Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Results are back for one Niagara homeowner whose property was tested for radiation exposure. Lexi Hawk says she received the results by email.
"it was just my property that got the results," says Lexi Hawk. "We have our radiological levels are so high that especially the thorium is like 200 times what a normal background would be. They're a lot higher than I was expecting. They just sent them to my email, so I had to contact this professor from Arizona. His name is Michael Catterer to help me interpret them, and he was stunned with how bad they are."
She says she got not explanation from the EPA. "I also felt offended because I talked to the EPA on Tuesday. They asked me how I would want the results, and I told them I wanted to have a sit down meeting with an agent and a health physicist to explain what everything means. They knew that's what I wanted. I also talked to the DEC the same day, and they agreed to that. And then all of a sudden, they threw it in my email at 6 p.m. yesterday with no meeting set up and no explanation. So it left it up to me having to figure out what the stuff meant myself," explains Hawk.
She says the results made her sick. "You just start thinking about all the memories you have. My daughter's, all of her playsets are right above the hotspots. My fiance dug into that ground to build her her swing set. My dog digs holes. It just it made me sick to my stomach, like I didn't do my job as a mom protecting her," says Hawk. "It poses a risk when you inhale inhale them. If you touch it, it gets into your system. If you swallow it, so it's hard to determine like how much you really were exposed to. Like how much did I consume? Did I breathe it in? Did my daughter eat a piece of grass that might have a little bit of dirt on"
She's very concerned about health risks. "ionizing radiation increases your risk of cancer when you're exposed to it long term, and most susceptible age group is actually little girls. For some reason, girls more than boys, women more than men, but little girls are the most susceptible. And I'm gonna have to worry about my daughter for the rest of my life. There's also thyroid conditions that can pop up. You just there's no way to tell how much damage that it created to your body. This stuff damages your DNA. It damages your cells," says Hawk.
She says she was recently relocated and hopes the government buys her home, and feels her neighbors should also be relocated.
Hawk says results came back 200 times what a normal background would be.
Hawk says results came back 200 times what a normal background would be.
