Categories for GreenPost

Jan 28

2014

NRG Huntley plant belching red ink

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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[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Jan 22

2014

Telvock talks Asian carp with WLVL

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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.”

Posted 11 years ago

Jan 15

2014

Another call for probe of Peace Bridge project

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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[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Jan 8

2014

Big price to saving Great Lakes from Asian carp

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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[...]

Posted 11 years ago

Jan 7

2014

60 Minutes critical of Soraa investor Khosla

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Billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who was the subject of a controversial 60 Minutes program that aired Sunday, is a chief investor in one of the two cleantech companies moving here under the Buffalo Billion program. Soraa, which makes LED lighting, lists Khosla Ventures as one of its three top investors. Khosla Ventures general partner Samir Kaul is a member of Soraa’s board of directors. Manny Hernandez, a former operating partner with Khosla, is also on Soraa’s board. The 60 Minutes program “The Cleantech Crash” has come under scrutiny from environmentalists and cleantech supporters on claims that it misrepresented the health of the industry. Khosla, who Forbes called the “Man With the Golden Touch,” has invested more[...]

Posted 11 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 11 years ago

Dec 10

2013

Politics in the air at the Peace Bridge?

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Although there’s a lack of bulletproof evidence that political influence spoiled the Department of Environmental Conversation’s air monitoring testing at the Peace Bridge, there are anecdotal references worth mentioning. We reported last month several flaws in the Department of Environmental Conservation’s air monitoring program, one of which was the agency concluding that air quality at the Peace Bridge was no worse than anywhere else in the city. That conclusion flies in the face of an overwhelming amount of independent research. Two days after our story aired, the DEC agreed to expand the air monitoring program. The DEC, however, has yet to answer any questions since[...]

Posted 11 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 11 years ago
Investigative Post