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Love Canal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Love CanalSuperfundsite
The Love Canal site in 2012
Geography
City / Niagara Falls
County / Niagara County
State / New York
Love Canalwas a neighborhood inNiagara Falls, New York, located in theLaSallesection of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and theNiagara Riverone-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In the mid-1970s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 22,000 tons oftoxic wastebyHooker Chemical Company(nowOccidental PetroleumCorporation).
Hooker Chemical sold the site to theNiagara Falls School Boardin 1953 for $1, with a deed explicitly detailing the presence of the waste,[1]and including a liability limitation clause about the contamination. The construction efforts of housing development, combined with particularly heavy rainstorms, released the chemical waste, leading to apublic healthemergency and anurban planningscandal. Hooker Chemical was found to be negligent in their disposal of waste, though not reckless in the sale of the land, in what became a test case for liability clauses. The dumpsite was discovered and investigated by the local newspaper, theNiagara Falls Gazette, from 1976 through the evacuation in 1978.
Ten years after the incident,New York State Health DepartmentCommissioner David Axelrod stated that Love Canal would long be remembered as a "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations."[2]The Love Canal incident was especially significant as a situation where the inhabitants "overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around."[3]
State of emergency
The lack of public interest in Love Canal made matters worse for the homeowners' association, which now battled two organizations who were spending vast amounts of money to disprove negligence. Initially, members of the association had been frustrated by the lack of a public entity that could advise and defend them. Gibbs met with considerable public resistance from a number of residents within the community: the mostly middle-class families did not have the resources to protect themselves, and many did not see any alternative other than abandoning their homes at a loss.
Evacuated house in the Love Canal, windows boarded up and damaged by the environment.
By 1978, Love Canal had become a national media event with articles referring to the neighborhood as "a public health time bomb," and "one of the most appalling environmental tragedies in American history."[19]Brown, working for the local newspaper, theNiagara Gazette, is credited with not only breaking open the case, but establishing toxic chemical wastes as a nationwide issue as well. Brown's book,Laying Waste, examined the Love Canal disaster and many other toxic waste catastrophes nationwide.[22]
On August 7, 1978, United States PresidentJimmy Carterannounced a federal health emergency, called for the allocation of federal funds and ordered the Federal Disaster Assistance Agency to assist the City of Niagara Falls to remedy the Love Canal site.[23]This was the first time in American history that emergency funds were used for a situation other than a natural disaster.[24]Carter had trenches built that would transport the wastes to sewers and had homesump pumpssealed off.[23]
At first, scientific studies did not conclusively prove that the chemicals were responsible for the residents' illnesses, and scientists were divided on the issue, even though eleven known or suspectedcarcinogenshad been identified, one of the most prevalent beingbenzene. There was also dioxin (polychlorinated dibenzodioxins) in the water, a very hazardous substance. Dioxin pollution is usually measured inparts per trillion; at Love Canal, water samples showed dioxin levels of 53parts per billion.[23]Geologistswere recruited to determine whether undergroundswaleswere responsible for carrying the chemicals to the surrounding residential areas. Once there, chemicals couldleachintobasementsand evaporate intohousehold air.
In 1979, the EPA announced the result ofblood teststhat showed highwhite blood cellcounts, a precursor toleukemia,[19]andchromosomedamage in Love Canal residents. In fact, 33% of the residents had undergone chromosomal damage. In a typical population, chromosomal damage affects 1% of people.[23]Other studies were unable to find harm.[25][26][27][28][29]TheUnited States National Research Council(NRC) surveyed Love Canal health studies in 1991. The NRC noted that the major exposure of concern was the groundwater rather than drinking water; the groundwater "seeped into basements" and then led to exposure through air and soil[30]:196noted that several studies reported higher levels of low-birth weight babies and birth defects among the exposed residents[30]:190–91with some evidence that the effect subsided after the exposure was eliminated.[30]:165The National Research Council also noted a study which found that exposed children were found to have an "excess of seizures, learning problems, hyperactivity, eye irritation, skin rashes, abdominal pain, and incontinence" and stunted growth.[30]:196Volesin the area were studied and found to have significantly increased mortality compared to controls (mean life expectancy in exposed animals "23.6 and 29.2 days, respectively, compared to 48.8 days" for control animals).[30]:215New York State also has an ongoing health study of Love Canal residents.[31]In that year, the Albert Elia Building Co., Inc., now Sevenson Environmental Services, Inc., was selected as the principal contractor to safely re-bury the toxic waste at the Love Canal Site.
Eventually, the government relocated more than 800 families and reimbursed them for their homes, and theUnited States Congresspassed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or theSuperfundAct. Because the Superfund Act contained a "retroactive liability" provision, Occidental was held liable for cleanup of the waste even though it had followed all applicable U.S. laws when disposing of it. In 1994, Federal District JudgeJohn Curtinruled that Hooker/Occidental had beennegligent, but not reckless, in its handling of the waste and sale of the land to theNiagara Falls School Board.[32]Curtin's decision also contains a detailed history of events leading up to the Love Canal disaster.Occidental Petroleumwas sued by the EPA and in 1995 agreed to pay $129 million in restitution.[33]Residents' lawsuits were also settled in the years following the Love Canal disaster.[34]