STUDENT INFORMATION SHEET

The once thriving neighborhood in the Love Canal section of Niagara Falls, New York, now looks like a boarded-up ghost town. The empty streets and abandoned homes are silent testimony to the dangers posed by improper hazardous waste disposal.

Love Canal, name for William T. Love, is a half-mile trench. Love had the trench dug during the 1890s as part of an industrial project to channel water from Niagara River. The project failed but the trench remained. Over the years the trench or canal became a disposal site for chemical wastes. During the 1940s and early 1950s the Hooker Chemical Company buried 21,800 tons of wastes in the abandoned canal. Most of the wastes were contained in steel drums. They were buried in clay to seal them from the rainwater.

The Canal site was sold by the Hooker Company to the local school board for $1. A school was built on the land and a neighborhood developed around it. But even the bargain price tag would not have attracted buyers if anyone had known that the dumpsite was like a ticking environmental time bomb ready to go off.

When the schools and home were built the construction of the underground utilities may have damaged the clay cap over the landfill. Cracks in the clay allowed snow and rainwater to seep into the Love Canal and overflow. The chemical, some of which corroded through the steel drums, then began oozing to the surface and seeping into the basements of unsuspecting homeowners nearby. Some chemicals leached into the soil and groundwater and made their way into nearby streams.

Community residents began to notice noxious fumes and pools of thick black sludge on the ground. Some school children began to complain of rashes and respiratory problems. Eight-year-old Jon Kenney used to play in a neighborhood creek with his friends. Traces of the deadly chemical dioxin were found in the creek. Jon Kenney died of kidney failure. Kidney and liver problems as well as increased miscarriages and birth defects all began to come to attention of government and health authorities. As news of health risk mounted, many residents became convinced that their health was endangered. Some residents like Jim and Ursula Clark tried to sell their homes. But they could not attract any buyers, even after offering their $50,000 home for $1.

In August of 1978, the New York State Health Department investigated the area. They found 82 chemicals, including a dozen potentially carcinogenic or cancer-causing substances. They declared a health emergency for the 240 homes bordering the canal. The families were relocated, their homes were purchased by the government, and work to contain the oozing chemicals was begun. These measures cost state, federal, and local agencies more than $27 million.

Unfortunately, the chemical leaks did not stop at the homes directly bordering the canal. An informal study conducted by the EPA found that 11 of 36 Love Canal residents tested had developed chromosome damage. This kind of damage is link to birth defects. The methods of the study were criticized by researchers because they did not compare blood samples with people living outside the Love Canal area. By the high incidence of miscarriages and birth defects was alarming. Of the fifteen babies born to Love Canal families between January 1979 and January 1980, the Love Canal Homeowner's Association reported that only two were normal. The others had birth defects or were stillborn.

Many of the residents remaining in the neighborhood were frightened and frustrated. They wanted to move but knew that no one would buy their homes. Jo Ann Kott, a Love Canal resident who had suffered a miscarriage and a stillborn, claimed: "I want a fair market value for my house and to get this nightmare over with." The Love Canal Homeowner's Association president, Lois Gibbs, sent a telegram to president Carter: "Don't let our people get lost in a sea of red tape as we watch our babies fighting sickness and growing up into an uncertain future." The distraught residents also held two EPA officials "hostage" for six hours in the Association's headquarters to draw attention to their plight.

President Carter responded by declaring the neighborhood covering six blocks from the canal as a federal emergency area in May of 1980. Four hundred more families were then evacuated. Their homes were boarded up and purchased with state and federal funds. Several lawsuits were filed against the Hooker Chemical Company. Their outcome will determine who will pay the cost of buying the homes, cleaning up the canal, and for the families.

What will become of the Love Canal neighborhood? The school and 227 homes near the canal have been demolished. Plans to have people move into some of the empty homes remaining are underway. In an attempt to make the area safe, the area has been capped with a new layer of clay. Trenches with drainage pipes have been built on both sides of the canal to capture chemically contaminated leachate.

But safety is still a major concern. In 1982 the federal government declared that houses more than a block and a half away from the canal were safe to live in. But a year later chemicals were discovered to be leaking from the canal and resettlement plans were put on hold. When and if the area will be safe is still unknown. A more frightening unknown concerning families who fled the Love Canal is what the long-term health effects will be for themselves and children yet to be born.