A federal judge ruled yesterday that Occidental Chemical Corp. is responsible for the costs, estimated at $250 million, of cleaning up Love Canal, the New York state community that came to symbolize the dangers of industrial pollution.
Which company was responsible for Love Canal?
One of these is the Love Canal landfill, in which the Hooker Electrochemical Company , now the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation, admits to the deposition, between 1942 and 1953, of 21,800 tons of chemical wastes from its plants in Niagara Falls.
Who started Love Canal?
The history of Love Canal began in 1892 when William T. Love proposed connecting the upper and lower Niagara River by digging a canal six to seven miles long. Love abandoned the project after an economic depression, leaving behind a partially dug section of the canal, sixty feet wide and three thousand feet long.
What was the cause of the Love Canal?
In the 1920s Niagara Falls began dumping urban waste into Love Canal, and in the 1940s the U.S. Army dumped waste from World War II there, including waste from the frantic effort to build a nuclear bomb. Hooker Chemical purchased the land in 1942 and lined it with clay.
Who cleaned up Love Canal?
Between 1942 and 1953, when it ceased disposal operations, the Hooker Electrochemical Company (now Occidental Chemical Corporation, or OXY) disposed of over 21,000 tons of hazardous chemicals into the abandoned Love Canal, contaminating soil and groundwater.
Is the Love Canal still toxic?
According to the federal agency’s website, the waste site and the neighborhood are safe . ... In the case before Kloch, lawyers for more than 550 present and former residents of the Love Canal neighborhood contend that toxic contamination from the landfill created a “public health catastrophe” in the neighborhood.
What is the Love Canal now?
Love Canal became known as one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. It led to the creation of the federal Superfund program that oversees the remediation of dangerous hazardous waste sites. This is Love Canal today. A bare 70-acre lot, surrounded by a chain-link fence.
What was the problem with Love Canal?
Public awareness of the disaster unfolded in the late 1970s when investigative newspaper coverage and grassroots door-to-door health surveys began to reveal a series of inexplicable illnesses—epilepsy, asthma, migraines, and nephrosis—and abnormally high rates of birth defects and miscarriages in the Love Canal ...
What was the effect of the Love Canal?
The Love Canal landfill contained approximately 21,800 tons of chemical wastes. Substantial migration and contamination of soil, groundwater and basement air of nearby homes was apparent in the late 1970s.
How was the Love Canal disaster resolved?
” Industrial chemicals dumped into the partly completed canal by the Hooker Chemical Company from 1947 to 1952 have been removed or contained in one area that was lined with impermeable materials and capped by clay. A drainage system collects water runoff and treats it.
What did the residents of Love Canal eventually do to get the government to buy their homes?
Eventually, the federal government relocated more than 800 families and reimbursed them for the loss of their homes . The state government and federal government used $15 million to purchase 400 homes closest to Love Canal and demolished several rings of houses.
How did the Love Canal affect animals?
He found that animals caught near the fence had severely damaged livers , including excess fat, underdeveloped reproductive organs, lowered levels of important body chemicals and unusually low levels of the energy-producing substance called glycogen.
How did the Love Canal affect the economy?
The state Commerce Department highlighted the chemical industry’s economic contributions . ... One Niagara Falls company, Hooker Chemical, acquired the abandoned Love canal site and dumped nearly 22,000 tons of chemical wastes there from 1942 to 1953. The city and the Army also dumped refuse there.
What is Lois Gibbs doing now?
In 1980, Gibbs formed the Citizens’ Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, later renamed the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) in 1998, where she currently serves as executive director.
Why was the Love Canal getting so much attention and publicity?
Love Canal became the subject of media attention after it was revealed in a two-year investigative series in the Niagara Falls Gazette that the site had formerly been used to bury 21,000 tons of hazardous waste by Hooker Chemical Company (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation).
What is the most toxic city in America?
The EPA has declared Picher to be the most toxic city in the United States of America. It remains a ghost town, completely uninhabitable. Unrestricted excavation took place over the course of more than a century, damaging the homes and eventually polluting the air and water in Picher.
