The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company facility (Goodyear) is located in Niagara Falls, NY. The facility manufactures Polystay 100, an antioxidant, antiozonant, and anti-flex cracking agent used in manufacturing tires, belts, and other industrial products. The facility is regulated by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to ensure emissions of contaminants from Goodyear’s operations are fully protective of public health and the environment.
Ortho-Toluidine
Goodyear emits contaminants that include ortho-toluidine, a colorless to pale-yellow liquid classified by DEC as a high toxicity air contaminant (HTAC). It is a toxic substance harmful to the eyes, skin, and when swallowed or inhaled. Ortho-toluidine can cause cancer. Ortho-toluidine is used in many industries, including production of some hair dyes, weed and pest killers, rubber, and in some laboratory processes.
DEC Air Permitting History
DEC issued Goodyear an Air State Facility (ASF) permit in 2009. The permit was modified in 2009 and again in 2011. Goodyear is currently operating under the 2011 permit.
Air State Facility permits issued before 2013 did not have expiration dates. The facility has remained in compliance with DEC requirements in the permit. In 2018, Goodyear was instructed by DEC to submit a permit renewal application to change the terms and conditions to meet updated requirements.
In November 2022, as part of the permit renewal process, Goodyear performed a stack test to quantify emissions to assist in determining appropriate permit conditions. A stack test is an important tool used to determine a facility’s compliance with emission limits. It measures the amount of a specific pollutant, or pollutants, emitted through regulated stacks at facilities.
Recent Permitting Actions
Even in the absence of an imminent public health risk, DEC regularly takes action to ensure compliance with regulations and to continually reduce air pollution emissions. DEC, with input from the New York State Department of Health (DOH), routinely reviews guidelines for contaminant exposure, and, in 2021, DEC lowered the Annual Guideline Concentration (AGC) for ortho-toluidine from 21 µg/m3 to 0.02 µg/m3 based on the latest health studies and information available.
DEC’s AGCs are not standards or regulations, rather they are levels used to inform permitting decisions and to require facilities to reduce emissions with the best controls available. DEC’s air toxics regulations allow for emissions that result in concentrations in ambient air up to 10 times an AGC level with the installation of best available controls. Ambient concentrations up to 10 times an AGC are within the acceptable risk ranges developed by health officials to gauge potential impacts to public health.
Emissions Modeling
DEC uses a model created specifically to predict maximum ambient concentrations of ortho-toluidine based on estimated facility emissions and compares those to the AGC. There is no U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved method for measuring ortho-toluidine concentrations in ambient air; methodologies are limited to testing of emissions from the facility emission points (stacks).
Mass emission limits (MELS) are used in the DEC permitting process to determine when modeling of HTACs is needed. Since Goodyear emits more than 100 pounds per year of ortho-toluidine from its stacks, the facility is required to do air dispersion modeling to help predict concentrations in the surrounding community at selected downwind receptor locations. The completed modeling results are compared to the AGC to determine if the installed pollution controls are meeting the requirements of the air toxics regulation.
Modeling results of the current potential emission of ortho-toluidine from the Goodyear facility are below a concentration that would be an imminent public health concern. DOH concurs that the emissions from the Goodyear facility represent a low risk to human health. Additional pollution controls will further reduce ortho-toluidine emissions. EPA also advised that there was no basis for any emergency action under Clean Air Act Section 303.
DEC Enforcement
After a review of air permit and stack test reporting requirements, DEC issued Goodyear a notice of violation (NOV) in July 2023.
None of Goodyear’s violations are related to potential public health impacts or noncompliant emissions of ortho-toluidine, but instead are directly related to the submission of records and other requirements which are part of DEC’s ongoing regulatory oversight of the facility.
The NOV required Goodyear to implement several corrective actions that are focused on reducing emissions to maximize protection of the environment and surrounding community.
In January 2025, DEC entered into an Order on Consent with Goodyear that requires, among other items, the design and installation of state-of-the-art pollution control technology. The order assessed a fine and requires Goodyear to perform corrective actions that will result in short- and long-term reductions in emissions. These items include:
- the submission of a plan for interim controls and production limits to reduce emissions of ortho-toluidine;
- an Air Pollution Control Engineering Study proposing permanent, long-term controls to reduce air emissions; and
- a revised permit application that will detail the equipment and/or operational changes, emission calculations, include a protocol for modeling air dispersion, a Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act analysis, and a Public Participation Plan.
The Order also requires Goodyear to perform a stack test and air quality dispersion modeling after the installation of the permanent pollution control technology to measure the actual ortho-toluidine emissions to verify the accuracy of the emissions calculations and that the pollution controls are effective in meeting DEC’s air toxics regulatory requirements.
DEC conditionally approved the interim control plan on February 10, 2025, and the interim controls were installed and operational by April 10, 2025. These interim controls will reduce ortho-toluidine emissions in the short-term and remain in effect until the permanent controls are installed.
On March 14, 2025, Goodyear submitted the Air Pollution Control Engineering Study proposing the permanent controls that will be installed following DEC approval. The document is currently under review.
The Goodyear facility is located within a Disadvantaged Community (DAC) and adjacent to a Potential Environmental Justice Areas (PEJA.) Accordingly, all applicable environmental justice and disadvantaged community laws, regulations, and policies will be followed. Community members concerned about other facilities in the area are encouraged to reach out to Region 9’s Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator.
