Categories for In-Depth

Feb 10

2016

Landfill with Love Canal legacy still poses danger

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Varsha Kraus and her family fled their neighborhood in Love Canal in 1981 only to learn two years ago that its toxic waste had been dug up and buried in a landfill behind their subdivision in North Tonawanda. After insisting for 25 years that the closed landfill posed no significant health threat, state officials changed their minds in December and declared it a Superfund site. But warning signs were evident all along: rusted chemical drums, battery casings stacked waist high and children getting burns from splashes of orange pond water. The Love Canal waste – enough to fill 80 dump[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 9

2016

Unlike mayor, Council poised to act on lead

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Three Buffalo Common Council members, responding to an Investigative Post story that aired Monday on WGRZ, said Tuesday they are willing to collaborate with Erie County health officials to address the city’s serious lead problem. Council President Darius Pridgen is among those who vowed action. Passing legislation and certifying city inspectors to detect hazards inside homes were mentioned as possible steps. The response of Council members contrasts with Mayor Mayor Brown, who said Monday he was satisfied with leaving the task of lead detection to the county. Although the mayor expressed a willingness last summer to discuss how the city[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 8

2016

Mayor backtracks on lead pledge

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You don’t have to go as far as Flint, Michigan, to find a serious lead poisoning problem. There’s one right here in Buffalo, one that City Hall continues to downplay. New data obtained by Investigative Post shows there’s an increase, for the first time in four years, in the number of children in Erie County who tested positive for lead in their blood. In 2015, Erie County reported 295 children who tested positive for lead in their blood. That’s a 14 percent increase from the prior year. The real problem is in Buffalo, however, where 273 children – 93 percent[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 31

2016

Heaney talks media with Capitol Pressroom

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Jim Heaney and Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom discuss the declining fortunes of legacy media, in particular newspapers, and the rise of nonprofit newsrooms. Heaney expressed solidarity with the style of adversarial journalism practiced by Glenn Greenwald and his colleagues at The Intercept and said the upstate press could and should have been more aggressive over the past several decades in reporting on New York’s troubled economy and corrupt state government. The interview runs from 21:39 to 36:02 at this link.

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 29

2016

Quick Hit: Diversity in construction

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A new report from the Partnership for the Public Good shows racial disparities in hiring are worse in Erie County than nationally. The state does make efforts to address these by including diversity goals on publicly funded construction projects — but these fall short for a number of reasons. Charlotte Keith explains more in The Public.

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 20

2016

Quick Hit: Greenleaf update

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Buffalo State’s college newspaper, The Record, provided the owner of Greenleaf and Co. a forum to criticize Dan Telvock’s investigation of his business operations. The newspaper also gave Buffalo State officials an opportunity to explain why they support Greenleaf’s off-campus student housing project. But not everything they said passed the fact checker. Read Telvock’s “Quick Hit” in the Public.

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 18

2016

Quick Hit: Urban League update

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Pressure is mounting on the Buffalo Urban League as Erie County legislators prepare to discuss an audit which bore out whistleblowers’ allegations of fraudulent billing. Read Charlotte Keith’s “Quick Hit” in The Public.

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 18

2016

Quick Hit: Funding for Scajaquada cleanup

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State funds to restore the badly polluted Scajaquada Creek are beginning to trickle in. Will federal funds follow? Read Dan Telvock’s “Quick Hit” in The Public.

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post

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