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Love Canal
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Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, which became the subject of national and international attention, controversy, and eventual environmental notoriety following the discovery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried beneath the neighborhood. Love Canal officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south.
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Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, which became the subject of national and international attention, controversy, and eventual environmental notoriety following the discovery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried beneath the neighborhood. Love Canal officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In this area, Grand Island is situated on the south shore of the Niagara River.
The Niagara Falls School Board chose to construct a school on a known retired toxic waste dump, and the City of Niagara Falls permitted the building of homes and rental units on this property. The construction efforts of the development released the chemical waste, leading to a public health emergency, an urban planning scandal, and a finding of negligence by the former owner. In the words of a state health commissioner, "Among its legacies, Love Canal will likely long endure as a 'national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations." It was indeed a situation where the inhabitants of Love Canal "overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around."
Early history
The name Love Canal came from the last name of William T. Love, who in the early 1890s envisioned a canal connecting the two levels of the Niagara River separated by Niagara Falls. He believed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much needed hydroelectricity; however, the power scheme was never completed due to limitations of DC power transmission, and Tesla's introduction of alternating current or AC. Furthermore, the Panic of 1893 caused investors to no longer sponsor the project. Congress also passed a regulation in which water was not to be removed from the Niagara river because Congress wanted to preserve the Niagara Falls.
After 1892, Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara Falls in order to reach Lake Ontario. He began to envision a perfect urban area called "Model City" and prepared a plan that called for the construction of a vast community of beautiful parks and homes along Lake Ontario. Unfortunately for Love, his plan was never realized. He was barely able to start digging the canal and build a few streets and homes before his money ran out.[2] Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal, about 15 feet (5 m) wide and 10 to 69 feet (3 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River, was ever dug.(For one solution to the falls trans-shipment problem, see Welland Canal.)
There is little information about those who actually worked for Love. Historically, canal building was exhausting, dirty and oftentimes very dangerous. Immigrants were usually the workers selected to perform this arduous work and additionally, before even digging, all the trees and vegetation needed to be removed.
With the project abandoned, the canal gradually filled with water. The local children swam there in the summer and skated in the winter.[2] At some time in the 1920s, the canal became a dumping site for the municipality of Niagara Falls.[3] By the 1940s, a company by the name of Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company) founded by Elon Hooker began a search for a dump to store the increasing amount of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump its wastes in the Love Canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing fifty-five gallon metal or fibre barrels. This dumpsite was in operation until 1952 in which 21,000 tons of chemicals such as "caustics, alkalines, fatty acids and chlorinated hydrocarbons from the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, solvents for rubber and synthetic resins" were added. These toxins were buried at a depth of between twenty to twenty-five feet. In 1947, Hooker bought the canal and the seventy foot wide banks on either side of the canal. After 1952, the canal was covered with dirt and vegetation such as grass began to grow on top of the dumpsite.
The Love Canal disaster
Sale of the site
At the time of the closure, Niagara Falls's population began to expand drastically. The local school board was desperate for land, and attempted to purchase an area of expensive property from Hooker Chemical that had not yet been used to bury toxic waste. The corporation refused to sell on the grounds of safety, and took members of the school board to the canal and drilled several bore holes through the clay, showing that there were toxic chemicals below the surface. However, the board refused to capitulate. Eventually, faced with the property being condemned and/or expropriated, Hooker Chemical agreed to sell on the condition that the board buy the entire property for one dollar. In the agreement signed on April 28, 1953, Hooker included a seventeen line caveat that explained the dangers of building on the site. Hooker was thus released from all legal obligations should lawsuits arise in the future .
Hooker in fact even stated that the area should be sealed off "so as to prevent the possibility of persons or animals coming in contact with the dumped materials."
Construction of the 99th Street School
Despite the disclaimer which stated that there were industrial wastes buried in the ground, shortly thereafter, the board began construction on the 99th Street School in its originally intended location. In January 1954, the architect for the school wrote to the education committee informing them that during excavation, workers discovered two dump sites filled with fifty-five gallon drums containing chemical wastes. The architect also noted that it would be "poor policy" to build in that area since it was not known what wastes were present in the ground, and thus the concrete foundation might be subsequently damaged. The school board then moved the school site eighty to eight-five feet further north. The kindergarten playground also had to be relocated because a chemical dump lay directly beneath. Upon completion of the school in 1955, 400 children attended the academic institution. That same year, a twenty-five foot area crumbled exposing toxic chemical drums, which then filled with water during rainstorms. This created large puddles that children enjoyed playing in.
In 1957, the City of Niagara Falls constructed sewers for a mixture of low-income and single family residences to be built on lands adjacent to the landfill site. While building the gravel sewer beds, construction efforts broke through the clay seal, again breaching the walls of the canal. Hence, the buried chemicals had a further opportunity to migrate and seep from the canal. The land on which the new homes were being built was not part of the agreement between the school board and Hooker, and thus none of these residents knew the history of the canal. There was no monitoring or evaluating of the chemical wastes which were being stored under the ground. Additionally, the clay cover of the canal which was supposed to be impermeable began to crack. The subsequent construction of the LaSalle Expressway restricted groundwater from flowing to the Niagara River. Following the exceptionally wet winter and spring of 1977, the elevated expressway turned the breached canal into an overflowing pool. People reported having puddles of oil or colored liquid in yards or basements.
Health problems, activism, and site cleanup
In 1978, Lois Gibbs, a local mother and president of the Love Canal Homeowners' Association, began to investigate why there were many health problems in the area. Her son, Michael Gibbs, began attending school in September 1977. He developed epilepsy in December,suffered from asthma, urinary tract infection and had a low white blood cell count were connected to their exposure to leaking chemical waste. Gibbs later discovered that her neighborhood sat on top of 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste, the now infamous Love Canal.
In the following years, Gibbs led an effort to investigate community concerns about the health of its residents; she and other residents made repeated complaints of strange odors and "substances" that surfaced in their yards. In Gibbs' neighbourhood, there was a high rate of unexplained illnesses, miscarriages and mental retardation. Furthermore, basements were often covered with a thick, black substance and vegetation was also dying. In many yards, the only vegetation that grew were shrubby grasses. Although city officials were brought to investigate the area, they did not act to solve the problem.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979, residents exhibited a "disturbingly high rate of miscarriages...Love Canal can now be added to a growing list of environmental disasters involving toxics, ranging from industrial workers stricken by nervous disorders and cancers to the discovery of toxic materials in the milk of nursing mothers." In one case, two out of four children in a single Love Canal family had birth defects; one girl was born deaf with a cleft palate, an extra row of teeth, and slight retardation, and a boy was born with an eye defect. A survey conducted by the Love Canal Homeowners Association found that 56% of the children born from 1974-1978 had a birth defect.
With further investigation, Gibbs discovered the chemical danger of the adjacent canal. This began her organization's three year effort to demonstrate that the toxins buried by Hooker Chemical were responsible for the health problems of local residents. Throughout the ordeal, homeowners' concerns were ignored not only by Hooker Chemical (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum), but also members of government. These opponents argued that the area's endemic health problems were unrelated to the toxic chemicals buried in the canal. Since the residents could not prove the chemicals on their property had come from Hooker's disposal site, they could not prove liability. Throughout the legal battle, residents were unable to sell their properties and move away.
However, when Eckhardt C. Beck (EPA Administrator for Region 2, 1977-1979) visited Love Canal in the late 1970s, he discerned the presence of toxic substances in the community:
Robert Whalen, New York's Health Commissioner also visited Love Canal and believed that the Canal constituted an emergency in which he stated the following: "Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill constitutes a public nuisance and an extremely serious threat and danger to the health, safety and welfare of those using it, living near it or exposed to the conditions emanating from it, consisting among other things, of chemical wastes lying exposed on the surface in numerous places pervasive, pernicious and obnoxious chemical vapors and fumes affecting both the ambient air and the homes of certain residents living near such sites." Whalen also instructed people to avoid going into their basements as well as to avoid fruits and vegetables grown in their gardens. People became very worried because many had consumed produce from their gardens for several years.
Whalen urged that all pregnant women and children under the age of two be removed from Love Canal as soon as possible.
The 99th Street School, on the other hand, was located within the former boundary of the Hooker Chemical landfill site. The school was closed and demolished, but both the school board and the chemical company refused to accept liability.
State of emergency
The lack of public interest in Love Canal made matters worse for the homeowners' association, which now battled two organizations spending vast amounts of money to disprove negligence. Initially, members of the organization had been frustrated by the lack of a public entity that could advise and defend them. Gibbs met with considerable public resistance from a number of residents within the community: the mostly middle-class families did not have the resources to protect themselves, and many did not see any alternative other than abandoning their homes at a loss.
By the year of 1978, Love Canal had become a national media event with articles referring to the neighborhood as "a public health time bomb," and "one of the most appalling environmental tragedies in American history." On August 7, 1978, United States President Jimmy Carter announced a federal health emergency, called for the allocation of federal funds and ordered the Federal Disaster Assistance Agency to assist the City of Niagara Falls to remedy the Love Canal site. This was the first time in American history that emergency funds were used other than for a natural disaster. Carter had trenches built that would transport the wastes to sewers and had home sump pumps sealed off.
At first, scientific studies did not conclusively prove that the chemicals were responsible for the residents' illnesses, and scientists were divided on the issue, even though eleven known or suspected carcinogens had been identified, one of the most prevalent being benzene. There was also dioxin in the water, a very hazardous toxin. It is usually measured in parts per trillion. At Love Canal, water samples showed that the dioxin was measured in 53 parts per billion. Geologists were recruited to determine whether underground swales were responsible for carrying the chemicals to the surrounding residential areas. Once there, they explained, chemicals could leach into basements and evaporate into household air.
In 1979, the EPA announced the result of blood tests that showed high white blood cell counts, a precursor to leukemia, and chromosome damage in Love Canal residents. In fact, 33 percent of the residents had undergone chromosomal damage, while in a normal population, this should be at 1 percent. Other studies were unable to find harm. The National Research Council surveyed Love Canal health studies in 1991. New York State also has an ongoing health study of Love Canal residents. In that year the Albert Elia Building Co., Inc., now Sevenson Environmental Services, Inc., was selected as the principal contractor for cleanup work at the Love Canal Site.
Eventually, the government relocated more than 800 families and reimbursed them for their homes, and the United States Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or the Superfund Act, that holds polluters accountable for their damages. In 1994, Federal District Judge John Curtin ruled that Hooker/Occidental had been negligent, but not reckless, in its handling of the waste and sale of the land to the Niagara Falls School Board. Curtin's decision also contains a detailed history of events leading up to the Love Canal disaster. Occidental Petroleum was sued by the EPA and in 1995 agreed to pay $129 million in restitution. Residents' lawsuits were also settled in the years proceeding the Love Canal disaster.
Aftermath
Today, houses in the residential areas on the east and west sides of the canal have been demolished. All that is left on the west side are abandoned residential streets. Some older east side residents, whose houses stand alone in the demolished neighborhood, chose to stay. It was estimated that less than 10% of the original 900 families opted to remain. They were willing to remain as long as they were guaranteed that their homes were in a relatively safe area. On June 4, 1980, the Love Canal Area Revitalization Agency (LCARA) was founded to restore the area. The area north of Love Canal became known as Black Creek Village. LCARA wanted to resell 300 homes that had been originally bought by New York when the residents were relocated. These homes were further away from where the chemicals had been dumped. The most toxic area (16 acres) has been reburied with a thick plastic liner, clay and dirt. A 2.4 metre high barbed wire fence was constructed around this area. It has been calculatd that 248 separate chemicals, including 60 kilograms of dioxin have been unearthed from the canal.
There has been much controversy surrounding Love Canal and the eventual health consequenes were for the inhabitants. In 1998, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan wrote an editorial about the Canal in which she stated that when the media started calling the Canal a "public health time bomb," it created hysteria. She declared that people were not falling ill due to exposure to toxins, but from stress caused by the media..
Love Canal, along with Times Beach, Missouri, share a special place in United States environmental history as the two sites that in large part led to the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). CERCLA is much more commonly referred to as "Superfund" because of the fund established within the act to help the clean-up of toxically polluted residential locations such as Love Canal. It has been stated that Love Canal has "become the symbol for what happens when hazardous industrial products are not confined to the workplace but 'hit people where they live' in unestimable amounts."
Love Canal is a great tragedy in American history. However, it is not an isolated case. Eckardt C. Beck, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Love Canal crisis mentioned that there are probably hundreds of similar dumpsites across the United States. Indeed, President Carter even declared that discovering these dumpsites is "one of the grimmest discoveries of the modern era." The general public is often the least informed about the area in which they are inhabiting, and become the victims. It was noted previously that most of the residents of Love Canal were not aware of the Canal's past history. Had they been aware that they were residing on toxic chemicals, most people would not have moved to this neighbourhood. Although Beck noted that one main problem remains that ownership of such chemical companies can change over the years making liability difficult, more aggressive commitment is needed to ensuring safety for all. Humans are faced with risks and dangers everyday, but no one should be at risk from living in his/her own home. Reducing environmental hazards is therefore essential. Beck contended that increased commitment was necessary to develop controls that would "defuse future Love Canals."
The legacy of the disaster spawned a fictional made-for-TV film entitled Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal was made in 1982. A documentary entitled In Our Own Backyard was released in the U.S. in 1983, and Modern Marvels retold the disaster in 2004.
See also
External links
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- A contemporary libertarian commentary by Eric Zuesse published in Reason Magazine
- MP3 of Lois Gibbs on environmental justice and Love Canal
- EPA History - "The Love Canal Tragedy" by Eckardt C. Beck
- Former Domtar Mill site, Cornwall, ON
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