Real estate and builders' monthly : July 1885 ; Volume 1, No. 11
Real estate business -- Periodicals
Real property -- Periodicals
Real property -- New York (State) -- Buffalo
Real estate business -- New York (State) -- Buffalo
Haas & Klein (Publisher of original)
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (Publisher of digital)
Digital image copyright 2020 by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes without the expressed written permission of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.
eng
Late Nineteenth Century (1875-1900)
Real estate and builders' monthly : August 1885 ; Volume 1, No. 12
Real estate and builders' monthly : September 1885 ; Volume 2, No. 1
Real estate and builders' monthly : October 1885 ; Volume 2, No. 2
Real estate and builders' monthly : November 1885 ; Volume 2, No. 3
Real estate and builders' monthly : December 1885 ; Volume 2, No. 4
Real estate and builders' monthly : January 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 5
Real estate and builders' monthly : March 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 6
Real estate and builders' monthly : April 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 7
Real estate and builders' monthly : May 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 8
Real estate and builders' monthly : June 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 9
Real estate and builders' monthly : July 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 10
Real estate and builders' monthly : August 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 11
Real estate and builders' monthly : September 1886 ; Volume 2, No. 12
Real estate and builders' monthly : October 1886 ; Volume 3, No. 1
Real estate and builders' monthly : November 1886 ; Volume 3, No. 2
Real estate and builders' monthly : December 1886 ; Volume 3, No. 3
Real estate and builders' monthly : September 1887 ; Volume 3, No. 12
Remembering Van Miller : "The Voice of the Buffalo Bills"
Miller, Van, 1907-2015.
Buffalo Bills (Football team) -- History.
Radio broadcasting of sports -- New York (State) -- Buffalo -- History
Van Miller (1927 - 2015) is remembered as one of the greatest local broadcasters of the National Football League. As “The Voice of the Buffalo Bills” for thirty-seven years, Miller reflected the unyielding enthusiasm of the Buffalo fans who reveled in their team’s four consecutive Super Bowl appearances. Born in Dunkirk, New York, south of Buffalo, Miller’s career echoed his calls in the booth, building to a crescendo from humble beginnings as a summer replacement announcer at WBEN-TV (now WIVB-TV) in the mid-1950s to the station’s legendary sports anchor. His upbeat delivery was punctuated by humor and wit, which became his trademarks on the air. He retired from WIVB in 1998 after a forty-three year run. In 2004, Van Miller became the first local play-by-play announcer to be honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Ten years later his name was added to the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame at the team’s home stadium in Orchard Park, New York. During his final interview with WIVB-TV Senior Correspondent Rich Newberg, Miller reflected on his broadcast career in Buffalo, saying, “ That was a great ride. I was the luckiest man in the world.” Miller coined many phrases and catchwords that added to his signature style during Bills games. During the final days of his life, when he was barely able to speak, Van Miller mustered enough energy to raise his hands from his bedsheets and utter a parting word to his Channel 4 colleagues who came to say their final goodbye. It was his word describing the euphoria when the Bills would score a winning touchdown. “Fan-damonium!” Van’s longtime WIVB-TV colleagues who were at his bedside, anchor Jacquie Walker, senior correspondent Rich Newberg, and meteorologist Don Paul, believe Miller wanted Buffalo fans to know they were still number one on his mind.
Newberg, Rich (Writer, Reporter)
Swenson, Scott (Photographer, Editor)
WIVB (Television Station: Buffalo, N.Y.)
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (publisher of digital)
Murphy, Kurt (Graphic Arts Director)
Copyright held by WIVB-TV. Access to this digital version provided by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Videos or images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes without the expressed written permission of WIVB-TV and the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.
Radioactive waste disposal in the ground -- New York (State) -- West Valley
Radioactive waste sites -- New York (State) -- West Valley
Reactor fuel reprocessing -- New York (State) -- West Valley
This series of reports deals with the challenges involved in cleaning up one of Western New York’s most toxic hot spots, located in West Valley, about thirty miles south of Buffalo. Initial projections for the cleanup of radioactive waste pegged costs at $235 million dollars. The project, it was thought, would take seventeen years to complete. By 2018 the amount spent totaled $2.3 billion dollars. The full cleanup price tag could be in the range of $10 billion dollars, according to earlier estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2020, forty years after the site was declared a National Demonstration Project, efforts were still underway to dismantle and remove the remaining contaminated buildings still standing on the site. Other efforts were focused on either dismantling and removing radioactive waste material from burial and storage areas or making them more secure. Environmental watchdog groups continue to raise serious questions about public safety and health. WIVB-TV, the CBS affiliate in Buffalo, closely covered the West Valley story and presented many reports that focused on the grassroots efforts that helped shape the massive cleanup project. The movement grew in intensity as New York State and the federal government considered proposals to accept more nuclear waste at the site. This overview is the first of five groups of television news reports, videos, and films documenting the political, economic, and social processes that led to a forty-year cleanup effort that is still in progress. The multi-billion-dollar undertaking continues to serve as a national demonstration project. The reports and summaries that follow are compiled by WIVB-TV senior correspondent (ret.) Rich Newberg. He played a major role in covering initial events as they unfolded in the early 1980s. Overview Summary: (1979 - 2020) 1. The Nuclear Waste Challenge CBS report by Robert Schackne lays out the challenge: 1979 “Some 600,000 gallons of lethally radioactive liquid waste that must be disposed of by a technology that has never been developed.” 2. Migrating Radioactive Waste WIVB-TV report by Rich Newberg: 1982 Sand “lenses” in trenches containing low level nuclear waste provide paths for migration of contaminated rain water. Sierra Club issues a warning that the “flaky” bedrock is not a suitable barrier. 3. Lessons Learned the Hard Way Reports by WIS-TV, Columbia South Carolina: 1983 Problems at West Valley lead to a rethinking of plans to activate a similar privately-owed nuclear reprocessing plant in Barnwell, South Carolina. 4. Who Would Accept Radioactive Waste? CBS report by Bill Curtis: 1982 The small Texas Town of Tulia considers accepting radioactive waste from sites such as West Valley. Tulia sits on top of one of the biggest salt beds in the country. Salt beds are one of three geological formations deemed suitable by the federal government to store radioactive waste. 5. West Valley Chosen for a National Demonstration Project (1980) WIVB-TV Report by Allen Costantini: 1982 Ten years after Nuclear Fuel Services stopped operations at West Valley, control of the site is turned over to the state and federal governments and the Westinghouse Corporation. Westinghouse is the primary contractor hired to clean up the site at West Valley. The 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid waste is to be solidified into a glasslike substance and then moved to a secure storage outside of the region. 6. Entering the First Radioactive Cell for Testing WIVB-TV Report by Rich Newberg: 1983 Rich Newberg and photographer Jay Lauder cover the first tests conducted by Westinghouse experts inside a radioactive cell where uranium was extracted from spent fuel rods. The tests would help establish the best techniques for preparing the facility for the task of solidifying the high-level liquid radioactive waste. 7. Storing the High Level Radioactive Waste Video by CHBWV West Valley Decommissioning Team: 2015 The West Valley Demonstration project becomes the first site in U.S. history to place high level radioactive waste into long term outdoor storage. This video traces the history of the nation’s first and only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant and the enormous task of cleaning up the waste it generated during its six year run, from 1966 to 1972. (see West Valley File 5 of 5 in this collection for present and future safety concerns.) Background West Valley is located In the Cattaraugus County Town of Ashford. It is here where Nuclear Fuel Services once served as the nation’s only commercial plant that reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods used to produce atomic energy. The rods contained plutonium and uranium which could be recovered for reuse. The first rods were delivered to the plant in 1966, but when federal regulations toughened, the costs were deemed too much to bare. The plant closed in 1972. The entire site initially became the responsibility of the state of New York. In 1961 the state had bought and leased 3,300 acres of West Valley land for atomic industrial use. The plant was first owned by a subsidiary of the W.R. Grace Company, which later sold the operation to Getty Oil. The Cleanup Challenge Hundreds of thousands of gallons of high-level radioactive liquid waste needed to be removed from underground steel storage tanks located on an eight-acre burial ground site. Another fifteen acres of burial land is also of major concern because it served as one of the nation’s six commercial burial grounds for radioactive waste. The material was buried in unlined soil trenches and included at least fourteen pounds of plutonium. Yet another burial site contained waste from the reprocessing operations at West Valley, including damaged irradiated fuel. This waste was buried in fifty-foot-deep holes. Environmental activists, scientists from the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professors from the University at Buffalo pointed out that the trenches were geologically unstable, and that ground water could be contaminated and migrate from the site. In addition, the area is situated on a fault line and is potentially susceptible to earthquakes. A group called The Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes was formed in 1974. Some of its members specialized in technical aspects of radioactive waste disposal and health effects of radiation. The Coalition began putting pressure on the state and federal governments to have the West Valley site stabilized and cleaned up. It also fought against proposals to have additional nuclear waste material brought to the site for burial, incineration, other waste processing, or disposal. The Coalition played a major role in the creation of the West Valley Demonstration Project Act which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. It gave the U.S. Department of Energy the responsibility to solidify the high-level waste. It also granted the D.O.E. the authority to address the issues involved in decontaminating and decommissioning the facilities. West Valley is believed to be the only radioactive waste site in the country with its own act of Congress. In 1982, the federal government took control of two hundred acres at the West Valley site, including the underground high level radioactive waste tanks, the high level waste burial grounds, and the contaminated buildings where nuclear fuel rods had been reprocessed. In 1985 Congress required states to assume responsibility for the storage and management of what it termed “low level” radioactive waste generated within their borders. Watchdog groups say much of this waste is “high level” and dangerous. At West Valley, New York State maintains control over the fifteen acres of “low level” burial grounds mentioned above. This area had closed in 1975 after radioactive water had filtered through an inadequate landfill cap and found its way into surrounding streams that eventually drain into Lake Erie. The greatest challenge to the federal government was finding a company that was capable of turning the liquid high level waste into a solid and more stable material for storage. Between 1996 and 2002, Westinghouse removed most of the high level liquid waste from the underground tanks and converted it into glass logs. It used a process known as vitrification. 275 intensely radioactive logs were formed and initially stored deep in the bowels of the reprocessing building, which helped provide shielding from the radioactivity. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy selected the company that goes by the name CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley, LLC as its contractor. Its tasks were to secure the storage of the high-level waste and to demolish the closed radioactive buildings and the underground piping. In order to secure the storage of what came out of the underground tanks, 275 stainless steel canisters containing the vitrified waste were placed in steel-lined giant concrete storage casks, each weighing 87 1/2 tons. A 16,000 square foot reinforced concrete storage pad now holds 56 casks for what is termed “long term passive storage.” The casks are certified to hold the high-level waste for fifty years. Since there is no designated national repository for high level nuclear waste, the material must remain on the grounds of the West Valley site, at least for now. A coalition of radioactive waste experts and concerned citizens prevented more waste from coming into West Valley and has been providing oversight of cleanup efforts since the late 1970s. As final decisions for the site are expected to be made by 2022 or 2023, critical issues of health and safety continue to be raised by these citizen watchdogs. (See File 5 of 5 in this collection for detailed concerns involving air and water contamination.) In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy said its Office of Environmental Management “is continuing to make safe and steady progress with decommissioning activities at the West Valley Demonstration Project. With regard to ongoing concerns by citizen watchdog groups, the DOE statement reads, “The goal of the extensive demolition activity air and radiation monitoring program is to detect any change in radiological conditions, so that work can be slowed, modified, or even stopped to protect employees, general public and the environment. The work is carefully planned and carried out such that all contamination is controlled within the boundaries of the demolition area. (See File 5 of 5 in this collection for the full statement by the U.S. Department of Energy.)
Newberg, Rich (Reporter)
Murphy, Kurt (WIVB-TV Graphic Arts Director)
Vetter, Tom (Editor)
Schackne, Robert (CBS News Correspondent)
Roberts, John (WIS-TV Columbia, South Carolina)
Curtis, Bill (CBS News Morning Anchor)
Costantini, Allen (WIVB-TV Reporter)
Newberg, Rich (WIVB-TV Reporter)
Lauder, Jay (WIVB-TV Photographer)
D’Arrigo, Diane (Nuclear Information and Resource Service)
Resnikoff, Marvin (Nuclear Physicist)
Hameister, Joanne (The Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes)
Vaughan, Ray (The Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes)
Shepp, Amanda (Coordinator of Special Collections & Archives, SUNY Fredonia)
Pillittere, Joe (Communications Manager for West Valley contractor)
Bower, Brian (DOE Director for West Valley Demonstration Project)
Bembia, Paul (NYSERDA Director at West Valley)