NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WKBW) — Goodyear Niagara Falls is weeks away from a state mandated deadline, to submit an Air Pollution Control Engineering Study, that would detail "performance of emission testing of upgraded air emission sources..."
It's part of an agreement between New York State and Goodyear, after the company was fined $15,000 in January, for two air emission violations.
This study comes nearly 50 years after Niagara Falls became synonymous with environmental disaster from Love Canal.
The 7 News I-Team has discovered the plant is working to temporarily limit annual production of anti-oxidant products by 40%, limiting emissions of a chemical in the community linked to bladder cancer by a factor of three.
"I'm just appalled at what's happening," Luella Kenny said.
Kenny has a deeper understanding of these environmental issues. She lost her son, John, days after his seventh birthday. He died on October 4, 1978 after exposure to toxic chemicals in Niagara Falls' Love Canal neighborhood.
"It's very important to me that no other child dies because of corporate irresponsibility," Kenny said.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation fined Goodyear in January. For years, the DEC allowed the plant to exceed current standards of a cancer-causing chemical. That chemical, called ortho-toluidine, is a known human carcinogen.
The state's own mapping shows Goodyear is emitting this chemical at up to seven times the current standard. Acting DEC Commissioner Sean Mahar says this is just worst case scenario mapping.
Mahar: It's not the actual real-world scenario that we're seeing play out here.
Drantch: Does DEC have mapping for real-world scenarios?
Mahar: Well, that's what we build and are going to continue to require the company to do as they put in new emission controls, to take additional sampling and then we'll know and have a better understanding of how this facility is operating under these new measures that we're requiring.
"Regulations matter if they're maintained and kept," Kenny said.
Drantch: Do you think that New York State was allowing Goodyear to violate the regulations?
Kenny: I think So. I mean, I think they think they did the same thing with with Love Canal. I mean, they turned their back, and as I say, I could, could give them a little leeway with Love Canal, because they didn't understand things as well. But 47 years later, you should be understanding things, and you should know what's going on.
Through a third party company, ERM, Goodyear says it is working on a long-term, permanent solution to limit community emissions. Documentation between the state and Goodyear shows this has been years in the making.
Kenny: New York State should be far ahead of the game and should understand these things.
Drantch: Do you think it is?
Kenny: No, no.
Kim Diana Connelly is an environmental lawyer from the University at Buffalo. She says there has to be parity between essential business and community health.
"Both are incredibly important and that is the constant balance that we have to weigh," Connelly said. "I think in this particular case, the balance is off. I think that we should be putting the health and welfare and safety of the people, not just the workers, but the people in the area, at a much higher standard."
Connelly said, Niagara Falls has "been an overlooked community and somewhat of an abused community by the system. So there are people there who have faced way more hardships than they should."
Connolly is talking about the area around the Goodyear plant, which Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino says, has people living there who certainly cannot afford to fight this corporation.
Drantch: How do you balance having an economy that works, that brings us things, but also this toxic air?
Restaino: You know, on that question, I would say that the problem is always that it's approached from an either or perspective, and it doesn't have to be it could be both.
Restaino says the timeline to get this emissions issue at Goodyear fixed permanently is too far out.
The DEC has given the company until 2026 to limit emissions for good. Restaino wants that timeline sped up.
"In the big picture of government two years is like, you know, the Indy 500 race," Restaino said. "But it's two more years of exposure on top of what had happened already."
What are the options?
"The other alternative could be that the plant just just closes," Restaino said. "So I don't want to make it appear that you're trading jobs for health, because that's not ever the equation but you're balancing those things the economy's need and then the health concerns of all the people that are that are living in the area."
Drantch: Are you concerned about good year leaving?
Restaino: Well, you're always concerned in these circumstances that that could be an impact. Have I gotten any indication that's going to happen? No.
The indication is Goodyear is on track to meet DEC deadlines, with changing course on emissions as a first step.
Luella Kenny still has suspicions, nearly five decades after the Love Canal disaster changed her life.
"I think that we have to be vigilant," Kenny said. "We have to know what we're doing and we have to pay attention. We just can't let these things go by."
The 7 News I-Team has reached out to the DEC to find out where we are in the Consent Order process, after it approved Goodyear's Interim Air Emissions Control Work Plan. That was step one in mandated milestones. We are yet to hear back.