The Love Canal Disaster
You’re sitting on the couch watching TV on a calm Sunday evening when you just remember the clothes that are in the dryer. Easing your way off the sofa you open the basement door and walk down the steps, upon reaching the bottom you are hit with an overwhelming odor that makes you feel a little bit dizzy and forces you to pinch your nose. Breathing through your mouth you make your way to the dryer, telling yourself that you’re going to call the city again and make them come out this time. As you begin folding the clothes you see a bright flash out of the corner of your eye, looking across the room you see that a part of the floor has burst into flames!
The Perfect Community
In the 1800s the United States government wanted to build a canal that could connect Lake Erie with Lake Ontario in order to ship goods between the two. In 1836 an engineer from the federal government surveyed land in Niagara County and found a perfect spot in Lewiston, right beside the Niagara River. The spot had a 300-foot escarpment that extended between six to seven miles and would be a great spot to build a shipping canal, the engineer also noted that it could produce large amounts of hydroelectric power. However nothing was done with the engineer's discovery until the 1890s when a man with the dream of a perfect city found out about it.
William T. Love was an entrepreneur and forward thinking visionary who wanted to create a model industrial community. He dreamed of a thriving city where people were employed by industry and all the power that would be needed could be produced using hydroelectric. When he heard about the escarpment and the canal idea he realized it would be the perfect place for such a community. He quickly went to work selling his idea to prominent individuals throughout New York, boasting that his town would be able to sustain 600,000 people. It did not take long for him to buy and secure options on over 20,000 acres of land in Niagara County around the escarpment and went public with the plan, even gaining support from the New York State legislature. In May of 1894 ground was broke for the canal and 16 acres of land was dug up before the project came to a halt. An economic depression equal to that of the 1930s gripped the country causing money and backing for Love’s idea to quickly dry up. There was hope that the project would continue once the depression lifted but inventor Nikola Tesla put the final nail in the coffin with his invention of alternating current. This allowed electricity to travel great distances from its production source and meant that a power plant no longer needed to be within the vicinity of a town to power it. Now all Love had to show for his hard work and ambition was a 60 foot wide by 3,000 foot long hole in the ground.
Development
In 1910 the incomplete canal was sold at public auction and for several years it was used as a swimming pool by local children. In the 1920s the land was turned into a waste dump for the city and numerous factories, most of which being chemical producers. The U.S. Army would also use the site to dump expired chemicals and it has been rumored that some of the nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project was dumped here. However by far the biggest user of the dump was the Hooker Chemical Company, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum. They purchased the dump and between 1942 to 1953 placed a total of 21,000-22,000 tons of chemical waste there. Hooker Chemical covered the site with fill dirt and on May 7, 1953 sold it to the Niagara Falls School Board for a single dollar. Somewhat foreshadowing things to come, they included in the deed given to the school board a warning about the chemicals they had dumped there in order to absolve themselves of any future liability.
Throughout the 50s the area directly around the site was developed with roughly 100 homes being built. In 1955, not taking the warning in the deed seriously, the school board had the 99th Street Elementary School built on top of the chemical dump, it would see an annual attendance of roughly 400 students. The community continued to expand throughout the 60s and 70s and roughly 800 homes and more schools were built. Though it wasn’t the model city that Love dreamt of it did harken back to his original idea as it became a strong close knit working class community that was largely employed by manufacturing plants, especially those that produced chemical products. It was an inviting community though none of the families that moved here were told about the chemical dump and very few ever found out about it, at least not before it was too late.
Complaints about strong chemical odors and odd looking puddles go back as early as the 50s, but it was not a big enough issue for anyone to really ask questions about. The city did take some minor action when these puddles were found, usually just sending out a worker and having him cover it up with clay or dirt. This was the furthest extent that they went to.
Then Came the Rains
In 1975 and 1976 higher than average rainfall caused the water table in the Niagara region to rise and allowed the discarded chemicals to leach into the groundwater and top soil. These chemicals quickly began seeping into peoples yards and basements forming noxious puddles, some even being found on the local school grounds. Several residents even began experiencing spontaneous combustions in their home due to some of the highly flammable chemicals that had seeped in.
Now that the chemicals were becoming a bigger issue questions started being raised. In 1976 investigative newspapers ran reports on the chemical seepage and how it was affecting homeowners. Journalists began to dig deeper into the health of residents in the area surrounding the dump and compared them to those in other parts of the country. A grassroots door-to-door health survey was conducted and it was discovered that rates of epilepsy, asthma, nephrosis, and many other health issues were much higher than the national average. It was also found that miscarriage rates were exponentially higher here than in other parts of the country. Spurned on by news reports the city hired the Calspan Corporation to do chemical testing in peoples homes. Their tests discovered traces of toxic chemical residue in the air, home sump pumps, and in sewer systems. They also discovered that some of the 55-gallon drums that the chemicals were stored in had migrated up and were now breaching the surface or sitting just inches below it. After the tests they gave the city a few recommendations to remedy the problem, line the canal with clay to prevent chemicals from escaping, seal off home sump pumps, and install a tile drainage system that would mitigate the movement of chemical wastes. The city did not perform any of the recommended fixes, instead they opted to place window fans in some of the homes that had the highest concentration of chemicals.
On November 2, 1976 The Niagara Gazette reported that an independent chemical analysis test showed the presence of 15 different organic chemicals in peoples homes, three of which being toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons. Chlorinated hydrocarbons are commonly found in pesticides and can pose a serious health risk. After further tests the newspaper came out two days later reporting that these chemicals were also escaping into storm drains and leaking into the Niagara River. Throughout 1977 the paper continued to do independent tests and research, each new result seeming worse than the last, and they quickly urged government action.
It would not be until September of 1977 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took notice of the issue that was unfolding at Love Canal. They directed the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to perform tests on the air, ground, and water in the region. These tests revealed a mind boggling 421 chemicals within the area. The situation became much worse in 1978 when record amounts of rainfall further raised the water table and exposed residents to even more of the toxic chemical soup, opening up the already corroding chemical storage barrels and allowing them to spread their vile contents.
Many of the residents, mostly working class mothers, started contacting New York State representatives about the issue but they were largely ignored, being wrote off as “hysterical housewives.” There was one person that took them seriously however, New York Department of Health Commissioner Robert Whalen declared the area a threat to human health. In April of 1978 he ordered the immediate area where the dumpsite was located to be fenced in and directed the County Health Department to begin health studies of residents.
In May the EPA took air samples from the first ring of houses around the dump site and found that there were toxic fumes emanating from people's basements and could pose a serious risk to public health. The five dangerous chemicals they found were chloroform, trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, chlorobenzene and chlorotoluene.1 However in all but one case the vapors remained in the basement and were not found on above floors. Until further testing was done the EPA recommended people to limit their time spent in the basement and to not allow children or pregnant women to enter. Homes in Ring 2 were soon tested and it was found that 55 percent had no trace of any chemicals while the rest only had a very small amount of the others, therefore they were considered “safe.”
The health study continued and in June they began taking blood samples from residents for testing and more chemical samples were taken from homes. By July New York Governor Hugh Carey granted emergency powers to Commissioner Robert Whalen and appropriated $500,000 (Nearly $2 million in today's money) to conduct a long term health study of Love Canal residents. While the health study went on the EPA came back to do soil testing and discovered 82 different chemical compounds, 11 of which being carcinogens. They also discovered that the chemicals were beginning to migrate as they started finding them several blocks away from the dump site, though this had already been previously found by the newspaper's independent testing. Radioactivity tests were also conducted at the site and three spots were found to be putting off more than normal background radiation. While this excess radiation did not exceed safe levels it was still something else for the agents and residents to worry about.
As EPA agents really started investigating the area they realized it was much worse than they originally thought. Trees, grasses, and gardens had turned black and died. At times the air near the site would be permeated with choking fumes. Children would come home from playing with chemical burns on their hands and faces where they had gotten into a chemical puddle. One agent reported an entire swimming pool being lifted out of the ground and floating on a noxious lake of chemicals. Some residents told agents that they knew about the dumping that had occured when they moved here but never believed it would pose a problem since it was all buried underground.
The EPA also did their own studies on the health of Love Canal residents and their findings confirmed those of the newspaper, while also discovering a couple more. All types of birth defects had a much higher rate in the region. When agents were writing up reports on these defects they were approached by a father of one of the children that was affected. He told them, “I heard someone from the press saying that there were only five cases of birth defects here. When you go back to your people at EPA, please don't use the phrase 'only five cases.' People must realize that this is a tiny community. Five birth defect cases here is terrifying.” Another medical issue discovered was that many people had low white-blood-cell counts which can be an early sign of leukemia.
Understandably many parents and grandparents were worried for their children and in the wake of all the new findings they formed the Love Canal Parents Movement, headed by Lois Gibbs. Gibbs was a mother who had a son that attended the 99th Street School. The boy was quite weak and very susceptible to sickness, understandably Miss Gibbs was concerned about him. When she learned from the paper about the chemicals and the EPA findings she took him to the doctor where they recommended he be transferred to a different school. Miss Gibbs met with the school board and showed notes from two physicians that recommended he be transferred. The school board refused and said that if the school was not safe for her child then it would not be safe for others, and they did not want to risk shutting the entire thing down. After this meeting she met with other parents and found that many kids who went to the school had health problems. This spurned her to fight even harder and start the parents movement.
A second group sprouted from that movement, the Love Canal Homeowners Association (LCHA). Residents were worried that individually their representatives would not listen to them, so the LCHA was organized to help them better deal with the chemical problem they now faced. Lois Gibbs was again their leader.
Taking Action
Not long after the EPA tests were released Commissioner Whalen declared the site of Love Canal a health emergency and implemented a state of emergency for the region. The 99th Street School was shut down and Whalen recommended all pregnant women and children under two years of age within the first two rings of houses evacuate, that residents not eat produce from their gardens, and that they limit time spent in their basements. On August 7 the Governor of New York, Hugh Carey, announced that the state government would purchase all of the homes within Ring 1 of the site, though this was later extended to include those in Ring 2. Later that same day President Jimmy Carter approved emergency financial aid to the Love Canal area and appointed the Federal Disaster Assistance Agency to help the city find solutions to the problem. It would be the first time that federal emergency funds would be used for something other than a natural disaster. The U.S. Senate also approved a “sense of Congress” amendment that allowed for more federal aid to be forthcoming as the disaster developed. The Love Canal Interagency Task Force was also created and would perform environmental studies, help relocate families, and come up with plans for a drainage system that would prevent chemicals from migrating further.
By the end of August 1978, 98 families had moved out of the area and by the end of the year a total of 239 families would be relocated. A fence was constructed around the affected area but it was a bit of an arbitrary measure since the chemicals had already spread outside of this fenceline, exposing even more families.
An Uphill Battle
Roughly 700 families were still in the affected area but government officials deemed them insufficient of risk to relocate, but continual findings would say otherwise. In November of 1978 it was discovered that roughly 200 tons of toxic dioxin was dumped at the Love Canal site. Dioxin is a byproduct from different types of chemical manufacturing, in particular the production of herbicides, and it takes a long time to break down. Dioxin is highly dangerous to public health and can cause cancer, developmental issues, reproductive problems, immune system damage, and alter hormones within the body. More tests conducted found 200 additional chemical compounds at the site and residents began to grow even more concerned.
On December 8, 1978 there was a fervent protest over the government's refusal to move 54 other families out of the area which resulted in seven arrests, though the charges were later quietly dropped. Activists continued their battle with the LCHA leading the fight, they organized protests, wrote letters, and campaigned to have the area cleaned up and families relocated. Matters became more contentious in 1979 as doctors, in particular Dr. Beverly Paigen, started reading up on the health studies conducted and urged the government to evacuate more families. The EPA also found that dioxin levels were actually 100 times higher than originally reported and the chemical was starting to spread throughout the area, further fanning residents' fears.
In Washington hearings were held by a senate subcommittee in which arguments were heard by residents, doctors, EPA agents, and Hooker Chemical representatives. Many residents said that the government did not do enough to protect families and that there were still many being exposed to the chemicals. The main focus of the senate however was to try and pin the damages on the Hooker Chemical Company, making them pay for the cleanup and relocation efforts. Bruce Davis, executive vice president of Hooker Chemical's Industrial Chemicals Group, told the senate that the company was not legally liable for the damages incurred by residents as they had sold the land before any of the residents lived in the area. U.S. Representative Albert Gore (D) of Tennessee rebuked this claim and said that they knew about the danger, bringing to light a Hooker Chemical memorandum that told about three or four children who had received burns from chemicals at the Love Canal. The memorandum was dated June 18, 1958, showing that even though they had sold the site they were still wary of it and observing its effects without doing anything to stop it. After these hearings traces of the chemicals were discovered at the 93rd Street School, several blocks away from the waste site and outside the zone of evacuated families. Roughly three months later, likely at the behest of parent groups, the school board closed the school pending further testing.
Some government initiatives were started to help residents in the affected area. They were given property tax breaks on their homes and their own appointed doctor to help mitigate the effects of the chemicals. Another task force was created to help with identifying and cleaning up waste sites all over the country, 36 sites being in the Niagara region alone. The most impactful initiative however was the EPAs approval of $4 million worth of funding to do remedial work to the canal in order to stop the spread of chemicals. They would build a tile drain system, like the one recommended by the Calspan Corporation a couple years earlier. A graded trench would be dug all the way around the canal and would act as a barrier to catch any chemicals attempting to escape. The trench had to be deep as the canal was connected to the Niagara River and fluctuations in water levels were drastic. The top of the canal was sealed in with a clay cap to minimize the amount of rainwater reaching the chemicals, it would also prevent vapors and chemical puddles from rising up to the surface. On top of this clay cap would be regular topsoil and grass. On November 6, 1979 the remedial work was completed and the state announced that it was safe for 110 of the displaced families to move back.
Still many lawsuits were filed by Love Canal residents. A $2.5 billion lawsuit on behalf of 900 residents was launched against the Hooker Chemical Company and three public agencies, but the New York State Supreme Court rejected it. Not long after this rejection the government released a report saying that the odds of Love Canal residents contracting cancer was as high as 1 in 10. In December of 1979 the Federal Justice Department announced a $124 million lawsuit against Hooker Chemical for their dumping at Love Canal and three other sites within the city. By the end of the year roughly 800 lawsuits split up between Hooker and public agencies were filed for a total of $11 billion (Over $39 billion in today’s money).
In the final days of 1979 another cleanup effort was made when the Albert Elia Construction Company was awarded a contract to operate a treatment facility at Love Canal for one year. The treatment facility would pump out any chemicals stopped by the trench system and run it through multiple filters, including an activated charcoal one, and then flush the “clean” water down the sewer system. Unfortunately the water was not entirely pure as filters did not remove chemicals like mercury or heavy metals.
Further tests were conducted in February of 1980 and the EPA discovered that there were still four carcinogenic chemicals found in the air. Two months later New York State filed a $635 million (nearly $2 billion today) lawsuit against Occidental Petroleum, Hooker Chemical’s parent company, for their responsibility in the Love Canal disaster.
At this point one might ask, why not just remove the chemicals? Well some barrels that had migrated to the surface were removed but digging down and removing all of them posed an even bigger problem. The process of removing the chemicals would further agitate the solutions and allow more toxins to enter the air and surrounding areas. It was also a logistical nightmare as there were risks in transporting the chemicals and finding a place where they could be safely stored long enough to break down over time.
A month after New York State filed their lawsuit the EPA announced that of 36 Love Canal residents tested 11 had chromosomal damage, undoubtedly caused by the chemicals they had been exposed to. Damage to chromosomes can be extremely detrimental as it is essentially damage to a person's DNA and can cause a wide range of health problems, including mental disabilities such as Down Syndrome, developmental or growth defects, and even cause high rates of miscarriages. This of course sparked wrath in residents and a few days after the EPAs announcement the Love Canal Homeowners Association held a quite lively meeting. Tensions ran high and it all boiled over when residents took two EPA agents hostage. They were held for six hours as the LCHA used them as leverage to urge the federal government to declare another state of emergency and relocate all families in the Love Canal area. They wanted it done by May 21, a timespan of just two days, or else, as Lois Gibbs put it, “What we’ve done here today, will look like a Sesame Street picnic compared to what we’ll do then.” On May 21 President Carter declared another national emergency, allocating funds for a further 710 families to be relocated.
Lawmakers used the wide publicity from the Love Canal disaster to enact policy that would require those who created the pollution to clean it up. The most prominent legislation passed was the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, more commonly known as the Superfund. This would require any company that caused pollution, no matter whether they sold the land or have some contract trying to absolve themselves from responsibility, to pay for all the expenses related to cleaning, relocating people, and paying for any health problems that may arise because of it. Once this was passed all liability was put squarely on the shoulders of Occidental Petroleum and they paid out huge sums of money to residents and both the federal and state governments. The legislation has also been used to clean up multiple other waste sites as there are currently 1344 superfund sites within the United States.
A Continued Struggle
Most of the homes in Love Canal are considered safe today. The chemical dump site is fenced off and maintained by Occidental Petroleum who have multiple sensors positioned all across the area to detect the migration of chemicals. Unfortunately this oversight does not seem to have stopped the problems. There are residents who still complain about odd smells coming from their tap water and basements. Higher than average rates of an assortment of health problems abound, and there is one woman who has tragically had 10 miscarriages since her and her family have lived there. Representatives from Occidental Petroleum deny these accusations and affirm that their system is working fine. Independent researchers and doctors however say that since no new testing has been done since the 1980s there could be chemicals that were not detected back then that could be detected now with newer technology. The sensors of course can not pick up what they are not searching for so it is certainly possible that there are still chemicals leaching out of the canal. On top of that the sensors were not put in until five years after the containment system was built, so there was no baseline to tell what chemicals could have possibly leaked out in those five years.
In 2014 there were 15 lawsuits filed saying that residents' health is still being damaged by the chemicals. The Department of Environmental Conservation has denied these claims and say that no chemicals have been found in any of the plaintiffs homes. However the lawsuits also name a plumber who performed the tests and had previously gone to jail for telling residents that their homes were chemical free when in fact they were not. At the time of writing this article there are still lawsuits being filed and fought, and it is doubtful that these struggles will end for Love Canal residents anytime soon. One might ask why they do not just move? Put simply many of them do not have the means to move, especially without any sort of government assistance. On top of this many families do not want to move and allow someone else to buy their home and be exposed to the chemicals. They believe there is no sense in exposing others to the dangers they already face.
Appendix 1
Chloroform can cause damage to the nervous and respiratory systems. It can cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, coma, and in some extreme cases death, long term exposure to chloroform can be carcinogenic. Trichloroethene can cause dizziness, sleepiness, and even coma. Long term exposure can damage the nervous system, the respiratory system, and cause autoimmune disorders. Though rare, death has occurred due to exposure to high amounts of trichloroethene. Tetrachloroethene is a carcinogen and short term exposure can affect vision, memory, and other cognitive functions. Long term exposure can cause damage to the nervous system, reproductive system, and be very harmful to unborn children. Chlorobenzene in high doses can cause damage to the liver and kidneys, as well as the slow down of cognitive functions. Chlorotoluene can cause irritation to the nose, throat, and lungs in small doses, higher doses can cause dizziness, loss of coordination, convulsions, and coma.
Personal Thoughts
This disaster really shows the uphill battle that environmentalists faced in the earlier days of these movements. It’s really tragic that the city did not take the problem seriously at all until others got involved. It just seems that at every turn things got worse and to this day there are still issues. When you really think about what these people have gone through it is a quite emotional story, everytime I read the quote from the father who had a child with a birth defect it really bothers me. Just imagining myself as that man and how I would feel.
Sources
Cover photo courtesy of New York Paranormal
https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy.html
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