Have you been impacted by Tonawanda Coke’s criminal behavior? It’s not too late to submit an impact statement into the US Attorney’s office.

An Impact Statement is your chance to tell the judge how  Tonawanda Coke’s crimes has affected your life or the life of your family. The purpose of an Impact Statement is to assure the most appropriate sentence for the convicted offender.

Below are some general guidelines for  preparing such a statement.   The last day to submit an impact statement is August 1, 2013.

• Keep the statement as succinct and to the point as possible.

•  List any impact the crime and/or the defendants’ conduct has had on you and/or your family.

• Details of the emotional impact of the crime on you and your family.

• Details of the financial impact of the crime. This could include, loss of wages, medical or counselling expenses, travel costs etc.

•  Address any thoughts about what type of sentence you feel the defendants should receive.

• Include anything else you feel is important for the judge to know before imposing a sentence.

Please submit your Impact Statement and address any questions to:
United States Attorney’s Office
Attn: Sharon Knope
138 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202.
(716) 843-5828
sharon.knope2@usdoj.gov

For more information on impact statements go to the US Attorney’s website.

Sentencing for both Tonawanda Coke Corporation and Mark Kamholz is set for September 30, 2013 at 9:00am before U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Skretny in the Federal Courthouse at 2  Niagara Square (9th floor), Buffalo, NY.  To read the government memorandum detailing more information about the trial and the case click HERE. 

Its time to VOTE on how YOU would spend Tonawanda Coke’s criminal fines.

JOIN US AT THE FOLLOWING VOTING LOCATIONS

Saturday, June 15^th from 10:30am-12:30pm  Brighton Place Library 999 Brighton Place Rd. Tonawanda

Sunday, June 16^th from 9am-noon  St. Timothy’s Church, 1453 Staley Rd. Grand Island

Monday, June 17^th from 9am-6:30pm   St. Timothy’s Church, 1453 Staley Rd. Grand Island – pick up and drop off ballot to church secretary

Monday, June 17^th from 5pm-9pm City Hall Community Room 200 Niagara St. City of Tonawanda

Tuesday, June 18^th from 9am-4pm Town of Tonwawnda (second floor conference room)  2919 Delaware Ave. Kenmore

Wednesday, June 19^th from 12:30-1:30pm Tonawanda Senior Center 291 Ensminger Rd. Tonawanda

Wednesday. June 19^th from 3:30pm-7pm Phatman Skate Shop 2889 Sheridan Dr. Tonawanda

Thursday, June 20^th from 7:30am-1pm North Tonawanda Farmers Market Payne Ave & Robinson St.

THURSDAY, June 20^th at 6pm

Boys and Girls Club

54 Riverdale Rd.Off of River Road next to the GM Plant

JOIN US FOR THE VOTE TALLY AT 7:30PM 

We NEED polling volunteers! To volunteer at a voting site – contact Rebecca at 716-852-3813 or email her at Rebecca@cacwny.org

To download a voting flier and post it around town click here: Tonawanda Settlement Voting Flier

Community Power Building: Buffalo

Written by Maritza Martinez
Fellowship Program Manager, Green For All

Last week, I joined Green For All’s Director of Education and Outreach, Julian Mocine-McQueen on a trip to Buffalo to meet with the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York. Our goal was to bring together allies from around the city to explore how we could collaborate.

We visited some of Buffalo’s environmental justice hot spots, including the Tonawanda area, where toxic industrial polluters burn coal and refine petroleum across the street from homes and playgrounds. Not surprisingly, this area has an extremely high rate of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.  After much effort on the part of the Clean Air Coalition, air monitors were placed downwind of the industries to record the different pollutants that the surrounding community is breathing. The monitors found an unusually high percentage of the carcinogen Benzene in the air. I personally experienced the noxious odors that residents encounter daily.

Neighborhoods around Buffalo face environmental and economic injustice issues on a constant basis. It’s not just in Tonawanda. We learned of a local school on the Buffalo’s west side, where thousands of trucks idle all day, waiting to go through customs and enter Canada.  In this area, fresh air must be pumped into the local elementary school, because the air outside is too toxic for the kids to breathe all day. A playground and a small grass mound is all that stands between families’ homes and massive trucks blowing out toxic fumes.

With these experiences for context, we met with fifteen leaders from throughout Buffalo’s diverse neighborhoods to discuss the problems in their communities, share resources, and form new personal and organizational connections. We were joined by Green For All fellows Natasha Soto from Clean Air Coalition of Western New York and Clarke Gocker from PUSH Buffalo, as well as representatives from the NAACP, The Coalition for Economic Justice, Citizen Action of New York, Buffalo Car Share, Environmental Justice Action Group, Hispanic Heritage Council of Western New York, and Grupo Ministrial.

The most pressing issues they identified in Buffalo include poor air quality, inadequate housing stock, lack of youth investment, and insufficient jobs. Community groups are tackling these issues one neighborhood at a time, but more cross-neighborhood conversations, collaborative work, and resource sharing would help the city and its residents meet these challenges. Together, our group developed a vision of what Buffalo could look like if the community groups achieved their goals, and we identified milestones to help get there.

We can’t wait to see this vision unfold and to lift up Buffalo as a partner and a model for other communities around the country who are facing similar challenges.

From June 8th -11th, 5 members from Tonawanda and Buffalo will travel to  Fayetteville, West Virginia to meet with members of several grassroots community organizations who fight for environmental justice in Appalachia.

Our members are regular people who live in neighborhoods that are up against huge polluters. We will learn how residents are fighting coal companies who are stripping their land and polluting water sources near their homes with toxic chemicals.  We will share strategies, action ideas and work to build our movement that priorities people’s health. After the delegation, our members will present on our observations and discuss how the work of Appalachian communities has impact on our work in Tonawanda and Buffalo.

To make this incredible movement building opportunity possible, we need to raise $2,000 by June 8th. Our members are doing their own fundraising in order to be part of this delegation. A donation of $10 will help train local leaders to continue to build a strong environmental justice movement in Western New York.

Thank you so much for your support!

The second session of our book club will be held at the Brighton Library this Saturday, May 18th from 11:30-12:30.

We will be discussing chapters 3 and 4 of Raising Elijah,  however if you have not yet read or purchased the book, don’t worry! We will catch you up. Questions? or to register email Rebecca@cacwny.org.

Chapter 3: The Grocery List (and the Ozone Hole)

1.Was there a specific passage throughout this chapter that stood out to you?

2. Steingraber discusses in great deal the dangers of pesticides in food – particularly to the brain. Do you currently try to eat organic foods? Do you think that eating organic foods makes sense?

3. On page 66 the author talks about rules she uses with her children about food. What were the “rules” or lessons you learned growing up when it came to nutrition? Are your tastes in food similar or different then they were when you were a child?

MORE RESOURCES:

Organic food

• Huffington Post articles on the organic food movement
• New York Times “Is a Food Revolution now in Season?“

ADHD connections to food pesticides

• NBC – Pesticides in food link
• Citizens for Health

Chapter 4: Pizza (and Ecosystem Services)

1. What are your feelings on Steingraber’s ‘pizza experiment’ (pg 87-88).

2. Do you think differently about the cost of organic food after reading this chapter? Why or why not?

3. Besides cost, what are some other challenges or barriers to eating pesticide free food?

MORE RESOURCES

• USDA Food Plan (cited on page 84)
• Mother Jones: Poisoning Workers at the Bottom of the Food Chain
• Food Matters: 10 Tips for buying organic food on a budget

On March 28th, twelve jurors found Tonawanda Coke and its environmental control manager Mark Kamholz guilty on violating the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

The trial included testimony from over 30 witnesses, many former employees, and lasted over a month. This landmark verdict is only the second time in US history that a company has been indicted under the Clean Air Act – and has set precedent for a number of environmental cases to come.

As Judith A. Enck, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator, said to the Buffalo News “The verdict against Tonawanda Coke Corporation and Mark L. Kamholz sends a strong message that companies and individuals can’t simply ignore environmental law and disregard people’s health.”

The verdict was years in the making for our membership. The Coalition began as just a few people sitting around a kitchen table in Tonawanda. We knocked on doors, tested the air, met with elected officials and rallied at the gates of the plant. We held the government’s fee to the fire and demanded they hold Tonawanda Coke accountable. And it worked. Tonawanda Coke was raided, the plant was indicted in federal court, and now found guilty on 14 criminal charges.

Our work is not done. On July 15th Judge William Skretny will sentence the company. The company faces $200 million in fins and Kamholz faces up to 75 years in jail. Over the last few months, our members have been working to keep a portion of the potential fines to be used for community controlled projects in Tonawanda (see the article in the Niagara Gazette).

On May 23rd at 6pm at the Boys and Girls Club (54 Riverdale Rd. by the GM plant in Tonawanda) we will be holding a meeting to hear what residents in the Tonawandas, Grand Island, and Riverside would like to use this money for in their neighborhoods. During this forum, we will explain the federally mandated criteria for potential community projects, and brainstorm real project ideas that could reduce the risks of toxins and improve the health of neighborhoods.

Also on the 23rd, a settlement leadership team will be established to fine tune each project proposal. The projects ideas will be presented in various community locations through June 15th-20th.  Residents will be able to vote on the projects. The top community identified projects will be submitted to decision makers.

This process is built off of the Participatory budgeting process. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget.  PB was first developed in Brazil in the 1980s as part of a larger effort to establish democracy and citizen participation after decades of military dictorship, political patronage and corruption. PB is now used throughout Latin America, a growing number of European Countries, New York City and Chicago (Learn more about PB here).

What can you do to become involved in this historic process?

1 – Come to our community meeting on May 23rd.

2 – Join the Settlement Leadership Team by calling Rebecca at 852-3813 or signing up on the 23rd.

3. Host a voting day at your local library, club or coffee shop.

4. Volunteer to turn people out to vote! We need folks to volunteer to make phone calls, hand out fliers, and help with mailings. Call our office to volunteer.

The first session of Tonawanda Reads! will be this Saturday, May 4th at the Brighton Place Library from 11:30-12:30.

To learn more about our first summer book club read here.

We will be discussing Chapter 1 and 2 at the first session, however if you have not yet read or purchased the book, don’t worry! We will catch you up. Questions? or to register email Rebecca@cacwny.org

Raising Elijah Discussion Questions:

Chapter 1:

• What part of the first chapter resonated with you the most? Why?

• On page 5, Steingraber states “Elijah Lovejoy was a persistent and uncompromising man.” Throughout the chapter, the author references social movements that oppose policies that hurt families and children. When in your life have you opposed something in an uncompromising way?

• We hear often about the dangers of smoking to pregnant women, but rarely hear about the dangers of smog, diesel fumes, “new car smell” and industrial releases. Why do you think this is? (pg 11-12).

MORE RESOURCES:

• PCB’s and Social Movements:
  • Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality. Bullard, R. D. 1990
  • The effects of PCB’s on Children’s Health – NCBI
  • Daily Freeman (April 29th 2013) Hudson River PCB Drudging Begins 4th Season
• 911 and Worker Exposure
  • Short term impacts of emergency responders – NYC.gov
  • NYCOSH – 911 Environmental Exposures: Regulatory Response and Human Health
  • CNN Health (2010) Years Later 911 Workers Still Show Decreased Lung Function

Chapter 2:

• On page 33, Steingraber asks readers the following question: “If it turns out that we, as parents, can’t easily protect our children from exposure to environmental toxins like arsenic, is it better to know about the evidence of harm? or to not know?”

• On page 43, Steingraber refers to a father who states “As soon as you know, you can’t not know.”  What are some feelings that come with “knowing”. If you were the parents of the  children who used the community center, how would you have acted?

• When Steingraber goes infront of the board of directors, why do you think the board acted the way they did? (pg 43)

• Do you see any similarities between the community center board and our local town and city government?

• Steingraber speaks to the complexity of the “web of causation and responsibility” (pg 52-52). Have you ever experienced something unjust and didn’t know who to hold accountable? Did you figure out who was responsible? If so – how? If not- would you have done anything differently?

MORE RESOURCES:

• National Children’s Study
• Toxic Chemical Safety Act
• The Multinational Monitor: The Precautionary Principle
• Poison Playgrounds: An investigation into wood treated with CCA

 

This June members of the Clean Air Coalition will join the New York State Chapter of the Sierra Club to travel to West Virginia to meet with members of The Coalfield Environmental Health Project, a community organization made up of residents  who live next to Mountain Top Removal sites in Fayetteville WV.

We will learn how residents are fighting coal companies who are stripping their land and polluting water sources near their homes with toxic chemicals.  We will share strategies, action ideas and work to build our movement that priorities people’s health.

According to the organization I Love Mountains, mountaintop removal is a relatively new type of coal mining that began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. Primarily, mountaintop removal is occurring in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Coal companies in Appalachia are using this method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal while reducing the number of workers required.

Even government agencies that regulate mountaintop removal agree that the effects on nearby homes and communities can be devastating. In their Mid-Atlantic Regional Assessment, the Environmental Protection Agency states:

“The impact of mountaintop removal on nearby communities is devastating. Dynamite blasts needed to splinter rock strata are so strong they crack the foundations and walls of houses. Mining dries up an average of 100 wells a year and contaminates water in others. In many coalfield communities, the purity and availability of drinking water are keen concerns.”

Would you like to join the Clean Air delegation to West Virginia? Call Rebecca at 852-3813 or email her at Rebecca@cacwny.org to learn more.

There will be an informational session about the trip on Thursday, May 16^th at 6:00pm at Clean Air headquarters (341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, NY).

Road Trip!

The Clean Air Coalition, the Coalition for Economic Justice, Heart of the City Neighborhood, and Hispanics United of Buffalo, along with our members are attending the Second International Conference on Participatory Budgeting May 3-5^th in Chicago!

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget.

Check out this video to learn more about PB. http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=d7a76e4fc718437c43d63cba5&id=c776358063&e=a8a6e7b2cc

Back in October, Josh Lerner, ED of the Participatory Budgeting Project, along with Melissa Mark-Viverito, visited us in Buffalo to do a series of presentations to our members, partner organizations, funders, and the Buffalo Common Council. You can read about the Buffalo News’ coverage.

We are in for a weekend of panels, presentations, and workshops, from participants, organizers, and researchers of PB initiatives from across North America and the world. The conference will also include site visits to observe PB in action, and observations of the final vote for this year’s PB Chicago process.

Our members are doing their own fundraising in order to attend the conference. Please consider a donation that will allow our members to bring back knowledge and best practices for Buffalo.

If you would like more information on our plans to bring PB to Buffalo, call or email Natasha.

Stayed tune in late May for an opportunity to see PB in action! Update! PB in Tonawanda: cacwny.org/tonawanda-coke-settlement-project

On Tuesday, May 14th, join the Clean Air Coalition of WNY and Green for All – a national organization working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty, for a Neighborhood Leader Summit– an all day long training for Movement Builders.

Topics include:

Collective story telling

Community resiliency

Collective impact

Building power from the base up

Transformational leadership

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

9 AM- 5 PM (lunch provided)
Primera Iglesia Metodista Unida
62 Virginia Street
Buffalo, NY

To RSVP, or more information, email Natasha@cacwny.org or call 852-3813.