A trial, beginning on February 2nd, has continued to debate the legality of radioactive waste dumping in Wayne County, and by association, other common waste dumping areas nearby. In 2024, Wayne County officials stopped radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project era from being transported from its former storage site in Lewiston, New York, to the landfill in Van Buren Township. Environmental science teacher Shawn McNamara says that such radioactive materials can affect more than our health, air, and soil quality.
“Leachate is a blanket term used to describe any type of liquid that might go from a site to groundwater,” McNamara said. “We get our water from taps, but if you get further out in less populated areas, they get well water, and radioactive isotopes in groundwater would affect that drinking water.”
In 2025, it was decided that the Lewiston waste would be relocated to a private landfill in Texas, but the trial has continued to support the fact that the harm from radioactive material exists regardless of where it’s stored.
“Radioactive materials go through half-lives, but those half-lives can be thousands to millions of years,” McNamara said. “So the thought is that since it’s being put into a landfill, it will be contained and not harm the environment, but it will never biodegrade, and landfills are not perfect impermeable structures.”
