On Thursday, the United Steelworkers union (USW) called on the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company to reduce emissions of a carcinogen from its Niagara Falls chemical plant into an adjoining neighborhood.
"Up until this point, Goodyear has been willing to hide behind outdated federal regulations, but this is simply not good enough. Goodyear must reduce exposure to the lowest possible level – inside and outside the plant," USW District 4 Director David Wasiura said in a statement.
Jim Briggs, the sub-district director for USW’s District Four Buffalo office and a retired Goodyear employee, told WBFO on Thursday the union wants Goodyear to install new pollution control technology immediately. The union currently represents about 40 plant employees.
"That means, if whose ever [is] preparing the new equipment that's going to get them there has to... they have to pay more to move that job ahead quicker, then we expect Goodyear to do that, but get it done as soon as possible," Briggs said Thursday. "And then from there, figure out, once we're within the legal limit, how we're going to get below the legal limit, as far as we can. That will be our goal going forward.”
The risk to the greater community came to light when WBFO, and our partners at Public Health Watch and Inside Climate News, published in September 2024 documents showing the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had sent a notice of violation to Goodyear in July 2023. The DEC cited Goodyear for operating with pollution-control equipment that was not properly containing releases of ortho-toluidine – a known bladder carcinogen – and another chemical. The agency has yet to require the plant to reduce those emissions.
“It was incumbent on the state and the company to inform the people downwind that this was going on,” retired lawyer Steven Wodka told WBFO and Public Health Watch in September 2024. Wodka represented, for more than three decades, 29 Goodyear workers with bladder cancer in litigation against chemical suppliers.
“To my knowledge, that hasn’t happened. I’m greatly concerned that the people who live around the plant have no idea what they are potentially being exposed to,” Wodka said at the time.
In September 2024, the DEC used computer modeling to create a plume map showing that the factory may be ortho-toluidine into the air at levels up to seven times higher than what the state considers safe to breathe. That plume extends over the neighboring residential area. Within a one-mile radius of the plant, 43 percent of residents are low-income and 27 percent are between one and 18 years old
The annual concentration guideline, or ACG, for how much ortho-toluidine, or O-T, can be released into the air was severely tightened by the DEC in 2021. The factory operates on an air permit issued in 2009, which at the time had a much more lenient guideline for O-T. Goodyear applied for a new permit in 2018, but the DEC has yet to approve it.
Since the release of the plume map, activists have taken to knocking on doors to notify residents, one-by-one, of the exposure.
At least 78 employees of the Goodyear plant have been diagnosed with bladder cancer since the mid-1980s. Because of the workers’ illnesses, significant monitoring and prevention efforts have taken place inside the factory.
“Thanks to the relentless efforts of countless USW members, we’ve been able to institute a full-time health and safety representative and other major improvements to in-plant health and safety protocols," Wasiura said.
The union now joins environmental activists and residents who are calling for protections for the LaSalle neighborhood.
“Now, it’s past time for Goodyear to look beyond the walls of this facility and address the risks associated with possible ortho-toluidine exposure on the wider community," Wasiura said.