Categories for In-Depth

Aug 23

2017

Feds pull plug on radioactive remediation

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Federally funded work to remove radioactive gravel from numerous hotspots in Niagara County has run out of money and come to a halt. Left in limbo are property owners in Niagara Falls and Lewiston, who were told by Environmental Protection Agency officials that there is no firm date of when – or whether – they will return to finish the clean up. Eric Daly, the EPA’s project manager, said he gave his superiors “options of what I could do and what I needed to do.” “What came back to me was we want you to shut down, meaning trailers out[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Aug 16

2017

When it rains, sewage gushes into Niagara River

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The Lower Niagara River is no stranger to sewer overflows. An Investigative Post analysis of state data shows the Niagara Falls sewer system has spewed more than a half-billion gallons of raw sewage mixed with storm water into the Lower Niagara River since May 2016. Even moderate rainfall can overwhelm the sewer system, causing untreated sewage mixed with storm water to gush into the Lower Niagara. The problem gained the attention of Governor Andrew Cuomo after a July 29 discharge turned the Lower Niagara into a black, smelly disruption for tourists on a busy Saturday at Niagara Falls State Park.  That incident was[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Jul 12

2017

Hurdles ahead for Metro Rail extension

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An extension of Buffalo’s light rail system to Amherst is as close as it’s ever been – which still isn’t very close. The plan gained momentum when Gov. Cuomo threw his support behind it in his State of the State earlier this year, as part of the second phase of the Buffalo Billion initiative. Still, the decision to build an extension has not yet been made, said Thomas George, director of public transit for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. “We’re not moving along in a process to the construction, we’re moving along in the evaluation process,” he said. “It’s absolutely not[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Jul 6

2017

City Hall slow to enforce lead measures

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Buffalo continues to have a lead poisoning crisis – hundreds of children were diagnosed with dangerous lead levels again last year – but you wouldn’t know it by City Hall’s slow rollout of its plan to deal with the problem. Mayor Byron Brown announced his plan in May 2016 and the Common Council passed companion legislation in October. But an Investigative Post analysis shows there’s been little progress in executing the initiative. Consider: Not a single landlord has submitted a required compliance letter with the city to confirm that they and their tenant are aware that lead paint is presumed[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 23

2017

Perks of LPCiminelli’s Buffalo Billion contract

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It was an expensive dinner after a long day of meetings on the SolarCity project. A senior executive at LPCiminelli, the company building the factory, ate at an upscale Italian restaurant in Albany, joined by two architects working on the project. The cost of the meal topped $120 each. That night, LPCiminelli picked up the tab. But, ultimately, state taxpayers footed the bill. A few months later, the company listed the meal as a reimbursable expense under its contract to build the vast solar panel factory, the marquee project of the governor’s Buffalo Billion initiative, and was paid back, in[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 17

2017

Regulators at cross purposes at 18 Mile Creek

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Eighteen Mile Creek in Niagara County is so polluted that the state Department of Health doesn’t want people to eat the fish caught there. It’s one of only six waterbodies in the state with such a warning. This hasn’t stopped another arm of the state, the Department of Environmental Conservation, from stocking the contaminated creek each year with an average of 160,000 of what are considered among the most desirable of fish: salmon and trout. As a result, a section along Eighteen Mile Creek in the Town of Newfane has become a fishing hotspot, part of the Lake Ontario watershed’s[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 16

2017

Police rifle purchase triggers concerns

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Community activists, echoing community distrust of law enforcement, have been advocating for change in the Buffalo Police Department. Better training to avoid situations like police using a patrol car to strike a suspect. Answers about the recent deaths of Wardel Davis and Jose Hernandez-Rossy during encounters with police. And more oversight of a department that clears officers of wrongdoing almost every time they are accused of using excessive force against civilians. The change activists are seeing involves not reform but rifles. And they’re alarmed by it. Buffalo police are buying approximately 115 semi-automatic rifles and 450 protective vests through a[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 12

2017

Most new jobs in low wage sectors

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The good news: Buffalo Niagara is adding jobs at a faster clip than it has in a long time, albeit at a slower pace than the nation as a whole. The bad news: three-quarters of these new jobs are in sectors that generally don’t pay well. The biggest job creator across the region is restaurants and bars. The problems don’t end there: There’s been precious little growth in middle-income jobs and the region is actually losing technology jobs that tend to pay well and spin off a lot of business activity. Experts say the biggest economic challenge facing the region[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post

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