January 11 – Time is of the essence.
That’s the message a group of environmental and community activists sent Friday as they renewed calls for federal regulators to address what they say is a public health emergency near the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant. on 56th Street in Niagara Falls.
Following comments they made at a news conference in late December, representatives from the Clean Air Coalition of WNY, the Niagara Falls chapter of the NAACP and four other organizations encouraged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take immediate action at the site .
Advocates want the EPA to issue an emergency declaration that would require Goodyear to install new equipment that would reduce the amount of Ortho-Toluidine – a known carcinogen linked to the incidence of bladder cancer among factory workers – released into the air at the plant.
Their bid for EPA intervention now has some new supporters, including the United Steelworkers union representing the plant’s 40 employees and Kelly Cloyd, a retired geologist who did regulatory work for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Our union has worked for decades to push Goodyear to implement common sense health and safety protections against occupational exposure to Ortho-Toluidine, a known carcinogen,” David Wasiura, director of United Steelworkers District 4, said in a statement . “Now it is time for Goodyear to look beyond the walls of this facility and address the risks associated with potential Ortho-Toluidine exposure to the broader community. Until now, Goodyear has been willing to hide behind outdated federal regulations, but this is simply not good enough. Goodyear must limit exposure to the lowest possible level, both inside and outside the factory.”
Advocates last month made public their frustrations with what they described as the DEC’s inability to impose higher standards for the monitoring and release of OT from the Goodyear’s Falls facility. Their request for EPA intervention followed the public release of an aerial map produced by the DEC in September that showed an area of about a half-mile around the plant was covered in what advocates described as a “cloud of toxic chemical emissions’.
On November 27, the groups, led by the statewide environmental organization Don’t Waste New York, filed a formal request with the EPA to issue an emergency order under the Clean Air Act. Such orders have traditionally been reserved for environmental issues that pose an “imminent and substantial danger to public health.”
Ann Rabe, spokesperson for Don’t Waste New York, said there is no doubt the Goodyear plant poses an immediate threat to public health. She said it also meets another part of the criteria for an emergency order because the state’s main regulatory agency, the DEC, has failed to address the problem for years.
In a statement issued Friday, a DEC spokesperson said the agency “takes seriously” its role in protecting the environment and public health and “will continue to work with our federal and state partners in New York to ensure that all emissions requirements of the facilities are backed by rigorously researched scientific methods.”
“New York State’s health-based emissions guidelines for ortho-toluidine are set at levels to protect the public from health effects and are more stringent than federal risk thresholds,” the DEC said in its statement. “Based on DEC’s assessment and after consultation with the state Department of Health (DOH), the Goodyear facility’s emissions limits currently protect the air quality of the surrounding community. Nevertheless, these emission limits will be further strengthened in the upcoming permit amendment. “
Goodyear maintains that the Falls plant produces “low levels of ortho-toluidine emissions and that the company is “fully compliant” with the current permit for the plant.
“The DEC has updated its ambient air guidelines for ortho-toluidine going forward, and Goodyear is working closely with the agency to identify and implement any changes needed based on these new guidelines,” the company said in a declaration. “Goodyear is committed to maintaining compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements.”
Rabe said OT release standards changed in 2021 from 21 micrograms per cubic meter to 0.02 micrograms per cubic meter, meaning the plant that was once allowed to release 5,000 pounds of the chemical per year now legally only can release 100 pounds per year. the new requirements.
Rabe said the DEC has failed — for four years — to order Goodyear to change operations to ensure the plant operates below current emissions standards.
According to Rabe, an emergency order from the EPA would force the company to “immediately” install new equipment to temporarily reduce OT emissions by as much as 90%. She suggested that the first step in the process should be the installation of a condenser costing less than $5,000 to reduce airflow.
Rabe said the DEC has failed to take advantage of another option available to it: a referral to the attorney general’s Environmental Protection Bureau, which could review plant operations to determine whether Goodyear committed violations.
“Unfortunately, our state agency has betrayed the public trust,” Rabe said.
Cloyd, who worked as a geologist with the DEC’s Region 9, agreed.
While Goodyear’s air toxics permit expired in 2021 after ten years in operation, Cloyd the DEC, under New York’s Administrative Procedures Act, allowed the company to continue operating the Falls facility under outdated emissions standards .
“It has now been almost four years since that permit expired and residents of that neighborhood, according to the state DEC modeling, are still exposed to excessive concentrations,” Cloyd said.
Bridge Rauch of the Clean Air Coalition of WNY said what’s happening at Goodyear in the Falls is a symptom of a larger statewide problem: factories that have been operating for years with expired permits. Rauch said the DEC is allowing such facilities to continue operating amid a backlog of permit applications as long as they meet annual deadlines for submitting the necessary paperwork.
“These polluters are conducting these operations with expired permits,” Rauch said.
Representatives of the advocacy groups plan to discuss their concerns at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with Lisa Garcia, regional administrator of the EPA’s Region 2 Office, which serves New York.
Renae Kimble, a former Niagara County legislator and president of the Niagara Falls chapter of the NAACP, credited staff from Congressman Kennedy’s office with helping broker the meeting.
She said the current conditions at Goodyear are not acceptable and should not be tolerated.
“We are calling on the EPA to immediately protect Niagara Falls residents and workers if no one else does,” Kimble said.
Other elected officials representing the Falls, including Gov. Kathy Hochul whose office oversees the DEC, have remained largely silent on the issue.
A spokesperson for Hochul referred questions about the Goodyear plant to the DEC, calling it an “enforcement matter” within the agency’s responsibilities.
“We are deeply disappointed that the Governor’s DEC has allowed this Niagara Falls community to live under a toxic cloud of a known carcinogen for four years,” Rabe said.
Representatives of the advocacy groups said they have briefed both Mayor Robert Restaino and Falls City Council President Jim Perry on the issue. As of Friday afternoon, neither had taken formal steps to request EPA intervention.
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, issued a statement in response to questions from the newspaper. He did not indicate whether Schumer plans to encourage EPA officials to get involved.
“We are in contact with local environmental groups and workers to listen to their concerns and will ensure their clean air concerns are heard by the EPA. Senator Schumer will always fight to protect the health and safety of the residents of Western New York,” said spokesman Ryan Martin. said in the statement from Schumer’s office.
The office of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the newspaper.
Both the DEC and Goodyear have said they are working on a plan to address community concerns about plant emissions. The DEC said it is taking steps to require Goodyear to implement “state-of-the-art” pollution control technology to comply with current air toxics standards and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) for underserved community mandates. The DEC has not provided a definitive timeline for when such changes could be implemented.
“DEC’s continued oversight, including potential enforcement actions, will ensure that the facility complies with all applicable environmental laws and protects public health,” the agency said in a statement. “If this is deemed necessary, this will include the need for the rapid installation of additional emissions control technologies.”
For Matteo Anello, brother of former Mayor Vince Anello, who has lived with his family for decades in their home on 56th Street just east of the factory, the changes can’t come soon enough.
Although he does not want any of the plant’s 40 employees to lose their jobs or for the plant to close, Anello described the realization that he and his neighbors have been living under a plume of a cancer-causing chemical for years as “completely alarming.”
“The time has long passed for this problem to be mitigated,” he said.
Niagara Falls residents are invited to attend a community meeting on emissions from the Goodyear plant, scheduled for Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. at New Hope Baptist Church, 1122 Buffalo Ave., Niagara Falls.
The meeting is hosted by New Hope Baptist Church, Rev. Harvey L. Kelley and a coalition of community organizations including the NAACP Niagara Falls Branch, Clean Air Coalition of WNY, Don’t Waste NY, Sierra Club Niagara Group and the Interfaith Community Climate Center of WNY.
