Feb 1
2014
An explosion and fire rocked Tonawanda Coke and an adjoining neighborhood Friday. Company officials characterized the blast as minor, but state environmental officials say otherwise. A report from iPost’s Dan Telvock and WGRZ.
Jan 30
2014
A nifty map tracks the impact of global warming over the past 60 years. “2013 was one of the warmest years on record … driven by man-made emissions,” reports Fast Company.
Jan 30
2014
The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority is finally launching a recycling program that should service all 30 of its developments by the end of this year. This decision comes almost 10 months after Investigative Post reported that the authority was ignoring a longstanding city ordinance that requires residents of multi-family residences to recycle. The authority is the city’s biggest landlord with 4,748 apartments that are home to 7,642 low-income families and senior citizens. “It is something that we looked as the responsible thing to do and we want to do the right thing,” said Modesto Candelario, the authority’s assistant executive director.[...]
Jan 28
2014
NRG’s coal plant in the Town of Tonawanda is losing an average of $1 million a year and is at risk of closing, according to a new report. The report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis provides a warning to Huntley employees, community residents, the Ken-Ton school district and elected leaders: prepare now for the plant’s closing. The warning is based on the financial stress that such a closure would create for the community: 70 lost jobs and $16 million less tax revenue, half of which goes to the Ken-Ton school system. The Buffalo News reports that town officials said the analysis uses[...]
Jan 22
2014
Investigative Post environmental reporter Dan Telvock discusses the dangers of an Asian carp invasion in the Great Lakes, what’s being done to stop it and how much it could cost, with Tim Schmitt of WLVL’s “Stuck in the Middle.”
Jan 16
2014
State environmental officials have been mum for two months about their plans for a second round of air monitoring at the Peace Bridge after they misrepresented the flawed first round of testing. In the face of that silence, community activists and a key lawmaker who represents the neighborhood near the Peace Bridge agree that the Department of Environmental Conservation needs to take a different approach. “There’s a lot of distrust here,” said Assemblyman Sean Ryan. “We need to bridge the distrust. I think we bridge it by having more honest and open communication and less gamesmanship.” The DEC should let[...]
Jan 15
2014
Tuesday’s Buffalo Common Council meeting could be an interesting one when it comes to Peace Bridge matters. That’s when Council is scheduled to vote on North District Common Council Member Joe Golombek’s resolution that calls for a federal investigation of the environmental review process undertaken by the state Department of Transportation for its proposed project at the Peace Bridge. The $28.5 million project would reconfigure roads and ramps leading to and from the Peace Bridge plaza. Perhaps more noteworthy is the review concluded the project would not improve air quality, countering claims made months earlier by proponents of the work. The[...]
Jan 8
2014
Experts say the Asian carp’s threat to the Great Lakes is a serious one that could topple the $7 billion fishing industry and wreak havoc on the ecology of the nation’s largest group of freshwater lakes. Asian carp don’t have natural predators and feed on the same food as native fish, which makes them dangerous to the Great Lakes. The debate has been whether an expensive physical barrier between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River in Chicago, which is already infested with the invasive species, is the most effective way to stop an invasion or if the electric barriers already[...]