Last Friday, The Tonawanda Coke Corporation confirmed allegations by the Clean Air Coalition that the waste heat tunnel at their facility had collapsed, possibly causing toxic emissions to spew into the surrounding community.
The
waste heat tunnel is a concrete tunnel that runs underground the length
of the battery, all 60 coke manufacturing ovens. The main purpose of
the waste heat tunnel is to collect the waste combustible heat from the
ovens. Now that the tunnel has collapsed, gases can't normally flow into
the facility's chimneys, and the company can't draw enough fresh air
into the manufacturing process. Without enough fresh air drawn into the
process, the coking process will possibly create toxic releases into the
ambient air, and into the surrounding community.
One of the chemical's of concern is benzene, a known carcinogen linked to leukemia and other types of illnesses.
We
call on the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Attorney General's
Office and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
to perform a full investigation of the incident.
We are calling on state and federal agencies to determine the cause of
the tunnel collapse, risks posed to workers, and risks posed to the
surrounding community.
If
you live or work in the area and are noticing dark smoke or odors
coming from the facility, submit a complaint to the New York Department
of Conservation by calling 851-7000 or completing and mailing in this complaint form.
The Clean Air Coalition of WNY will keep you posted as this situation progresses.
Interested
in working on the front lines of the struggle for environmental
justice? Clean Air is looking for inspiring individuals ready to work
for the movement for social change.
Description:
Develop
grassroots support for and activate citizen participation in our issue
based campaigns through intensive door knocking, and site based voter
registration.
The
canvasser will be the primary point of entry into Clean Air. The
canvassers' responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
Identifying and/ or reporting on issues residents are passionate or concerned about
Registering new voters and/or updating voter files
Coordinating site based voter registration activities
Leading and supporting teams of volunteer canvassers
Recruiting new members and building an active volunteer base for canvassing
Keeping solid records on campaign activities
Updating the Voter Activation Network
Qualifications:
Applicants
would preferably have a strong interest in social/ environmental
justice, strong communication skills, willingness to learn new skills
and ideas, be self motivated, and have access to reliable
transportation. This is a part time, temporary position that pays $15/
hour. Applicants should submit a resume and 3 references by August 1st to Rebecca Newberry via email; rebecca@cacwny.org or by postal mail; Clean Air 52 Linwood Ave. Buffalo, NY 14209.
WHAT: Panel discussion for the community and campus at Niagara University
WHEN: Thursday, October 15, 6:00pm-8:00pm
WHERE: Gallagher Center (lower level), Niagara University [Campus Map] [Road Map] WHY: The purpose of this forum is to consider the legacies of environmental injustice in Niagara Falls and to determine strategies for empowering the community. Panelists will reflect on how Niagara Falls residents were able to organize to respond to the toxic threats of the Love Canal community in the 1970s and 1980s, how hazardous conditions continue to threaten our local citizens, and how the lessons and strategies of Love Canal can be applied to today’s environmental dangers.
PANELISTS:
Stephen Lester, Center for Health and Environmental Justice
Luella Kenny, Former Love Canal Resident
Rebecca Newberry, Executive Director of the Clean Air Coalition
Mayor Paul Dyster, Niagara Falls (Invited)
The event is open to the public and all are encouraged to attend—please share with others who might be interested!
The event is sponsored by the Niagara University Political Science Department and the Levesque Institute for Civic Engagement at Niagara.
For additional information, please contact Dave Reilly at dreilly@niagara.edu or by phone at (716) 286-8088.
Learn about the imperative of “Just Transitions” from Erin Heaney, Executive Director of the Clean Air Coalition. We know we must move off fossil fuels to address climate change, but this transition can impact workers and communities unfairly. Whose responsibility is it to address the injustice?
SIERRA CLUB AWARDS 2015
The Blake Reeves Award to the Buffalo Public Schools
In recognition of the Solar Power Purchase Agreement
Solar panels will be installed at 20 Buffalo Public Schools to provide clean electrical power. We particularly recognize Paul McDonnell, Director of Facilities Planning Design and Construction, Jason McCarthy of the School Board, and Richard Steinberg, a Sierra Club Member.
Bruce Kershner Award to Charley Bowman
For leadership in working with many climate change issues and his concerns for justice and peace being central to the mission of climate justice.
AWARDS DINNER
LOCATION: My Tomato Pie Restaurant, 3085 Sheridan Dr., Amherst (Northtown Plaza between Alberta Dr. and Niagara Falls Blvd. - Map)
TIME: Begins at 5:45pm -- Dinner buffet starts at 6:30pm and includes vegetarian options.
COST: $25 per person including tax and gratuity.
Please RSVP by April 27th. You can either e-mail sierraclubangela@gmail.com or call Larry at 716-634-8715. Hope to see you there!
How our transportation system discriminates against the most vulnerable.
By Corinne Ramey - Slate Magazine
Feb. 27 2015
At the easternmost edge of Lake Erie, where the lake meets the Niagara River, the Peace Bridge connects the
United States and Canada. The two-thirds-of-a-mile-long bridge is one
of the busiest border crossings between the two countries, connecting
Canada’s Fort Erie with Buffalo, New York. Every day, an average of more
than 15,000 vehicles, about 3,400 of which are trucks, drive over its
steel girders.
In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average,
and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the
thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and
other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the
air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the
lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color.
“It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a
local resident.
Idling trucks, with their engines running, are a regular presence on
residential streets. “You see them park on our streets now, and sleeping
overnight,” she says. “It’s so much, and we’re right there.” Tell is
one of several residents who wore an air monitor funded through an
Environmental Protection Agency grant. Her device collected more than 1.8 times
the EPA recommended limit of particle pollutants. Tell could only wear
the monitor for eight hours during a single day—the cost of conducting
the air quality test is prohibitively expensive—but the result was
deeply alarming. According to the EPA’s standards, the recommended limit
on particle pollutants shouldnot be “exceeded more than once per year on average over 3 years”.
Far from addressing the community’s concerns, plans are now afoot to
expand the Peace Bridge. A proposed expansion of the bridge’s on- and
off-ramps will further encroach into the neighborhood’s streets.
Residents say their concerns about the constant truck traffic and its
deleterious health consequences are being consistently ignored. “We have
to move past the point where your zip code determines the quality of
your life,” says Virginia Golden, a Buffalo resident and activist.
* * *
Race and transportation have long been intertwined, whether it be
federally funded highways that plowed through, or isolated, minority
neighborhoods; Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; or segregated
streetcars and trolleys. And there has been tremendous progress within
the past century, particularly when Brown v. Board of Education
struck down “separate but equal,” leading to the eventual desegregation
of public transportation. In the 1990s, two pieces of legislation, the
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century, increased community
involvement and awareness of civil rights issues in transportation
planning. But discrimination, while certainly less overt, remains today.
Race and transportation have long been intertwined, from federally fundedhighways that plowed through minority neighborhoods to Rosa Parks and
the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Photo by Glenn Asakawa/Denver Post Staff
Sometimes, as in Buffalo’s case, communities feel cut out of the decision-making process. Those in power make decisions about transportation planning, resulting in ill-planned bus routes, transportation more likely to benefit those with cars than those without, and bleak environmental costs. In some cities, roads continue to pull apart neighborhoods, prioritizing commuters over communities. Nationally, the United States remains a country where many forms of
transportation are effectively still segregated—whites and minorities ride different kinds of transportation, resulting in an unequal ability to reach jobs, education, and a better life.
Want a way to stay involved with the Clean Air Coalition?
Want to learn more about Climate Change?
Do you just like Watching Movies?
If your answer to any of the questions is Yes, we havesomething for you!
This August, Clean Air Coalition is hosting a Combating Climate Change Film Series. We will be screening three films about climate change and its interactions with people that are fun, informative, and help explain why the work we all do for the environment is so important.
The series starts on August 5th with a screening of The 11th Hour, a film that examines the threat of climate change on human life and poses the question: Will the world's population employ break-through technologies and change our behavior to save our species?
Then join us on August 12th for The Island President to see how climate change is threatening the lives of people in the Maldives and how one man is working to stop it before it's too late.
Finally on August 19th, come watch a film that is less science and more politics. Everything's Coolis a documentary that studies the politics behind keeping climate change out of the mainstream and the struggle to make everyone recognize its urgency. By the end we should all be inspired to work towards marshaling the public and political will necessary to save our species and our planet.
These films are sure to inform and entertain and all are welcome. We hope to see you all there!
Where: Brighton Place Library, 999 Brighton Road, Tonawanda [Map]
When: TUESDAYS, August 5th, 12th, and 19th at 6pm
For a flyer describing the film series, Click Here.
For more information call (716) 852-3813 or contact us at info@cacwny.org
Please join
the Clean Air Coalition for the Williamsville screening of the film "Dirty Business." This Peter Bull documentary investigates the numerous health and
environmental impacts of the coal industry in communities across
America and the world.
The screening will take place on Wednesday, February 12, at Clearfield Library, 770 Hopkins Rd., Williamsville from 6-8PM. [Map]
The film will be followed by a brief discussion of the impacts of
burning coal here in WNY. Light refreshments will be served.
Free and open to the public
For a preview of the film, Click Here. Screenings to be held in other towns - East Aurora, Clarence, Hamburg and Buffalo - on later dates at 6-8PM:
Feb. 19, Southside Municipal Center, 300 Gleed Ave, East Aurora
Feb. 20, Clarence Library, 3 Town Place, Clarence
Feb. 25, Hilbert
College, Palisano Lecture Rm., Bogel Hall, 5200 S Park Ave., Hamburg - Featuring a
special video conference with director Peter Bull
Feb. 27, Buffalo State College, Room OE in Bulger Communications Center (parking in Lot S), Buffalo
If you have any questions, please call 716-852-3813.
Clean Air Coalition looks forward to seeing you there!
Join the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York downtown at Coca-Cola Field on Thursday, August 8th for an exciting night of baseball at Clean Air Night with the Buffalo Bisons!
Enjoy
a beautiful summer evening at the ballpark as the Bisons face off in a
double-header against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders, the minor
league affiliate of the New York Yankees.
Tickets
are only $11, with a portion of the proceeds going directly to Clean Air
to support our ongoing efforts to promote health and justice throughout
Western New York.
Call our office at (716) 852-3813 or visit our Website at to purchase tickets.
First pitch is at 5:30pm... we hope to see you there!
7:30 p.m., Monday, November 12, Daemen College, 4380 Main Street, Amherst, Room 336, Duns Scotus Hall Free and Open to the Public
Panelists:
Penny Messinger, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History and Government Department, Daemen College
Rebecca Newberry, Program Coordinator, Clean Air Coalition of WNY (www.cacwny.org);
Kenzie Reynen, Global and Local Sustainability Major, Daemen College
Jennifer Tuttle, Organizer, Sierra Club New York Beyond Coal Campaign (www.beyondcoal.org).
The moderator is Walter Simpson (www.energyreallymatters.com)
who will begin the session with a presentation on how activists helped
prevent the construction of a new coal plant in Jamestown, NY. The
discussion will then turn to the fate of Western New York’s four
existing coal plants.
Air monitoring by the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) in Tonawanda has been critical to diagnosing the air
pollution challenges, holding polluters accountable and tracking
progress to reduce dangerous emissions.
The DEC is considering shutting one of the two remaining air monitors
in Tonawanda. We can't let that happen!
We are also asking for an air
monitor to be placed on Buffalo's lower West Side to monitor harmful
matter from diesel emissions in the neighborhoods. It's not right that a
known toxic hot spot is not being monitored by the state.
The Coalition has been knocking on doors in Tonawanda and the West
Side collecting signatures on postcards that we will deliver to
legislators. We have also started an online petition to demonstrate support for this critical community need. Will you take
30 seconds to sign the petition and pass it along to your networks?
It's not too late to reserve your tickets for the Clean Air Coalition's Annual Dinner! This important fundraiser helps fund our fight for environmental health and justice.
Already purchased your ticket? Invite your friends to join you!
Click for more information about the event Ticket sales end Tuesday, April 26th. To purchase your tickets send a check for $30 per person and your contact information to: 1250 Niagara Street Buffalo, NY 14213 or click here to purchase your tickets online. No tickets are sent in the mail for the event.
