The Love Canal Crisis : An Epidemic

Very few people understand and realize the real differences between cultures and how books tend to portray them. Love in the Time of Cholera takes place along the coast of an unnamed city along the Caribbean. The culture in this unnamed city is very strong and very existent. The author Gabriel García Marquez focuses on a more urban society rather than a rural one in this book. García Márquez shows less religion and more social detail in this book than in his earlier works (“Love”). In this book he not only shows the cultural detail of Columbia but, also their everyday life but as well as some common things in others’ lives who live in all different parts of the world. Although Love in the Time of Cholera is set ten to twenty years before the turn of the century,

The Gowanus Canal, located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is one of the most heavily contaminated bodies of water in the United States. The dimensions of the Gowanus canal are 100-feet wide and 1.8 miles long. The canal is built in the mid-1800’s as a major industrial transportation route. Historically it was surrounded by heavy industries such as gas plants, concrete plants, industrial plants, chemical plants, tanneries, and paper mills. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, over six million tons of cargo was being transported on the canal annually over the years.

Superfund sites are districts in communities that have abandoned hazardous wastes on territories that need immediate removal.In the early 70’s the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 encouraged Superfund statues in Washington and these statues handle issues associated with land pollution and abandoned hazardous waste on territories .Superfund acts aid Washington and environmental agencies with removing hazardous waste and it also, allows them to pursue people and corporations that own hazardous waste territories. The principles for the Superfund acts include the quick removal of hazardous materials when environmental regulations demand it, bringing legal disputes against owners of hazardous waste territories, initiating communities and states in waste removal processes and developing extended programs that protect citizens from hazardous waste territories .In the late 70's environmental advocates discovered the contamination at the Superfund site called the Love Canal in Niagara Falls ,NY and they also discovered the surrounding territories contained pollutants and abandoned hazardous waste .The Love Canal is New York states first case of environmental neglect by a corporation and this community and facilities contained hazardous polluted water and dirt that resulted from years of accidental spills ,leaks and irresponsible business recycling

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

They called it the “stump puller”, it was a 16 foot high 30 foot long set of wheels and pulleys dragged by horses that yanked massive tree stumps out if the way of the canal diggers. And the planners of the canal built these wired arch shaped brides called “aqueducts” every time there was an elevation change they said it would prevent the water from filling up at the steep end of the lake but I didn’t fully understand it until the lake was filled. Once we filled the first 15 miles in the winter of 1817 the public completely changed their view of the cancel, all political opposition evaporated. More and more people came to help dig the

Two years ago a small Michigan city called Flint was quietly exposed to toxic waste that would continue to impact their lives for years to follow. The water supply for the city was switched to a river that everyone knew was a waste in a failed attempt to save money. As the citizens began to notice all the changes their homes were overtaking due to the water, they were ignored or reassured. Some of the effects caused by the water are irreversible and maybe deadly.

In 1854 the city London was the most populated in the world. In just ninety square miles there was over two million currently living there. During this time period having so many people in such a tight place was unknown. With the constant population growth it caused a number of problems. The main problem that was faced was the mass amount of waste and where to put it. Families used water closets, but even with the water closets their waste was emptied into cesspools. It wasn’t uncommon for these cesspools to over fill often, even with night- soil men continuously emptying them. The streets of London were fifthly. With the constant mass amounts of waste the London government came to a decision to dump of the

They also establish temporary evacuation of pregnant women and young children Over the next 2 years, the residents who were forced to stayed were more angry than anything else and all they wanted was to get out and move, however, most of them didn't have the money to leave and abandoned their houses, so the residents created the Love Canal homeowners association, for the purpose of…...(VIDEO). One protest in particular lead to the federal government ordering evacuation of everyone who lived in Love Canal by buying all of the homes. Following the evacuation, they started the cleanup process. It took nearly 21 years and estimated of $400 million for the cleanup of love canal(SOURCE). The toxins were capped in clay and surrounded by a drainage system(Video).

One of the most prominent concerns regarding the industrial waste from the Love Canal was the risk of genetic damage. A study was published in 1984 looked at the cytogenetic finds in individuals living near the Love Canal (Heath et al., 1984). Two groups of Love Canal residents were studied, as well as individual age- and sex-matched controls from another population in the Niagara Falls area that was thought to be unexposed (Heath et al., 1984). Group 1 of the Love Canal study population included individuals who lived in the first ring of homes abutting the canal in June 1978 and whose home also tested

In 1953, the canal (which had previously been widened to hold more waste) was nearly full, so it was covered over with clay to seal it. As the vicinity around Niagara Falls grew rapidly, Hooker sold the 16-acres of land to the Niagara Falls city school board for $1. However, the deed for the land included a disclaimer that warned that hazardous chemicals were buried on the property and cleared the company of any future responsibility (Levine 11). On the site, the 99th Street Elementary School was constructed along with houses, sewers, and roads. Early signs of the potential hazards were identifiable in the early 1950s, such as uneven fields with sink holes from decomposing barrels, strong odors, skin irritations on children and dogs and a black, oily substance in basements were ignored by the residents of the area. Not until

It’s 1940 and the company I worked for, Hooker Electrochemical Company, bought the land around the Love Canal. I lived not far from it 2 or 3 miles so, it was very convenient for me. My life was simple and pleasant. There were 25,000 chemicals being dumped in canal the majority of chemicals the government did not know were being poured into the canal. A year later my company sold the land so a school could be built. I got a new job as an accountant at City Hall. The new school and houses were built, bringing the population up, complaints were flooding in, piling desks in the offices around me.

The Panama Canal is an extraordinary landmark that leaves people in complete amazement. The story of how it came to life is amazing. In the beginning, the United States. used lots of explosive dynamite to blow through the tough, hard rock that made up the landscape. The United States used lots of metal, silver railways in an effort to carry lots of material towards the canal. They used an advanced system called “locks.” This system worked by propelling water under boats to raise them over the mountains. The miners used old- fashioned, rusty shovels and pickaxes.Furthermore, the United States created a massive dam to prevent the camps from flooding and as a way to store excess water.

By the late 1920’s the canal was being used as a dumpsite by municipal and commercial entities. 82 different chemicals 11 of them known carcinogens had been dumped by the Hooker Chemical Company for over twenty five years. In 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, then the owners and operators of the property, covered the canal with earth and sold it to the city for one dollar. This was definitely a bad buy for the city of Niagara, unfortunately it would take over 20 years to realize it. During that time more than 100 homes and one elementary school had been built over the landfill, this was definitely not the city that Love had envisioned.

The Love Canal was built in 1894, by William T. Love, to connect the Niagara River to Lake Ontario and also to provide water and hydroelectric power for the city of Niagara Falls. Eighty-Four Years later, Love gave up and put his unfinished, 16-acre canal for auction. The Hooker Chemicals Corporation bought the site after determining it was isolated and barely populated at the time. They decided that since it had a leakproof clay groundwork, it would make a good location for a hazardous waste landfill. Since then, approximately 21,800 tons of harmful wastes were dumped by Hooker until 1952. In 1953, the company capped the canal, and sold the site for one dollar, to the Niagara Falls Board of Education. Houses and schools were built on top and

“Love in a Fallen City” written in 1943 by Chinese writer Eileen Chang(1920-1995). Eileen Chang is one of the most writers of twentieth- century in China. She was born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai. Chang’s grandfather is Hang peilun who is son in law to Li hongzhang, an influential official in Qing dynasty. Her grandmother Li juyu is the oldest daughter of Li hongzhang. Chang studied literature at the university of Hong Kong. However, in 1941 Japanese attacked on Shanghai, and she had to returned to occupied Shanghai. At that time, she was able to publish some stories and essays which made her to be a literary star. But, due to some reason that The rise of Communist influence made a difficult for her to stay in Shanghai, and she