We know that environment has a critical impact on galaxy growth and evolution. What we do not know is when it starts to have an impact and how it does it. I present results of our on-going survey of low surface brightness emission of cold molecular gas in protoclusters galaxies and their halos with the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). These findings alter our view of the important topics of the development and gas phase distribution of the "proto-intracluster medium": how ram pressure stripping may operate in protoclusters, how the galaxies may contribute to the proto-intracluster medium and how their star formation may be limited by dynamics. Finally, I present our new ATCA Large Program, COALAS (CO ATCA Legacy Archive of Star-Forming Galaxies), which will extend significantly our study of environmental effects on cluster and field galaxies.