May 2
2019
Investigative Post reported last week that the FBI is investigating the Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. Editor Jim Heaney discussed the investigation, and related issues, Thursday with Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom. Heaney also discussed a recent Investigative Post story on Buffalo’s failure to enact recommendations made more than a year ago to address the city’s serious lead poisoning problem.
May 1
2019
Hundreds of young children living in Buffalo’s inner-city neighborhoods continue to be diagnosed every year with lead poisoning. And City Hall continues to do next to nothing about it. “Buffalo has not made as much progress as other communities have and not as much progress as perhaps they could,” said Andrew McLellan, president of Environmental Education Associates, which trains contractors and others to recognize and remediate lead hazards. Thirteen months ago, the Center for Governmental Research, a consulting firm in Rochester, developed an action plan with 19 recommendations for the city, county and state to adopt. The county has[...]
Mar 27
2018
The City of Buffalo needs to empower inspectors to get inside houses to determine whether they are contaminated with chipped or flaking lead paint, a report issued Tuesday said. While noting steps the city and Erie County have taken in recent years, the 102-page report by CGR Inc., a Rochester-based consulting firm, declared that defeating “lead poisoning will require much more from local government and the entire community.” The report included 17 recommendations, the most important ones addressing the need for stepped-up inspections of residential properties. As it now stands, inspectors are not guaranteed entry to test interiors for[...]
Feb 7
2018
Buffalo’s lead poisoning crisis – some 1,000 children are diagnosed every year with dangerous levels of lead in their blood – could be worse than reported, Investigative Post has determined. School officials can verify that only about half the children enrolled in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten have been tested at least once for lead poisoning. It’s uncertain how many got tested twice by the age of 3, as required by state law. In light of this, the schools have proposed to provide free lead screenings for incoming students and younger siblings at community schools and two mobile health clinics. But[...]
Nov 8
2017
Sherry Slaper was at wit’s end trying to help her lead poisoned daughter. She followed the orders of the Erie County Health Department by painting over the lead paint on her window sills and staircase, throwing away cheap Chinese toys that can contain traces of lead and obsessively cleaning her Kaisertown apartment. But her daughter’s lead levels did not drop. “It was a storm of emotions,” Slaper said. “You go from being angry to scared to sad.” Could it be the water, she thought? To be safe, she installed a water filter on her kitchen faucet. Then — and only[...]
Nov 7
2017
The crisis in Flint, Mich., put a spotlight on the risks of lead in drinking water. The public water supplies in Buffalo and surrounding areas are not facing the same problems as Flint. Nonetheless, lead still poses a risk here because of our old infrastructure and housing stock. In fact, experts say there is always a risk of lead leaching into your tap water if you have a lead service line. Days after my story “Looking for lead (in all the wrong places)” in August 2016, I got calls from concerned Buffalo residents who wanted to know how they could[...]
Jul 13
2017
Jim Heaney discusses two recent stories done by Investigative Post on the proposed extension of Metro Rail and Buffalo’s continuing lead poisoning crisis. Heaney explained to Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom why he thinks the rail extension is a bad idea and chastises city and county officials for their failure to address lead poisoning with a greater sense of urgency.
Jul 6
2017
Buffalo continues to have a lead poisoning crisis – hundreds of children were diagnosed with dangerous lead levels again last year – but you wouldn’t know it by City Hall’s slow rollout of its plan to deal with the problem. Mayor Byron Brown announced his plan in May 2016 and the Common Council passed companion legislation in October. But an Investigative Post analysis shows there’s been little progress in executing the initiative. Consider: Not a single landlord has submitted a required compliance letter with the city to confirm that they and their tenant are aware that lead paint is presumed[...]