Tag: Environment

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 17

2013

Peace Bridge project won’t improve air quality

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State officials proclaimed in March that their plan to reconfigure roads leading to and from the American side of the Peace Bridge would improve air quality in adjoining neighborhoods where residents in one-third of the households suffer from asthma and other respiratory illnesses. “We are moving the traffic further away from the neighborhood where the residents are and where the people in the park are and believe just instinctively that that is going to improve air quality,” Sam Hoyt, regional president of Empire State Development and vice chairman of the Peace Bridge Authority, said when the project was announced. “The[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 16

2013

Goodyear ignored chemical threat to workers

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The Center for Public Integrity references a yet-to-be-published federal study that found 50 cases of bladder cancer at the Goodyear plant in Niagara Falls through 2007. A chemical called ortho-toluidine is believed to be the trigger, but Goodyear didn’t reduce employees’ exposure for over a decade, and by that time it was too late.

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 12

2013

Erie County bans hydrofracking

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The Erie County Legislature today banned high volume hydraulic fracturing on county land and imports of any drilling waste to its water treatment facilities. The legislation passed 9-2. The vote comes almost three years after Buffalo became the second city in the nation to ban the controversial gas drilling practice, also called “hydrofracking.” On Dec. 3, the County Legislature received a petition with 3,845 signatures supporting the ban. The legislation also includes a ban on importing drilling waste to county water treatment facilities and using the waste on county roads to melt snow and ice. Hydrofracking is a practice that injects millions[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 9

2013

Great Lakes restoration success stories

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Of the four federally funded Great Lakes restoration projects in Western New York, none is as big as the cleanup of the Buffalo River. The nonprofit group Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition created a map with details of each of the projects across the Great Lakes. Roughly $44 million will be spent on removing decades worth of historic industrial pollution in the Buffalo River, making it one of the largest river cleanups in the country. The bottom of the river is polluted with PCBs, heavy metals and other toxic chemicals. In total, 1 million cubic yards of toxic sediment will[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 9

2013

Clean up your air, Midwest

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The governors of eight Northeast states, including New York, want the federal government to force Midwest-Rust Belt states to prevent coal plant soot and smog from wafting across borders. The solutions are costly air pollution control technology or closing the coal plants for good.

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 16

2013

Expanded air monitoring at Peace Bridge

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Responding to an Investigative Post report, state environmental officials announced Friday they will resume air quality testing near the Peace Bridge. Unlike the last round of testing, the monitoring will include the summer, when pollution levels are higher.

Posted 11 years ago

Nov 14

2013

U.S. coal’s smog covers Ontario

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Ontario is a year away from removing coal-fired power from its grid. But the smog isn’t going away. That’s because half of Ontario’s smog comes from the United States, namely Michigan, where half of its electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. In comparison, about 3 percent of New York’s electricity comes from coal.

Posted 11 years ago
Investigative Post

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