A site in Niagara County holds a radioactive part of American history, but the Army Corps of Engineers is working to remove it.

The Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston was a dumping ground for uranium and other materials used in the Manhattan Project from the 1940s through the ’60s, contributing to the production of the first atomic bomb.

The Army Corps laid out its plans to clean up the site Tuesday.

The federal government has been approved to remove, treat and ship the contents of the interim waste containment structure off the site, something the Army Corps said is a major step forward in the clean-up effort.

Some local leaders, however, say this has been decades in the making and they are not confident about the future of the site. 

"It's not encouraging until they come back and say we've got money and we're going to put a shovel in the ground and we're going to do something, but being as there's radioactive waste down there, you just can't drill a hole and try to pump it out,” said Clyde Burmaster, vice chairman of the Niagara County Legislature.   

"When they use words like progress and safeguards, it's not funny but there is no progress,” said Lewiston resident Tim Henderson. “This stuff has been here since WWII. And it's history's ultimate weapon. And I fear that we as a community will become its ultimate victims."

There's no timeline for when the project might start.