Case Studies — The Love Canal Story
While there is no specific founding point for the environmental justice movement, the Love Canal story of the late 1970s and early 1980s has helped to bring environmental justice issues into national prominence.
Here are some of the significant milestones in the drama that was and still is Love Canal:
Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. Officially, it covered thirty-six square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along what is now known as 99th Street. Two bodies of water defined the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River about one-quarter mile to the south. The area's name came from William T. Love, who, in the early 1890s, revived an earlier plan to construct a canal connecting the two levels of the Niagara River separated by Niagara Falls to provide hydroelectricity. Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass Niagara Falls, but due to the economic depression of the early 1890s, the plan failed and only about one mile of the canal, about fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep, was ever dug.
In 1920, the land was sold at public auction to the City of Niagara Falls, which began using the undeveloped area as a landfill for waste disposal from its thriving petrochemical industry. There are also allegations that the United States Army used the site to bury waste from its chemical warfare experiments.
In 1942, the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, expanded the use of the site, and in 1947 purchased the land for its own private use. In the subsequent five-year period, the company buried 21,800 tons of toxic waste in the area. Once the site had been filled to capacity in 1952, Hooker closed the site and back-filled the canal.
At the time of the closure, Niagara Falls' population was expanding rapidly and the local school board, desperately needing land, attempted in 1953 to purchase some of the Hooker Chemical property for a new elementary school. The company initially refused to sell, but eventually sold on the condition that the school board buy the entire property for a dollar. In the agreement, Hooker included a seventeen line caveat that explained the dangers of building on the site
Shortly thereafter, the school board began construction on the 99th Street School. The original building site was forced to relocate when contractors discovered two pits filled with chemicals. The new location was directly on top of the former chemical landfill. During construction, a clay seal which Hooker had put in to stop the chemicals from seeping out was broken through. In 1957, the City of Niagara Falls constructed sewers for a mixture of low-income and single-family residences to be built on lands adjacent to the landfill site. In the following years, residents began making repeated complaints of strange odors and "substances" that surfaced in their yards. City officials were brought in to investigate the issue, but little or no action was ever taken.
Although articles had been published as early as October, 1976 and the Environmental Protection Agency had been looking into the matter as early as 1977, the crisis began in April, 1978 with the publication in the Niagara Gazette Newspaper of reporter Michael Brown's series on hazardous waste problems in Niagara Falls, including the Love Canal dumpsite. In response to the series of articles, residents concerned about the health risks from Love Canal called local and state health authorities for answers.
The response was underwhelming. On April 25, 1978, the New York State Health Commissioner confirmed that a public health hazard existed in the Love Canal community. The Commissioner ordered the Niagara County Health Department to remove exposed chemicals from the site and install a fence around the area.
The community response came to be led by Lois Gibbs, president of the Love Canal Homeowners' Association. Gibbs led an effort to investigate community concerns about the health of its residents. The neighborhood had an extremely high rate of cancer, and an alarming number of birth defects and it had been discovered that toxins buried by the Hooker Chemical Company in an adjacent canal operated by the company were responsible for the health problems of the local residents.On August 7, 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared the Love Canal neighborhood an emergency and provided funds to permanently relocate the 239 families who lived in the first two rows of homes that encircled the landfill site. Families living in the remaining 10-block area, including Lois Gibbs' family, were told they were not at risk.
However, in February, 1979 a second evacuation order was issued by the New York State Department of Health. This order recommended that pregnant women and children under the age of two living in the ten block area outside the first evacuation zone of 239 homes should leave. In this case, once the child turned two years of age or the pregnancy terminated, the family was to move back into the contaminated neighborhood.
In September, 1979 an additional 300 families living within the 10 block neighborhood were temporarily relocated as a result of health problems caused by chemical exposures from the clean up activities.
In May, 1980 the Environmental Protection Agency announced the result of blood tests that showed chromosome damage in Love Canal residents. Residents were told that this meant they were at increased risk of cancer, reproductive problems and genetic damage. Frightened by the news and angered by the lack of government action to relocate their families, residents "detained" two EPA employees and challenged the White House to relocate all families by May 21st at noon or "What we've done here today, will look like a Sesame Street picnic compared to what we'll do then," said Gibbs.
On May 21, 1980, the White House agreed to evacuate all Love Canal families temporally until permanent relocation funds could be secured. Funding was secured and President Carter visited the area in October, 1980 to sign the appropriation bill.
In 1983 a lawsuit filed by 1328 Love Canal residents was settled for just under $20 million dollars with Occidental Chemical Corporation, the successor to Hooker Chemical. One million dollars was set aside for a medical trust fund.
Eventually, the government relocated more than 800 families and reimbursed them for their homes. Congress passed the Superfund law holding polluters accountable. Occidental Petroleum was sued by the EPA and in 1995 agreed to pay $129 Million in damages to clean up the site (on top of $98 million paid in 1994 to the state of New York for its share of the costs). The cleanup of the site was investigated, designed, and overseen by the environmental consulting firm Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, based in Waterloo, Canada.
Today, the waterway that gave the neighborhood its name is buried under a plastic liner, clay and topsoil in a fenced area declared permanently off-limits. Scores of homes were buried, but the rest of Love Canal was declared safe by the New York State Department of Health and the EPA. A public corporation took ownership of the abandoned properties, fixed up the homes and resold them. The community is now known as Black Creek Village, and, in a report by CNN in 1998, the new residents of Black Creek Village feel safe in their new homes. "This area has been tested and tested and tested," said homeowner Trudy Christman. "This is the most tested piece of real estate in the United States."
References:
"Love Canal: The Start of a Movement," Center for Environmental Health and Justice
"The Love Canal Collection," State University of New York at Buffalo