Sierra Niagara Member named “Conservationist of the Year”

Larry Beahan, Conservation Chair

Sierra Club Niagara Group’s Vice Chair, Diane Ciurczak, has been named the Adirondack Mountain Club’s “Conservationist of the Year.”  Diane received the award at ADK’s Annual Picnic on Sunday, June 7, in the Commissioner’s Cabin at Chestnut Ridge Park.

Diane’s enthusiastic and persistent leadership in the campaign to stop the building of a large data processing center in the sensitive natural area between the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and the Iroquois National Wildlife Preserve was a dramatic success.

This inappropriately sited project was to be part of the larger development that Genesee County proponents call “STAMP” (Science & Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park). The building of a data center in this bucolic and environmentally sensitive area threatened to pollute air, wetlands, creeks, as well as animal and bird habitat. This large development would have been noisy and would have disrupted the peaceful nature of the surrounding rural community, as well as the he Tonawanda Seneca Nation.

Diane, with a small group of other environmental advocates, and in concert with the Allies of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, raised funds, hired lawyers, funded noise pollution experts, and instituted a lawsuit challenging the incomplete Environmental Impact Study done by Genesee County for this proposal. In the face of this challenge, the developer withdrew the data center proposal last fall.

Such environmental success requires constant maintenance. Diane continues diligently working, with the Sierra Club and Allies of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, “to stamp out” the plan for a much larger data center at the STAMP site in 2026. If you would like to assist her in this effort, please email her at niagarasierra@gmail.com.