andrew Cuomo wants and the DEC takes their marching orders from that direction.”

Ricciuti agrees with Pfeiffer’s claim of a cover-up, saying “I don’t know what his [Pfeiffer’s] bills and obligations are, and I feel bad for him. But he did speak up and he understood there was a possibility of grave danger.” Ricciuti said whether Pfeiffer deliberately underbid the job or got in over his head, he nonetheless deserves credit for trying to warn the community. He favors independent testing as the best course, at this point, to determine the level of danger.

Mayor Dyster has promised a decision soon on what course the city will follow to clean up the mess, and his legal department has been talking to Pfeiffer, his lawyer, and his insurance company, Hanover, which issued the performance bond.

Whatever happens can’t come soon enough for the 100 or so residents who have been left out in the cold and seriously inconvenienced by the four-year struggle and are dealing not only with unfinished road work but concerns about what exposure they may have suffered as a result of the controversy that has stalled the project and created the ongoing nightmare along Lewiston Road.