Categories for Co-produced with WGRZ

May 23

2018

Decline in cross border traffic “very significant”

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It might not seem like it if you’re stuck waiting to cross the border to or from Canada this summer, but over the past two decades, the number of people making the trip has plummeted.  Car traffic at the Peace Bridge, which connects Buffalo and Fort Erie, dropped 40 percent between 2000 and 2017. Ron Rienas, general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, which oversees the Peace Bridge, called the decline “very significant,” adding, “it’s very unusual to have that degree of decline on a transportation network.” It’s not just the Peace Bridge. The Rainbow, Whirlpool[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 17

2018

Rare, costly benefit for Buffalo school retirees

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Most retired employees of the Buffalo school district receive a benefit not enjoyed by their counterparts in suburban school districts – lifetime health insurance. And not just any old health insurance, but about the best money can buy. This coverage, provided to an average of about 4,200 retirees, including teachers and administrators, doesn’t come cheap. The bill for the budget year that is winding down is a projected $66 million. That’s more than the $64 million the district is spending on health insurance for active employees. One parent leader criticized the spending in light of the district’s subpar graduation rate.[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 8

2018

Pegula back fracking – and violating regulations

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COUDERSPORT – Terry Pegula cashed in when he sold the bulk of his hydrofracking business in 2010 for $4.7 billion. He used a chunk of the change to buy Buffalo’s two major league teams, and made it clear when he purchased the Sabres that he was in it for the sports, not the money. “If I want to make some money, I’ll go drill another well,” he quipped at a press conference. Pegula is, in fact, drilling other wells. He started another fracking company – JKLM Energy, drawing on the first letters of his children’s names – and has been[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 1

2018

Safety practices ignored in Lehner’s drowning

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If training practices elsewhere are any indicator, the Buffalo Police Department had no business sending Officer Craig Lehner into the rapid currents of the Niagara River last October. Depending on the agency, trainees for swift water diving elsewhere typically start out in water moving somewhere between 1 and 4 knots, or under 5 miles per hour. But the Niagara River on the day Lehner trained – and drowned – was moving at a much faster clip – between 8 and 12 knots, or up to nearly 14 miles per hour. Records obtained from the U.S. Coast Guard show that some divers[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 13

2018

IBM subcontractor stiffs employees on pay

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Former employees of Career Connection Inc., until recently the largest employer at IBM’s Buffalo office, were told Thursday that the company cannot afford to pay them for their final week of work. In response to our report on WGRZ, IBM said the company has “promptly taken action making sure the employees receive all the money they are owed for their work on the IBM account.” The affected employees will be paid by IBM. “My goal is to accumulate sufficient cash to fund the payroll for the week ended March 30, 2018,” Career Connection Inc.’s CEO, Jessica Killgore, wrote in an[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 7

2018

Pegula abandons controversial fracking project

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A hydrofracking company owned by Terry Pegula walked away Friday from a controversial project in Coudersport, PA, that has generated a lot of community opposition. A company called Epiphany Water Solutions has proposed building a plant to treat fracking wastewater, a portion of which would be released into the Allegheny River. Pegula’s fracking company, JKLM Energy, was going to be a major customer of the treatment plant. Pegula owns the Buffalo Sabres and Bills. Opponents argued that the plant’s treatment process is not proven and that the project ran the risk of releasing effluent into the Allegheny with unacceptably high[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 6

2018

Staffing shakeup at IBM Buffalo Billion project

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Until recently, staffing agency Career Connection Inc. was the largest employer at IBM’s Buffalo office. But, last week, CEO Jessica Killgore told employees – including roughly 85 in Buffalo – they would be abruptly transferred to other companies, also IBM subcontractors. The move followed “a series of painful business challenges and unfavorable events encountered during the last two years,” Killgore wrote in an email to staff last Monday. “We feel it is imperative to take extreme action.” Gov. Cuomo lured IBM to town with $55 million from the Buffalo Billion. In exchange, state officials promised, the company would create 500[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Apr 5

2018

Neighbors contest bid to expand Niagara landfill

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A hazardous waste facility in the Town of Porter with a history of spills and regulatory violations is seeking state permission to construct a new landfill, which one nearby resident has decried as “insanity.” CWM Chemical Services is one of only a handful of hazardous waste facilities in the Rust Belt. Before CWM ran out of space in 2015, it accepted toxic materials such as PCBs, lead and asbestos, from industrial plants, brownfields and Superfund sites across the United States and Canada. The company has tried for over a decade to obtain a permit to construct another landfill on their[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post