Controversy at Love Canal

This article is by Beverly Paigen who was a scientist employed to research the health implications to the residents of Love Canal who's community was built on a toxic waste dump. "In 1942 Hooker Electrochemical Corporation (now Hooker Chemicals and Plastics, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation) began to fill an abandoned canal half-mile long with toxic chemicals from the manufacture of chlorinated hydrocarbons and caustics. More than 21,000 tons of 200 or more chemicals had been deposited in the canal when Niagara Falls Board of Education approached Hooker Chemical about purchasing the site for a school. Hooker claims that it warned the Board of Education that the site was not appropriate for a school. The company says it sold the property for a token $1.00 only when the Broad threatened to take the property by eminent domain. None of the people who were board members at the time are living to confirm or deny the claim, and the minutes of the meetings do not bear out the claim. The deed transferring the property from Hooker to the Board of Education does contain a clause that, Hooker says releases the company from liability." Five years later residents and city officials noted oily mixtures in the topsoil. "As early as 1958 Hooker Chemical and city officials were informed that three children had suffered from chemical burns from exposed wastes on the surface of the canal. The Niagara Falls Health Department and other local officials took no action. This went on unnoticed until 1978 when the EPA and the New York State Department of Health stepped in. "These agencies identified many chemicals in the air of Love Canal homes immediately adjacent to Love Canal." Families closest to the canal where relocated. "In the early fall of 1978 the department announced the preliminary results of these studies; officials assured the Love Canal residents that the neighbourhood was a safe place to live and that the community beyond the homes that had already been evacuated was not at any increased health risk. This announcement was based on data showing that the miscarriage rate in homes beyond the barrier was no higher than elsewhere. The community was not reassured, citing visible seepage through basement walls, chemical odours in homes, and at storm sewer openings as evidence that chemicals migrated beyond the fence. The residents also questioned why certain families living three to four blocks from the canal had multiple miscarriages and other illnesses."
Beverly Paigen did here own research independently and discovered that homes that were built near streams or former swamps "had a threefold increase in miscarriages". This meant that the chemicals had migrated beyond the original boundaries. This was accepted by both parties as a whole but a controversy arose on the degree of the effects. "The two opposing sides in the Love Canal controversy were the community and the New York State Department of Health Department. This was somewhat surprising, since the Health Department had declared the health emergency in the first place. However, when the community turned to the agency they regarded as their ally and protector, they felt the response was inadequate." "In this case the state had much to gain from delay. Since over 600 other hazardous waste site existed in New York, any action taken at Love Canal would set a precedent. Any state official who recommended positive action at Love Canal would have had to justify spending more than the $42,000,000 the state had already allowed for construction to prevent further leakage and relocation of the families living closest to the canal."

Citations:
Controversy at Love Canal by Beverly Paigen

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