Dec 16
2013
Back in the teapot …
Posted 11 years ago
Dec 16
2013
Dec 12
2013
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[...]
Dec 12
2013
Forbes reports that a national jobs survey has found only one metropolitan region in the country is projecting negative job growth in the coming year. Yeah, you guessed where. Click the title of this post for the full survey.
Dec 12
2013
Dec 10
2013
Corporate tax breaks and grants total $1.7 billion this year alone in New York State. That’s up three-fold since 2005. The ROI? Employment is down. A devastating analysis by David Cay Johnston for Tax Analysts.
Dec 10
2013
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[...]
Dec 9
2013
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[...]
Dec 9
2013
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.