By Staff Reporter
NIAGARA FALLS — For almost two years, Oct. 31, 2026 was the date that was supposed to settle the argument over the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. chemical plant off 56th Street. A state consent order gave the company until then to install permanent equipment to cut emissions of ortho-toluidine, a bladder carcinogen, from the plant’s stacks.
Goodyear will meet that date another way. It is shutting the plant down.
On Tuesday night the Niagara County Legislature voted unanimously, the Niagara Gazette reported, to call on Goodyear and state regulators to make sure the site is properly investigated and cleaned up before the company walks away. The resolution, IL-174-26, says residents and taxpayers should “not be left responsible for environmental liabilities attributable to industrial operations.”
“This resolution is really just to show Goodyear that Niagara County is watching,” said Legislator Sam Farruggia, the Democrat who sponsored it, according to the Gazette. “We don’t want to end up with another empty, industrial site that may have something on it.”
The resolution is a request, not an order. It binds no one. The Chronicle reviewed Goodyear’s securities filing, the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s permit and enforcement file, federal health studies of the plant’s workers and the reporting that brought the emissions to light. Together they show what has been promised for the site, and what no agency has yet said it will require.
What Goodyear told investors
Goodyear announced the closing not with a news release in Niagara Falls but in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing says the company approved a plan on Sept. 29 to close its chemical plants in Niagara Falls and Bayport, Texas, with “approximately 85 job reductions.”
The filing puts a price on the exit. Goodyear expects $55 million to $75 million in pre-tax charges. About $30 million of that will be cash, “primarily for plant decommissioning and associate-related and other exit costs.” The rest is mostly accelerated depreciation. The company expects to “substantially complete” the plan by the end of 2027. It expects the closings to improve its Americas operating income by $15 million to $20 million a year starting in 2027.
The filing does not break out how much of the $30 million is meant for Niagara Falls, or how much is for cleanup as opposed to severance.
“Following the sale of the majority of its chemical business in 2025, the company has made the decision to fully exit this business to focus on its core products and services,” Goodyear spokeswoman Kelly McGlumphy said in a statement to WKBW. “We recognize this decision is difficult for those impacted associates. The company is committed to treating all impacted associates with fairness, respect and transparency while providing comprehensive support during their transition.”
Goodyear confirmed to the Gazette that 60 employees will lose their jobs. The county resolution puts the figure at about 80. The United Steelworkers represents about 35 current union workers there, Buffalo Toronto Public Media reported.
WKBW and the Gazette both reported in early October that Goodyear had not filed a notice under New York’s WARN Act. The state law generally requires 90 days’ notice before a plant closing that affects 25 or more workers. Workers learned of the closing when they arrived on Oct. 1, about a month before the gates close. Goodyear now says it has. “The health and safety of our associates and the communities where we operate is our top priority. The company has submitted a WARN notice to the state of New York and continues to work closely with the DEC,” the company said in a statement Ms. McGlumphy provided in an email to The Buffalo Chronicle on Wednesday. The statement did not say when the notice was filed.
Mayor Robert Restaino learned of the closing that morning by email. “I was surprised,” he told the Gazette. “I was aware of a transition, but had hoped for a possible reprogramming of the plant.” He was blunt about the jobs. “You’re probably not going to replace these jobs,” he said.
A carcinogen, a permit from 2009 and a deadline
The plant makes an antioxidant that keeps tires and belts from cracking, according to the DEC’s page on the facility. Ortho-toluidine is part of that process. The DEC classifies it as a high toxicity air contaminant and says it “can cause cancer.”
The DEC’s own timeline shows how long the plant ran under old rules. Goodyear got an Air State Facility permit in 2009, modified in 2009 and 2011. Permits of that vintage had no expiration date. In 2018 the DEC told Goodyear to apply for a renewal. In 2021 the agency cut its annual guideline concentration for ortho-toluidine from 21 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 0.02, a thousandfold reduction, based on newer health studies. A stack test in November 2022 measured what was actually coming out.
The DEC issued a notice of violation in July 2023. Two control devices, a scrubber and an elimination tank, were not removing enough of the chemical. The scrubber was supposed to capture 90% of the ortho-toluidine passing through it and captured 53%, Public Health Watch reported. The elimination tank caught 11%.
The DEC says the violations involved records and reporting, not public health. Its modeling, it says, shows emissions “below a concentration that would be an imminent public health concern,” and the state Health Department calls the risk low. But the same modeling, published by WBFO and Public Health Watch in December 2024, showed the neighborhood around the plant could be exposed to ortho-toluidine at up to seven times the level the state now considers safe. Nearly 4,000 people live within a mile of the plant, Public Health Watch reported. About 43% are low-income and 27% are ages 1 to 18. The DEC lists the site as being inside a state-designated disadvantaged community.
The January 14, 2025 order on consent was the state’s answer. Goodyear paid a $5,000 penalty, with $10,000 more due if it did not comply. It installed interim controls that began operating on April 10, 2025. The DEC approved the design for permanent controls on May 28, 2025. The order required the permanent equipment to be running by the end of October 2026. It also required a new stack test and new air modeling after that equipment was installed, to prove the controls work.
The DEC said at the time that the order “requires state-of-the-art pollution control technology that will continue to protect Niagara Falls residents.”
The permit renewal has been stuck for more than a year. Goodyear filed its application on June 11, 2025. The DEC found it incomplete on June 26. Goodyear got two extensions and refiled on Sept. 15, 2025. The DEC asked for more information on Feb. 27 and again on April 16 of this year. No draft permit has been released for public comment.
If the plant stops running on Oct. 31, the permanent controls may never go in, and the stack test that was meant to measure the plant’s real emissions may never happen. The DEC declined to comment publicly to BTPM on the closing and its next steps.
The workers who paid first
The case against ortho-toluidine was built inside this plant. In 1991 researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published a study, requested by the workers’ union, of “a chemical plant in western New York State” that used ortho-toluidine and aniline. Among 1,749 workers they found 13 bladder cancers, against 3.61 expected. Among workers with 10 or more years in the department that used the chemicals, the rate was 27 times what would be expected.
A NIOSH update published in 2014 followed 1,875 workers through 2007 and still found bladder cancer at nearly three times the state rate. The authors said ortho-toluidine was “most likely responsible.” The DEC’s 2025 public presentation acknowledged a “history of a higher incidence of bladder cancer among some of Goodyear’s Niagara Falls workers” and a class action that led to medical monitoring for workers. At least 78 workers at the plant have been diagnosed with bladder cancer, Public Health Watch reported.
That is why the union’s bargaining over the closing is about more than severance. David Wasiura, director of United Steelworkers District 4, told BTPM the union wants Goodyear to cover long-term cancer screening.
“With the history of safety and health problems that the plant has experienced and our members have seen, we want to make sure that we are covering them really for as long as they need the coverage on cancer screening and things like that,” Mr. Wasiura said. He said the union also has “an overall stake in making sure that that facility does the right thing with the land.”
The neighbors no one has tested
Workers had studies. The neighborhood never got one.
Steven Wodka, a retired attorney who has represented Goodyear workers with bladder cancer, has written to the state Health Department asking it to test the urine of people living within a mile of the plant before it closes, WKBW reported. Ortho-toluidine can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and once the plant stops running, a test can no longer show what people were breathing while it ran.
“Because the people have a right to know whether the operation of this plant has impacted their health … so that we can get data on what their potential exposure has been. No one has ever done that,” Mr. Wodka said.
The Clean Air Coalition of WNY, Don’t Waste NY, the Niagara Falls NAACP and other groups had already asked in January 2025 for soil, groundwater and air testing around the plant, and urine testing of nearby residents. They called the consent order “a slap in the face” to Niagara Falls families at the time.
Niagara Falls NAACP President Renae Kimble, a former county legislator, wants Goodyear to pay for a long-term medical monitoring fund and health registry for former workers and nearby residents. She has also asked the DEC and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to keep the plant’s emission controls running through the shutdown.
“Goodyear will not be allowed to lock its gates, desert its workforce, and walk away from its toxic legacy,” Ms. Kimble wrote in a statement after the closing was announced, according to the Gazette. “It must not be treated as a clean exit.”
What the Health Department says
The state Health Department says it is reviewing Mr. Wodka’s letter. “The New York State Department of Health works closely with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to protect public health while investigating and addressing potential disease-causing contaminants in the environment. DOH is reviewing the recent correspondence from Mr. Wodka,” Erin Clary, the department’s deputy communications director, said in an email to The Buffalo Chronicle on Wednesday.
The department did not say whether it will test residents before the plant closes, but it described the limits of such testing. Biomonitoring studies have numerous limitations, the department said. They are difficult to do for chemicals with very low exposures, because many people may fall below the limit of detection, and air modeling suggests levels in the community are low, much lower than in the workplace. Because ortho-toluidine has a short half-life and does not accumulate in the body, a urine test reflects only exposure in the previous 24 to 48 hours, according to the department. The department also said it supported the DEC’s use of its regulatory tools to direct the plant to install the interim controls, which further lowered emissions.
The department said a previous state project that mapped cancer data below the county level for 2011 through 2015 showed the Goodyear facility within a broad area of higher-than-expected bladder cancer incidence. It cautioned that the map does not provide evidence of particular risk factors, that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of bladder cancer and influences its rates, and that the map contains no information about people’s jobs or exposures and reflects only where they lived when they were diagnosed. Because NIOSH has documented increased bladder cancer among the plant’s workers, the department said, it is possible that some of the cases in the 2011-2015 data were workers who live in the area.
A whistleblower’s case is still open
The consent order followed concerns raised inside the DEC. Dylan Keenan, a licensed engineer assigned to review Goodyear’s permit application, has said in court filings that the company’s 2023 emissions test report contained falsified data that understated ortho-toluidine emissions. He was fired in July after being disciplined for trying to share his findings with the EPA without permission, the Gazette reported. He has sued in federal court, claiming retaliation, and on Oct. 2 asked a state court in Albany to throw out the arbitration ruling that led to his firing.
“Basically, I was counseled because I did not look the other way like my supervisor and colleagues in the region,” Mr. Keenan told the Gazette. The DEC has declined to comment on the litigation.
Goodyear has denied that the plant endangers anyone. “The health and safety of associates and the communities where we operate are our top priority,” Ms. McGlumphy said in a statement to the Gazette. “The DEC and New York State health authorities have affirmed that our Niagara Falls facility poses no imminent threat to public health.”
Who is accountable now
The county resolution lists what has to happen. It asks Goodyear to “fulfill its legal and financial responsibilities for any necessary investigation, remediation, corrective actions, and long-term monitoring.” It asks the DEC to review the site’s compliance history, permits and “potential soil and groundwater contamination” and to set “closure, decommissioning, remediation, and financial assurance requirements.” And it asks that environmental findings and closure plans be made public.
Each of those requests has an owner.
Goodyear has told investors it is setting aside cash for decommissioning. It has not said publicly how much will go to investigating the ground under a plant that has handled ortho-toluidine since 1957, as BTPM has reported, or whether it will pay for medical monitoring of former workers beyond the existing program.
The DEC holds the consent order, the pending permit and the enforcement file. It has not said whether it will hold Goodyear to the order’s stack testing before shutdown, whether the order will be amended now that the plant is closing, or what closure plan it will demand.
The state Health Department has Mr. Wodka’s request for urine testing and says it is reviewing it. Whether it acts has to be decided before Oct. 31 for the testing to mean much.
The EPA told the DEC there was no basis for emergency action under the Clean Air Act, according to the DEC. The county’s resolution asks it to stay involved.
Niagara Falls knows how a closed chemical site can turn into a public cost. The Love Canal cleanup took decades and public money. This time the company is solvent, the closure is on a known date and the paper trail is long. What it lacks is an agency that has said, publicly and in writing, what Goodyear must do before it leaves.
The Chronicle asked Goodyear, the DEC and the Health Department those questions. Goodyear said in its emailed statement that it does not have any additional information to share beyond what is included in its statements. The Health Department said it is reviewing Mr. Wodka’s correspondence but did not say whether it will test residents. The Chronicle will update this story with answers from the DEC.
Updated October 21, 2026: This story was updated to include comment from Goodyear and the state Department of Health.
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