Love Canal Incident
Unlike its name, the Love Canal tragedy of 1979 serves as a reminder for all of us to be more mindful of our environment.
The land originally belonged to William T. Love during the 1900s as a way to bring cheap power from the Niagara rivers to power the industries and homes of his model city. However as technology advanced, the canal became an obsolete way of transferring power, with alternating current and power lines giving way to long distance power. Thus, the project was ditched and the unfinished canal became the seeds for a municipal and industrial waste site.
The company, Hooker Chemical Company, with government sanction, began to use the canal as a means of waste disposal, dumping around 21,000 different types of chemicals including known carcinogens. Then in 1953, Hooker Chemical Company buried the canal and sold it back to the city. Unfortunately, vile chemicals from the ground had begun to leach into water supplies and the environment. When schools and homes were later built onto the land, they faced confusing number of birth defects and diseases which was later revealed to be the effect of the Love Canal. All the families were eventually evacuated when President Carter declared a state of emergency but not before the damage had already been done: hundreds of children were born with birth defects, cancers, and many of them even died as a result.
The Love Canal incident came to represent the lack of environmental regulations, and the looming environmental crisis of the 20th century. As a result, the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or Superfund, was passed in order to address these issues. Superfund sites were designated toxic waste disposal sites which required long term cleanup. In fact, as safe and clean as Santa Clary county is, you’d be surprised to see the number of Superfund sites we have near us. Two of the sources links below can be used to locate superfund sites all over the nation. In 2004, the contaminated area was finally cleaned, leaving a 40 acre plot of land today. All in all, these regulations came to address the horrible realities of the Love Canal incident.
Superfund Sites
Other Sources
I really like how you talked about everything relating to the incident, the cause, the affect, and the result. I was interested by how large of an affect the Love Canal incident had on the residents, such as how many people died as result of the incident, so I decided to research into this. And although the incident was awful for newborns and in specific cases, it appears that there wasn't actually an increased rate of death for inhabitants who lived near the area. Government reports show how even cancer rates were slightly lower than the general population. But, birth defects were higher for those who lived near the canal, making it a clear danger to live near it. Furthermore, the type of death was different, heart attacks and suicides being more common, which there is believed to be a link for both. However, it was appear that the incident wasn't nearly as bad as it could of been. Perhaps due to the intervention of the government or the rapid response of the residents near Love Canal, what could have been a lot worse, was avoided.
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://slate.com/technology/2013/08/love-canal-killed-how-many-people-cancer-risk-from-environmental-pollution.html
https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/investigations/love_canal/mortality_community_report.htm