Tag: Environment

Mar 23

2015

City Hall inflating Buffalo’s recycling rate

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Mayor Byron Brown’s administration has found a new way to inflate the city’s recycling rate by counting clothing donations given to nonprofits such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army. By taking credit for clothing donations – some 4,800 tons last year – the Brown administration is expanding on a practice started in 2013 of counting materials the city does not collect and which state and federal authorities discourage localities from including when calculating recycling rates. Brown, by including these materials, has claimed an ever increasing recycling rate. But data obtained by Investigative Post shows the city’s curbside recycling rate has[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Mar 6

2015

Stonewalling on Outer Harbor is transparent

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In Part Two of our report about contamination on Buffalo’s Outer Harbor, Dan Telvock documents the failure of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. to release public documents and answer questions regarding efforts to develop the waterfront. A growing list of critics have faulted the state agency for its lack of transparency. Part One can be found here.

Posted 10 years ago

Mar 5

2015

Outer Harbor: Toxins, yes; transparency, no 

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(Editor’s note: Watch WGRZ’s 6 p.m. newscast Friday for a second installment of the package.) The state’s latest approach to developing the Outer Harbor calls for expediting the construction of housing next to a partially remediated Superfund site contaminated with sludge that possibly causes cancer. The revised scheme is aimed at mollifying opposition to the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation’s original plan to build housing next to the environmentally sensitive Times Beach Nature Preserve. Shifting the first phase of residential and commercial development a mile south of Times Beach borrows from a plan advocated by Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper that has[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Mar 3

2015

Pridgen prompts City Hall on recycling

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Buffalo Common Council President Darius Pridgen knows the city’s recycling rate is well below the national average of 34 percent. In an effort to boost the recycling program, he has gained approval from his colleagues for a resolution that proscribes steps he wants the city to take to promote recycling. They include: The Corporation Counsel should review recycling provisions in the City Charter and recommend changes to bring them in line with state’s recycling mandate. The Public Works Department must remind businesses that recycling is mandated. Many don’t recycle. Summer seasonal hires should visit households that are not recycling and[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Feb 26

2015

Buffalo refuses to release recycling stats

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Byron Brown’s administration is refusing to release the city’s recycling stats, even though the mayor recently touted the program’s supposed success during his State of the City speech last week. Susan Attridge, the city’s recycling coordinator, originally told me she’d supply the statistics in early February when she finished adding in details from commercial recycling. When that timeframe passed, I asked again. Attridge said she was still working on the data and would send it to me as soon as she finished. That same week, Brown cited the city’s recycling stats during his Feb. 20 State of the City speech.[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Dec 11

2014

Scajaquada progress, at a price

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Engineers have told Cheektowaga it’s going to cost up to $53 million to update the town’s aging sewer system, which spews hundreds of million of gallons of sewage mixed with stormwater into local waterways every year. A number of options are under consideration, including lining leaky sewer lines and building underground storage tanks to hold sewage until it can be treated. The work could take up to a decade to complete and might require financing that would be subject to a referendum. The town is also considering steps that would end illegal connections of downspouts, basement drains and sump pumps[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 12

2014

Rochester leads on lead while Buffalo dallies

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Rochester used to have a lead problem at least as bad as Buffalo’s. But officials there got serious a decade ago and developed a program that’s considered a national model that some think Buffalo should emulate. Ralph Spezio, principal of an inner-city elementary school, was Rochester’s catalyst for change. Fifteen years ago he overheard two nurses talking about a pupil’s high blood lead level. “Then the other one said, ‘They are all lead poisoned,’” Spezio said. He was alarmed and wanted to know more. He signed a confidentiality agreement with the Monroe County Health Department and obtained lead test results[...]

Posted 10 years ago

Nov 11

2014

Buffalo is ‘ground zero’ for lead poisoning

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Young children in Erie County, mostly from Buffalo’s inner city, are testing positive for lead poisoning at more than triple the state average. As a result, hundreds of children enter Buffalo schools every year dealing with the impacts of lead poisoning, which can include lowered IQ and behavioral problems. The chief source of the problem is lead-based paint chips and dust in Buffalo’s old housing stock. “Buffalo is ground zero in the entire country for lead poisoning,” said David Hahn-Baker, a local environmental activist who has studied the lead problem for three decades. Yet City Hall treats lead poisoning as[...]

Posted 10 years ago
Investigative Post