The Love Canal resistance was a resistance movement that took place at the neighborhood of Love Canal. The controversy was about how toxic waste was being dumped there, and the citizens trying to get the government to do something about it.
The Love Canal area, named after William T. Love, was located in the city of Niagara Falls, New York, part of the southeast La Salle district, in the United States. The neighborhood was made up of 36 square blocks. The boundaries were Bergholtz Creek to the north of the neighborhood, and to the south was the Niagara River.
William T. Love aspired to build a giant canal that would generate electricity. Different sources conflicted with each other at this point. One source says that he wanted to build a canal from the north Niagara Falls River to the south Niagara Falls River, separated by a water fall. The other source says, and this is the one more likely to be true due to feedback from other sources, that Love wanted to build a canal that stretched from the Niagara River all the way to Lake Ontario, one of the great lakes. Then he would have made a hydroelectric dam to generate massive amounts of electric power that could power many houses. In 1894 he commenced his construction of the canal, but all to no avail. His great endeavor failed when Nikola Tesla, a famous inventor and electrical engineer, invented the AC (Alternating Current) current system. This allowed people to transmit electricity long distances. Because of this invention, people didn't need Love's hydroelectric dam power. Love's funding ran out and his plan failed. His funding running out wasn't the only factor that made his plan fail. In fact, it was only one of many. To say that Love failed because his funding ran out is a gross understatement. The other reasons were that he was disappointed because of “economic depression”, and “financial instability.” In the end, only one mile of the canal had been dug when William T. Love abandoned the Love Canal project.
The land, which consisted of a massive 15 acres (653400 sq ft), was used as a recreation spot for some time (fishing, boating, picnics, etc). In the year of 1929, the land was auctioned off to the City of Niagara Falls. The city used it as a landfill to deposit all the chemical waste from its giant, majorly successful petrochemical industry. Petrochemicals are anything derived from fossil fuels (oil, petroleum, diesel, etc). Later, the United States Army acquired the land. They used the canal area as a place to dump waste from their experiments on chemical warfare. Even though they didn't fill the canal to the brim, the city of Niagara Falls and the US army still deposited lots of their toxic, hazardous, chemical waste there. The actions of the army and the city could and may have accounted for many of the problems created later on at Love Canal. The waste deposited by the US army was the worst, formerly used for chemical warfare (the use of chemical weapons). This could have accounted for many of the problems. This is because chemical weapons are designed to hurt, maim, and kill people. So, by dumping all this waste in the canal, they were basically asking for the civilians to get hurt. Unluckily, back then people didn't know about the dangers of chemical waste and the harm it could inflict.
In 1942, Hooker Chemicals and Plastic Corp., a part of Occidental Petroleum, take over the Love Canal Landfill. Hooker starts to put in toxic waste and hazardous chemicals, adding to the filth already there. Day after day, week after week, year after year, the corporation mucked up the entire landfill, filling it until it overflowed with toxic filth, grime, and sludge. Until it filled up to the point that no more chemicals could be stuffed in, Hooker did not stop. Finally, in 1952, after the Love Canal is filled, they stop. During the decade that they were contaminating the canal, Hooker dumped over 21,000 tons of toxic waste in the Love Canal landfill. In 1953, when the company has no more use for the land, they sell it to the Niagara Falls city Board of Education for the ridiculously low price of $1. But inevitably, there is a catch. Hooker incorporates into the fine print “a disclaimer of responsibility for future damages due to the presence of buried chemicals.” (The Love Canal Collection - Chronology 3)
The Board of Education built a school at the newly bought Love Canal site (99th street school). They sell the excess land so houses can be built. Between 1950 and 1970, Residents complain about stuff seeping into their basements, yards, and about foul smells. Human and plant life alike suffer from many different mutations, deformities, and injuries. Some birth defects and mutations are deafness, extra rows of teeth, retardation, and too many white blood cells, which is a sign of Leukemia. Plant life was shriveling up, blackening, and dying. When kids came home from playing outside, the had serious burns on their hands and faces. People were later told that these chemicals that were contaminating their homes gave them a higher chance of cancer, genetic damage, and more. The air had a nasty smell that made people choke. There were the broken drums once used to store the chemicals strewn over backyards. Swimming pools turned into big lakes of chemicals, colored blue, yellow, and purple. Puddles of icky, toxic sludge puddles accumulated on yards, basements, an on school grounds.
After many of these reports came in, the Department of Health showed up and started doing tests on the air and the soil. They also did regular check-ups on 239 families that were living in the vicinity of the canal. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) declared that the toxic vapors coming from the canal are a major health threat and that many residents have chromosome damage. The New York Commissioner of Health, Robert Whalem, declares Love Canal and emergency and demands immediate clean up. And finally, on August 7th, 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared Love Canal a National Emergency/Disaster, and gave many funds for over 239 families to relocate. The area where this emergency took place, Love Canal, is now called Black Creek Village. Occidental Petroleum got sued for $129 million and lost. Eventually, the government relocated over 800 families. In a speech President Jimmy Carter said that what was alarming was not this incident itself, but the possibility that there may be many of these kind of emergencies all over the country.
Many testimonies were given, examples of which shall follow this sentence.
- Lois Gibbs - argued for the LCHA, an organization that was the main part of the resistance
- Luella Kenny - Son died from cardiac arrest caused by toxins
- Maric Pazniah - Has an ill asthmatic daughter
- James Clark - All his family members suffered from health problems caused by the toxic waste
- Eileen Matsulavage - Her basement was contaminated with toxic chemicals and had to be sealed off
These are the ways in which people resisted, argued and persisted on the subject of dumping toxic waste at Love Canal, so that in the end, the government actually did something about it - protect people from the dangers.
