The Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) failure to review expired Title V permits for New York’s largest air polluters has left communities like Tonawanda and Buffalo vulnerable to unchecked air toxins. Title V permits, required under the Clean Air Act, are valid for five years but often remain unrenewed, allowing facilities to operate without updated oversight.
Emissions or Stack testing, a crucial process to verify emissions and ensure compliance with pollution limits, is frequently neglected. For instance, the DuPont Yerkes Plant on River Road has not conducted stack testing since 2016, despite being limited to emitting 15,000 lbs of vinyl fluoride annually—a carcinogenic and explosive chemical. Without testing, there’s no way to confirm adherence to this limit.
Other facilities, including a landfill in Brookhaven, a plastics producer in Hoosick Falls, Cornell University in Ithaca, and a packaging plant in Macedon, also operate on expired permits, exacerbating environmental risks statewide.
Bridge Rauch of the Clean Air Coalition of WNY notes that this issue first came to light when they investigated Fortistar’s expired permit in North Tonawanda. They soon discovered numerous other expired permits across their region and the state. This problem stems from a loophole in state administrative law that allows facilities to continue operating under expired permits while renewal applications are under review, with no clear deadlines for DEC to act.
Read the full article by Mackenzie Shuman at The Buffalo News here:
