Why is it called the Love Canal?

The landfill takes its name from William T. Love, whose plan it was in the 1890s to dig a power canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers to provide cheap hydroelectric power for a proposed model industrial city.

What happened at the Love Canal?

In the 1920s the seeds of a genuine nightmare were planted. The canal was turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite. In 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, then the owners and operators of the property, covered the canal with earth and sold it to the city for one dollar. It was a bad buy.

What was the Love Canal and why is it important?

Love Canal quickly came to symbolize the looming environmental disaster represented by untold numbers of toxic waste disposal sites scattered throughout America. Legislators and activists alike have tapped the momentum generated by Love Canal activism in their efforts to deal with this dangerous and costly problem.

Who Built Love Canal?

William T. Love
This circa-1940 photo shows Love Canal before it was contaminated. The canal was built by William T. Love in 1834 as a failed attempt to connect the Upper and Lower Niagara Rivers.

How long did the Love Canal last?

Love Canal’s notorious history began when Hooker Chemical Co. used the abandoned canal from 1942 to 1953 to dump 21,800 tons of industrial hazardous waste.

Who Polluted the Love Canal?

Hooker Electrochemical Company
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.

How did the Love Canal affect humans?

From 1974 to 1978, 56% of the children in the Love Canal neighborhood were born with a birth defect, including three ears, a double row of teeth, and mental retardation. There were almost three times as many defects in historically wet areas. State health authorities quickly dismissed the study.

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.

What is the Love Canal incident?

The Love Canal incident was especially significant as a situation where the inhabitants “overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around”. The University at Buffalo University Archives houses a number of primary documents, photographs, and news clippings pertaining to the Love Canal environmental disaster; many items have been digitized and are viewable online.

Love Canal is a neighborhood within Niagara Falls, New York. The neighborhood is infamously known as the location of a 70-acre (28 ha) landfill which became the epicenter of a massive environmental pollution disaster harming the health of hundreds of residents, culminating in an extensive Superfund cleanup operation.

What was the Love Canal disaster?

Love Canal Disaster. The site of a toxic chemical dump in upstate New York. Local residents whose drinking water was contaminated from the canal had increased rates of spontaneous abortions, birth defects, cancer, urinary tract and liver disease.

What and where is Love Canal?

Love Canal is a residential district comprised of 36 city blocks in the southeast area of the city of Niagara Falls, New York. Beghotz Creek borders the neighborhood on the north side, and the Niagara River borders it on the south. A portion of Love Canal was a dump site for toxic chemicals and waste for a good part of the 20th century.