Environmental group urges EPA investigation involving Niagara Falls Goodyear facility

Feb. 1—NIAGARA FALLS — An environmental advocacy group is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to get involved with a production facility where chemicals were linked to employees' bladder cancer.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit organization focusing on environmental law, has sent a letter to Acting Assistant Administrator Lawrence Starfield urging the agency to investigate allegations that DuPont violated the Toxic Substances Control Act. It cites a story published by the nonprofit investigative website ProPublica about workers at the Niagara Falls Goodyear chemical facility getting cancer from exposure to ortho-toluidine, a DuPont-made chemical used in making rubber tires pliable.

"We further urge you to investigate the allegations in the same ProPublica article that EPA treated as confidential information about the dangers posed to workers by ortho-toluidine, although the TSCA (Toxic Substances Control Act) does not allow information about worker health risks to be claimed as confidential," the letter reads.

According to ProPublica, at least 78 people who worked at the Goodyear plant have developed bladder cancer.

The website relayed that employees' urine had been tested for ortho-toluidine for the past 30 years, and while the current permissible limit for exposure is 5 parts per million — a limit based on research conducted in the 1940s and 1950s and without consideration of the chemical as a carcinogen — testing by Goodyear in 2019 found the average amount of ortho-toluidine in the air at the Niagara Falls facility was 11.3 parts per million.

Eve Gartner, managing attorney for Earthjustice's toxic exposure and health program, said she is looking at the legal implications of DuPont knowing about the health risk to workers and EPA not releasing this information to the public.

She also wonders why the state Department of Labor, which has its own labor and environmental laws — including laws calling on every employer to instruct employees about hazards in the workplace and not permit them to work in spaces where dangerous air contaminants are present — has not yet done anything about the situation at Goodyear.

"The state does have a duty to ensure that workplaces are safe," Gartner said.

Documents obtained through a personal injury lawsuit filed by a sick worker revealed that, in 1993, DuPont developed calculations indicating the permissible exposure limit set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for ortho-toluidine was at least 37 times too high to protect workers. Those calculations did not appear on ChemView, where the EPA publishes "substantial risk" information that the TSCA requires to be submitted to the EPA, nor were the calculations posted at EPA's website or in the public domain.

The Centers for Disease Control describes ortho-toluidine as a colorless to pale yellow toxic liquid that is harmful to the eyes and skin, and when swallowed or inhaled. Aside from rubber production, it is used in making some hair dyes, weed and pest killers, and some laboratory processes. Factory workers involved with rubber manufacture are among workers listed as at risk from exposure.

"The ProPublica reporting thus raises at least two serious questions that EPA must investigate without delay: Did DuPont fail to disclose its calculations about the health effects of ortho-toluidine on workers, and did EPA improperly withhold health and safety studies about ortho-toluidine from the public?" Earthjustice's letter reads.

ProPublica also reported that OSHA had been hamstrung in enacting new safety regulations as a result of lawsuits from interest groups over the years.

Among its other local efforts, Earthjustice has represented the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York and Sierra Club in its lawsuit citing violations of the state's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in the approval of a fossil fuel-burning cryptomining facility at the former Fortistar power plant in North Tonawanda.

Earthjustice's letter about the Goodyear plant argues that if the EPA finds that DuPont failed to disclose its calculations about ortho-toluidine's toxicity immediately upon its development in 1993, as the TSCA requires, the heaviest possible civil fines should be levied and criminal charges should be pursued. It also argues that if the EPA finds its staff improperly shielded health and safety information critical to workers' ability to avoid exposure at carcinogenic levels, it should take all appropriate action without delay.

Ideally, Gartner wants the state Department of Labor to let people know whether it has been monitoring workplaces for toxic exposures. If not, she said, there should be a renewed effort to ensure workers are protected from toxic chemicals they are handling.

"Given that we're in a state that purports to care about worker health and safety, and given that OSHA is not able to do the job, is New York state able to take it on?" Gartner said.

Goodyear has issued a statement saying that it remains committed to actions to address ortho-toluidine exposure inside the Niagara Falls facility. It has offered biannual bladder cancer screenings to active, previous and retired employees for more than two decades and worked with its associates to make continuous improvements.

"As new information and processes become available, Goodyear — working in full cooperation with our associates, the union, and appropriate agencies — has made and will continue to make improvements to protect our associates," the statement reads.