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Environmental JusticeMain Menu1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory FireClimate RefugeesExxon Valdez Oil Spill: The Greatest Environmental Disaster in an Entire GenerationLove CanalLove Canal: An Interactive TimelineAltgeld GardensMicrobeads: Tiny but Mighty Killers in the Great LakesTaconite Mining: The Reserve Mining CompanyDeepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Background Information
12016-04-20T11:47:36-07:00Ashley Emerson980c8ae40523347679e3ca777b9d749766f1493c760116image_header2016-05-03T09:39:16-07:00Ashley Emerson980c8ae40523347679e3ca777b9d749766f1493cThe Love Canal Tragedy took place in the southeast section of the La Salle area of Niagara Falls, New York.
The city was named after the late 18th-century entrepreneur William T. Love who envisioned a canal connecting the two levels of the Niagara River with his plan being to incorporate a canal that would provide cheap hydroelectric power to the Niagara area. This in turn would have been an industrial community named Model City. Though the city was never constructed due to the fluctuations of the economy as well as being able to transmit electricity by alternating currents as discovered by Tesla. However, the development of the canal had already begun.
The land was then sold at a public auction to the city of Niagara Falls in 1920 with whom then began to use the property as a landfill for municipal and industrial chemical waste. Later on, the U.S. Army also began burying waste from chemical warfare at the site as well. Then in 1942 Hooker Chemical took over the 15-acre site and disposed of around 22,000 tons of mixed chemical wastes into the Canal by 1952. The land was then sold in 1953 to the Niagara Falls School Board for $1.00. Included in the sale was a deed saying that they are not responsible for any future damages since there was buried chemicals on the site.
