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TOXIC WASTE AT LOVE CANAL

Storing Industrial Wastes

In the 1930s and 1940s corporations and citizens did not worry too much about what happened to the chemicals left over from industrial processes. While regulations existed, enforcement was haphazard or nonexistent. Corporations such as Hooker Company in Niagara Falls, New York, which made pesticides, plastics, and other chemicals, mostly just sealed them in fifty-five-gallon metal drums and left them someplace nearby. For Hooker one convenient place was Love Canal, a never-finished part of a Great Lakes canal system begun in the late nineteenth century. While children played and swam nearby, Hooker dumped more than twenty-one thousand tons of chemicals into Love Canal, then filled it in with dirt. In 1953 they gave the covered-over lot to the town for an elementary school and a playground.

Early Warnings

As young families built homes near the elementary school, many noticed that their basements leaked. Some thought they noticed chemical smells and strange colors in water that leaked in. Few knew much about the history of chemical dumping. A dramatic sign that something was amiss came in 1974, when one family's backyard pool rose two feet out of the ground. When they removed it blue, yellow, and purple chemicals suddenly rushed in where the pool had been. By 1977, after several years of unusually heavy rain and snowfall, the former canal was turning into a marsh, and chemicals were noticeably seeping into surrounding soil and streams. The city explored means of dealing with it, but the cost was prohibitively high, and the project became entangled in red tape. While some nearby residents were concerned, it became difficult for them to move as their homes became increasingly worthless. Who would buy a house next to a toxic dump?

Love Canal Homeowners Association

Finally, in 1978 the results of state, local, and federal testing of the air and water in Love Canal basements—testing done after repeated requests from residents—became public. State Health Commissioner Dr. Robert Whalen announced in August that Love Canal was a "great and imminent peril to the health of the public" and urged pregnant women and children under two to leave the homes that abutted one end of the canal. There, studies had found conclusive evidence of an abnormally high rate of miscarriages and birth defects. The announcement left homeowners angry, frightened, and frustrated. Many quickly drew the conclusion that adults and older children in the area, and of neighboring streets, might also be in danger. "Do I let my three-year old stay?" asked one. They organized the Love Canal Homeowners Association to pressure officials to buy their homes and elected as president Lois Gibbs, a twenty-seven-year-old housewife who lived two blocks away from the canal. Gibbs turned out to have a tremendous talent for organizing residents and keeping the issue in the news.

Disaster

Shortly after the formation of the association, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the area a federal disaster area, freeing up funds for residents of the south end of the canal to relocate. However, this still left those in surrounding areas unable to move, despite growing evidence of high rates of cancer and other illnesses. Local activists began systematically testing substances in their homes, streams, and soil, gradually accumulating a long list of chemicals, including C-56 (a pesticide believed to be carcinogenic), benzene, toluene, and even PCBs (a highly toxic substance). Gibbs undertook a systematic health survey of residents outside the evacuation area and turned up high rates of kidney and bladder troubles, birth defects, miscarriages, and nervous disorders. After six months the state agreed to pay for pregnant women and those with small children to be relocated, yet it forced them to return to Love Canal when the children grew older. Unsatisfied, residents continued to sign petitions, write letters, and hold demonstrations. Then in 1980 the state confirmed what some had long suspected: that among the chemicals at Love Canal was dioxin, one of the most acutely toxic substances ever created. When this news was released, the state finally agreed to buy the nearby homes. After two years of anxiety and activism, homeowners there were finally permitted to leave. Whether this was the end of the saga remains uncertain. A decade later the government put these houses on the market again, and a new community of homeowners moved in amid controversy about whether the site was still unsafely contaminated with toxic waste.