Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
17
Nutrient
Recycling
Water
Waste
Treatment
Solid and Hazardous Waste
Soil
Air
CASE STUDY
Love Canal: There Is
No “Away”
with one illness after another (see her Guest Essay,
on the website for this chapter), the state acted. It
closed the school and arranged for the 239 homes
closest to the dump to be evacuated, purchased, and
destroyed.
Two years later, after protests from families still
living fairly close to the landfill, President Jimmy
Carter declared Love Canal a federal disaster area,
had the remaining families relocated, and offered fed-
eral funds to buy 564 more homes. Because of the dif-
ficulty in linking exposure to a variety of chemicals to
specific health problems, the long-term health effects
of Love Canal residents' exposure to hazardous chem-
icals remain unknown and
controversial.
The dumpsite has been
covered with a new clay
cap and surrounded by a
drainage system for pump-
ing leaking wastes to a new
treatment plant. In June
1990, state officials began
selling 260 of the remaining
houses in the area—re-
named Black Creek Village.
Buyers must sign an agree-
ment stating that New York
state and the federal gov-
ernment makes no guaran-
tees or representations
about the safety of living in
these homes.
Love Canal sparked
creation of the Superfund
law, which forced polluters
to pay for cleaning up aban-
doned toxic waste dumps
and made them wary of
producing new ones. In
1983, Love Canal became
the first Superfund site. After 21 years and nearly
$400 million in cleanup costs, it was removed from
the Superfund priority list in March 2004.
The Love Canal incident is a vivid reminder of
three lessons from nature: We can never really throw
anything away; wastes often do not stay put; and prevent-
ing pollution is much safer and cheaper than trying to clean
it up.
Between 1942 and 1953, Hooker Chemicals and
Plastics (owned by OxyChem since 1968) sealed chem-
ical wastes containing at least 200 different chemicals
into steel drums and dumped them into an old canal
excavation (called Love Canal after its builder,
William Love) near Niagara Falls, New York.
In 1953, Hooker Chemicals filled the canal, cov-
ered it with clay and topsoil, and sold it to the Niagara
Falls school board for $1. The
company inserted a disclaimer in
the deed denying legal liability
for any injury caused by the
wastes. In 1957, Hooker warned
the school board not to disturb
the clay cap because of possible
danger from the buried toxic
wastes.
By 1959, an elementary
school, playing fields, and 949
homes had been built in the 10-
square-block Love Canal area
(Figure 17-1). Some of the roads
and sewer lines crisscrossing the
dumpsite disrupted the clay cap
covering the wastes. In the
1960s, an expressway was built
at one end of the dump. It
blocked groundwater from mi-
grating to the Niagara River and
allowed contaminated ground-
water and rainwater to build up
and overflow the disrupted cap.
Residents began complain-
ing to city officials in 1976 about
chemical smells and chemical
burns their children received playing in the canal area,
but their concerns were ignored. In 1977, chemicals
began leaking from the badly corroded steel drums
into storm sewers, gardens, basements of homes next
to the canal, and the school playground.
In 1978, after media publicity and pressure from
residents led by Lois Gibbs, a mother galvanized
into action as she watched her children come down
Figure 17-1 The Love Canal housing development near
Niagara Falls, New York, was built near a hazardous
waste dumpsite. The photo shows the area when it was
abandoned in 1980. In 1990, the EPA allowed people to
buy some of the remaining houses and move back into
the area.
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