Categories for In-Depth

Feb 28

2018

Landfill expansion faces community opposition

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 CWM Chemical Services, the only commercial hazardous waste landfill in the northeast, wants to expand its operations in the Niagara County Town of Porter.  The new landfill would be large enough to fill 1,200 Olympic sized pools with toxic materials contaminated with PCBs, lead and asbestos and other hazardous waste. If a state panel approves the application, as many as 220 trucks a day would rumble past homes and the Lewiston-Porter Schools for up to three more decades. The application process is moving forward despite public dissent and CWM’s history of spills and environmental violations, an Investigative Post analysis of state and[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 19

2018

IBM Buffalo Billion project fails to deliver

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Among a string of investments in untested companies, the $55 million grant to bring IBM to town seemed like one of the safest bets of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion program. IBM’s new Buffalo location was an obvious choice, too, when the state was looking for a company capable of handling a multi-million dollar contract to provide customer support for state agencies’ IT needs. But, so far, IBM’s Buffalo office has been mired in dysfunction and disappointment. Far from bringing “cutting-edge software development jobs” to Buffalo, as the governor promised, most of the employees here work call center jobs as[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 13

2018

Training, equipment deficient in police drowning

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The rapid-moving and debris-filled water of the Niagara River was unfamiliar territory to Officer Craig Lehner. His previous dives were in relatively calm and contained waters like the Buffalo River and the clear, warm Caribbean where he got his scuba certification. Last October, Lehner was training with the Buffalo Police’s Underwater Recovery Team in the Niagara River, the first time the team had trained there in over a year. While the team’s commander, Detective Leo McGrath, has more than thirty years of diving experience, he is not certified to teach public safety diving. Underwater, Lehner lacked the equipment to verbally[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 7

2018

Schools, county at odds over lead testing

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 Buffalo’s lead poisoning crisis – some 1,000 children are diagnosed every year with dangerous levels of lead in their blood – could be worse than reported, Investigative Post has determined. School officials can verify that only about half the children enrolled in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten have been tested at least once for lead poisoning. It’s uncertain how many got tested twice by the age of 3, as required by state law. In light of this, the schools have proposed to provide free lead screenings for incoming students and younger siblings at community schools and two mobile health clinics. But[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Dec 9

2017

Podcast: Reporters discuss government obstruction

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This edition of Investigative Postcast features a Dec. 4 panel discussion on the growing hostility towards the press, and the public’s right to know, from the White House to the State House to City Hall. Panelists included Jerry Zremski, Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News, Jimmy Vielkind, Albany bureau chief of Politico New York, and Steve Brown, investigative reporter with WGRZ. Jim Heaney, Investigative Post editor, moderated.

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 21

2017

Sewage inundating Buffalo waterways

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Kevin Koone comes up empty at his favorite fishing hole on the Buffalo River whenever he catches a whiff of raw sewage. “When it’s real strong, the fish don’t bite. It just ruins the fishing down here,” he said in August, while fishing at Mutual Riverfront Park at the foot of Hamburg Street in South Buffalo. The source of the stench: The 255 million gallons of sewage and stormwater runoff that flow into the river upstream every year. Sewage discharges this summer that discolored the Niagara Gorge caused an outcry, but fouled waters are an even bigger problem in Buffalo.[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 20

2017

UB Foundation invests in fracking

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The University at Buffalo Foundation quietly invested in an offshore fund that finances fracking and oil companies, even as the university declares itself a leader on combating climate change, leaked documents reveal. The private foundation, whose assets top $1.1 billion, is technically separate from the public university and does not disclose information about specific investments – despite mounting pressure from a student-led campaign for divestment from fossil fuel companies. But, in data made public Friday through the so-called “Paradise Papers,” a massive leak of documents from an offshore law firm, the foundation is named as a shareholder in a fund[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 9

2017

IBM another Buffalo Billion letdown

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Bringing IBM to Buffalo was meant to create good-paying jobs and develop a technology hub downtown. Three years ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state would spend $55 million on equipment and office space for the company to set up a “center for cutting-edge software development.” In exchange, IBM and its partners agreed to create 500 jobs over five years. State officials made the point over and over: these would be good-paying, high-tech jobs. But many of the employees in IBM’s Buffalo office, at least so far, are working in low-skilled, relatively low-paying, call center jobs. Most of them[...]

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post