The Contamination Of Love Canal

Love Canal, a Niagra Falls, New York neighborhood, drew headline attention after newspaper sources revealed that the land had been used to bury excessive amounts of toxic waste, in the form of lye and chlorinated limestone by the landowners, Hooker Chemical Company, in the 1920s.

During the year of 1845 a modern day marvel was completed. This feat of modern engineering allowed people and goods alike to travel from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River on a moderately quick and cost effective route. To be completely specific the name of this route would later be known as the Miami Erie Canal. Notably, the canal is known for being the driving force behind the economy and growth in the majority of small towns along the canal. For this reason the canal should be celebrated for its contributions to the development of northwest Ohio.

But because of the drawbacks for commercial waterways with their rapids and waterfalls, Clinton’s idea was an excellent one. He worked hard to promote the idea of the waterway, even as skeptics continued to call the plan, Clinton’s Ditch or Clinton’s Folly. Because of the hard work and perseverance of Clinton, the Erie Canal became a successful engineering project. New York’s terrain was complex, but the canal, four feet deep and forty feet wide, traversed through fields, forests and cliffs and included eighty-three locks. These locks were structures used to equalize water levels between the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers in New

The prevalence of environmental issues in the public awareness reached a point where government was forced to take action in 1979. When Henry Love abandoned construction of a canal in New York in 1920, the site was bought by Hooker Chemical and used as a toxic chemical waste dumping site for the next 33 years (Schons 2011). Then in 1953 Hooker Chemical sold the Love Canal to the school board, and construction of a school began. In the mid to late 1970s, when children’s shoes began melting to the ground and children got sick the residents organized and protested. Media coverage increased and showed toxic black sludge oozing into people’s basements (Schons 2011). The lack of awareness of environmental and health consequences of chemical dumping

Lois Gibbs and the other homeowners at Love Canal had no idea that their neighborhood was built on a chemical dump. So for this question I went to the EPA website and looked up three different superfund sites closest to me. My findings were actually shocking. There were four to five different super fund sites near where I live and most of them were in Newark. I did not realize that they were only two towns away. Before this assignment I had no idea about these superfund sites. I did know that Passaic river is a dirty river because Newark was an industrial hub before.

One morning, in the city of New York around 1910, William Love woke with a dream. His dream was to build perfect community. Along with this idea, came another idea. Power was needed for the community so Love decided a canal would be a perfect choice. Building started but Love found it difficult when other people proved the canal to be a bad idea to generate power. So with that, Love sold his dream to Hooker Chemical Company (www2.epa.gov).

After the defeat with the sole use of the popular epidemiology technique, Lois Gibbs and the Homeowners Association decided to take a different approach when confronting the state. The Association elaborated that the toxic chemicals were “an attack on the nuclear family, as the toxic contamination threatened reproduction and homes” (Hay, “Everyone's Backyard: The Love Canal Chemical Disaster”). They showed that the chemicals were affecting the way the household should run, by hindering the reproduction process, and that the families who have not relocated should, in order to preserve the “[way of life]”. As the past attempts have failed, this effort too failed to get all community members relocated (Hay, “Everyone's Backyard: The Love Canal

The Love Canal disaster which resulted in a myriad of genetic mutations in upstate New York from 1979-1981 prompted civilian unrest and protests nationwide. Prior to public awareness of the environmental and health hazards occurring across the United States, radioactive waste was nonchalantly dealt with as medical conditions were unknown to public knowledge. In 1979, after residents of Love Canal unified and discussed the medical conditions that plagued their children and newborns, outcry began to spring as residents demanded governmental answers, response, and action. Prominent leaders among civilians became immortalized as the first environmental reformers in western society, specifically Lois Gibbs, who led numerous

The Love Canal disaster which resulted in a myriad of genetic mutations in upstate New York from 1979-1981 prompted civilian unrest and protests nationwide. Prior to public awareness of the environmental and health hazards occurring across the United States, radioactive waste was nonchalantly dealt with as medical conditions were unknown to public knowledge. In 1979, after residents of Love Canal unified and discussed the medical conditions that plagued their children and newborns, outcry began to spring as residents demanded governmental answers, response, and action. Prominent leaders among civilians became immortalized as the first environmental reformers in western society, specifically Lois Gibbs, who led numerous protests and

This document, Recipe for Disaster: Motherhood and Citizenship at Love Canal, holds focus to the decades between 1960-1980’s in which the residents of Niagara Falls, New York faced a large problem of toxic waste surrounding their homes. Its author, Amy M. Hay, reveals specific characteristics about the area such as homes being built on the toxic land in addition to the toxins taking a toll on the environment. In “the Love Canal” as it is nicknamed, children are constantly falling to illnesses’, mothers seem to keep falling victim to miscarriages, and residents are faced with the dilemma of deciding between leaving or remaining in their homes at the Loving Canal. Correspondingly, all of the aforementioned seems to be happening on a constant

The Artificial River, the Erie Canal, branches off of the Hudson River and flows through New York, from Albany to Buffalo, for 363 miles until it reaches Lake Erie. The proposal to build the largest man-made waterway at the time was approved in 1808, but some thought it was an outrageous idea that would fail; however, it took only 17 years to prove these people wrong because The Grand Celebration of opening the canal took place in 1825.

One of the current disasters that everyone doesn’t realize is the pollutions within our waters, it is such a vital things in our lives, yet the business don’t care about the future’s wellbeing. Thus they are allowed to do whatever they want because the earth believes that our Economy is much greater than our environment. I believe that the Gold King mine was the biggest disasters within the United States , because how much it affected the people that live near the area, and how fast it spread to other people that were not aware.

The issue that stands out to me as most important is that of environmental justice and environmental racism, as discussed in chapter 3. The book described environmental justice as "the efforts to ensure that hazardous substances are controlled so that all communities receive protection regardless of race or socioeconomic circumstances” (Schaefer). Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards, mainly how intentionally neglecting the needs for pollution control in urban areas and its effects on the community’s health. Minorities and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by polluting industries, environmental justice is the movement’s response to environmental racism.

Love Canal is one of the most iconic and appalling environmental tragedies in American history. Dreamed up by a visionary, William T. Love built Love Canal to create a dream community on the fringe of Niagara Falls where all could see it as a dream community. Love built the Canal because he thought that by digging a short canal between two rivers that he could generate electricity to power homes and business in the community surrounding the canal. With the invention of AC power and a depression, the canals power systems were never installed and it remained as a dry canal for quite some time. It’s ironic that it had such grand intentions considering the Love Canal would become one of Americas most polluted superfund sites in American history.

Environmental Issues are referred as air pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, loss of vegetation, deforestation, desertification, non-renewable mineral resources, soil desegregation, soil erosion, and overgrazing.