cleanup · Erie County
Westinghouse Electric — Cheektowaga
Cheektowaga
A World War II aircraft factory later used by Westinghouse left a chlorinated-solvent problem beneath land now incorporated into Buffalo Niagara International Airport, where soil treatment ended one chapter but groundwater monitoring continued.
The documented story
What happened here?
The approximately 143-acre property at 4454 Genesee Street began as a wartime aircraft-manufacturing complex. Curtiss-Wright operated there from 1940 to 1946; Westinghouse later occupied the plant. The site sat immediately beside what became Buffalo Niagara International Airport and was eventually absorbed into airport redevelopment.
Westinghouse's environmental case centers on chlorinated solvents used in industrial cleaning and degreasing. Investigators separated contaminated source soil and sediment from a groundwater problem moving through shallow overburden and fractured bedrock. That distinction produced two cleanup decisions rather than one all-purpose remedy.
The airport setting later changed how the remedy behaved. During redevelopment, the old building slab was removed, subsurface utilities were installed, and as much as 120,000 tons of crushed demolition concrete were placed on the property. A 2012 engineering proposal said the porous fill and incompletely sealed drainage structures allowed more water into the collection system and contributed high-pH, mineral-rich water that complicated treatment.
This is therefore both an industrial-pollution story and a land-reuse story: a factory disappeared, aviation infrastructure expanded, but the buried groundwater problem still had to be measured and managed. It is separate from the airport's later PFAS investigation unless a source document explicitly connects the two programs.
Chronology in context
Turning points in the public record
1940–1946
Curtiss-Wright used the Genesee Street complex for World War II aircraft production.
Postwar decades
Westinghouse used the property for industrial operations in which chlorinated solvents became the principal environmental concern.
1991
DEC classified the property as a Class 2 State Superfund site after preliminary assessment showed a significant threat requiring action.
1994–1995
Investigation divided the site into soil-and-sediment and groundwater operable units. DEC selected thermal desorption for contaminated soil and a separate groundwater collection, treatment, and monitoring remedy.
1996–2001
Predesign and construction work implemented the source-area soil remedy and the groundwater program.
Airport redevelopment era
The former building slab was removed, utilities and drainage were altered, and crushed demolition concrete was placed across parts of the property as the airport footprint changed.
2012
Engineers proposed ending active collection and treatment after redevelopment-driven infiltration and water chemistry reduced the system's practicality, while retaining monitoring and state review.
November 2021
A later field program sampled overburden and bedrock monitoring wells and nearby surface water, documenting continued post-remedy investigation rather than a forgotten closed file.
News record
Major news events
Coverage selected here marks a turning point in public awareness, policy, enforcement, employment, or cleanup. Links open at the original publisher or archive; WNYAtlas does not reproduce restricted articles or images.
Airport redevelopment changes the water moving through an old solvent remedy
A state-reviewed engineering proposal explained that removal of the former factory slab, new subsurface utilities, and placement of porous crushed concrete increased infiltration into the groundwater collection system. The episode shows how redevelopment can alter an older remedy even after contaminated soil has been treated.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Chemical guide
Chemicals named in this record
These links explain potential hazards and exposure pathways. A chemical named in a record does not establish that anyone was exposed or harmed.
Environmental record
Documented impacts
- The groundwater decision identified trichloroethene, dichloroethene, and vinyl chloride as principal chlorinated-solvent contaminants, with other volatile compounds evaluated in the site record.
- Shallow groundwater could recharge the fractured bedrock zone. That vertical connection mattered because treating contaminated soil alone could not answer whether dissolved solvents remained below it.
- The groundwater system used existing storm-sewer infrastructure as part of collection and treatment. The remedy record therefore treats sewers as engineered components and possible migration pathways, not simply as lines drawn on a map.
- Public comments in the 1990s raised access, drainage, and U-Crest ditch concerns. Those concerns belong in the historical record, but the existence of a comment is not itself proof of off-site exposure or a particular health effect.
- Airport proximity does not show that aviation activities caused Westinghouse's solvent contamination, and the Westinghouse solvent record should not be merged with PFAS findings from a separate airport investigation.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- The soil-and-sediment remedy called for excavation and thermal desorption, a heat-based process used to separate volatile contaminants from soil for controlled treatment and disposal.
- The groundwater remedy collected and treated contaminated water, incorporated the storm-sewer network where appropriate, and required monitoring of both overburden and bedrock conditions.
- Redevelopment did not erase the remedy. It changed surface cover, drainage, infiltration, utilities, and access, forcing the state and airport owner to reconsider how an older collection system should operate within an active transportation property.
- Later well and surface-water sampling supplies the evidence needed to judge residual conditions. Any claim that groundwater is restored, treatment has permanently ended, or the site is unrestricted must be tied to a current DEC approval rather than inferred from demolition or redevelopment.
Then and now
The site today
The former Westinghouse factory is now part of the airport landscape, but the environmental record continues through groundwater and surface-water sampling. As reviewed in August 2026, the site remains Class 2 in the state dataset; its present status should be described as managed and under continuing state oversight, not as a factory simply cleaned away.