This summer Clean Air will be partnering with Cynthia Pegado from Cynthesis Studios to provide our membership with a first of its kind art, movement and community organizing program! During the course of 12 weeks, we will read adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy and explore art, physical movement and the ways in which we can imagine more in our campaigns for environmental justice and a just transition.

Informational session on June 29th, 5pm on Zoom. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIoceCgpj0iH9fVSHhJrkzXB9lvOjrnUMjY

The program will be held outdoors at Riverside Park (on Hotaling Street)  starting July 5th, 2022 from 4-5:30pm. The program will run every Tuesday from July 5th-September EXCEPT FOR July 19th and  August 2nd. It would be ideal for participants to attend each week, but we will not turn anyone away.

Clean Air’s Movement Resilience program is a 12-week dance and leadership development program for the members and supporters of Clean Air and other members of our community. Braiding together physical movement, dance, art, organizing strategy skills and political education, this will be a first of its kind program intended to expand the skills and resilience of our membership across campaign teams.

Judge Carney Rules in Favor of Residents Demands at Former Concrete Crushing Facility

Battaglia Demolition back in City Housing Court to determine if derelict building can be demolished in Seneca-Babcock

Today, June 9th, 2022, the Honorable Judge Carney in Buffalo City Housing court ruled in favor of the City of Buffalo and residents. The Judge ordered Battaglia to immediately exterminate the property’s rat infestation, as well as giving the City the legal authority to pursue a cleanup and demolition order and permits for the Seneca Street property. Judge Carney’s ruling today gives a significant amount of power to the City of Buffalo and the residents to pursue the legal, environmental, public health and community participation future of the site. Battaglia will be back in Housing Court on August 3rd.

Residents living on Peabody Street in Buffalo’s Seneca Babcock neighborhood have organized for more than a decade to hold Battaglia Demolition, a waste transfer site that was illegally operating a concrete crusher, accountable. Battaglia’s operations shook the foundations of residents’ homes, polluted the air with diesel particulates, and blanketed the neighborhood in silica dust, a pollutant known to cause respiratory illnesses such as asthma, lung disease and lung cancer.

Since the 2018 shutdown of Battaglia Demolition, the property has fallen into abandonment, with piles of concrete dust still swirling from the site through the neighborhood air. The derelict property has become a site with illegal dumping, and is now full of garbage and refuse, attracting rats.  The building Battaglia Demolition once occupied mysteriously caught fire after a 2021 settlement was reached, and now sits vacant, leaving residents with an eyesore and a dangerous burnt out building in their backyards.

Battaglia reached a settlement agreement with the NYS Attorney General and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation in 2021 under NYS Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Judge Chimes. While residents remain frustrated at the lack of action to implement the settlement, and outraged at the miscarriage of justice in its proceedings, action by the City of Buffalo to hold an emergency demolition at the site would bring temporary relief.

“Me and my neighbors still don’t understand how Battaglia was only fined $50,000 when he was facing up to $14 million in fines and fees to the State. We feel like we got  slapped in the face, but Battaglia got off with a slap on the wrist and lunch with the Judge”, Diane Lemanski, Clean Air member and Peabody Street resident.

In April of 2022, Buffalo City Councilmembers Bollman and Nowakowski issued a letter to Hon. Judge Chimes, urging her office to take action at the 1037 Seneca Street property. The letter echoed what community members have been saying for years; that the owner has shown time and time again that he does not care about the residents who live in the area and needs a strong arm to push any action at the site.

“The time is now for action at Battaglia Demolition. We call on the NYSDEC and the City to have on site air monitoring during any demolition or further work on the site to ensure that residents are not exposed to asbestos, silica dust or other toxic substances when the building is taken down once and for all”, Emily Terrana, Director of Organizing, Clean Air.

We have a lot of recent updates and actions for our members, as well as lots of events in June, so we’re posting a quick round-up in this post –

• We want to encourage all our members to donate and support our friends at Black Love Resists in the Rust by clicking here

• We’re also inviting our members who identify as white to join us at Showing Up for Racial Justice Buffalo’s meeting this Thursday the 26th at 6pm to organize to take actions to address racism within our communities on Zoom by signing up by clicking here 

• We’re holding a healing, processing and action space for our membership in response to the 5/14 attack on Zoom on Wednesday June 1 – contact Emily at emily@cacwny.org for more info, or sign up by clicking here.

• We will be marching in the Buffalo Pride Parade and will be meeting at Buffalo State College at 8am on Sunday June 5th to set up, with step off at 9 – contact Bridge at bridge@cacwny.org for more information.

• We are hosting a film screening of a documentary about our organizing work in Tonawanda on Thursday June 16th at 6pm at the NOCO Pavilion in Tonawanda at 485 Esminger Road – you can sign up for a reminder either by signing up here to receive an email the week prior or on our Facebook page.

• We are co-hosting the Annual Tonawanda Pedal Party on Friday June 17th, which will be leaving the North End Bar & Grill at 2692 Elmwood Ave in Kenmore at 7pm, and returning there later that evening.

• We are hosting a “Stop the Bleed” training for Clean Air members on Monday June 20 at 6pm at the Isaias Gonzalez-Soto Branch Library at 280 Porter Ave. in Buffalo – training is free and provided by the Erie County Department of Health. It will start promptly at 6pm, so please be on time.

• And finally, we have a couple letters you can sign THIS WEEK to support our current campaigns  
  • Click here to send a letter to your State Senator to urge them to vote yes on S6486D
  • Click here to sign our member letter to the Climate Action Council to ask them to include stronger Just Transition measures in the CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan

Words cannot express the depths of rage and grief that Clean Air members and staff are holding following the horrific white supremacist mass murder at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo this Saturday, May 14th. We continue to hold the victims, their families and all members of our community in our hearts and prayers.

This is unequivocally an act of white supremacist domestic terrorism. The actions this coward took were not of a lone wolf who came out of nowhere; this man was radicalized by organized far-right, explicitly white supremacist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic fascists who seek to create division, fear and power for a select few. The shooter was very clear in his online writing and in his decision to live stream his acts of violence of his intentions. There is no gray area.

This man chose to end the lives of Black people in one of the East Sides only grocery stores, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. He did not choose to target random people, he chose to target Black people in our community on purpose, with racist rhetoric and intent. He chose to target Black dignity, Black joy and Black lives.

Though not from WNY, his thoughts and actions are present within our community and families. We know that the far right has been organizing white people in our City and towns for decades, and have particularly ramped up their efforts over the last few years. Erie county has one of the highest rates of people per capita who participated in the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021. Tonawanda and North Tonawanda were “sundown towns”. The shooter chose to target the 14208 zip code because it has the largest density of Black people; a remnant of decades old red-lining and segregation tactics that formed this city. This structural racism is at the core of the environmental racism that causes daily death and illnesses at a disproportionate rate in the areas we help organize. This event did not happen in a vacuum; it happened because of the ever present reality of white supremacy in WNY, the United States and around the globe.

But the fact remains that this happened in Buffalo, our Buffalo. We are sure that all of us know someone or is connected to someone who was directly impacted by the events on Saturday. This violence is big but it is also intimate.

Some things you can do now:

• Clean Air will be assisting to organize mutual aid where it is needed and will post updates on how folks can act in solidarity. If you are a Clean Air Member and you need aid at this time please reach out to us at (716) 852-3813, extension 100.
• If you are in need of immediate mental health and/or grief counseling, please see Black Love Resists in the Rust’s growing list of resources below.
• If you would like to donate to the ongoing fund to support people with mental health and food resources organized by BLRR and Colored Girls Bike Too, please click this link. 
• If you would like to donate to BLRR to resource their powerful work, please click here.
• If you are white and wanting to take action to build a powerful anti-racist movement for collective liberation, please click here to join Showing Up for Racial Justice’s email list.
• If you are white, please sign up for Showing Up for Racial Justice’s national and local meetings on the mass-murder . National call 5/17 and local Buffalo call 5/26
• Drop in center at the Johnnie B. Wiley Center, 1100 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo from 9am-9pm. Everyone is welcome.
• Grab food or donate food (no perishable meat) from the Buffalo Community Fridge at 257 East Ferry St.
• Buffalo Creek Academy is offering to pick up groceries and drop them off to folks in the community near tops.
• The Tops Food Bus is at MASTEN’s Resource Council of WNY on Ferry from NOON to 5p today!

Thoughts and prayers are powerful, and they cannot be where our action stops. There will be many calls to action from BIPOC led organizations in the coming days and weeks. We know that this moment feels overwhelming and we must stand together to take action.

With bread and roses,

Chris, Emily and Bridge

Join Clean Air to march in the Buffalo Pride Parade on Sunday June 5th! The line-up begins at 8am at Buffalo State College and the step-off will be at 9. Contact Bridge for more information.

We will be joining with other Justice mission organizations doing liberation movement work to march as a large bloc – come join fellow CAC members, and meet all the amazing folks we also work in collaboration with! We will also be holding a sign-making party prior to the parade, which we will announce details about soon.

We will have vehicles available to increase accessibility, and after the parade, we will also be meeting up for a party!

We currently have two actions you can take right now from where you are sitting for environmental and climate justice!

Click here to send a letter to your State Senator to urge them to support S6486D, which would institute a two-year moratorium on the use of privatized fossil fuel power generation for the sole purpose of powering Proof-of-Work Blockchain Mining, i.e., cryptocurrency/Bitcoin mining. The legislative session ends June 10, but we are encouraging the State Senate to act before the end of the session to bring this bill to  a vote.

Click here to sign our letter to the Climate Action Council to urge them to support stronger Just Transition actions within the final Scoping Plan for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). We will be submitting the letter on Monday June 6th, so ask that our members and supporters sign the letter by Friday June 3rd. You can also submit comments directly by June 10 by clicking here.

Both of these one-click actions will literally only take a few seconds!

Save the Date(s)!

Join us on Thursday June 16 from 6-9pm at the NOCO Pavilion at 450 Ensminger Road in Tonawanda for a free film screening and community building party! We recently worked with Dr. Liv Yoon of Columbia University to make a documentary about Environmental Justice in Tonawanda, and are excited to watch it with you – join us for an evening of free food and fun! Click here to RSVP on Facebook, and here to RSVP using ActionNetwork.

We are also co-hosting a Pedal Party with Slow Roll Buffalo and LaBella Associates on Friday June 17 – the party will kick off at 7pm at North End Bar & Grill at 2692 Elmwood Ave in Kenmore and will circle back there later that evening. We will update this post when a Facebook event is posted, and you can also learn more and add a calendar reminder by visiting Slow Roll’s page.

Click here to read and sign our letter to the Climate Action Council calling for stronger Just Transition measures in the CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan, or sign the letter here –

Last week, we joined other members of NY Renews at the Climate Action Council public hearing on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Draft Scoping Plan.

We are now asking our members and supporters to take a moment to sign our letter to the Climate Action Council with our expanded public comment calling for stronger Just Transition measures within the CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan. Click here to read and sign our letter by Friday June 3rd to sign our letter in support, and also consider sending a letter yourself either directly to NYSERDA or by using NYRenews’ one-click section-by-section toolkit by Friday June 10.

Coverage of the hearing from WGRZ –

We’re holding a member sticker design contest, with a chance to win $100! Submit your design for a sticker for the Clean Air Coalition by emailing Bridge a PNG or JPG 1080×1080 px or smaller in size by 5pm on Friday May 20. After submissions are received, we will hold a membership poll for the favorite designs, and will pick three winners who will receive $100 each.

Clean Air Members’ Voices Heard at Honeywell Annual Shareholder Meeting

Today, Clean Air member Maria Tisby provided a powerful statement to Honeywell International Shareholders at their annual meeting. Maria shared how the company needs to center human health and environmental justice and be proactive, transparent and just in their remediation efforts around the globe.

Clean Air was give the incredible opportunity to speak and have our voices heard thanks to the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany and the Investor Advocates for Social Justice. We want to give a special thank you to Sister Gloria, Sister Pat and Jillianne Lyon of IASJ.

You can read the full shareholder proposal here and read Maria’s speech here!