Love Canal

In 1942, Hooker Chemicals and Plastic Corp., a part of Occidental Petroleum, take over the Love Canal Landfill. Hooker starts to put in toxic waste and hazardous chemicals, adding to the filth already there. Day after day, week after week, year after year, the corporation mucked up the entire landfill, filling it until it overflowed with toxic filth, grime, and sludge. Until it filled up to the point that no more chemicals could be stuffed in, Hooker did not stop. Finally, in 1952, after the Love Canal is filled, they stop. During the decade that they were contaminating the canal, Hooker dumped over 21,000 tons of toxic waste in the Love Canal landfill. In 1953, when the company has no more use for the land, they sell it to the Niagara Falls city Board of Education for the ridiculously low price of $1. But inevitably, there is a catch. Hooker incorporates into the fine print “a disclaimer of responsibility for future damages due to the presence of buried chemicals.” (The Love Canal Collection – Chronology 3)

The Board of Education built a school at the newly bought Love Canal site (99th street school). They sell the excess land so houses can be built. Between 1950 and 1970, Residents complain about stuff seeping into their basements, yards, and about foul smells. Human and plant life alike suffer from many different mutations, deformities, and injuries. Some birth defects and mutations are deafness, extra rows of teeth, retardation, and too many white blood cells, which is a sign of Leukemia. Plant life was shriveling up, blackening, and dying. When kids came home from playing outside, the had serious burns on their hands and faces. People were later told that these chemicals that were contaminating their homes gave them a higher chance of cancer, genetic damage, and more. The air had a nasty smell that made people choke. There were the broken drums once used to store the chemicals strewn over backyards. Swimming pools turned into big lakes of chemicals, colored blue, yellow, and purple. Puddles of icky, toxic sludge puddles accumulated on yards, basements, an on school grounds.

After many of these reports came in, the Department of Health showed up and started doing tests on the air and the soil. They also did regular check-ups on 239 families that were living in the vicinity of the canal. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) declared that the toxic vapors coming from the canal are a major health threat and that many residents have chromosome damage. The New York Commissioner of Health, Robert Whalem, declares Love Canal and emergency and demands immediate clean up. And finally, on August 7th, 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared Love Canal a National Emergency/Disaster, and gave many funds for over 239 families to relocate. The area where this emergency took place, Love Canal, is now called Black Creek Village. Occidental Petroleum got sued for $129 million and lost. Eventually, the government relocated over 800 families. In a speech President Jimmy Carter said that what was alarming was not this incident itself, but the possibility that there may be many of these kind of emergencies all over the country.

Many testimonies were given, examples of which shall follow this sentence.

1. Lois Gibbs – argued for the LCHA, an organization that was the main part of the resistance
2. Luella Kenny – Son died from cardiac arrest caused by toxins
3. Maric Pazniah – Has an ill asthmatic daughter
4. James Clark – All his family members suffered from health problems caused by the toxic waste
5. Eileen Matsulavage – Her basement was contaminated with toxic chemicals and had to be sealed off

These are the ways in which people resisted, argued and persisted on the subject of dumping toxic waste at Love Canal, so that in the end, the government actually did something about it – protect people from the dangers.