The Love Canal area was originally the site of an abandoned canal that became a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste (including polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, and pesticides) produced by the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation in the 1940s and ’50s.
What happened at Love Canal in 1978?
1978: Dr. Robert Whalen, state health commissioner, declares a state of emergency at the Love Canal. The 99th Street School is ordered closed, and the commissioner recommends relocation of pregnant women and children under 2 from the first two rings of houses nearest the canal.
What did the Love Canal cause?
Public awareness of the disaster unfolded in the late 1970s when investigative newspaper coverage and grassroots door-to-door health surveys began to reveal a series of inexplicable illnesses—epilepsy, asthma, migraines, and nephrosis—and abnormally high rates of birth defects and miscarriages in the Love Canal
What eventually happened to the Love Canal?
Love Canal was the first Superfund site on that list. Eventually, the site was cleaned and deleted off the list in 2004.
What was controversial about the Love Canal?
Contamination at a waste dump site in the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls became a hotbed issue in 1978. Contamination at a waste dump site in the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls became a hotbed issue in 1978. His wife, Teresa, said she’s had two miscarriages and numerous unexplained cysts.
What happened at Love Canal and why was it significant?
The Love Canal area was originally the site of an abandoned canal that became a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste (including polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, and pesticides) produced by the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation in the 1940s and ’50s.
Is Love Canal still toxic?
They say they found toxins “previously found in Love Canal-related sites.” Indoors, toxins can get trapped and build up. Tests there found toxin levels 10 to 100 times higher. So far, state officials have declined to test inside residents’ homes.
Why was the Love Canal important?
Love Canal was a major turning point that shaped environmental policy in the US. It is widely cited as the beginning of the anti-toxics movement and was a landmark event in the grassroots struggle for compensation.
Why is it called Love Canal?
pop. 242,200) on the western frontier of New York State. The landfill takes its name from William T. Love, whose plan it was in the 1890s to dig a power canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers to provide cheap hydroelectric power for a proposed model industrial city.
How did they clean up Love Canal?
Industrial chemicals dumped into the partly completed canal by the Hooker Chemical Company from 1947 to 1952 have been removed or contained in one area that was lined with impermeable materials and capped by clay. A drainage system collects water runoff and treats it.
Who cleaned up Love Canal?
NYS, including its agency, the Love Canal Area Revitalization Agency (LCARA), and FEMA worked closely together to achieve this massive effort. All but two families within Rings 1 and 2 were evacuated, and, in 1982, their homes were demolished.
Is Hooker Chemical still in business?
The company became notorious in the 1960s when residents near its chemical waste site, Love Canal, reported extraordinarily high incidences of leukemia, birth defects, and other injuries.
Hooker Chemical Company.
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 1968 |
| Fate | Acquired by Occidental Petroleum |
| Area served | United States |
| Products | chloralkali products |
Has the Love Canal lawsuit been settled?
Closing a major chapter in one of the nation’s most notorious environmental disasters, the company that buried chemical wastes at Love Canal reached an out-of-court settlement with New York State yesterday, agreeing to pay $98 million and to take on cleanup work that will extend for decades, at a cost of millions more.
When was Love Canal taken off the National Priorities List?
2004
In 1981 Love Canal was placed on the Environment Protection Agency’s National Priorities List to receive federal cleanup aid. Until 1999 site remediation continued, and in 2004 Love Canal was removed from the list; however, it remains part of the Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site Program of the State of New York.
Can you live in Love Canal now?
Prohaska: No, there are not. There are remnants of streets that stop at the fence of the containment area, and some don’t exist anymore because they’ve been buried, but no existing streets are blocked or officially uninhabitable.
What happened to the residents who lived in Love Canal 35 years ago?
Residents began complaining of miscarriages, urinary and kidney problems and mental disabilities in their children. With Love Canal getting national attention, President Jimmy Carter in 1978 issued a disaster declaration that eventually led to evacuation and compensation for more than 900 families.
How did the Love Canal affect humans?
From 1974 to 1978, 56% of the children in the Love Canal neighborhood were born with a birth defect, including three ears, a double row of teeth, and mental retardation. There were almost three times as many defects in historically wet areas. State health authorities quickly dismissed the study.
How did the Love Canal affect animals?
He found that animals caught near the fence had severely damaged livers, including excess fat, underdeveloped reproductive organs, lowered levels of important body chemicals and unusually low levels of the energy-producing substance called glycogen.
What was the environmental impact of the Love Canal disaster?
The Love Canal landfill contained approximately 21,800 tons of chemical wastes. Substantial migration and contamination of soil, groundwater and basement air of nearby homes was apparent in the late 1970s.
Why did the project at Love Canal fail?
The explosion was triggered by a record amount of rainfall. Shortly thereafter, the leaching began. I visited the canal area at that time. Corroding waste-disposal drums could be seen breaking up through the grounds of backyards.
