New life comes to polluted Tonawanda Coke site

Crews working for developer Jon Williams found many surprises resembling environmental disasters when they began cleaning up the heavily polluted former Tonawanda Coke site.

Now, four years later, Williams is awaiting approval of the final remediation plan for the main property along River Road. A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

If it gets the green light, that cleanup could be completed by fall 2025 – and initial work to bring the property back to life could begin soon after.

“We have basically eliminated all threats from the site,” Williams said. “All that’s left is to get the site to a place where we can redevelop it. So that’s a good thing: everything is much better than three or four years ago.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is reviewing cleanup options for Tonawanda Coke’s main property. It’s where the company burned coal to make coke, a valuable fuel of the industrial age, for a century, while releasing dangerous chemicals into the air, soil and groundwater.

Williams’ Ontario Specialty Contracting razed most of the buildings and removed tens of millions of pounds of materials from the site.

The company plans to spend more than $100 million on the cleanup, some of it covered by the state’s brownfield tax credits.

Williams is proposing to clean up the main property to a level that would allow commercial redevelopment but not residential construction. He did not provide details on future uses but data centers or a warehouse are under consideration.

Across River Road, along the Niagara River, a smaller site used for hazardous waste disposal and cleaned to a higher standard is being considered for public access and potential new housing.

While some residents applaud the speedy cleanup of Tonawanda Coke properties, others want everything rehabilitated to a higher standard.

– Mackenzie Shuman and Stephen T. Watson

(RELATED: See photos and watch video of site cleanup)

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