About this record
How this is made, and what it refuses to do
This is a documentary record of one environmental investigation. It exists because the primary file on Cayuga Island is small, scattered across two state servers, and partly scanned — and because what is in it does not always match what gets reported.
Three source tiers
Every citation on this site is tagged, because the difference between a state agency finding something and a newspaper reporting it is the whole difference between a fact and an account.
| Tier | What it is | What it may be used for |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | NYSDEC, NYSDOH and EPA documents and databases | Stated as fact, in the agency’s own words wherever the wording carries weight. |
| Reporting | Named local journalism — Niagara Gazette, WGRZ | Attributed to the outlet and the byline, with the date. Never presented as an agency finding. |
| Background | Reference works, government name databases, tourism listings | Uncontested geography and general history only. Never contamination facts. |
Six rules
These are constraints, not aspirations. Each one rules out something this site could easily have published.
- No number that is not in the public record. DEC gave sampling results directly to individual property owners and has published no concentrations. So this site publishes none — not a parts-per-million figure, not a multiple of a standard, not a count of affected homes beyond the meeting attendance a newspaper reported.
- No accusation. DEC has not named a responsible party. Companies named in reporting as reported sources of fill are described exactly that way. No company is said to have contaminated, dumped, or caused anything, because no agency or court has found that.
- Conflicts are shown, not smoothed. Where DEC’s dates and a newspaper’s dates disagree, both appear with the primary source leading. Where two residents publicly disagree about whether there is any danger, both are quoted.
- Primary documents are linked, not summarised away. Every agency document is linked directly to the state server that hosts it, so any claim here can be checked against the source in one click.
- Unvalidated data is not interpreted. DEC’s July 2026 Griffon Park analytical report carries the word unvalidated in its own title. It is indexed and linked; not one figure from it is repeated.
- Everything carries a date. Each page shows when it was last verified. A classification, a document folder and an investigation phase can all change, and a record that hides its own age is worse than no record.
What this site is not
It is not a government website. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York State Department of Health, the Niagara Falls Water Board, or the City of Niagara Falls. Where those agencies are quoted, they are quoted and linked.
It is not legal advice and not a law firm. It does not evaluate claims, refer cases, collect contact details for anyone, or suggest that anyone should sue. No lawsuit concerning Cayuga Island is documented in any source indexed here, and this site will not imply otherwise.
It is not medical advice and does not assess health risk. That is the New York State Department of Health’s role, and its Bureau of Environmental Exposure Investigation is named in DEC’s own fact sheet as the contact for those questions: beei@health.ny.gov.
It is not real-estate or disclosure advice. Questions about what a property owner must disclose, or what any of this means for a sale, go to a lawyer.
Corrections
A record whose errors are invisible is not a record. Corrections are logged publicly on this page with the date, what was wrong, and what it was changed to. Silent edits to factual claims are not made.
If something here is wrong — especially if you are a property owner, an agency staff member, or someone named on these pages — say so and it will be checked against the source and fixed or removed.
Standing corrections
These are errors common in coverage of this story, corrected here as a matter of course.
It is DEC Class P — Potential: under investigation to determine whether it qualifies for the state Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites. Class P sites are not on the Registry, and DEC states the information for such a site is “preliminary in nature and unverified.” Separately, EPA carries the location as Cayuga Island LF and has determined it does not qualify for the federal National Priorities List on existing information.
DEC site 932081, Griffon Park, is on the mainland at roughly 9347 to 9551 Buffalo Avenue, across the Little River from Cayuga Island. Its file is older and thicker than the island’s and is often conflated with it. Its findings are cited here as the nearest comparable record, never as findings about the island.
Correction log
No corrections have been issued yet. This site was first published in September 2026. When one is issued it will be listed here with its date, permanently.
How this record is kept current
DEC posts documents to a plain directory for each site before any public announcement. Those two folders — 932008 for the island and 932081 for Griffon Park — are the primary watch. The state remediation database is rechecked for classification changes, and named local outlets are followed for reporting that adds facts the agencies have not published.
That is how the 1 September 2026 update was found: it appeared in the folder, and as of this page’s last review no news outlet had covered it.
Who publishes this
This record is published by Veritas Marketing Inc. It is an independent publication. Veritas Marketing Inc. is not a party to the investigation, does not represent any resident, property owner, company or agency named on these pages, and has no financial interest in the outcome of the Cayuga Island investigation.
Corrections, additions, and documents are welcome, and the correction log above is public and permanent.
Nothing on this page is a substitute for contacting the agencies directly. For the investigation itself, NYSDEC’s site contact is sarah.whiteway@dec.ny.gov; for health questions, NYSDOH’s Bureau of Environmental Exposure Investigation is beei@health.ny.gov.