The United States - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 34

In retrospect, many considered the approach to have been an error. The
inspiration came from citizen action in the suburban town of Niagara
Falls, near Buffalo, New York. One summer the mother of a six-year-old
boy about to enter first grade discovered that his school was built over an
abandoned toxic waste dump. For 10 years the Hooker Chemical Company
had dumped its waste into an abandoned canal (named for the man who
dug it years before, Mr. Love). When the Hooker company finished, it filled
in Love Canal. Some years later, the school board asked to buy the property
to build a new school. At first Hooker refused to sell, pointing out that it
was toxic. The school board persisted, so finally the company sold it for $1.
Contamination extended beyond the school grounds into the neighbor-
hood, where people complained that smelly ooze seeped into their base-
ments and that their hands blistered when they dug in their gardens.
The mother, Lois Gibbs, had few resources. She was only 26 years old,
lacked an education in science, and had no experience speaking in public.
She began by talking to other parents, and then circulated a petition among
her neighbors. The school board, the Hooker Company, and city officials
all tried to discourage her. She went to Albany, the state capital, to talk to
health commission officials, but was not welcomed. Yet as she persisted,
people began to pay attention. She organized the Love Canal Homeowners
Association. They held rallies, wrote letters, appeared on television, went
to Washington to testify before Senator Al Gore's committee, and pick-
eted the Democratic National Convention in 1980. President Jimmy Carter
went to inspect the site, and received a 20-minute lecture from Mrs. Gibbs.
The Love Canal plight persuaded Congress to pass the law, formally
known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act (CERCLA). It provided for a fund of $1.2 billion paid by
fees on chemicals and some general tax revenues. Once a contaminated site
was discovered, EPA was supposed to swoop to clean it up. Then compa-
nies who had dumped there over the years were supposed to be assessed
the liability costs. The motto was “shovels first, lawyers later.” In practice,
the clean ups were delayed, and wrangling in court over who was liable
was lengthy and expensive. Furthermore, the number of sites discovered
was huge. Congress originally anticipated a few dozen, or a few hundred
at most. In fact, more than a thousand sites were soon listed. At that point
EPA gave up, and stopped listing additional Superfund sites. The costs
would be too high. Although the Superfund program is not set up as a
delegated one, in practice EPA has made arrangements with state agen-
cies to implement it on a case-by-case basis. Thus, the centralized program