Becky Wydysh-Led Niagara County Knew Land Was Radioactive, Tried to Sell It

They found radioactive slag in 2020. They looked for a developer. The neighbors weren't told.

Becky Wydysh wants to go to Albany.

First, she should answer a question about 4287 Witmer Road.

In 2020, Niagara County's land bank learned that an old drive-in on Witmer Road in the Town of Niagara held radioactive slag. The estimated cleanup cost was $1.3 million. The board then voted 6–0 to seek a developer for the property.

Richard Updegrove chaired the land bank meetings. He was Niagara County manager, the county's highest appointed official, and worked for the County Legislature.

The chair of that Legislature was Becky Wydysh.

The county did not warn nearby residents.

The neighbors learned of the problem nearly five years later through letters from the state.

WHO RAN NIAGARA COUNTY

Niagara County has no county executive. Its highest elected county official is the chair of the County Legislature.

Wydysh, who served roughly a decade in the Legislature, became chair in January 2020. She remained in the position through the end of 2025.

Republicans controlled the Legislature throughout Wydysh's chairmanship, holding 11 of 15 seats when she took office and 12 of 15 when she left. Democrats did not have enough votes to block the Republican majority.

Whatever her county did or failed to do, Wydysh cannot blame an opposition majority. There wasn't one.

She and Updegrove worked within the same county administration. County materials show them presenting the budget together. In 2020, Updegrove also chaired the Niagara Orleans Regional Land Improvement Corporation, or NORLIC. It was the land bank.

It took distressed properties and tried to sell them. One of those properties was 4287 Witmer Road.

THE DRIVE-IN ON WITMER ROAD

Once it was a farm. Then it was a drive-in. The last movie played there in 1986. By the early 2000s, the land was empty.

The trouble was found long before that. In 1989, a company planning to expand the building on the site hit something while drilling. A 1991 investigation found about 7,500 square feet of buried resin-like industrial waste and chemicals in the groundwater beneath it, according to records reviewed by Dwayne Whitmer of Act Now Media, who has been reporting on the site.

The site was known to be contaminated. A 2008 Department of Environmental Conservation report identified xylene, toluene, arsenic, copper, and chromium in the soil. It found no radiation.

The 2008 study also found that the buried waste had spread about 300 feet past the property line, that an estimated 3,000 to 3,500 cubic yards of it had spread, and that the groundwater was contaminated. It recommended removing the waste or restricting access to protect people.

Nothing was cleaned up.

In February 2020, NORLIC considered bids for an environmental investigation that included radiation testing.

On June 26, 2020, NORLIC treasurer Amy Fisk reported the initial findings. According to the meeting minutes:

"... the fieldwork results revealed high radioactive levels. As part of the contract, the engineering firm is developing a reuse plan. Ms. Fisk will continue to communicate with DEC."

At the same meeting, the land bank's lawyer described a deal with the DEC. The minutes say, "the DEC will release the landbank from liability for a period of 4 years. There are concerns regarding possible contamination from adjoining lots."

The land bank obtained protection for itself.

The neighbors got no warning.

"SOME RADIOACTIVE SLAG EXISTS ON THE SITE"

Two months later, on Aug. 28, 2020, NORLIC met in Albion with Updegrove presiding. Fisk presented the fuller findings. The minutes state:

"Ms. Fisk reviewed the results of the Phase II testing stating that the property is contaminated with higher than allowed levels and that some radioactive slag exists on the site. The contractor has issued an action plan report. There is a TIO in place and the plan recommends putting out an RFP for commercial/industrial developers. Approximate cost to remediate the site would be $1.3 million but half of the costs would be reimbursable through tax credits."

The action plan itself recorded radiation readings above 21,000 counts per minute. Its authors weighed four cleanup options. They rejected covering the waste and leaving it in place, because the source of the contamination would remain. They recommended digging it out and hauling it away, at about $1.25 million.

The land bank had a plan to remove the waste. It went looking for a developer instead.

Having established that the land was radioactive, the board proceeded to the mechanics of acquiring it.

"1.) Issue an RFP, 2.) Legislature does a resolution transferring the tax lien to NORLIC, 3.) Landbank forecloses on the property."

Step two required action by the Legislature Wydysh chaired.

The vote to seek developers was unanimous. Six to zero. 

The minutes record radiation. They record remediation costs. They record developers. They do not record a vote to warn the neighbors.

NO BUYERS, NO WARNING

Two years passed.

On August 26, 2022, the NORLIC board met again in Sanborn. Updegrove was still chairman. Wydysh was still the legislature's leader.

The contamination was still there.

Fisk gave an update:

"4287 Witmer Road – Ms. Fisk stated that the tax delinquent property is located at the entrance to the Witmer Industrial Park and a TIO has been issued. Significant contamination exists at the site. An RFP was issued to developers but no response was received."

No developer wanted it.

Step two came on October 18, 2022.

With Wydysh presiding as chair, the Niagara County Legislature voted 14–0 to pass resolution ED-024-22, which transferred the county's tax lien on 4287 Witmer Road to the land bank for $1.

Wydysh voted yes. The resolution said only that the parcels "require environmental remediation." It did not mention radiation.

Two months earlier, the land bank's own minutes had said: "significant contamination exists at the site."

Democrats voted yes too. But Wydysh ran the Legislature, and her county manager ran the land bank.

After 2022, NORLIC's minutes contain no further updates on Witmer Road, according to WGRZ.

The site sat. Nobody posted a warning sign. Nobody put up a fence.

THE NEIGHBORS

Lexi Hawk lives about 1,500 feet from the old drive-in. Gill Creek runs past the drive-in site. The DEC has confirmed radioactive hot spots in her yard. State crews taped off part of the land and her access to the creek. In July, EPA crews came to dig.

"I am so angry, I don't even know how to put it into words," Hawk told WGRZ.

"It's extremely frustrating, especially after you have children and you let your children play back there, because they're more susceptible than adults are," she said.

Jen Hutcheson rents a home on Witmer Road. Her property map from the EPA and DEC shows readings in yellow, orange, and red, which are elevated. She told The Buffalo News nobody explained what the readings meant.

"They told me blue and green were good, and the yellow, orange and red were elevated. But that's it. They didn't say anything else," she said.

On July 20, residents met with DEC and EPA officials. One mother told them:

"I'm worried about my 3-year-old daughter who's been playing in the yard since she could crawl… where she's played in sprinklers and pools and piles of leaves."

The officials could not answer many questions, and the meeting ended with residents walking out, according to video posted by Act Now Media.

Residents are asking that the property be fenced, warning signs posted, and the site considered for federal Superfund designation. Environmental attorney Christine Civiletto, who is assisting residents, wants DEC to determine whether contamination migrated from the drive-in property along Gill Creek.

DEC and EPA have screened more than 1,000 properties across Erie and Niagara counties. Four families have been advised to relocate temporarily.

The state's letters to homeowners started going out in March 2025.

The county land bank, chaired by the county manager, knew about radioactive slag on Witmer Road nearly five years earlier.

WHERE THE WASTE CAME FROM

Most of the radioactive waste buried around Niagara County is decades old. Investigators are looking at chemical and metals plants from the mid-to-late 20th century and at Manhattan Project work from the 1940s.

According to the 1991 investigators, the waste at Witmer Road appears to have been dumped and covered over in the 1940s and 1950s.

Wydysh is not being asked to answer for the Manhattan Project. She is being asked to answer for her county government after it learned what was in the ground.

This is Niagara County. Love Canal is here.

Nate McMurray, the Democrat running against Wydysh for the open 145th District Assembly seat, found the minutes and posted them this summer.

He has been organizing meetings and assisting residents who are near the contaminated properties.

He observed that Wydysh attended at least one meeting and acted as if she knew nothing about the property's contamination or the risk it posed to neighbors.

"How can you be shocked when your own meeting minutes show you discussing the contamination, estimating cleanup costs, and putting the property out for an RFP to attract developers?" he wrote.

WHAT DID WYDYSH KNOW?

Either she knew, or she did not.

If Wydysh was informed in 2020 that the land bank chaired by her county manager had identified radioactive slag, the question becomes what she did with that information and why nearby residents were not warned.

If she didn't know, then the county manager who worked for her Legislature ran meetings about radioactive land, voted to find a developer for it, and never told the chair. In that case, she didn't know what was going on in her own county government.

Ignorance is not always an acquittal. Sometimes it is the charge.

And in October 2022, she voted to hand the land to the land bank.

Nearly five years passed between the land bank's first radiation report and the state's first warning letters.

Wydysh chaired the County Legislature throughout that period.

Before voters decide whether to send Wydysh to Albany, she should answer what she knew about Witmer Road and when she learned it.

WHAT IF IT WERE YOUR CHILD?

Put yourself on Gill Creek.

You have a house, a backyard, and a creek. Your children play there because children play where they live.

Nobody tells you anything.

Then, a letter comes from the state. Men in hazmat suits walk your yard with radiation detectors. They hand you a map with red dots. They tape off your own backyard. Then you learn that 1,500 feet away is an old drive-in where the county's land bank found radioactive slag years earlier.

County officials knew the land bank had identified radioactive contamination.

They knew.

They wrote it down.

Cleanup: $1.3 million.

They had a plan to dig it out.

They looked for a developer.

They protected themselves.

They never told you.

Now you lie awake doing the math. How many summers did your children play in that creek? What did they put in their mouths? What will a doctor tell you in twenty years?

The government had five years of minutes. The parent now gets years of questions.

Lexi Hawk doesn't have to imagine this. "You let your children play back there," she said, "because they're more susceptible than adults are."

If those were my kids, I wouldn't care whose department it was.

I'd ask one thing.

Who was in charge?

Becky Wydysh was in charge.

She chaired the county's highest elected body.

Six years.

No fence.

No sign.

No warning.

Now she wants a promotion. She wants to represent the same families her county kept in the dark.

Higher office is not a reward for leaving lower-office questions unanswered.

Ask the parents on Gill Creek.

Ask the people who had the creek in their backyard while government had the minutes in its files.

Then vote.

Disclosure: Nate McMurray’s campaign has bought advertising in the Niagara Falls Reporter. People who oppose him have bought far more. The McMurray campaign also provided some of the material reviewed for this story. We independently checked the public records cited here.