Activism paves the way for a chance to stop tire burning at a local cement plant
They said it couldn’t be done. Between a pandemic, a record-setting nor’easter, and a busy holiday season, the odds were stacked against them. But advocates for clean air were able to secure more than enough signatures to, hopefully, stop tire burning at the Lafarge cement plant.
“Residents we spoke to were a little dismayed to learn that this was still an issue,” said Sara Pruiksma, a new mom inspired to take action on behalf of her baby boy. “We had to explain how their health and that of the environment would be threatened if harmful contaminants were released from burning tires.”
Many neighbors figured that the Albany County Local Law B, the Clean Air Act, that passed with overwhelming support, 32 of 39 legislators in September, was a done deal. They weren’t privy to what the Coeyman’s Town Board had recently passed in November 2020: an amendment to the existing emissions law in Coeymans to free LaFargeHolcim of rules governing the incineration of tires and waste.
“For some of us, this is a matter of life and death.”
That prompted the Clean Air Coalition, a volunteer group of passionate activists, to spring into action. Pruiksma along with local civil rights lawyer, Carlo de Oliveira, Christine Primomo of the League of Women Voters, and several more went to work canvassing the neighborhood.
In less than a week, the group tallied up enough signatures to submit to the Town Clerk the chance at what is called a ‘permissive referendum‘ or the leverage the residents would need to vote for or against the adoption of the town board’s amendments via a special election sometime in the Spring. The law says the special election should happen “not less than 90 days nor more than 105 days after the filing of such petition.”
This permissive referendum will ask all voters in Coeymans if they approve the revised Clean Air law. If the voters say ‘NO” to the revised law, the original, tougher Clean Air Law remains in effect.
“Best gift you can give your lungs this holiday season.”
“We only needed 144 signatures but we got 254. That’s over 100 more signatures than what was needed for a permissive referendum!” said an elated Primomo. “Clearly, people want to know more about how burning waste could affect their health.”
Primomo was filmed on camera by a local volunteer delivering the decisive challenge to the Town Clerk’s office two days earlier than expected.
De Oliveira, father of two young girls with a home downwind of the Lafarge smokestacks, urged residents that this matter was one of “life or death” for people with respiratory problems or severe allergies. He said, “if the residents did not act now, it would be too late.”
De Oliveira got 95 people to sign the petition in less than 2 days and quite easily too.
“Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, most people I talked to didn’t even know what the town had done and all were equally concerned.”
