Tag: Environment

Feb 13

2024

Community groups question Buffalo’s lead program

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  Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of Partnership for the Public Good, speaks at a press conference Tuesday, Feb. 13 about the low number of home inspections Buffalo has completed to survey for lead. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Nearly 40 local community organizations are questioning whether  City Hall is fully complying with a more than 3-year-old program that was designed, in part, to help combat lead poisoning in city housing. They’re giving the city a month to prove that inspectors have been fully implementing the program. Partnership for the Public Good addressed a letter to Mayor Byron Brown and Catherine[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 14

2023

Lawsuit: Radioactive slag at affordable housing project

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A developer claims subcontractors used radioactive slag as construction fill at an affordable housing project just north of Buffalo’s medical campus. Now the developer wants the subcontractors, and the company that sold them the contaminated material, to pay $1.6 million for the cleanup, and other costs. The allegations were made in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court by the Buffalo-based McGuire PV Holdings, LLC. The company is in the midst of a years-long effort to revitalize the Pilgrim Village affordable housing complex, located between Michigan Avenue and Ellicott Street, across the street from Gates Vascular Institute. McGuire claims[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Sep 28

2023

STAMP pipeline drilling goes awry

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The state has cited the developers of the STAMP industrial park for violations involving a spill of drilling fluids in a wetland through which it is constructing a sewage pipeline. Earlier this month, crews conducting horizontal drilling to construct the pipeline through the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge encountered sinkholes, causing 100 gallons of drilling fluid to spill into a half-acre area. The drilling fluid consisted of water and clay slurry, made from Wyoming sodium bentonite clay, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. It’s the second such spill since mid-August. The DEC, in a notice issued Monday, said the[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Sep 18

2023

Good news for city trees

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After years of cutting down more trees than it planted, Buffalo is set to receive a federal grant with the potential to reverse years of deforestation and bring tree-lined streets back to the city’s East Side. “I see good things,” said Paul Maurer, chairman of Re-Tree WNY. “This is big, in terms of the impact … I hope we can make a really good dent, because as I drive or walk the streets, especially the city of Buffalo, we see a lot of need out there.”  Buffalo was awarded $8 million from the federal Inflation Reduction Act fund, based on[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jul 13

2023

Company seeking subsidies circulates fake study

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A plastics manufacturer seeking tax breaks to build a plant in Lockport has put its application on hold after being called out Thursday for circulating a summary of a study that was fabricated and produced by artificial intelligence. Prior to a public hearing Thursday, the India-based firm SRI CV Plastics, seeking $312,000 in subsidies from the Lockport Industrial Development Agency, provided the agency’s board a one-page summary of a study that touted the safety of PVC pipes, one of the products the company plans to make at the plant. A University at Buffalo professor, Lourdes Vera, called out the company’s[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 17

2023

Mayor’s budget a step backwards on tree planting

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Buffalo has been cutting down twice as many trees as it plants in recent years. It plans on cutting down more than three times as many as it plants under Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed budget. Investigative Post reported last year on the slow deforestation of the city, particularly on the East Side, where some neighborhoods are losing four trees for every one planted.  “By removing those street trees, and even planting smaller street trees, we’re going to run into the problem of creating more and more heat, more and more temperature increases,” said Nick Henshue, assistant professor of ecology at[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Dec 26

2022

Tracking the plows in Buffalo

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  Updated: Wednesday, 1:15 p.m. This post has received a lot of traffic over the past couple of days, primarily, I suspect, because of the link to the city-affiliated map showing what streets in Buffalo have been plowed. The map might have been useful at some point, but no longer. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz disclosed at a press conference earlier Wednesday that county and state crews have taken on responsibility for plowing streets. Poloncarz termed the city’s effort “embarrassing .” The Buffalo Police Department tweeted that there are more than 450 pieces of snow fighting equipment clearing city streets,[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 16

2022

No environmental review for new Bills stadium

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When major league sports venues are built in New York, they almost always undergo a thorough environmental review before a shovel is put in the ground. That was the case for Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Barclays Center and USB Arena in New York City. And it was the case for KeyBank Center and Sahlen Field in Buffalo, as well as other minor league baseball stadiums around the state, and a 14,000-seat soccer stadium in Rochester. Yet Erie County officials are poised to give Pegula Sports and Entertainment and the Buffalo Bills a free pass — called a negative declaration —[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post

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