“What’s in a name?” Some Thoughts from Bridge Rauch, our Environmental Justice Organizer for our Tonawanda Just Transition Teams

February 27, 2026

We’ve had a couple of inquiries about why opposing mass detainment and deportation operations are a Clean Air issue, so we felt we should clear the air with some explanation.

First of all, we urge you to come to one of our General Meetings or meet with a Clean Air organizer to learn a bit more about our organization. Just as a refresher, circa 2005 our work started with Tonawanda residents, mostly women, meeting in kitchens and living rooms to share information with each other about strange illnesses among family members that many households were grappling with – ie, an unreported epidemiological cluster that residents suspected was linked to pollution from nearby industry. 

These residents were inspired by the work of previous generations of environmental justice organizers, like the Love Canal and Cancer Alley campaigners and Black civil rights organizers like Dr. Robert Bullard who drew the direct lines between how some populations, like Black communities, are systemically marginalized and how that manifests as environmental injustices. 

Our earliest members, drawing on the lessons learned from these earlier campaigns and from peers in other fenceline and frontline communities, decided to organize an environmental justice and public health campaign to identify the worst of the worst polluters to force those facilities to upgrade plant equipment and eliminate the public health hazards they were creating, and used a citizen science tactic (bucket brigade air sampling) to prove to the NYS DEC that action needed to be taken.

Through this work, they identified Tonawanda Coke as the main culprit, proving scientifically that this facility was emitting benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, at levels far above public safety standards, and they quickly started seeing major wins, leading to a very well publicized raid by the EPA, Coast Guard and other federal agencies.

Almost all of this occurred before Clean Air officially organized as a non-profit. Coming off these major wins, this first generation of Clean Air members realized that they could not let this work conclude merely with these wins, and that if the residents of Tonawanda and Western New York never again wanted to be exposed to similar pollution and injustices, they would need to formalize as an organization to make this work sustained with a long term vision for a Just Transition.

Thus, in 2009, the organization formalized with the following vision, mission, and values statements – 

“OUR MISSION

The Clean Air Coalition builds power by developing grassroots leaders who organize their communities to run and win environmental justice and public health campaigns in Western New York.

OUR VISION

A world where our environment promotes health and equity and where systems place communities at the forefront of decision making.

OUR VALUES

    • Leadership Development
    • Environmental Justice
    • Democratic Decision-making
    • Resident Knowledge
    • Race & Class Equity & Inclusion
    • Appreciation, Recognition and Celebration”

Note that our mission is NOT specifically and narrowly related to air quality improvement – it is a part of our work, but within the umbrella of fighting for environmental justice and public health. 

The name “The Clean Air Coalition of Western New York” was chosen not specifically for our mission and work, but instead based on the most successful tactics of our first campaign – focusing on air quality and building coalitions with community, labor, and other stakeholders to build power and force action. 

It has, honestly, at times created confusion – for example, there are a number of “Clean Air Coalition” organizations across the nation and globally, including a few right here in NY. We are not affiliated with any of those organizations. We are members of several local, statewide and national organizations like PPG Buffalo, USCAN, EDA, PPNY, and NYRenews, but these are more affiliations and groups to network with peer organizations in other fenceline and frontline communities – we are autonomous and are an independent 501c3.

In our 2017 strategic plan, rebranding actually surfaced as a priority goal, and we have over the past decade examined the logistics involved. Given all that we have been through and the changes the organization has been through over the past ten years, including the closure of Tonawanda Coke, Battaglia, and other major campaign wins, as well as a full change of staff, a rebrand simply hasn’t risen to the top as a priority. What we have also learned is that it is costly and would require changing not just a logo and a name but also refiling legal paperwork, changing websites and social media handles, changing billing information and more. 

To be successful, we would require direct involvement of our members and the public – folks in WNY know when “Clean Air” is mentioned as an organization who is being referred to, and the work that has been done under this title. Were we to change our name, to be contiguous as an organization, we would need everyone to help us correct folks when they refer to us as our original name – as a trans person, I can tell you that it isn’t always easy to get that buy-in!

All that to say, we have taken on resisting mass detainment and deportation in the Tonawandas as part of our Tonawanda Just Transition campaign because we are driven by our mission and our members.

Quite simply, mass deportation is a policy that anyone of conscience should object to, and our members want to take action.

It’s also counter to the economic goals of a just transition for the Tonawandas that Clean Air and all of those we have worked in coalition with fight for – the population growth we have experienced in recent years comes from new migrants, and should be encouraged, not suppressed.

Clean Air has a very specific niche in this fight that other groups do not fill – we advocate for equitable and just governmental practices, like zoning codes and enforcement, and allowing for the development or continuation of infrastructure in the Tonawandas and WNY involved in mass deportation operations is counter to our campaign goals.

But let’s get a little more concrete for a moment on the public health impacts of these operations – there is, of course, the state violence all across the US that we have all witnessed this past year, including the well publicized and documented killings of US citizens, including Keith Porter, Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti.

Locally, for over a year now, people have been getting grabbed on the street of the Elmwood Village, the West Side, and throughout our communities. I personally have needed to take time off from work to join a neighborhood ICE watch. Just a few weeks ago, news broke that a parent picking up their child from Public School #3 on Buffalo’s West Side was taken into ICE custody. 

Our members are being directly affected in their neighborhoods in Tonawanda, Buffalo, and throughout WNY, and it’s affecting our capacity to address more traditional environmental justice issues that we normally focus on.

And, just this past week, we learned of the disappearance of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56 year old blind Burmese refugee who spoke exclusively Rohingya. 

Shah Alam was arrested in February 2025 shortly after resettling in Buffalo for accidentally trespassing on a neighbor’s porch during a morning stroll, and was held at Erie County Holding Center for a year out of fear that if he were bailed out, ICE would deport him.

After a year of negotiations between local and federal officials, Shah Alam’s lawyer expected that he would be released from Erie County Sheriff holding into ICE custody in Batavia, where Shah Alam would then be free to leave. 

Instead, Erie County sheriffs released him without shoes into the custody of CBP officers, suspected to be from the Tonawanda station at 600 Colvin Woods Parkway, who left him at the closed Tim Hortons on Niagara at Amherst, a mile from his former home, which his family no longer lived at. 

That coffee shop happens to be the closest one to the Sawyer-Kaufmann community in the River Road corridor, and we have met our members there for meetings on many occasions. It is an area surrounded by heavy traffic, including the 190 ramps, and is not very accessible by foot.

Shah Alam was reported missing by his family on Thursday February 19.

Shah Alam was found deceased on Wednesday February 25.

At least 32 people were killed in ICE detainment in 2025, the deadliest year on record for the agency. There are multiple reports of disease outbreaks at currently operating ICE facilities. ICE is trying to build warehouses for mass deportation operations which will house thousands each – concentration camps.

But it is CBP, not ICE, which has shot and killed people in the streets of the United States just this past year during their mass deportation operations, and it is CBP which left Shah Alam alone and helpless, among other local incidents, and it is our local and county police and sheriff departments right here in WNY who have supported these actions.

All this to say, mass deportation operations and mass incarceration are as much of a public health hazard as cancer causing emissions.

All of this also means that the entire community is increasingly frightened of our federal government, which filters down to local government – how can we expect people to whistleblow on dangerous industrial polluters when they fear that any interaction with even local government officials could lead to deportation, injury, or death?

Quite simply, the national policy of mass deportation is affecting our environmental justice and public health work, because we are a member-led organization, and these policies directly affect our members. 

Our members brought us this topic as a a campaign priority that they wanted to organize around. They asked us to bring their concerns to the Town Board and other area officials, and to help residents in the Tonawandas organize a rapid response resistance campaign.

Our member priorities and working within our specific niche within this fight is what makes resisting mass deportation part of our environmental justice campaigns. 

Read more at the links below, and if you are interested in joining our Tonawanda Just Transition Team, please reach out to me, Bridge Rauch. You can become a Clean Air member by clicking here to donate today, and read about membership in our handbook.

You can donate to Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s family through this GoFundMe – https://www.gofundme.com/f/standing-with-nurul-amins-family-in-buffalo

General Resources 

600 Colvin Woods Parkway

Shah Alam Coverage from Investigative Post

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