I featured our local Love Canal as an example for a high school presentation on the importance of…read moretaking care of our ecosystem (I also used the Chernobyl disaster, ha).
Love Canal's history is thick and ugly. You can do a quick google search if you want to read all about it, but I'll give a summary:
Originally intended to be the "perfect urban area," William T. Love purchased the land and quickly abandoned his project in the span of ten years. After that the area became a landfill. Hooker Chemical eventually comes along and purchases the land in 1947, and proceeds to dump all sorts of chemical waste into the canal. Something like 21,800 tons of chemicals would sit in the canal as Niagara Falls entered a population boom.
So, the Niagara Falls School Board approached Hooker Chemical, acquired the land they were dumping wastes into, and had two schools (93rd Street & 99th Street) built, along with low-income family residences. Construction would drill into the chemical drums buried here, and toxic wastes would escape when rainwater washed through them.
Twenty or so years later, Lois Gibbs is a local mother who is concerned for her son's poor health, learns that her and her neighbors' homes are built atop chemical waste. She faced many barriers in attempts to expose the awful conditions in which they were living (ignored by city officials, even the mayor stated there was nothing wrong). Eventually Jimmy Carter declared a federal health emergency and sent officials to remedy the site.
At that point the 99th street school had been demolished. Hooker Chemical & the school board refused to accept liability. The federal government eventually had residents relocated, and demolished most of the homes on the land.
Today, Love Canal is a grim reminder of what costs we pay when dealing with chemical companies, and that it's important to know your history. The area is essentially a ghost town, with a small handful of homes still standing (some families refused to move during the evacuation).
This place is creepy. Recently I decided to take a little drive through the area, and a couple of the streets have road blocks that prevent you from driving down them. You can drive down 100th St. (a completely barren road), turn down Wheatfield Ave and check out the couple of houses that still stand on 101st St. (that's what I did). The space that I assume was the dump site seems to be completely fenced off. Frankly, I think I prefer to stay outside of that fence.
Day 15
