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Historic Minds · Episode 5

Tonawanda: The Radioactive History Hiding in Plain Sight

A wartime plant across from a public park. The reason for the wells was written down in 1944.

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The film opens on a road, a park, and a factory the narrator already knew. The plant is the former Linde Air Products site at 175 East Park Drive, in the Town of Tonawanda, Erie County, north of Buffalo. It sits across from a public park. Two Mile Creek runs north along the west side of East Park Drive, through that park, toward the Niagara River.

No bomb was built in the yard. From 1942 to 1946 the Manhattan Engineer District contracted Linde, then part of Union Carbide, to process uranium ore there. The liquid left from that work went to sewers and to wells. On March 29, 1944, someone wrote down why one disposal plan was preferred.

The film is five minutes and fifty-one seconds. This page is the companion: the public address, the two plans, the seven wells, the gallon estimates that are not the same number, and the cleanup totals in the words the federal pages actually use.

East Park Drive

The current Department of Energy fact sheet describes a privately owned facility of about 135 acres at 175 East Park Drive. Linde Plc, formerly Praxair, still operates an industrial gas plant there. The wartime work and the later cleanup did not remove the factory from the road.

The park across East Park Drive is not the golf course. Sheridan Park golf course is farther northwest, at 490 East Park Drive. The storm path in the records is toward Two Mile Creek, on the west side of the road, and then toward the Niagara. It is a direction of discharge. It is not a surveyed pipe drawn for this page.

The narrator’s “I knew this road” is the film’s frame. This page does not add a home address, a school, or a family street.

Wartime work, 1942–1946

Linde processed uranium ore for the Manhattan Engineer District, and the work continued under the Atomic Energy Commission, through 1946. The September 2026 Department of Energy fact sheet says portions of the facility were used to separate uranium dioxide from uranium ores and to convert uranium dioxide to uranium tetrafluoride.

The film’s 1981 flow sheet names the sequence the narration uses: black oxide, brown oxide, then green salt, uranium tetrafluoride. That sheet is a process record. It is not a photograph of the yard.

The narration says the ore came from the Colorado Plateau and from the Belgian Congo. Domestic residues went to the Haist property, a ten-acre tract west toward the river. The Department of Energy now calls that tract Tonawanda North, Unit 1. Residues from the African ore, in the film’s account, went north toward Lewiston and the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. They did not stay in the East Park yard. This page does not treat Lewiston as one of the Tonawanda sites mapped below.

The liquid was a different problem. It was alkaline. It still carried uranium and radium. It did not glow. At first it went into the sanitary sewer. It became too caustic for the town sewage plant. By April 1944 that route had stopped.

March 29, 1944

On March 29, 1944, before the sanitary route stopped, A. R. Holmes at Linde wrote about two disposal plans. The original letter has not been located. The sentences in the film are an attributed transcription of wording printed by the New York Times on February 1, 1981. The Times page is not shown. The addressee is not settled: later accounts do not agree, and the film does not name one. These lines are not a facsimile of a 1944 document.

“Plan 1 is objectionable because of probably future complications in the event of claims of contamination against us.”

“Plan 2 is favored because our law department advises that it is considered impossible to determine the course of subterranean streams and, therefore, the responsibility for contamination could not be fixed.”

The grammar is the transcription. It is not corrected here. The letter prefers a well because the course of underground water could not be determined, and so responsibility for contamination could not be fixed. New York had approved discharge to the creek. The wells were not a secret kept from the state. The sentence is not a claim that the Manhattan Project itself was being hidden from the neighborhood. The work was already a wartime contract.

A 1981 state task-force account, as reported by the Times, described the method as chosen to hide the source of contamination. That is the panel’s characterization. It is not this film’s verb.

The two plans

Plan one sent the liquid through the storm sewer toward Two Mile Creek: north, on the west side of East Park Drive, through the park, toward the Niagara. That is not the sanitary sewer. The sanitary sewer is the route that stopped in April 1944 because it was too caustic for the town sewage plant.

Plan two put wells on the plant grounds. When a well clogged, the plant used the storm sewer toward Two Mile Creek until the well would take the liquid again.

Seven wells

The count used in the film is seven. Three in one group, at Plant 1, Buildings 14 and 8. Four in the other, at the ceramics plant, Buildings 30 and 38. A 1981 company comment said five wells. The reconstruction the film follows counts seven. Open dots on the 1981 plan are test wells and are not part of the seven.

A federal compilation in NRC ADAMS, quoting Aerospace 1981, describes the same seven as one group of three wells east of Building 14 and another group of four near Buildings 30 and 38. That sentence does not say “Buildings 14 and 8,” and it says “east” where the film’s plan says the Plant 1 group is south. Both wordings are left as written. This page does not pick a new map.

The wells were about 90 to 150 feet deep. Some went about 30 to 40 feet into bedrock. There is no photograph of a clogged well in the film, and none is invented here.

The gallon estimates

These are estimates, not a meter reading. They are not one number.

Aerospace 1981, as quoted in the federal compilation filed in NRC ADAMS at ML14267A265, says approximately 55 million gallons of effluent were discharged into the seven disposal wells, and approximately 56 million gallons were discharged into Two Mile Creek through the storm sewer, between June 1944 and July 1946.

The narration says about 55 million gallons into the seven wells, and about the same amount toward the creek. It does not speak 56 million. “About the same” is the film’s wording for that pair.

The same compilation quotes a 1993 remedial-investigation summary that says approximately 55 million gallons were injected through seven wells over three years beginning in 1944. That sentence does not restate the 56-million-gallon creek figure.

Two further counts are not those figures. They were not spoken in the film.

The March 2015 Site Closeout Report for the Linde FUSRAP Site states that liquid effluent first went to the sanitary sewer, and that by April 1944 approximately 100 million liters (26.4 million gallons) had been discharged. Aerospace 1981 states that same early period as about 80 to 100 million liters, or about 20 to 30 million gallons. The closeout’s 26.4 million gallons is the gallon figure it prints beside approximately 100 million liters. It is not the well estimate, and it is not the creek estimate.

The same Aerospace report says a 1948 Linde memorandum counted about 37 million gallons (about 140 million liters) pumped down the wells from late February 1945 to July 1946, and that this count leaves out 1944 and early 1945 if the memorandum’s dates are correct. The memorandum is not in hand. The 37 million gallons here is that report’s statement of the memorandum. It is not the 55 million gallon well estimate.

Cleanup, in the words of the records

The Department of Energy fact sheet used in the film dates the FUSRAP designation to 1980. It does not give a month. FUSRAP is the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, for sites with radioactive contamination left from Manhattan Project and early Atomic Energy Commission work. Congress transferred execution of the cleanups to the Army Corps of Engineers in 1997.

The current pages do not use one total, and they do not use one phrase. They are listed separately on purpose.

The Department of Energy Tonawanda site page, read for this companion, says DOE shipped approximately 5,110 tons of building rubble, contaminated soil, and soil-like material by rail to a disposal facility in Clive, Utah. After the 1997 transfer, it says the Corps shipped approximately 344,529 tons of radiologically contaminated soil and debris by rail to a disposal cell in Blanding, Utah.

The Army Corps Linde site page says the Corps finalized the Site Closeout Report for the Linde FUSRAP Site on March 30, 2015. That page describes removal and remedial activities from 1997 to 2013 that resulted in nearly 400,000 tons of contaminated material excavated and shipped out of state. The same page, describing the 2000 record of decision for the soils operable unit, says the Corps removed and disposed of nearly 370,000 tons of contaminated materials. Remedial action and restoration were completed in May 2013. The Corps says no further response is needed to protect human health and the environment from the FUSRAP-eligible constituents at the Linde site.

The film follows that Corps project total. The spoken line is nearly 400,000 tons. It does not say “radiologically contaminated soil and debris,” and it does not speak 344,529. Adding 5,110 and 344,529 does not produce 400,000. The phrases name different shipments.

The September 2026 Department of Energy fact sheet says the 2006 record of decision for the groundwater operable unit selected No Action, because there was no complete exposure pathway and further FUSRAP action on groundwater was not warranted. The site transferred to the Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management in March 2017. Legacy Management’s page says no monitoring, maintenance, or site inspections are required at the Linde site. The plant is still an operating industrial facility.

The Town of Tonawanda Landfill is a different property and a different total. The Department of Energy says the Corps shipped 3,476 cubic yards, or about 5,000 tons, of radiologically contaminated soil and debris from the landfill operable unit to a disposal cell in Belleville, Michigan. That is not the Linde tonnage. The mudflats operable unit did not require remediation.

Timeline

  • 1942–1946. Linde processes uranium ore at 175 East Park Drive for the Manhattan Engineer District.
  • March 29, 1944. A. R. Holmes writes the two-plan record. The original letter is not in hand. The wording used here is the 1981 transcription.
  • April 1944. The sanitary-sewer route stops. It had become too caustic for the town sewage plant.
  • June 1944–July 1946. Aerospace 1981, quoted later, dates the well disposal and the storm-sewer discharges to Two Mile Creek.
  • 1944–1946. Processing residues go to the ten-acre Haist property, now Tonawanda North, Unit 1.
  • July 16, 1945. Trinity. The blast is not Tonawanda. The film says so.
  • 1974. The Corps’ Seaway page says some material stored at Ashland 1 was disposed of in the Seaway site.
  • 1980. The Department of Energy fact sheet used in the film dates the Linde FUSRAP designation to this year. No month is stated.
  • January 31, 1981. The state task-force report is released. February 1, 1981. The Times prints the Holmes transcription. The Times page is not shown.
  • 1997. Congress transfers FUSRAP remediation to the Army Corps of Engineers.
  • 1999, 2003, and 2005. The Tonawanda North fact sheet dates Ashland 2, Ashland 1, and Rattlesnake Creek. The Department of Energy site pages date completion of Units 1 and 2 to 2005 and the transfer to Legacy Management to 2008.
  • May 2013. Linde remedial action and restoration are completed.
  • March 30, 2015. The Linde site closeout report is finalized.
  • March 2017. Linde transfers to Legacy Management.
  • 2019–2020. Landfill operable-unit excavation and restoration. The landfill closeout report is 2022. Transfer to Legacy Management is May 2024.
  • April 30, 2024–December 2025. The Corps Seaway project page dates construction of an engineered cap over Areas A, B, and C to this span.

A viewer asked for a map of dump sites and radioactive places in western New York. This section is narrower than that question. It is the Tonawanda cluster tied to Linde’s Manhattan Project work, using each agency’s current name. It is not a map of every contaminated place in the region, and it is not Love Canal.

The location record is the Department of Energy’s Geospatial Environmental Mapping System. Each completed site below has its own locator. This page does not redraw those maps, and it does not add a glow, a plume, or a pin that the agency page does not publish.

  • Tonawanda, New York, Site (Linde). 175 East Park Drive. DOE site page · GEMS locator · Corps project page
  • Tonawanda North, Unit 1. The former Haist property, later Ashland Oil 1, including Seaway Area D. DOE site page · GEMS locator
  • Tonawanda North, Unit 2. Ashland Oil 2 and portions of Rattlesnake Creek. DOE site page · GEMS locator
  • Seaway. Along River Road, in the Seaway Industrial Park, near the Grand Island Bridge, on the Corps project page. Areas A, B, and C are the cap described there. The Department of Energy fact sheet for Tonawanda North says Unit 3 is Seaway Area C, and that only Units 1 and 2 have transferred to Legacy Management. Those labels are not collapsed into one closed site. Corps Seaway page · North Units 1 and 2 fact sheet
  • Tonawanda Landfill. A Town of Tonawanda landfill, about a mile north of the Linde site, accepted into FUSRAP in 1992 as a vicinity property. The mudflats did not require remediation. DOE site page · GEMS locator

The North Units fact sheet, which is a separate document from the Linde totals above, says about 8,000 tons of low-grade-ore processing waste went to the Haist property from 1944 to 1946. It then uses the word “material” for the later digs: more than 52,000 tons at Ashland 2, completed in 1999; 173,000 tons at Ashland 1, completed in 2003; more than 33,000 tons at Rattlesnake Creek, May to September 2005. Those are not the Linde figures, and the fact sheet does not call them “radiologically contaminated soil and debris.”

New York State’s DECinfo Locator and the Environmental Site Remediation Database are broader than this list. DEC says the locator’s icons mean information is available, not that contamination is present. The remediation database covers State Superfund, brownfield, environmental restoration, and voluntary cleanup sites, among other records. A dot on that map is not a Manhattan Project site and is not a radioactive site unless the record for that site says so.

Love Canal is the other western New York film in this series. It is in Niagara Falls. It is a chemical landfill and a Superfund story. It is not a Tonawanda FUSRAP unit. The companion is Love Canal: They Built a School on a Chemical Dump.

What you are looking at

The film says when a frame is a record and when it is not. The groups are these.

Authentic records. Dated government photographs, aerials, maps, and status sheets. They include a September 20, 1951 USDA aerial; a 1978 Oak Ridge survey photograph from OSTI 6708236; Corps photographs of Building 14 and soil work in January 2001, Building 30 in 1998, and shipment containers in the winter of 2003; a February 2002 Corps aerial; an April 8, 2002 excavation-status sheet; and Figure 4 of the March 2015 closeout, which maps remedial extent from 1996 to 2013. The January 2001 photograph of Building 14 is the building still standing. It is not a 1944 facade.

Later site imagery. A July 2022 photograph printed on a Department of Energy fact sheet. A site locator labeled September 2026 on that sheet. A USDA National Agriculture Imagery Program tile acquired September 6, 2019, tile m_4207801_ne_17_060_20190906. None of these is a wartime photograph. The 2019 tile is not a picture of today.

Editorial graphics. The 1981 location plate, the 1981 well plan, and the 1981 flow sheet. The Holmes sentences are type set for the film and marked as an attributed transcription. They are not the letter, and they are not the Times page.

Reconstructions. The cold-open road and factory, the process images in the middle of the film, and three short cleanup moves placed beside the real Corps photographs. They are labeled as reconstructions. They are not site photographs and not newsreel. No generative restoration was used to sharpen the archival stills. Trinity is marked July 16, 1945, and it is not Tonawanda. The moving Trinity image is not offered here as unaltered newsreel.

Context that is not Linde. Library of Congress films of wartime industry, and Men and Dust (1940), which is zinc and lead mining, not uranium and not this plant. There is no Belgian Congo photograph in the film.

What the film is (and is not)

Historic Minds Episode 5 is a short cinematic overview. It is not the closeout report, not the 1981 letter, and not a health study. It is educational only. It is not medical, legal, or environmental advice. Do not treat a labeled reconstruction as a 1944 photograph.

Exposure pathways are in the record. This page does not turn that into a disease count. The 2006 groundwater decision, quoted above, is the official FUSRAP finding on that pathway. It is not a claim that the 1940s never happened.

Credits

Chapters

  • 0:00 — Hidden in Plain Sight
  • 0:43 — Wartime Work at Linde
  • 1:06 — Where the Uranium Came From
  • 2:55 — The Disposal Problem
  • 3:18 — A. R. Holmes: Two Plans
  • 4:08 — Seven Wells, 55 Million Gallons
  • 4:52 — Cleanup and What Remains

Series

Love Canal is the nearest story in this series, and it is a different one. Niagara Falls, a chemical landfill, Superfund. Tonawanda, a uranium-processing plant, FUSRAP.

Historical note

Gallon figures are estimates quoted from later federal reconstructions, principally Aerospace 1981 as carried in NRC ADAMS ML14267A265. The 55-million-gallon well figure and the 56-million-gallon creek figure are a pair. The film speaks the first and calls the second “about the same.” Cleanup tonnages are copied from the agency page that uses them. “Radiologically contaminated soil and debris” is the Department of Energy’s phrase for the 344,529-ton Linde shipment and for the landfill’s 3,476 cubic yards. “Contaminated material” and “contaminated materials” are the Corps Linde page’s phrases for the nearly 400,000-ton and nearly 370,000-ton figures. The Tonawanda North fact sheet’s word for its own digs is “material.”

The Seaway sentences follow the Corps project page.

Sources (public record)

Further reading, a museum summary and not a federal record: Atomic Heritage Foundation — Tonawanda, NY.

AI production disclosure

Some visuals are labeled historical reconstructions. Dated photographs, maps, and records are identified on screen and grouped above. Research, writing, direction, and editing are human-led. The original Holmes letter was not recreated and presented as the original. The Times page was not recreated. Faces of named people were not invented.

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