Categories for Investigations

May 1

2018

Safety practices ignored in Lehner’s drowning

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If training practices elsewhere are any indicator, the Buffalo Police Department had no business sending Officer Craig Lehner into the rapid currents of the Niagara River last October. Depending on the agency, trainees for swift water diving elsewhere typically start out in water moving somewhere between 1 and 4 knots, or under 5 miles per hour. But the Niagara River on the day Lehner trained – and drowned – was moving at a much faster clip – between 8 and 12 knots, or up to nearly 14 miles per hour. Records obtained from the U.S. Coast Guard show that some divers[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Apr 5

2018

Neighbors contest bid to expand Niagara landfill

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A hazardous waste facility in the Town of Porter with a history of spills and regulatory violations is seeking state permission to construct a new landfill, which one nearby resident has decried as “insanity.” CWM Chemical Services is one of only a handful of hazardous waste facilities in the Rust Belt. Before CWM ran out of space in 2015, it accepted toxic materials such as PCBs, lead and asbestos, from industrial plants, brownfields and Superfund sites across the United States and Canada. The company has tried for over a decade to obtain a permit to construct another landfill on their[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 22

2018

No job search for Buffalo police commissioner

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 Mayor Byron Brown didn’t search for job applicants or interview any candidates other than Byron Lockwood before he nominated him to succeed Daniel Derenda as police commissioner in February. Selecting a police commissioner without conducting a job search is not standard practice for large municipalities. Other cities take their candidate hunts national by posting on professional police association job forums, like the one provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In towns like Amherst and Cheektowaga, applicants take a civil service exam and only the three top-scoring candidates are considered for the position by the town boards.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 6 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 6 years ago
Investigative Post

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