Dan Telvock

Dan Telvock is Investigate Post's environmental reporter. A native of the Finger Lakes region, he was an award-winning newspaper reporter in Virginia for 13 years, including stints at The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg and The Winchester Star, before joining Investigative Post. He founded and operated The Landry Hat, a blog that covered the Dallas Cowboys, from 2005 to 2008, while also working as a reporter.

Sep 26

2012

U.S. fracking and the Niagara Falls

If there were a mobile container that could hold one full day of water rolling from the Niagara Falls it could serve the fracking operations in the United States for the past 20 months. That’s about 66 billion of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand to drill deep into the ground to extract natural gas, with Texas leading the way. EcoWatch put the data together and made the connection to Niagara Falls to represent just how much water 66 billion gallons is. The water either gets reused (only some companies do this), stays in the ground or is[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 25

2012

NY Health Commissioner adds delay to fracking review

The New York State hydrofracking regulations review and environmental impact study that the Department of Environmental Conservation started in 2008 has once again hit a bump. Health Commissioner Nirav Shah wants more investigation added to the review, specifically a health impact analysis. But he refuses to take the suggestion from environmentalists to have independent university experts conduct the work. Shah said it is the government’s job to decide if the state’s moratorium should be lifted and if natural gas drilling is safe for the environment. Gov. Cuomo has been holding back on his decision until the DEC completes its review.[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 25

2012

Toxic Town of Tonawanda

There are 53 industrial plants in a 2-mile radius in Tonawanda and it has the highest concentration of air polluters in New York State. The Clean Air Coalition hosted a “Toxic Tour” Saturday morning and if you haven’t been on one, it’s worth the 90 minutes to get a feeling of what is happening in your backyard. The next tour is Oct. 13. The odor of petroleum from NOCO, the sweet-smell of benzene from Tonawanda Coke (oxymoron, I know), and the ominous puffs of smoke from the Huntley Power Plant overpower this town. Single-family homes are nestled right in the[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 22

2012

Study says costs of fracking are big

A new report from the Environment America Research & Policy Center highlights how fracking has more problems than just environmental ones. The study states that the state governments are expending big money for new infrastructure and road repairs because of fracking efforts. But there’s more: A 2010 study in Texas found homes within 1,000 feet of a well saw values drop as much as 14 percent. Texas has earmarked $40 million in road repairs in the area called the Barnett Shale region and Pennsylvania estimated $265 million is needed to repair damaged roads in the Marcellus Shale region. The study[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 21

2012

WNYEA White Paper: ‘A biocentric viewpoint is needed now’

Canadian scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki coined the phrase “A Biocentric viewpoint is needed now,” but it’s become the mantra of a white paper that the Western New York Environmental Alliance released this week. Suzuki wrote in his first research paper after leaving his day job that environmentalism has failed because the worldview is that humans are consumers of earth, not a part of it. The white paper came from the Western New York Environmental Alliance Habitat and Natural Resources Working Group, Jay Burney, Joseph Schmidbauer, Larry Beahan and Art Klein. In it they wrote: It is time for us[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 20

2012

Grist Answers 5 Fracking Questions

Got questions about hydrofracking? Turn to Grist for at least five answers. Here’s Grist’s Fracking FAQ. One tidbit that popped out at me was this: A study published in May 2011 in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found a link between methane in drinking water supplies and proximity to shale gas drilling. Seven months later, the EPA said for the first time that chemicals used in fracking had been found in drinking water in Pavillion, Wyo., home to hundreds of natural gas wells. And in July 2012, the U.S. EPA said its tests of wells around[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 18

2012

Former N. Tonawanda Brownfield Site Gets Grant

A redevelopment grant from National Grid will bring more life to the former contaminated brownfield site that’s now the Buffalo Bolt Business Park on Oliver Street in North Tonawanda, the company announced Monday. The site is the former home of Buffalo Bolt Corporation and Roblin Steel. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has certified the 23-acre light-industrial and manufacturing business park as clean and shovel ready for new development after the state and city spent about $3.4 million on clean-up efforts. Lumber City Development Corporation, which helps the city with redevelopment efforts, applied for the funding. “This grant of $190,000[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Sep 18

2012

EPA’s Brownfield Program Scrutinized

The Investigative News Network coordinated an investigation of the EPA’s brownfield program and uncovered numerous problems, including richer communities getting more cleanup funding and that there aren’t enough federal dollars to get rid of the contamination at these sites across the country. The investigation also uncovered how there is a lack of monitoring and the EPA doesn’t even know how well its program is working in terms of remediating contaminated brownfields because it doesn’t have any standards for the clean-up efforts. All in all, it’s a great read and very informative. Western New York has 98 Brownfield programs. Of those[...]

Posted 12 years ago