History of the Love Canal
May 1894: The Beginning
May 23rd, 1894 several citizens turned up for the ground breaking of the Love Canal. The canal was planned by William T. Love to connect the Niagara River to Lake Ontario. He wanted to create a route along the Niagara and provide electricity to the area. Ultimately the canal was abandoned after only a mile-long section approximately fifty feet wide and anywhere from ten to forty feet deep had been completed. The project was abandoned when the investors began pulling out of the project in 1893 and Love could no longer afford to complete it.
1905 to 1955: Transfer of Responsibility
Hooker Electrochemical Company opened its doors in 1905 and in 1942 received permission from the city to dump chemical waste into the old Love Canal. The company realized that the way they disposed of chemicals was a fire hazard to the growing number of residents in the Love Canal area. Residents recall seeing employees by the canal daily in order to put out fires from the drums of waste. It is estimated that Hooker dumped 21,000 tons of toxic waste into the Love Canal from 1942 to 1952.
In 1953 Hooker sold the land to the Niagara Falls School Board for $1 with the transfer of liability for any incidents that may occur due to the chemical waste. The school board began construction on the school and workers discovered drums of waste barely below the surface. Instead of scraping plans for the elementary school it was just moved 80 feet to the north and completed. The school opened its doors in 1955.
1960's to 1970's: Problems Arise
Thanks to government-sponsored housing loans many working class people were able to buy homes and began moving into the area in droves in the 60's and 70's. A low-income housing complex called Griffon Manor was built across the street from the school and many low-income people as well as welfare recipients' moved into the apartment complex. A large majority of the home owners were working-class whites; whereas the majority of the renters were low-income/working-class African Americans.From 1975 to 1976 the groundwater level rose due to record rainfalls and 55-gallon drums of chemicals began to surface in the Love Canal. There were 421 chemical records for air, water, and soil samples in and around the Love Canal area. This was the first indication to the residents of the area that there had been chemicals disposed in the area. They had not been informed of the disposal by the city, the real estate agents, or Hooker Electrochemical Company.
As explained in Love Canal Revisited Michael Brown, a reporter for the Niagara Gazette, started showing interest in what was going on at the Love Canal when he witness "homes where dogs had lost their fur... children with serious birth defects... entire families in inexplicably poor health."
Many residents were willing to talk to Brown about their experiences, but had not discussed their health issues with their neighbors until after he began to realize the relationship between the cases. Residents reported oily puddles in their yards and coming into their basements that smelled rancid.
The city of Niagara Falls contracted Calspan Corporation to investigate the chemical waste in the Love Canal and offer cleanup solutions. The corporation offered a cleanup option that would cost almost half a million dollars which was refused by the city. This is when the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was contacted to conduct tests on the area. The EPA took soil, water, and air samples from throughout the area. Many residents were still unaware of what exactly was going on; but with the testing and news coverage more and more residents were becoming aware that their health issues and that of their children may be due to something serious that the city was hiding.
Lois Gibbs, a resident of the Love Canal, began to realize that the chemicals may be the cause of her son's epilepsy which he developed in December of 1977 shortly after starting school in September of 1977. She started doing her own research about the history of the area. She decided that something had to be done and wanted to move her son to another school, but the school refused to let her move her son. This is when she started going from house to house rallying other parents and hearing the similar accounts of health issues the other families were encountering.
In April of 1978 the New York Department of Health Commissioner declared the Love Canal area a threat to human health and a health emergency. Residents in the area were reporting miscarriages, birth defects, nervous breakdowns, asthma, urinary system diseases, and some possible effects experienced were deafness, cancer, and visual defects. State officials started taking blood samples from 4,000 residents to see if the health issues were caused due to the toxic waste.
Though there were many black residents living in the area at the time they were not shown in any of the footage regarding the Love Canal tragedy and were never seen on the news or in articles. Some of the white residents that were part of the LCHA group saw the black residents as less deserving of compensation because they were renters and many were on Welfare. One couple that were prominent in LCHA were quoted as saying that if the renters wanted to move than they should on their own or with the help of welfare. The couple went on to state that the renters weren’t invested in the Love Canal like the homeowners were because they were just renters. This couple was ignorant to the fact that those on welfare who lived in the projects couldn’t just up and leave the area as easily as they thought they could. Many of the renters relied on government benefits just to give their families the basic necessities and couldn’t afford to just up and move.
The black residents were segregated from the white residents and felt that they were being unfairly treated. Lois Gibbs, the head of LCHA, had initially wanted to include the black residents but was strongly urged from doing so by a bureaucrat, Mike Cuddy, who gave her long lists of different crimes different blacks had been convicted of and told her not to “be messing with them” because they were “dangerous”. She later came to state that she felt he was trying to persuade her from working with them because if they were united it would have been an even larger threat to the city and state.
Ultimately the only hope for the black residents was through the NAACP who eventually stepped in and helped the residents fight for compensation. The NAACP helped empower the black residents who formed the group of the Concerned Love Canal Renters Association. With the help of LCHA and CLCRA both the homeowners and the renters in the Love Canal were able to relocate.
1980's to 1990's: The Cleanup Process
Scientists brought into the area identified chemicals that seeped into the basements of the houses on, near, and around the site. Over 800 families were relocated and a cleanup was planned by the EPA. Hooker was sued for $129 million. The EPA cleaned up approximately 21 tons of toxic waste in a 16 acre area. The final stage of the cleanup was estimated to take five years.A process called thermal destruction was used where contaminated sediment was dredged from the canals, incinerated, and then place back into the canal. Approximately 35,000 cubic yards of sediment were said to be destroyed using this method. The initial estimated cost of the final phase of cleanup was to be between $26 million and $31 million. Prior to the final phase of cleanup a total of $200 million had been spent to relocate 1,000 families and relocate the drums of chemicals that were still intact.
Now: Current Legal Action and Testimonies
In 2004 the city started trying to revitalize the Love Canal and had built a new playground across from the school had once been. Where the school once stood is now a fenced off contamination plant that does regular testing of land, water, and air to ensure that it is safe for residents to live in the surrounding area.The city started building new housing and fixing up some of the abandoned houses to sell. People were told that the toxins were cleaned up and that it was safe to move back into the neighborhood. One couple bought their four bedroom home for less than $40,000, which is unheard of. The fact that housing is so cheap means that many of the families who did move into the area did so because they couldn’t afford housing in an area that was less expensive and the Love Canal is home to many working low-income families and minorities.
The couple that bought the four bedroom house has experienced miscarriages and other health problems since moving into their home when they first came across it in 2004. Over six families have filed lawsuits due to the misinformation provided when they bought their homes with an estimated 1100 more lawsuits according to lawyers.
It seems that the story of The Love Canal Tragedy is still being written....
