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Dec 28

2012

EPA differs with Peace Bridge on air quality

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The authority that operates the Peace Bridge and a trio of state agencies maintain that fumes from traffic crossing the bridge have little impact on the health of residents who live nearby. The Environmental Protection Agency disagreed Friday, and backed up those concerns with a grant to the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York to monitor air quality around the bridge and educate and mobilize neighborhood residents. The $25,000 Environmental Justice Small Grants Program award announced Friday will be used by the Clean Air Coalition to partner with West Side residents to train them in mobile air sampling and educate[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Dec 27

2012

Ups and downs of Lisa Jackson’s tenure

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Lisa Jackson’s announcement today that she is retiring as head of the Environmental Protection Agency guarantees she won’t be revisiting her plan to limit smog in 2013 after President Obama shoved it to the side more than a year ago. For Jackson, her tenure has had its ups and downs. Jackson was successful in creating the first national standards for mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants and increasing the fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. She told the New York Times that the most important decision in her four years is the endangerment finding that marked carbon[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Dec 27

2012

Seiche caused low water levels

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People took to Facebook and Twitter Wednesday wondering why water levels for Lake Erie and its tributaries were abnormally low. I thought I was going to have to make calls today to meteorologists and other weather experts to explain what happened, but our partners at WGRZ did it for us. Channel 2 WGRZ discovered that a seiche is the culprit. A seiche starts with a storm surge or high sustained winds from one direction that push the water up at the opposite — which in this case would be in Toledo, OH, — and cause the other side to drop like it[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Dec 21

2012

The Bills lease by the numbers

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Some perspective on the Bills lease signed Friday. In terms of sheer public dollars, state and local government are getting off relatively cheap, although you’ve got to keep in mind that the improvements are intended as a 10-year stop gap at the aging Ralph Wilson Stadium. New York State and Erie County are on the hook for $95 million. Compare that with Kansas City, where taxpayers spent $250 million to renovate Arrowhead Stadium. Or the $160 million spent by taxpayers to renovate Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. Or the $548 million Minnesota taxpayers will pay for a[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Dec 20

2012

The Great Lakes are stressing out

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This map shows a sea of red off of Buffalo and many other Rust Belt cities where environmental stressors are harming the nation’s largest fresh water source, the Great Lakes. People can heed the data and maps as a warning — the red doesn’t mean death, but it helps point people to where the focus needs to be to reverse the impacts of these environmental stressors, said the chief researcher for the project,  J. David Allen, a professor of aquatic sciences at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. Other Great Lakes experts might argue that the places[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Dec 20

2012

Job claims inflated for Billion To Buffalo project

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Governor Andrew Cuomo summoned hundreds of muckety-mucks to the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center two weeks ago to make the kind of announcement that politicians live for: government aid to bring jobs to an economically struggling region. In this instance, Cuomo told the assembled that the first $50 million of his $1 billion in promised state economic development funds had leveraged a commitment from Albany Molecular Research Inc. to bring 250 jobs and up to $250 million in private investment to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Reads the headline on the governor’s press release: “Governor and (Western New York Regional Economic[...]

Posted 11 years ago
Investigative Post

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