Page Updated January 1, 2026

New York Plastics Plant Blamed for Workers’ and Residents’ Mesothelioma

Page Reviewed and Edited by

Mesothelioma Attorney Paul Danziger

The OxyChem chemical plant in Niagara Falls New York and its neighboring industrial plastics plant in North Tonawanda, New York are both the subject of renewed scrutiny after revelations of malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases among the plants’ employees and neighbors. According to a ProPublica report published in October, the company’s extensive asbestos contamination was widely acknowledged and a constant cause for concern.

New Employees Warned by Coworkers About Risk of Mesothelioma

Though it has long been known that exposure to asbestos causes malignant mesothelioma, the ProPublica article noted that workers at the OxyChem plant were constantly exposed to the toxic material up until the time that the facility closed in 2021.  Employees recounted being warned by coworkers to avoid breathing in the asbestos fibers that “hung in the air, collected on the beams and light fixtures and built up until it was inches thick.” Plant managers were unresponsive to pleas for remediation.

Today, many of those workers, as well as people who lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the plant, have been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.  Victims have filed personal injury lawsuits seeking compensation, and the majority of them have received payment in settlements that have been arranged out of court and out of the public eye. The company has never admitted guilt or mishandling of the toxic material.

Mesothelioma Victims Recall Blue Asbestos Inside Their Homes

Among the anecdotes recounted by mesothelioma victims are accounts of layers of blue asbestos fibers on freshly fallen snow, of asbestos coating the windowsills of their homes and the seats of their cars, and even of blue asbestos coating the ballfield where Little League games were played.

How that deadly material spread outside of the plant is an open secret to those who’ve investigated the source of their mesothelioma: they learned that the plant’s workers were occasionally told to use powerful air hoses to blow accumulated asbestos dust out of the facility. Years later, residents have been diagnosed with the rare form of cancer, as well as asbestosis and other breathing difficulties.

What sets the OxyChem situation apart from many asbestos cases is the scale and visibility of the exposure. This was not confined to an industrial workspace or a single job classification. Asbestos migrated into homes, public spaces, and recreational areas, creating prolonged environmental exposure for people who never consented to the risk. Courts and public health authorities increasingly treat this type of contamination as a failure of corporate containment and environmental stewardship, not merely a workplace safety lapse. For workers and residents diagnosed with mesothelioma decades later, these facts strengthen both medical causation and legal accountability by showing sustained, unavoidable exposure that originated from a known and unmanaged source.