LOVE CANAL
In 1894, a man named William Love tried to build a canal to unify waterways into shipping systems in New York, but did not finish because he did not have enough money to fund the project. The space was named the Love Canal. The Hooker Electrochemical Corporation used the site as a waste dump in 1942. Hooker bought the canal and the surrounding land in 1947. By 1950 more than 21,000 tons of chemicals were in the canal. Hooker installed an impermeable cap to prevent water from entering the canal, and the former canal disappeared underground.
The local School Board needed to build a new school in the early 1950s. They bought the Love Canal property. The Hooker Company says that they told the board about the toxins, but sold the land to them anyway. An elementary school was built on the property and the school board sold the rest of the land to developers who built a bunch of houses on the rest of the property. The construction of these buildings caused the canal’s cap to break.
The first known case of exposure to the buried toxins occurred in 1958. People were informed, but no one took any action. In 1978, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDH) became involved in the matter after it was featured in the media. Tests were done on the area, revealing chemicals that were causing health issues among residents in the Love Canal. A public health emergency was declared on August 2nd 1978.
The state then purchased homes nearest to the canal, and the houses were worked on. The residents of the Love Canal area were not satisfied with the studies done by the state, so they sought scientific aid outside of the government’s environmental health establishment. Unusual health issues among residents living in homes along the path of the flow of the toxins seeping out of the canal were then discovered. This information was announced three months later and no one really did anything to solve this problem.
The homeowners in the Love Canal area were angry because they were not receiving any help to fix the chemical problems. On May 19th, 1980 homeowners locked 2 EPA representatives in an office for 5 hours until FBI agents came and demanded their release. They did this to receive media coverage to have their problem recognized by higher authorities. The problem was recognized by President Carter, and they received the money to relocate the rest of the residents in the Love Canal area. Another company bought Hooker Chemical in 1968 and was filed with lawsuits to cover the costs of the cleanup and relocation programs. Love Canal was renamed Sunrise City and the cleanup was complete in 1994.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why did people want to relocate in the love canal area if it was possibly dangerous?
ReplyDelete1. After Love couldn't afford to finish building the canal, did Hooker's company buy the property of where the canal was at, or did they just see that piece of land as a free opportunity to pour all of their dump in?
ReplyDeleteOkay, so maybe that question wasn't so important . . . but anyway!
Wouldn't it be the owners fault for purchasing the houses in this particular area when they were warned that they had toxins in this area,
or would it be the school's fault for selling the land to house owners to build houses when they were already warned by Hooker's people?
What were some of the effects of exposure to the toxins?
ReplyDeleteDid the Hooker Company have the right to dump toxins in the Love Canal before they owned the land?
It says that the people were angry because they werent receiving any aid dealing with the toxin problem, but why?
ReplyDeleteBecuase it meantions several times how the people were warned about toxins and then the people just ignored the warnings.
So what does this mean about the severity of the issue?
So was it really not that bad?
or was it?
Pham:
ReplyDeleteNo, Hooker's company was looking for a place to dump their toxins so they bought the canal and then dumped the toxins afterwards.
The owners were not notified of the toxins when they moved into the area. After the construction took place, the cap began to leak toxins. That is when the homeowners finally realized the dangers of the toxins in the area.
The school only bought property for their school. The rest of the land was bought by homeowners who moved around the area. If Hooker Chemical truly did warn the school board about the toxins, then yes it would be the school's fault for putting their students in risk.
Leah:
ReplyDeleteSome of the effects of the toxins were many miscarriages to large portions of the women living in the area. This caused birth defects.
Hooker Chemical did not dump toxins into the canal until after they bought the land.
Mary: If you are referring to the original people who moved into the Love Canal area, they were not aware of the dangerous toxins. After the area was cleaned,people were relocated there because the NYSDH declared it clean and safe.
ReplyDelete32072: The people living in the love canal area were not informed that there were toxins underneath the land. Hooker SAYS that they warned people, but it was probably in fine print on their deed to sale the land, that no one paid attention to until after the issue was made known publicly. The homeowners were angry for not recieving aid, because they did not have the resources to fix their problem, they were not told of the toxins (they discovered them on their land), and no one is helping them to remove the chemicals. The chemicals were causing health problems, so yes the problem was severe.
ReplyDeleteIf the homeowners knew about the chemical problem why did they continue to live there? did they have no place to go, or did they want the benefits?
ReplyDeleteLike Blake said, the homeowners were NOT informed about the dangerous toxins beneath their homes. Hooker claimed he warned the Department of Health but there is no record of him every saying anything remotely similar to warning the people that were going to live there. And even if they had known, they probably wouldn't have thought any benefits could come from it. It was a physically dangerous risk (just to be near the area). That is why we are very thoroughly lead to believe they had no idea about the chemicals.
ReplyDeleteI thought Blake said that it was probably in their home deed? Were they informed and they did not respond to it, or were they not informed at all?
ReplyDeleteThey weren't informed until the first cases started to show. One of the first cases was a group of three kids that too close to some seeping chemicals in their back yard. People started to question the truth after that.
ReplyDelete