53 Search Results for recycling

Jun 13

2014

EPA fines Buffalo for mishandling waste

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The City of Buffalo will pay a $21,094 fine and spend $79,000 on nine community recycling events as punishment for numerous violations of federal hazardous waste laws under an agreement announced Thursday with the Environmental Protection Agency. City officials also agreed to improve its management of hazardous waste and spent lamps- a commitment the city failed to honor three years ago. The EPA conducted two investigations in 2008 and 2011 that found various violations of hazardous waste laws that put city employees and neighborhood residents at risk of potential mercury poisoning and chemical explosions. The settlement comes two days after Investigative[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jun 10

2014

Another ‘fine mess’ for Buffalo’s City Hall

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Buffalo is facing more than $100,000 in fines because of its mishandling of hazardous materials that put city employees and neighborhood residents at risk of everything from mercury poisoning to chemical explosions. Some of the problems go back decades and were first brought to light in 2008 when inspectors from the Environmental Protection Agency learned city employees and tenants of city-owned buildings had been throwing spent lamps, which can contain small amounts of mercury, into the trash rather than safely disposing of them. Exposure to mercury can damage the central nervous system and cause breathing problems and memory impairment, especially[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Apr 22

2014

A typical morning on Buffalo’s Peabody Street

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How would you like to wake up at 7 a.m. to the sound of an excavator digging through concrete rubble? Welcome to Peabody Street in the Seneca Babcock community, where noise is a common occurrence from Battaglia Demolition’s excavators, truck traffic and concrete crushing. Here’s a short video taken from one resident’s porch: My report a few weeks ago on the decade-long fight between Seneca Babcock residents and Battaglia Demolition and a follow up blog post sparked a lot of conversation on our site and WGRZ’s Facebook page. The complaints about the business include bad air, heavy truck traffic, noise and health problems. The[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Apr 4

2014

Who are Battaglia’s advocates in Buffalo?

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Not everyone is against Peter Battaglia’s effort to expand his construction and demolition processing business in the Seneca Babcock neighborhood southeast of downtown. His advocates, however, all have skin in the game—from his children to companies that dump at his facility. I wasn’t kidding when I said I pored through hundreds of state and city documents for Thursday’s story about a decade-long battle between Battaglia and residents who live near his business. Now is a good time to share some of the specific documents. So stay tuned because I will post more documents and videos throughout the coming week. For example,[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Apr 3

2014

Buffalo’s decade-long dust bowl

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The Weaver family and their neighbors on Peabody Street may be the only people in Buffalo who don’t look forward to warm weather. That’s when concrete crushing kicks into full gear at Battaglia Demolition, a construction and demolition processing facility that abuts their homes in the gritty Seneca Babcock neighborhood about a mile southeast of downtown. “I can’t open my windows because of all the dust from the rock crushing,” Jan Weaver wrote to the state Department of Environmental Conservation last fall. Between 80 to 200 diesel trucks a day rumble down Peabody Street loaded with concrete, scrap metal and[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Mar 22

2014

The State of Investigative Post, 2014

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Investigative Post recently celebrated its second anniversary and I want to use the occasion to recap the past year and provide a peek of what lies ahead in 2014. When I contemplated leaving The Buffalo News several years ago I wrestled with the prospect of losing the platform that comes with writing for the largest media outlet in the region. That was no small consideration because journalism, to have value, must have impact, and to have impact, must reach a broad audience. Using those benchmarks, Investigative Post had a successful second year, and is poised to have an even better[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Jan 7

2014

Gallagher Beach exposé voted top story

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Readers voted Dan Telvock’s story on potentially contaminated water at a proposed state beach as Investigative Post’s story of the year. The story, which aired Oct. 3 on WGRZ and published in Artvoice and on InvestigativePost.org, garnered 37 percent of votes in an online poll. Telvock reported that the beach, off Route 5 in South Buffalo, is adjacent to two Superfund sites and that an Erie County Health Department consultant had concluded that opening the beach for swimming was “probably impractical from a public health standpoint.” State officials responded to the report by first refusing to commit to testing the water[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 30

2013

Our top stories of the year

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This is the time of year when news organizations look back at the biggest stories of the past 12 months, and while I hate to follow any pack, such a review is in order for our fledgling organization. Dan Telvock and I produced some 55 stories, 75 blog posts and a dozen in-depth interviews in 2013. That body of work was read, viewed and listened to by a collective audience that approached 6 million through our website and news outlets that distributed our stories, primarily WGRZ TV, and also Artvoice, WBFO FM and The Buffalo News. I’m especially pleased with[...]

Posted 10 years ago