By Erin Heaney

At first glance, it doesn’t appear the green movement has hit Kaufman Avenue.  The three-block street is nestled in the heart of industrial Tonawanda.  Her neighbors are FMC Industrial Chemicals, Noco and Tonawanda Coke. A walk down the street reveals more clunkers than hybrids, more power lines than gardens.  Kids play in the shadows of ominous smoke stacks and the towering Huntley power plant ensures that the residents have no view of the Niagara River.

But appearances can be deceiving.  Despite the odds, Kaufman Avenue is home to Western New York’s most powerful environmental movement. In spite of the stench that oozes from their industrial neighbors, they’ve gone outside, talked to one another and collectively decided that they deserve better. The families on this street are serious about reducing pollution in their neighborhood and they are building the political will to ensure that they get the results they want.

Their story begins humbly.  When Jackie James-Creedon was diagnosed with fibromyalgia she suspected that what she was breathing had something to do with her illness.  She began to speak out and quickly found others who had similar suspicions.

Jackie met people like Jen Ratajczak, a mom from Kenmore, who was battling leukemia, and Jeani Thomson, who had lived in Tonawanda 40 years and battled four different forms of cancer. Together, they decided to find out what was in the air they were breathing. They partnered with the Global Community Monitor to create their own air monitoring devices using equipment they bought at Home Depot.  Their findings were astonishing. The buckets revealed extremely high levels of benzene, formaldehyde and ammonia.

But Jackie, a chemistry student, knew they would need more proof.  So she and others named themselves the Clean Air Coalition of WNY and headed off to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Using the data they had already collected and a lot of persistence, the CACWNY convinced the DEC to fund a year long air quality study in the area around Kaufman Avenue.

In June, the DEC released their findings. The presentation confirmed what Jackie has known all along: the air in Tonawanda was toxic.  The air monitors found the levels of benzene around Kaufman Ave to be 75 times higher than the EPA guideline. Benzene is classified as a human carcinogen and is linked to numerous cancers, including leukemia and many skin and respiratory diseases. The DEC report also confirmed that 70% of the region’s benzene was coming from Tonawanda Coke Corporation, a foundry coke plant.

Since these harrowing announcements were made, the Clean Air Coalition has wasted no time trying to ensure the trends are reversed. They immediately invited JD Crane, the plant’s owner, to a community meeting to hear resident’s stories. When Crane declined, they held a party anyways, and brought along a big empty chair with his picture on it.  And then they got serious. They enlisted the help of Erie County Legislators Michelle Ianello and Maria Whyte.  State Senator Antoine Thompson quickly joined them to begin putting pressure on the DEC. 

Senator Charles Schumer sent a letter to Crane asking for a plan for benzene reduction. And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand shot a letter to the EPA asking them to work collaboratively with the Clean Air Coalition. But all that fell upon  deaf ears. So last week the Clean Air Coalition went to the gates of Tonawanda Coke demanding a plan for benzene reduction. They chanted, they yelled, and they made it clear that they would not allow Crane to keep making money while their community got sicker.

Someone driving past the rally probably wouldn’t have thought it was the green movement out there making noise. But a successful green movement in Buffalo won’t look like the green movement in places like Portland or Minneapolis; it will not require hybrids and granola (though by all means it will welcome those who enjoy either!). It will require neighborhoods and workers to organize and build political power.  The reason Western New York is behind the curve on the environment is because too few of us have stood up to demand that government enforce pollution regulations and lay the foundation for a green economy.  For too long, we’ve thought of greening WNY as an abstract luxury instead of common sense policy that improves the lives of ordinary people.

But to the people on Kaufman Avenue, nothing seems lavish about cleaning up the air. They just want a good neighbor. And so they’ll make noise until they get the justice they deserve.