For those who may not have studied corporate pollution in the past, Love Canal may sound like an idyllic place and conjure up visions of loving couples slowly making their way through romantic waters in boats adorned with hearts and cherubs. The residents who call the sleepy New York neighborhood of Love Canal home have a completely different story tell. Mostly a white collar neighborhood, this section of Niagara Falls includes thirty six blocks located in the cities southeastern corner. The neighborhood is defined by the Niagara River in the south and Bergholtz Creek carves out the northern line. The contamination that was left is this small area by Hooker Chemical in the 1950s would lead to the uncovering of what has been called one of the worst cases of corporate pollution in United States history.

When Hooker Chemical was finished with its operation in Love Canal they were left with land they had contaminated in the middle of an area whose population was growing and the need for more public land to build schools was growing along with it. The Niagara Falls school Board had their sites set on the land that was owned by Hooker Chemical and so the company agreed to sell the land to the school for only one dollar. The deed provided to the school at the time of the sale gave details that indicated some land contamination and absolved the company of any future liability. While some disclosure was made the company did not inform the school that 21,000 tons of toxic chemicals were buried in drums around the land. As the land development began for the school and surrounding housing the containment of these drums was compromised. Additional heavy rains cause the toxic chemicals to be washed out of the drums and contaminated the entire area. This was the start of a public health crisis that would last for more than a decade. Both the Urban planning board and Hooker Chemical have been blamed for what happened next.

By 1958 the city had built two schools on the contaminated grounds and at one of the sites exposed toxic chemical drums created a twenty five foot hole that would fill with rain water. The 400 children that attended the school often played in the contaminated water. Later in 1957 the city built a series of sewers that ran through the dump site and connected many homes. Continued construction projects in the area allowed more and more of the land and water to be contaminated by the toxic waste until it eventually reached developments that were not included in the Hooker companies initial warnings. By 1962 people living near the dump site were reporting pools of colored liquid that concerned them.

It wasn’t until the late seventies that people really began to investigate the site, and when they did what they found was disturbing. A study showed that the number of birth defects in the area was far greater to those in other communities. Finally on August 2nd, 1978 the area was declared a state emergency. Eventually the scope of the contamination and public health crisis grew to such a level that the contamination of Love Canal became the first non natural disaster to be declared a Federal State of Emergency.

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Category: Advice
Keywords: Environment, Business, Industry, Insurance