The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has publicly released the Consent Order for Goodyear in Niagara Falls, and with this announcement also shared that they will be holding a Virtual Meeting this Thursday January 23 from 6-8pm.

Read the press release here, the Consent Order here, and register for the virtual meeting here.

Also be sure to join us at the community-led meeting on the following Thursday January 30 at 7pm at New Hope Baptist Church, 1122 Buffalo Ave in Niagara Falls.

Register by clicking here – registration is NOT required, but will help us better plan the event and ensure we have enough food for everyone.

Niagara Falls Community Meeting on Goodyear Toxic Air Pollution & Environmental Justice – click here to register!

Thursday, January 30, 2025
Doors Open 6:30 PM
Meeting 7:00 PM
New Hope Baptist Church
1122 Buffalo Avenue,
Niagara Falls, NY 14303 US

Niagara Falls residents and concerned community members are invited to attend a meeting on January 30 at 7pm (doors 6:30pm) at New Hope Baptist Church, 1122 Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls, to learn more about exposure to Ortho-toluidine, the potential health consequences, and the results of recent actions to push for action by the Environmental Protection Agency and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

This meeting is being hosted by New Hope Baptist Church, Rev. Harvey L. Kelley, and a coalition of community organizations, including the NAACP Niagara Falls Branch, Clean Air Coalition of WNY, Don’t Waste NY, Sierra Club Niagara Group, and the Interfaith Community Climate Center of WNY.

Dinner provided; babysitting, translation, or other accessibility services available with pre-registration.

Related, we are still collecting signatures for the petition to the EPA – sign here today!

Click here to subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter, and view this month’s edition by clicking the “Read More” link below.

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I have some exciting news to share – we are proud to announce that we are a partner along with PUSH Buffalo, C.O.N.N.E.C.T. and others that have collectively received a $20 Million Community Change Grant from the USEPA. This project will better prepare our community to thrive while dealing with the worsening effects of climate change through emergency preparedness, pollution reduction, workforce development, and resiliency projects.

Clean Air will receive a sub award of this grant to continue our organizing and community air monitoring work. These much needed funds will be a game changer for our community. Right now we are challenging you to invest in Clean Air by donating so we can leverage these funds to effectively to build power.

This announcement caps off a year of great organizational growth and marks 3 years since I have had the privilege of taking on this role at Clean Air. What keeps me going when the work is difficult is the clarity of our organizational values. Leadership development, democratic decision making, resident knowledge, race and class equity and inclusion, and recognition and joyful celebration.. They stand as the north star through which we filter all of our decisions, especially when considering a new partnership or the pursuit of funding. It is with the utmost pride and responsibility that the leadership team here adheres to these values as we forge forward.

We do not do this work on behalf of those suffering from injustice, we do this work in solidarity and collective interest as we all suffer under the forces that sacrifice human health for the profits for the few at the top. The most powerful action you can take this year is to join an organization that shares your values and is fighting against the root causes of injustice. 

In Solidarity,

Chris

Executive Director

In anticipation of the likely need in 2025 and beyond for rapid response to attempts to roll back environmental regulatory protections and other attacks upon our peer communities, Clean Air is launching a Rapid Response Team.

Please fill out this form if you are interested in joining.

All Rapid Response Team members must be current members or supporters of Clean Air – click here to make a donation.
Whether it’s $5, $50, or $500, your donation is greatly appreciated and will allow us the flexibility to take bold actions!

Clean Air is working in coalition with Niagara Falls organizations, residents, and workers to support organizing efforts to force Goodyear Corporation to stop emitting ortho-toluidine, a bladder cancer causing chemical.

Click here to sign the petition to the EPA to ask for a 303 Emergency Order to bring emissions down to safe levels!

A community meeting in Niagara Falls related to the emissions from Goodyear will be held the first full week of January 2025 – stay tuned for details.

There is a LOT to this story – for specifics related to the Goodyear facility in particular, we highly recommend reading Jim Morris’ “The Cancer Factory” as well as the following recent articles.

• WBFO/Public Health Watch: “A dangerous carcinogen is in Niagara Falls’ air. The state hasn’t put a stop to it“
• Inside Climate News: “Computer Modeling Shows Carcinogen From Goodyear Plant Is Invading Niagara Falls Neighborhoods“

In summary, though, these are the key points to understand, via Don’t Waste New York, a statewide environmental justice organization we are working in coalition with:

• THE PROBLEM: In September 2024, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) made  a map of the community around the Goodyear plant on 56th Street in Niagara Falls showing a cloud of toxic chemical emissions.
  The chemical – Ortho toluidine or OT – causes bladder cancer. Since 1989, studies have found a significant number of cases of bladder cancer among the workers at Goodyear.
  DEC and DOH have violated the public’s trust. They have not informed the community of the illegal toxic pollution. They have not enforced the law. They have not protected the health of community residents.
• THE SOLUTION: The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the legal power to issue a Clean Air Act Emergency Order (Section 303 of CAA) to immediately require Goodyear to reduce its toxic emissions.
  Don’t Waste New York, a statewide community support group, sent EPA a request to issue an Emergency Order on November 27, 2024. Emergency Orders can be issued when a pollution problem poses an “imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health.

We also feel that the emissions from this facility are a key example of the overarching issues in Western New York related to environmental permits for industrial facilities – from expired Title Vs to State Air Facility permits without any expiration date to facilities operating on unissued draft permits, we have seen example after example of health and safety issues arising in environmental justice communities that would be addressed with sufficient oversight and enforcement actions. Just in this past couple of weeks, The Buffalo News featured further coverage related to this problem, honing in on how stack testing (ie, testing of filters in the air stacks at facilities) is tied to permit reviews, and how delayed permit renewals mean these tests are not conducted in regular frequency.

Stay tuned for further related actions!

Clean Air is a 501C3 Nonprofit organization so we do not and cannot endorse or promote those running for office. However, we can and will describe how an elected candidate’s policies or actions will affect the health and well being of working class people in WNY, and the conditions of the environment we are a part of.

Let us be clear, a second Donald Trump term is a direct and grave danger to the future ability to protect residents from pollution.

During Trump’s first term, he suspended pollution enforcement on permitted factories and facilities, and Clean Air stepped up and organized with others resulting in the NYS Attorney General joining a Lawsuit against the EPA which forced facilities to comply. All evidence points to an even greater attack on long standing popular bipartisan protections such as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, this time with a more radical partisan Supreme Court having the final say.

Clean Air’s organizing efforts are going to be an essential safeguard during a second Trump term to hold the line on environmental protections locally and across New York State. We are also going to have to organize with each other to create local resilience to blizzards, storms and flooding and extreme heat as federal assistance to help us prepare is likely to be slashed.

In times of crisis, it is our communities that have united to support one another, and Clean Air’s membership program provides a space for everyone to come together in our shared fight for environmental justice.

Become a member today by making a membership contribution and help us fund this fight​.

Through this, you can help fund true grassroots organizing efforts to ensure we keep us safe during what is certain to be a chaotic time. Clean Air members and supporters are also welcome to attend our Happy Hour mixer on November 20​ where we will be celebrating what we have done and reflecting on the crucial work ahead.

Without federal safeguards, we will need to turn our attention in the short term to state level actions – we know we can affect positive change here, because we have already, and we will do so again in the next four years.

With that in mind, we are also asking you to join us tomorrow​ November 7 at 6pm in Lewiston at the NYPA Power Vista at 5777 Lewiston Road, just off the Niagara University Campus. Clean Air is coordinating carpools from downtown Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

NYPA is currently accepting comments on a draft plan to build publicly-owned renewable energy projects​, but the current draft falls far short of what is needed, especially given the regulatory environment we are going to be entering starting in 2025. Please join us – click here to register for the carpools​.

If you are unable to make it, you can also send a comment using this form we launched on Monday​. All comments will be due in January.

With determination,

Chris

Click here to subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter, and view this month’s edition by clicking the “Read More” link below.

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Join us at NYPA’s Public Hearing on November 7 at at 6pm at the NYPA Power Vista at 5777 Lewiston Road in Lewiston NY! Carpools from Buffalo available.

NY is off track from our goals for a just transition off of fossil fuel-based energy onto renewables.

In part, this is due to the rise in data centers like those used for cryptocurrency mining, which is causing serious concerns about overall grid stability. Per the New York Independent System Operator, well over 500 MW of industrial power is currently modeled as expected demands on our power grid in coming years just from cryptocurrency mining operations at data centers.

In WNY, cryptocurrency mining operations have popped up in industrial corridors numerous times, most notably in Niagara Falls, where data centers caused such a nuisance that it spurred the city to develop a novel High Energy Use District zoning overlay, and North Tonawanda, where residents have been supported by Clean Air in their opposition to Digihost’s operations at the Fortistar gas-fired power plant for several years.

Cryptocurrency mining causes local environmental injustice concerns, most notably significant noise pollution and brownouts of the energy grid in environmental justice communities due to the extremely high energy demands.

The site owner for several of the cryptocurrency mining projects in Buffalo and Niagara Falls is Jon Williams, a brownfield developer who is also the current owner and developer for the former American Axle and Tonawanda Coke sites. American Axle, in addition to other operations, houses another Digihost mine, which pulls 42 Megawatts from the energy grid. Williams was, for a short time, a board member of Digihost, further cementing his direct connections with that company in particular, but he also has close ties to other firms, like US Bitcoin.

The stated desired site reuse for Tonawanda Coke primarily consists of a series of data centers – which, given Williams presence in the local cryptocurrency mining ecosystem, we should assume will mean cryptocurrency mining.

Residents who live adjacent to Tonawanda Coke, while grateful the stacks are down and that the site is being remediated, have strongly voiced opposition to cryptocurrency mining at TCC, and have expressed that they would prefer a more passive and generative use, like solar power generation.

Which brings us to our ask of our larger membership and the larger WNY community – please join us on November 7 at 6pm at the NYPA Power Vista at 5777 Lewiston Road in Lewiston. Register today to help us coordinate carpools.

For background – in 2023, NY passed the Build Public Renewables Act, which directs the New York Power Authority to plan, construct, and operate renewable energy projects in service of the state’s renewable energy goals. This is a groundbreaking and crucial piece of legislation, and Clean Air supported it’s passage.

With this new expanded authority and onus on NYPA to take action to develop renewable energy projects, NYPA then set to work to develop a plan, and on October 8 NYPA released the draft.

However, this plan falls far short – the plan is projected to develop 3.5 GW of renewable energy with a mix of private and public sector projects by 2030, which is multitudes short of what we need.

While it’s unclear where projects in NYISO Zone A are exactly proposed (see pages 36-47), what we can discern is that these projects do not appear to be primarily located on any of the numerous contaminated industrial brownfield sites in our region, which is a massive oversight and missed opportunity.

While much of the opposition to renewable energy development in our region stems from cynical self-serving interests like oil and gas producers and manufacturers, another large portion stems from genuine concern that our green open spaces and farmlands is being used for industrial purposes.

While we do not feel that the siting of these projects necessarily constitutes an environmental injustice as we define it, it certainly seems silly and generates unnecessary conflict, especially given the availability of vacant industrial brownfield parcels with readily available power connections already in place.

The lack of smaller, easily deployable community renewable energy generation projects, like solar on municipal buildings, also seems like a big oversight, and out of step with other current statewide initiatives.

Which brings us back to Tonawanda Coke – the Environmental Protection Agency conducted a nationwide analysis of the potential for renewable energy generation reuses of brownfield sites, including Tonawanda Coke, as part of the RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative.

What the analysis found is that the 3875 River Road brownfield parcel of Tonawanda Coke stands out as an excellent potential site for solar power generation, with an estimated Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Capacity of 13.11 MW, and close proximity to necessary grid connections from the former Huntley facility!

For context, the EPA uses the threshold of 5 MW as utility-scale solar power generation.

You don’t need to be an energy analyst to envision this – if you have been to the site, you know that today it is largely a flat surface, which gets full sun due to the lack of vegetation.

This also aligns with the community-developed goals of the Tonawanda Tomorrow Plan, explicitly calls for utility-scale solar generation in the River Road corridor.

Our Tonawanda Tomorrow Team is leaning into advocating for solar generation at Tonawanda Coke moving forward – and the upcoming NYPA hearings on the draft strategic plan, kicking off statewide with in-person hearings in Lewiston on November 7, presents us with a unique opportunity to present this demand to our state officials.

Please register to help us plan headcounts and coordinate carpools, and invite friends, family, and colleagues! 

We want a big turnout – the more people in the room making a shared demand for additional renewable energy projects on vacant industrial brownfields, specifically at Tonawanda Coke, the greater the likelihood that NYPA will be spurred to direct future project development in this direction, and the greater the pressure on Jon Williams to choose this generative direction instead of a harmful energy draw like cryptocurrency mining for 3875 River Road becomes.

Please stay tuned for other upcoming related actions, like a digital comment form and actions for the virtual hearing on November 21. Want to get involved with our Tonawanda Tomorrow Team, or have questions or comments? Please email bridge.

We are recruiting four people for three-year board terms, with terms starting in February 2025. Please reach out to chris@cacwny.org to learn more!