Love Canal: The Story Continues

Abstract

Review: Love Canal: The Story Continues By Lois Gibbs Reviewed by Frederick W. Stoss SUNY University at Buffalo Gibbs, Lois. Love Canal: The Story Continues. Stony Creek, Connecticut: New Society Publishers, 1998. 223 pp. US $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8657- 382-0. Recycled acid- free paper. The Love Canal -- probably the country's a most notorious and infamous hazardous waste site. It was not the first, it was not the worst, but it did grab headlines, draw attention, and stimulated scientists, industrial leaders, politicians, government officials, and grassroots activists. August 2, 1998 marks the 20th anniversary of the first evacuation of residents of the Love Canal neighborhood. Lois Gibbs provides a descriptive account of the activities leading up to the evacuation, and describes the events that have taken place since then, including the re- habitation of the Love Canal neighborhood. The Love Canal neighborhood is in the southeast section of the La Salle area of Niagara Falls, New York. William T. Love, an 1890s visionary and entrepreneur, sought to develop a planned industrial community, Model City. Waters from the Niagara River were to be routed around the Niagara escarpment (the other famous attraction of the region, Niagara Falls) to produce cheap hydroelectric power. Model City never happened, but work on the canal did. In 1942, Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation (now Occidental Chemical) purchased the uncompleted canal site, and between 1942 and 1953 disposed of about 22,000 tons of mixed chemical wastes into the Love Canal. Shortly after Hooker ceased use of the site, the land was sold to the Niagara Falls School Board for a price of $1.00. In 1955, the 99th Street Elementary School was constructed on the Love Canal property and opened its doors to students. Subsequent development of the area would see nine hundred families take up residence in the suburban neighborhood of the Love Canal. Unusually heavy rain and snowfalls in 1975 and 1976 provided high ground-water levels in the Love Canal area. Portions of the Hooker landfill subsided, 55-gallon drums surfaced, ponds and other surface water area became contaminated, basements began to ooze an oily