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Media Contact
Contact: Erin Heaney
E-mail: erin@cacwny.org
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Latest News Releases

12/3/09
Tonawanda Residents Concerned About Hazardous Waste at Tonawanda Coke

Monday, December 7th at 4:00 pm Tonawanda residents will gather at the Kaufman playground to express their growing concerns about hazardous waste at the Tonawanda Coke facility. Residents will askquestions of the plant owner, J.D. Crane, and call on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and United States Environmental Protection Agency for assistance.

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10/2/09
Clean Air Coalition to Rally Outside Tonawanda Coke Plant

On Wednesday, October 7th at 5:30 pm members of the Clean Air Coalition will rally outside the Tonawanda Coke plant on River Road. Residents from Tonawanda, Kenmore, Grand Island and the City of Buffalo will gather across the street from the plant on River Road in Tonawanda to demonstrate against the high levels of benzene pouring out of Tonawanda Coke. The rally will feature remarks from community members who have fallen ill as a result of Tonawanda Coke’s emissions. Erie County legislator Michelle Ianello and other elected officials are scheduled to speak out.

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9/16/09
Clean Air Coalition plans rally outside Tonawanda Coke plant

Members of the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York will rally on October 7 at 5:30 p.m. outside the Tonawanda Coke plant on River Road. The “Rally for Clean Air” has been organized in response to the plant owner’s refusal to meet with concerned citizens and acknowledge the conclusions of an air quality study recently released by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that found Tonawanda Coke responsible for more than half of the region’s benzene emissions.

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9/9/09
Energetic organizer named director of Clean Air Coalition of Western New York

The Clean Air Coalition of Western New York has named Erin Heaney as its executive director. Heaney, a graduate of City Honors High School and Swarthmore College, will rely on her experience organizing around housing, labor and human rights issues to tackle Western New York’s pollution problems. Heaney intends to rally a diverse group of community organizations to accomplish the coalition’s goals, starting with a campaign to reduce the emission of cancer-causing chemicals from the Tonawanda Coke plant.

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5/19/09
Speak-Out on Dangerous Air Pollution in Tonawanda

Residents of the City and the Town of Tonawanda, Kenmore, and Riverside along with the Clean Air Coalition of WNY (CACWNY) held a speak out today and shared their personal stories of illness caused by air pollution with the invited guest and owner of one of the area’s largest industrial air emitters, JD Crane of Tonawanda Coke Corp (TCC). Jackie James-Creedon, Director of the CACWNY, explains ”The timing was right for our community people to share their personal stories of how JD Crane’s air pollution has affected so many people in these communities. A few months ago, the CACWNY along with Legislator Michele Iannello (D- Kenmore) and Senator Antoine Thompson (D-Buffalo) reached out to JD Crane asking him to sit down to hear our community’s concerns and to help him obtain funding to install air pollution controls on his factory. We received letters from Tonawanda Coke’s lawyers declining both meetings. This is a personal fight now: J.D. Crane’s air pollution is affecting the health of our community and we are ready to fight for our right to breathe clean air and raise our children in a healthy community!”

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2/20/09
Love Canal’s Lois Gibbs Joins Tonawanda’s Fight for Clean Air

The Clean Air Coalition of Western New York (CACWNY) welcomed Lois Gibbs, known widely around Western New York and the nation for her work at Love Canal in the 1970’s, to Tonawanda, N.Y. today Thirty years after the first national environmental disaster at Love Canal, area groups are still fighting to preserve their right for clean water, soil and air. Ms. Gibb’s is in town to help with the CACWNY’s fight for clean air. The CACWNY is a group of concerned Kenmore, Tonawanda, and Riverside community residents focusing on monitoring, identifying, and reducing environmental air pollution in their community.

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2/20/09
Tonawanda Coke Update

The Erie County Legislature today passed a resolution introduced by Legislator Michele M. Iannello (D-Kenmore) which calls on manufacturers and chemical plants in and near Tonawanda to significantly reduce their air emissions of benzene, a known human carcinogen. This resolution encourages Tonawanda Coke, which is the number one industrial contributor of benzene in Tonawanda, along with other area manufacturers to develop and implement toxic-use-reduction plans.

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11/13/08
Clean Air Coalition of Western New York (CACWNY) Receives $40K Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Grant to Reduce Benzene : Group Initiates a Petition Campaign Directed at Tonawanda Coke

The Clean Air Coalition of Western New York (CACWNY) announced today they have been awarded a $40,000 Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) grant to implement reduction strategies for benzene in the Tonawanda and Kenmore, N.Y workplace and community. They have also announced today they are wasting no time with their project and immediately initiating a campaign directed at Tonawanda Coke to reduce their air emissions. Jackie James–Creedon explains “We now know through the DEC air study that benzene levels in our neighborhoods are at a level that must be reduced. This is a very crucial situation and we are wasting no time. We are requesting a meeting with the owner of Tonawanda Coke to sit down with us to discuss how we can work together to improve and reduce ambient air concentrations of benzene in our neighborhoods.”

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