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Jan 3

2015

Taking stock of 2014

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Investigative Post is wrapping up a busy – and productive – year. Dan Telvock, Charlotte Keith and I produced some 90 original pieces of content in 2014, including investigations, follow-up stories, analyzes and blog posts. Many had impact, none more than Dan’s blockbuster story on the shameful condition of Scajaquada Creek and its stomach churning, heart-wrenching follow. We continued to grow our audience during 2014, thanks to our partnerships with WGRZ, Artvoice and City & State. We’re still reviewing our analytics, but it looks like our stories reached a collective audience of 7 million readers and viewers. That’s up from 6[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Aug 7

2014

DEC’s dustup with Battaglia Demolition

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The decade-long conflict between Peabody Street residents and an adjacent construction and demolition recycling facility continues despite recent enforcement actions by state environmental regulators. The Department of Environmental Conservation on May 1 cited Battaglia Demolition, owned by Peter Battaglia, with five notice of violations. Two of the alleged violations deal with failing to control dust that the DEC say drifts off the property from his concrete crusher as well as from the 80 to 200 trucks that rumble down Peabody Street most days of the week to get to and from his facility, located a mile southeast of downtown in[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Jul 24

2014

State complicit in defiling of Scajaquada Creek

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Way back in 1993 the state Department of Environmental Conversation told the City of Buffalo to dredge Scajaquada Creek to remove decaying human excrement and other sludge that was up to five feet deep in some places. The city refused — and the DEC did nothing. In 2008 the DEC used an enforcement order to force the Town of Cheektowaga to submit a plan to reduce sewer overflows into the creek. The DEC rejected that plan in 2010—and has done nothing since then to force the issue. In the interim, Cheektowaga has dumped more than one billion gallons of raw[...]

Posted 11 years ago

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 11 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 11 years ago