A discussion of the Love Canal toxic waste disaster - Public Health through the lens of the Environmental Movement and Citizen Activism

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Public health impacts society across a very broad array of dimensions, from clinical
medicine to policy and politics to commerce. This paper will discuss the Love Canal
environmental disaster from the perspective of social movements. It will examine public
health through the lens of the environmental movement.
Over the course of the late 1960’sand early 1970’s,Love Canal residents had begun
noticing signs of toxic waste in and around their homes (Danzo, 1988). There were
recurring, although sporadic, accounts of noxious smells in yards and basements in this
friendly, working-class neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York (Mah, 2017). Overtime,
these incidents became increasingly disturbing. Children who threw rocks against
pavement saw them explode like firecrackers (Smith, 2016). Manhole covers propelled
spontaneously into the air. Children would get odd chemical burn-like rashes when sliding
across the grass. Dogs were losing their hair and going bald. Members of the
neighborhood shared these accounts with each other and discovered they had also
experienced higher than expected numbers of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer
(Smith, 2016). In 1976 the situation escalated. From heavy snowfall during the winter of
1975-76, the Love Canal’s groundwater level rose and residents began to see waste
disposal drums surface in the neighborhood (Danzo, 1988), heavily contaminated surface
water in their backyards, and acrid smelling oily chemical residue in their basements
(Neushul, 1987). During 1976, the NYS Department of Environmental Control traced
chemicals found in Lake Ontario to chemical dumps in the Love Canal area. Several nearby

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newspapers followed with stories of this finding. In October 1976, the local newspaper,
NiagaraGazette, reported that there was toxic waste leaking into the property and homes
of residents of the Love Canal neighborhood (Pollack, 3 October 1976). It was reported
that the entire Love Canal area had in fact been constructed atop a chemical waste dump
site of the Hooker Chemical company. Hooker had buried 20,000 tons of toxic waste
beneath the area from 1920 – 1953 (Konrad, 2011). As would be expected, Love Canal
residents became extremely alarmed. In response, the City of Niagara Falls hired the
Calspan Corporation in 1977to survey the Love Canal neighborhood and found extensive
chemical pollution affecting more than half of the homes (Neushul, 1987). At the same
time, the local EPA officer examined the area and through a letter to Washington
recommended that fifty Love Canal homes be torn down due to inhabitable levels of
chemical pollution (Smith, 2016). Rather than reporting these dire results to the NYS
Department of Health, the panicked city called for more testing. Love Canal residents were
incensed. They had exhausted their patience. It was out of this atmosphere of rapidly
escalating health danger coupled with government confusion and inaction that the Love
Canal residents took action – beginning their own public health crusade. Local housewife
Lois Gibbs led the Love Canal Homeowners Association (LCHA). And Elene Thornton led
the Concerned Love Canal Renters Association (CLCRA). Their message was simple but
powerful. Their children and families were sick. This sickness was due to polluted land
where they lived and went to school and played sports. All of this was due to mistakes

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made by government and business. This was a horrible social injustice and they
demanded this dangerous situation be corrected comprehensively and swiftly.
At this point the main actors in the Love Canal drama were set: a resource-poor
but motivated and committed grass-roots citizen organization (the Love Canal
Homeowners Association), a chemical ‘company town’ (Niagara Falls, NY), a local
newspaper (the Niagara Gazette), the chemical company local subsidiary (Hooker
Chemical), the parent chemical company (Occidental Petroleum), a vast and encumbered
governmental bureaucracy spanning local/city, county, state, and federal levels, and a
human-made, toxic waste disaster (Ploughman, 1997).
The LCHA knew from the start that they were ‘the little guys’ in this fight, but they
were tough as bulldogs and endlessly persistent and passionate – hallmarks of the
underdog champion. One of their first public actions was to ‘get the word out’ about the
severity of this calamity. They quickly and astutely tapped into the media to do this. They
understood the power of positive media coverage and aggressively pursued print and
broadcast media to tell their story as often as possible and to everyone they could. Also,
the LCHA adopted ‘radical-type’ protest tactics used during the Vietnam War and civil-
rights protests such as staging media events (Ploughman, 1997). Initially, this was with
local media but it did not take long for the Love Canal cause to gain significant national
and international coverage. Another example of this tactic was seen in the LCHA’s
attempts to apply the relevance of contemporary events to themselves. They took the

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1980 Cuban refugee ‘boat people’ and applied it to themselves as ‘Love Canal Refugees’
or ‘Love Canal boat people’ (Ploughman, 1997).
In addition to raising awareness of the public health disaster, the LCHA needed to
educate the city, state, and federal government on the severity of the pollution and of the
urgency needed to correct the problem. And they needed to wage this battle against
corporate, governmental, and scientific experts who denied the severity of the damaging
health effects of Love Canal (Mah, 2017). To do this they assembled clear and convincing
evidence. They engaged their own scientists to conduct methodologically rigorous studies
– such as cancer researcher, Dr. Beverly Paigen’s study noting high rates of birth defects
and miscarriages among Love Canal families (McNamara, 2014) (Gibbs, 2011). They
gathered extensive and compelling quantitative and qualitative data covering
miscarriages, birth defects, deaths, cancers, and other illnesses of residents (Mah, 2017).
And they conducted their own research using EPA data through which they documented
the existence of over 30,000 other hazardous waste sites across the US, that more than 80
million pounds of hazardous waste was generated annually (350 pounds per resident),
and that only 10 percent of hazardous waste was disposed of properly (Ploughman, 1997).
These actions amounted to the assembly and communication of robust epidemiological
data on the Love Canal toxic waste issue. And through the compilation of EPA data which
spanned the entire USA, the LCHA significantly widened their saliency from that of a local
hazardous waste problem to a nationwide crisis (Ploughman, 1997).

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These actions garnered the LCHA a great deal of press attention. And of even
greater significance, they convincingly demonstrated to the media that the LCHA was a
credible and reliable source for facts and clear-headed thinking (Ploughman, 1997). LCHA
members were always impassioned; but in press events and public meetings with NY State
government agencies and politicians, this passion was channeled into articulate public
dialogue. So, amid a very emotionally charged and even hostile debate, the LCHA gained
increasing respect from two critical stakeholders (Ploughman, 1997).
These gains were invaluable to the burgeoning activist group as they needed to
fight many battles over the ensuing years. Over that time, they held seemingly endless
meetings with government officials and presented sound studies. On numerous
occasions, these thorough studies were arbitrarily dismissed as inaccurate and the LCHA
responded with further research. They organized rallies, ran fundraising campaigns, and
held protest rallies (Konrad, 2011). They joined town meetings in which city and state
health officials openly debated each other on the severity of the health risks posed by the
chemicals which in turn devolved into chaos (Engelhaupt, 2008).Each time they regrouped
and pushed on with further research and pressure for the change they demanded. They
met with the NYS Governor and with NY’s US Senators who promised support and action
– only to see this was just duplicitous lip-service (Gibbs, 2011). Nevertheless, they simply
would not give up; they constantly put pressure on the politicians and presented their
lucid arguments for change and action to the media – which became more and more high

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profile with front page coverage from the NY Times and featured segments on ABC News-
Nightline.
In 1978, NY State Health Commissioner Dr. Robert Whalen began health studies of
the Love Canal community through house-to-house collecting of blood samples, toxic
vapors analysis, and medical exams of residents. The NYS Department of Health found
very elevated levels of dangerous chemical such as benzene, toluene, and dioxin
(Engelhaupt, 2008). These results were corroborated by the EPA in their similar studies of
the neighborhood (Deegan, 1987b). In August 1978, the NYS Health Commissioner
declared a state of emergency at Love Canal and called for the closing of the
neighborhood’s 99th
Street Elementary School and the evacuation of all pregnant women
and children under the age of two (Engelhaupt, 2008) (Smith, 2016). His comprehensive
report entitled Love Canal: Public Health Time Bomb, declared “the existence of a great
and imminent peril to the health of the general public residing at or near the site as a
result of toxic substances emanating from the Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill”
(Whalen, 1978). Days later, NYS Governor Carey announced the state would buy 239
homes with highest contamination levels (Deegan, 1987a). Certainly, this was a very good
step forward but a substantial number of residents were excluded. On the same day,
President Carter declared a ‘man-made’ state of emergency at Love Canal which allowed
federal funds to begin financing the cleanup and containment (Deegan, 1987a).

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After nearly two years of ongoing pressure from the LCHA, in May 1980 the EPA
released a pilot study on genetic damage found in Love Canal residents. This study noted
chromosome damage in the residents – an announcement that brought the Love Canal
media coverage to its zenith – and quite understandably, intense terror to Love Canal
residents (Deegan, 1987a). Even though this study was found to be substandard as it had
no control group, the stakes were too high with even possible genetic damage. NY State
quickly agreed to buyout an additional 700 homes. Days later, the federal government
agreed to the temporary relocation of the Love Canal residents – pending funding for
permanent housing (McNamara, 2014).
That funding for permanent housing came several months later. In October 1980,
President Carter declared a “Second Federal State of Emergency” at Love Canal. He
followed the announcement with a trip to Niagara Falls where he signed into law the
Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) – the
Superfund Act (McNamara, 2014). This was an historic and monumental moment for the
LCHA and the citizens action social movement – a massive victory. The newly enacted
legislation authorized the federal government, through the EPA, to clean up hazardous-
waste sites. It further established a special trust – funded through taxation upon chemical
companies – to be used to compensate victims of toxic waste disasters. And it provided
funds for the permanent relocation of the citizens of the Love Canal. Lois Gibbs and the

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LCHA had stunningly demonstrated the potency of grassroots activism in advocating for
public health issues.
Following this, in addition to relocating the residents of Love Canal, most of the
homes and schools in the neighborhood were torn down and the entire contaminated
area was permanently fenced off – or as Lois Gibbs has aptly described: “It became a gated
community for chemicals” (Smith, 2016). Love Canal has served as an object lesson for
how governmental and commercial corruption and injustice can be taken on by dedicated
people driven to do what is right – even against tall odds. Lois Gibbs was not a particularly
gregarious person (Konrad, 2011). But when her family was threatened, she decided she
would do whatever was needed to defend them. Her courage should be an inspiration to
all ordinary citizens who see something wrong but feel unequipped and overmatched by
those wielding power. In the years since Love Canal, Lois Gibbs has served as a role model,
galvanizing the environmental movement. “Love Canal is important precisely because it is
a lesson about how serious injustice and environmental calamity can be smoothed into
the banal and everyday by “experts” and stakeholders with vested interests. There are
numerous, overlooked Love Canals waiting to be exposed. It could happen to you and
your community. It could already be happening” (Smith, 2016). On that score, I see the
lessons of Love Canal can and should be used as a source of inspiration for today’s Love
Canals – one of which is the escalating impact of global warming and climate change from
decades of excessive fossil fuel dependence. With the recent decision by the Trump

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Administration to leave the Paris Agreement on climate change, battle lines are clearly
drawn with the federal government choosing to ‘turn a blind eye’ to this critical issue
despite robust scientific evidence to the contrary. Without change, the US and the entire
globe are on a collision course with self-destruction. But with impassioned citizens willing
to follow the lead of Lois Gibbs and others, “the little guys” have reason to be encouraged
that they can successfully advocate for change in such a critical public health arena.

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References
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https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/investigations/love_canal/lctimbmb.pdf