Love Canal Case Study
The story of the love canal is one of the most environmentally damaging incidents of the 20th century. It’s one story that eventually came to the public eye. But can you imagine how many more toxic dumps there is, that have been forgotten about? We are going to talk about how a state of the art development planned by William T Love in the late 1800’s turned into such a quagmire of highly toxic chemicals. We can view these chemicals on the table below:
One of the chemicals of note is Dioxin that is highly carcinogenic.
CHEMICALS FOUND AT THE LOVE CANAL*
Chemical Water & Leachate Air Soil & Sediment
Benzene ID** 522.7 µg/m3 <0.1-0.8 µg/kg α-Benzene Hexachloride 3.2 µg/l 0.002-0.1 µg/m3 ID β-Benzene Hexachloride 38 µg/l 3 µg/m3 ID δ-Benzene Hexachloride 6.9 µg/l 0.4 µg/m3 ID γ-Benzene Hexachloride
(Lindane) 50 µg/l ID 20 mg/gm
Carbon Tetrachloride ID 5.0 µg/m3
Chlorobenzene 10 mg/l 0.1-172 µg/m3 0.4-2.9 µg/kg
Chloroform 0.2-3.9 µg/l 0.5-24.0 µg/m3 0.2-2.3 µg/kg
Chlorotoluene 75 mg/l 0.008-7650 µg/m3 ID
Dichlorobenzene 3 mg/l <0.3-100.5 µg/m3 240 µg/kg
Dichloroethane 0.2-4.8 µg/l <0.4-2 µg/kg
Dichlorotoluene 95 µg/l <18-74 µg/m3
1,3-Hexachlorobutadiene (c-46) 22-114 µg/m3
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The section of canal that was dug out filled with water. It was used by the local community for swimming for a number of decades. From the year 1942 to 1953 the canal was used for dumping chemical wastes by Hooker Electrochemical Company, now the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation. Also the local community dumped their refuse and the army dumped waste as well. When the dump site was full the Hooker Electrical Company covered the area over with stone and clay. At the time the town of Niagara was booming and had grown to encompass the Love canal area. It wasn’t long before the town council and education board approached them to try and purchase the land for development purposes. At first the answer was no because it was known to be unsafe by the company. Eventually Hooker company sold it for $1 with a contract stating what the site contained and believing that any problems with the site would be passed onto the new owner within the boundaries without any possibility of legal action in the future. The town of Niagara commenced the development of schools and houses in the area They ignored the information given to them by Hooker Electrochemical