Western NY Community Based Science for Action Regional Workshop: Tonawanda, NY

liz
Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:20:32 +0000

Event details

Friday September 18th: Kick off with a "toxic tour:" Bus tour of Tonawanda and Love Canal (guided by folks who won EJ victory there), followed by dinner and sightseeing in Niagara Falls.

http://www.airhugger.org/toxic-tour/

Saturday September 19th: a full day workshop. Public Lab will be presenting and exhibiting :D

Full list of presenters: http://www.airhugger.org/whos-coming/

Event site: http://www.airhugger.org/

Background

NPR featured Tonawanda, NY in it’s Poisoned Places series due to the toxic pollution coming off of a nearby coke plant.

On March 28th, 2013, after a month long trial in US district court, twelve jurors found Tonawanda Coke and its environmental control manager guilty of 14 criminal charges violating the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Some of the charges included releasing coke oven gas (containing enormous amounts of benzene and particulate matter) into the air through a pressure relief valve and not reporting the emissions to regulators.

This landmark verdict is only the second time in US history that a company has been indicted and convicted under the Clean Air Act, setting the precedent for a number of environmental cases to come.

Transit from NYC

Ever heard of Tonawanda? TonaWHERE? Upstate New York, right between Great Lakes Ontario and Erie where Niagara Falls is:

There may be an opportunity to coordinate ground travel from the NYC/NJ metro region if there are several people who plan to travel up. This maplink might work: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Pennsylvania+Station,+New+York,+NY/Tonawanda,+NY/@41.9196079,-78.6926963,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c259ae15b2adcb:0x7955420634fd7eba!2m2!1d-73.993519!2d40.750568!1m5!1m1!1s0x89d36c537c686f33:0xdb431ff1a5ebc3e6!2m2!1d-78.8722341!2d42.989131!3e0