Today, WBFO, with our partners at Public Health Watch and Inside Climate News, released an investigation showing that the Goodyear chemical plant in Niagara Falls has been releasing a dangerous carcinogen into the air at a rate 1000 percent higher than what the state now considers safe to breathe.
On this week’s Disabilities Beat, WBFO's Emyle Watkins shares a recent conversation they had with their report co-author, Jim Morris, about the story published today. Morris is the executive director and editor in chief of Public Health Watch, and is the author of "The Cancer Factory," a book about how exposure to this same carcinogen within the same factory caused an outbreak of bladder cancer among workers.
They discuss not only what the reporting uncovered, but what this means for residents, why New York residents as a whole may be interested in this, and how cancer caused by environmental exposure is overlooked as a way people become disabled.
The on-air version of this story included a section of this interview, edited for length and clarity. We've included the full conversation and its transcript below.
PLAIN LANGUAGE: What our investigation found
In Niagara Falls, New York, there is a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. chemical plant three miles east of downtown and a little over two miles southwest of the Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls USA. At this factory, Goodyear currently handles chemicals that they need in order to make tires.
Tires could crack and fall apart in the heat and cold without Nailax, an antioxidant added to tires. Nailax is made using a chemical called ortho-toluidine, or OT, for short. When making Nailax, a chemical called diphenylamine, or DPA, is created in the process.
OT is a known carcinogen. A carcinogen is something that can cause cancer. This means OT is known to cause cancer, specifically bladder cancer. DPA is a possible carcinogen, which means it might cause cancer. DPA might damage the bladder, kidneys, and/or liver.
Factories, like Goodyear's, have to have pollution-control devices that prevent these chemicals from going into the environment at a dangerous rate. New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation, or the DEC, is in charge of making sure factories follow the law and have the right working equipment.
In 2023, the DEC sent a notice of violation to Goodyear, telling them they were putting more OT into the environment than they are allowed to by law. Goodyear, according to the notice, has been releasing OT into the air at a rate 1,000 percent higher than what state regulators now consider safe to breathe. Two of the pollution control devices Goodyear uses are not working correctly, according to what the notice describes.
One of the devices, called a scrubber, was installed in 1992 and is supposed to catch 90 percent of the OT and DPA that goes through it. However, Goodyear's testing showed that only 53 percent of the OT was caught, and it stopped none of the DPA going through it. The second device, called an elimination tank, was installed in 2001. The elimination tank caught only 11 percent of the OT that went through it.
Recently, WBFO, and our partners Public Health Watch and Inside Climate News, were given this document, as well as a copy of an email from 2010, that were obtained through a public records request. The letter suggests that the DEC was suspicious of how well these devices were working 13 years before the notice of violation was sent.
While the state has known, since at least 2023, that there is a problem with the amount of chemicals this factory is putting into the air, the DEC has not forced the company to reduce how much of these chemicals are going into the air.
A DEC spokesperson told WBFO, Public Health Watch and Inside Climate News that “Protecting New York’s air quality, and the health of our communities, is a top priority for DEC and DEC will continue to take the appropriate actions involving the Goodyear Chemical facility in Niagara Falls to ensure compliance with applicable air emission standards and the protection of public health and the environment. … DEC’s investigation continues, which includes communications with the company regarding potential facility modifications.“
In 2021, the state also significantly decreased its limit on how much ortho-toluidine could be sent into the air. The guideline was reduced from 21 micrograms of ortho-toluidine per cubic meter of air to 0.02 micrograms.
When we reached out to Goodyear about this story, they responded in a statement that the company’s Niagara Falls plant “is subject to air permit requirements that are based on the state’s prior [limit] for ortho-toluidine, and Goodyear is in compliance with those permit requirements.”
TRANSCRIPT:
This is a rush transcript provided by a contractor and may be updated over time to be more accurate.
Emyle Watkins: I'm joined today by Jim Morris, the executive director and editor-in-chief of Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization who I've been working on this story with. Thanks for joining me, Jim.
Jim Morris: Thanks, Emyle.
Emyle Watkins: To start, some people may not be familiar with this factory, but it's kind of become your expertise. How did you first connect with the issue of carcinogen exposures in this factory, and why did you decide to write your book "The Cancer Factory" about it?
Jim Morris: I first heard about this factory, and this is the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company's chemical plant in Niagara Falls, New York. It doesn't make tires, it makes chemicals for tires, but it's the same company that we all know, the Goodyear Blimp, and so forth.
I first heard about the situation in Niagara Falls way back in 1998 when I was a reporter at the Houston Chronicle, and I was doing a big investigation of the chemical industry and its effects on workers and the public. And at that time, so that was what? 26 years ago. I did just sort of bare bones reporting on it. I did a phone interview with Steve Wodka, who's a lawyer, who got completely wrapped up in this situation and ended up representing 29 of these workers with bladder cancer. Interviewed one or two workers. And did it essentially as a few paragraphs in a longer story, and then kind of forgot about it for quite a while.
Came back to it in 2013 when I was working at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, and again, working on a big series on the chemical industry and its health impacts. And one thing led to another, and I saw that the number of bladder cancer cases had skyrocketed between 1998 and 2013. I went up to Niagara Falls. Got to know some of the workers, some retirees, did a lot of interviews and did a pretty lengthy story in 2013. And at that point I thought, "There's a book here. It's an outrageous story. You've got really compelling characters." I forget what the number was at the time, the number of bladder cancer cases. It was in the high 50s, I think. And today, it's 78, and that's probably an undercount. Officially at 78 cases of bladder cancer today.
So, it was just, to me, it was as plain as day that I needed to do a book on this. It was incredibly well-documented. The federal government had gone in there beginning in the 1980s and continued to do studies and all sorts of things in the plant. So, there was all sorts of data. There was no question there was a huge excess of bladder cancer in that plant. And there was also no question what was causing it, and that was ortho-toluidine.
Emyle Watkins: Could you tell me a little bit more about OT, the chemical that's at the center of this?
Jim Morris: Sure. Just a little bit of history about the plant first. That plant was opened in 1946 right after World War II, and initially they made PVC, polyvinyl chloride, the stuff that we all know about in our garden hoses and vinyl siding and all that. And then in 1957, they opened what they called the rubber chemicals division of the plant. And what they made was something called Nailax. Nailax is, it's hard to describe. It actually kind of looks like a bag of chocolate chips. It's like a dark brown product. Again, chocolate chips is the best way I can describe it. Nailax is what they call an antioxidant for tires, keeps tires from cracking in the sun, in the extreme cold, et cetera, et cetera. It's a very important additive in Goodyear's tire making process.
So, since 1957 when they started making this stuff, they have used ortho-toluidine, which is kind of a smelly yellowish liquid to make this product that they called Nailax, this antioxidant. The vinyl side of the plant closed in 1996. They just shut it down. So, the only thing that's operating right now is the rubber chemicals division, and that is where they are still using ortho-toluidine.
Emyle Watkins: And ortho-toluidine is a known carcinogen that causes bladder cancer, correct?
Jim Morris: It is a known bladder carcinogen, but it was suspected of causing, in fact, it was known to cause bladder cancer in laboratory animals as far back as the 1950s. So, it's been pretty thoroughly studied for more than half a century.
Emyle Watkins: Your previous reporting focused on bladder cancer within the factory, and now we have some new documents that tell us it might be extending outside the factory. These documents at the center of our report, which were obtained through a public records request and provided to us are from the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, to Goodyear. What was the DEC telling Goodyear in 2023?
Jim Morris: So, in July of 2023, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the DEC, issued what's called a notice of violation to Goodyear. And the gist of it was that they concluded, they, the DEC, concluded that a couple of important pollution control devices were not working properly at the plant and had not been working properly probably for a period of years. And these devices were supposed to capture ortho-toluidine, this very potent bladder carcinogen, as well as another chemical called DPA, also has health effects, probably not quite as potent as ortho-T.
So, they cited, the DEC cited Goodyear for allowing a lot more ortho-toluidine to get into the atmosphere, in other words, into the community, putting the public at risk, than they were supposed to be. And again, they pinned it on these two pollution control devices that just simply weren't working properly. And the most striking thing is that the department said that Goodyear plant was putting out levels of ortho-toluidine into the atmosphere three orders of magnitude or 1000% higher than what the state considers to be safe for the public. And you don't see figures like that very often.
Emyle Watkins: We know that this potentially goes back about 15 years, correct?
Jim Morris: Yeah. At least. We're saying at least. It's one of these faulty pollution control devices was installed back in 1992. Another back in 2001. The 15 years goes back to 2009 when they were issued a state permit. It's hard to say. I think it's safe to assume this has been going on for a long time.
Emyle Watkins: And you've been looking into what the DEC has done to hold Goodyear accountable to reducing these emissions. And what'd you find, or what did the DEC tell you?
Jim Morris: Well, the DEC gave us a statement saying that to this day, they're investigating this situation and they care about the health of the people of Niagara Falls, but they really didn't tell us a whole lot more about their timing. They didn't answer a question. One of the direct questions we had is, "What are you going to do to make these emissions go down? What are you going to make Goodyear do to stop or at least reduce these emissions? And when are you going to do it?" And we didn't get an answer for that question. We got a response along the lines of, "Well, we are going to do something. It's still under investigation."
And we also didn't get a response to a question about whether the state has notified the community. There's a neighborhood just to the east of this plant, not even probably a half a mile. There are homes, there are mosques, churches, schools. There's a community right to the east of that plant. And the DEC did not answer our question about whether the public has been notified or will be notified.
Emyle Watkins: Why does this story have relevance or why does it matter beyond just the residents of Niagara Falls, why does it matter to New York State or New Yorkers as a whole?
Jim Morris: Well, I think it raises questions about how serious a regulator the DEC is. I have not done a lot of reporting on the DEC. Most of my work over the years has been on its equivalent in my home state of Texas called the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, same thing, the state environmental regulator.
But what has happened here in Texas, and what I think may be happening in New York State is industry is getting a pass. And even facilities like the Goodyear plant that are putting out enormous amounts of a known bladder carcinogen, there doesn't seem to be any rush to make them come into compliance to stop doing that. And that's just mind-boggling. And it's especially mind-boggling because of the history of that particular plant, which I wrote about. And that is, it was just a Petri dish of bladder cancer for workers. At least 78 workers got bladder cancer from that plant. And there are probably a number who got it that we don't know about because they retired or died or moved or whatever.
So, knowing the history of that plant, it's mind-boggling that the state would not move very aggressively to say, "Wait, uh-oh, this is the same chemical that made all those workers sick. We better crack down on this tomorrow." And there just doesn't seem to be that much urgency. And so, if I lived in New York State, or even if I didn't live in Niagara Falls, if I lived anywhere in New York State, I would really wonder about the commitment that my state agency has to correcting health-threatening problems like the one in Niagara Falls.
Emyle Watkins: Something, that as a disability reporter, that strikes me about this story is that a lot of times people are very afraid to become disabled, but they also distance themselves from disability by thinking it's something that you're either born with or happens to you through something very sudden, very tragic. People don't always think about disability as being something that can happen to you very slowly by something in your community that you might not even be aware of.
I'm wondering, what was the reaction from these workers that we know got bladder cancer from this factory, finding out that they now had a disability because of something they didn't know was hurting them?
Jim Morris: The workers and retirees I came to know were just infuriated by what had happened to them, especially when they learned that the maker of this chemical, one of the main manufacturers of this chemical was DuPont. And to be clear, Goodyear didn't make ortho-toluidine, it used ortho-toluidine to make this product called Nailax. So, they would buy ortho-toluidine from mostly DuPont and a couple of other suppliers. And the workers were told for many years, "Stuff's harmless. Yeah, it's smelly. It's kind of nasty, but it's not going to hurt you." And when they would get bladder cancer, when they would be first diagnosed, just a complete sense of betrayal.
And the other thing I want to emphasize is as I was researching my book The Cancer Factory, I learned a lot about the disease itself, bladder cancer, and it's one of the sneakiest, most insidious forms of cancer. You can have it, you can have a tumor removed and think you're fine for five years, for 10 years, no symptoms, "Okay. They got it all." And then something happens. You go through one of your annual cystoscopies and the doctor says, "Uh-oh, there's a growth." And then, the cycle starts all over again, and it can come back 2, 3, 4 times. So, that's one thing.
The other thing is, I don't want to get too graphic here, but what happens to you when you get bladder cancer is just grotesque. It's like something out of a horror movie. And again, I won't go into detail, but there's no good kind of cancer, of course, but this is an especially vicious form of the disease.
Emyle Watkins: Absolutely. Well, thank you for taking the time, Jim, to talk with me about this and work on this story with me.
Jim Morris: Thank you.
