The love canal was named after William T. Love, an entrepreneur who in 1892 proposed digging a six to seven-mile-long canal to connect the upper and lower Niagara River. The proposal was originally inspired by the idea of creating a utopic urban neighborhood with hydroelectric energy generation nearby. However, due to economic factors the project was discarded leaving behind an unfinished canal. In 1920, the land was sold to be used as a municipal and chemical disposal site. Intensive chemical dumping estimated at 40 million pounds of chemicals took place between the years 1942 to 1953. Recent surveys by the State Department of Environmental Conservation point to the presence of approximately 100 chemical dump sites in the county (New York