NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. \u2013 The McKiernan family is now staying at an Airbnb after receiving test results that have made them frightened to stay in their Niagara Falls home.<\/p>\n
Jocelyn and Daniel McKiernan have released test results from Whitestone and Pace Analytical that they say indicate dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals. They believe this points to a failure in the Love Canal clean-up efforts. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Health and DEC signed off on this,\u201d said Jocelyn McKiernan. \u201cWhy would they want to make it known that their departments failed tremendously back in the 90s? Why would they want the public to know how horrible of a cover-up this is?\u201d<\/p>\n
The family said that their health has suffered from living on the property for years, citing problems ranging from tachycardia to nosebleeds.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been asking for relocation since first discovering industrial waste in July. Now they\u2019ve moved out but without any assistance from the government<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal for that house is to never allow another soul to live on that land again,\u201d said Jocelyn McKiernan. \u201cIt should have never been habitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is pushing back. Andrew Guglielmi is the director of the Division of Environmental Remediation, and said they haven\u2019t been able to access the property to complete the testing necessary to determine if relocation is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to collect the data. I wish we could have gotten on that property, you know, over the summer and gotten the data,\u201d said Guglielmi. \u201cWe weren’t provided access by the homeowners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guglielmi says that the DEC is working towards a work plan that is satisfactory for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s industrial material on their property that should not be there. That is clear. We want to address it,\u201d Guglielmi said. \u201cWe need to understand the extent of it, which is why we need to get on the property and do the work that we’ve been trying to do here now for several weeks, months.\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative from Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s office backed the DEC. In a statement to Spectrum News 1, Ken Lovett, senior communications advisor on energy and environment, said, “Governor Hochul has made it clear in words and actions that her first priority is the health and safety of this family. The family\u2019s own third-party consultant concluded that they should work with DEC to implement a work plan and notably does not specifically recommend relocation. DEC and DOH need to conduct further testing, but have repeatedly been denied access to the property. Once that access is granted and we have the results of the subsequent testing, we can responsibly determine the next steps and all options for potential remediation will be considered.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a response to Lovett, Jocelyn McKiernan told Spectrum News 1, \u201cTheir proposed work plan was inadequate and frankly an embarrassment and leaves our family in the direct harms way. We have given DEC & DOH every opportunity to move our family and conduct proper and comprehensive testing, they chose not to. The bottom line is that a reputable engineering firm has confirmed contamination inside and outside of our home. Based on those results, and others, a nationally known health physician has joined numerous other experts in calling for our immediate relocation. Governor Hochul is engaging in toxic gaslighting and it needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. \u2013 The McKiernan family is now staying at an Airbnb after receiving test results that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,127323,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,308,200],"class_list":["post-358189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo","tag-megan-acker","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}