Tag: Environment

Jan 19

2017

Suit pending on landfill with Love Canal legacy

Published by

Four families have filed notice against the Town of Wheatfield alleging that a landfill with a Love Canal legacy made them sick through exposure to dangerous chemicals. Each family intends to sue for $60 million in damages, according to the notices of claim filed Wednesday at the Wheatfield clerk’s office. Wheatfield Supervisor Robert Cliffe declined to comment. One of the lawyers representing the families said test results of their soil and dust in their homes showed elevated levels of cancer-causing chemicals, including arsenic and PCBs. They charge that a toxic soup of chemicals migrated from the landfill onto their properties. “These[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 18

2017

Cuomo’s clean water proposal lacks details

Published by

Update 11:14 a.m Jan. 18.: The governor did release some – not all – details Tuesday night about his proposal to spend $2 billion statewide on water quality and clean drinking water projects. First, the money is spread out over five years. So, that’s $400 million a year for five years. What remains unclear is how the money will be distributed. There are numerous programs this money could go to and the governor was short on those details Tuesday night. According to his capital plan, “The Executive Budget includes $2 billion to finance water quality capital projects to ensure continued access[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 10

2017

Toxic landfill with Love Canal legacy not secured

Published by

Town of Wheatfield officials – encouraged by a lack of urgency among state regulators – have failed to honor their pledge made almost 11 months ago to fence off a toxic landfill deemed a threat to public health. As a result, nearby residents continue to use the 20-acre landfill to fish, hunt, walk their pets and ride all-terrain vehicles that dig into the contaminated soils. Nothing warns them of any danger other than a small “No Trespassing” sign at the base of the landfill’s gravel service road off Nash Road. Investigative Post reported in February that Wheatfield officials and the[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 10

2016

Podcast: Telvock talks lead with Marc Edwards

Published by

In the latest episode of Investigative Postcast, environmental reporter Dan Telvock talks to Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards about the risks posed by lead in drinking water, and why it’s a bigger problem than local governments want to acknowledge.   Keeping drinking water safe, Edwards said, is primarily about following existing laws: “Trying to make sure that the environmental policemen do their job.” That’s made harder by the fact that there’s a “culture of complacency” towards lead in drinking water, Edwards said. “They’re trying to defend the indefensible,” Edwards said, discussing Investigative Post’s recent story about how the Erie County Water Authority[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Nov 7

2016

Water Authority cut corners in lead program

Published by

The Erie County Water Authority is cutting corners in its testing program for lead in the drinking water supplied to most local suburbs. The authority has historically made little effort to meet a federal mandate to test homes deemed most at risk for lead contamination. In fact, Investigative Post found several examples where the authority tested houses that clearly do not meet the criteria. “If this monitoring is flawed, if this monitoring it not actually targeting the highest risk homes, then consumers may be receiving erroneous information and false assurances about how safe the water is,” said Yanna Lambrinidou, a[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Oct 20

2016

Buffalo beefs up efforts to test water for lead

Published by

Mayor Byron Brown proclaimed Wednesday that Buffalo’s water is “lead safe” after samples from more than 150 homes showed results below the federal government’s standard. “Still, we know people are concerned and we felt it was imperative that we do more in Buffalo to reassure our residents that we are using best practices and doing everything we can to make sure our water supply and distribution system is safe,” Brown said. The mayor announced a series of new initiatives that he said go above and beyond what the federal Environmental Protection Agency requires water utilities to do to ensure drinking[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Sep 30

2016

A new low point for Buffalo’s Hoyt Lake

Published by

Most people familiar with water quality problems in Buffalo were not surprised Thursday night when city officials issued a warning that a “harmful blue-green algae bloom” surfaced in Hoyt Lake at Delaware Park. Instead, they were surprised that it took this long for one of these blooms to appear in Buffalo. “Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time until we started to see harmful algal blooms in Western New York’s waters,” said Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper Executive Director Jill Jedlicka. After all, Hoyt Lake and its neighbor Scajaquada Creek for decades have been cesspools of disease and fecal bacteria that[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Sep 22

2016

Investigative Post’s Buffalo Billion reporting

Published by

Gov. Cuomo’s signature Buffalo Billion initiative was mired in corruption and bid-rigging, according to a federal complaint unsealed Thursday. The complaint alleges what has long been suspected: the RFP for Buffalo developers to build the $750 million factory for SolarCity was designed with one company, LPCiminelli, in mind. SUNY Polytechnic president Alain Kaloyeros, lobbyist Todd Howe, and executives at Buffalo-based LPCiminelli worked together to “secretly tailor” the required qualifications for a developer in Buffalo so that LPCiminelli would be guaranteed to win the work, according to the complaint. A similar pattern of collaboration is alleged to have taken place between Kaloyeros, Howe and[...]

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post