The Love Canal disaster and the struggle of Lois Marie Gibbs

Abstract

With the present dissertation I propose to investigate the events linked to one of the most notorious environmental health disasters of the late XX century. The landing on the American environmental movement sadly cannot start from here: at the Love Canal neighborhood. Niagara Falls is a city of natural beauty, which took its name from the almost two hundred-foot-long waterfalls on the Niagara River. The history of Love Canal extends to a geological age phenomenon: when the Niagara River, a strait of water connecting Lake Erie to Lake Ontario was first formed. Few historians trace Love Canal environmental and toxic present back to colonial times. The plunging river’s potential for generating power was well noticed by the region’s early settlers and explorers and attracted chemical companies too. In 1905, Elon Hooker established his mill the Hooker Electrochemical Company. along the river’s shoreline, The Love Canal nightmare begins in the late 19th century. In 1892, William Love, planned connecting the Upper and Lower Niagara River by digging a canal to harness cheap water providing its Model Industrial City with hydroelectric power. In 1910, economic depression ended those plans. The long-held dream remained unfulfilled and Model City survived but only as a small hamlet The result was a mile-long ditch about eighty feet wide and fifteen feet deep: Love Canal. In 1920, the ditch was sold at a public auction and became a chemical disposal site until 1953. From 1942 to 1952, it was used by the above-mentioned Hooker Electrochemical Company as a dump site. The Company buried about 21,800 tons of over 200 chemical compounds in the canal including 12 carcinogens, benzene, pesticides and dioxin. In 1953, the Company covered the entire surface with earth and sold it to the Board of Education for $1. The deed of sale contained a stipulation which released Hooker from any future legal obligation. In 1950s, private residential development began adjacent to the canal. Around 100 homes and a school were built for the working-class community. Between the 1960s and 1970s, complaints about troublesome odors, black sludge and chemical residues in basements sump pumps strongly increased. At the beginning, homeowners preferred not to complain because of fear of losing property values or their jobs. It was not until 1970s that environmental social movements, made Americans aware that only organizing could they lead to political changes. The present study deals with the Love Canal struggle of a 26-year-old gratified housewife, named Lois Marie Gibbs, whose battle will be widely described. Although there were several actors involved in the Love Canal saga, it was Lois Gibbs who echoed the most. Her involvement in the environmental and political causes at Love Canal began in June 1978. When she read Michael Brown’s newspaper articles in the Niagara Gazette. Those articles were about the presence of toxic chemicals underneath the 99th Street School where her son attended kindergarten. She connected those chemicals to her son’s health issues. From June 1978 until May 1980, with no prior experience in community activism, the LCHA president, Gibbs, led an entire neighborhood in a battle against the local and federal governments, thus saving her community. About 550 members pledged their supports joining the LCHA. With scientists’ help they conducted health surveys and were able to collect scientifically acceptable data to permit analysis. Since 1978 the community had several evacuations and in 1980 President Carter signed a bill to evacuate the entire community permanently.