In 1896 William Love began construction on a canal connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie that bypassed Niagara Falls to be used to generate hydroelectric power. It was never completed and in the 1920s became a landfill for the city of Niagara Falls. Eventually, the U.S. military started dumping chemical warfare waste including some from the Manhattan Project. However, it was in 1942 that the main culprit, Hooker Chemical Company began dumping its toxic waste into the canal.

From 1942-1953 Hooker dumped more than 21,000 tons of carcinogenic and teratogenic chemicals into the canal. As early as 1945 the company was notified of the possible dangers of the site, and during the 11 years that Hooker used Love Canal as a landfill employees reported to management that children were playing in the unused and contaminated sections of the canal. Recommendations to build a fence were also rejected as Hooker looked the other way. When it came time to stop the dumping, the only precaution was a clay cover designed to prevent the chemicals from seeping out and into the ground.

However, Hooker's main reason for halting the dumping lies in the arrogant stupidity of the city of Niagara Falls. In 1953 the company was approached by the city to "donate" the land on Love Canal for a new school (it stands abandoned, the 93rd Street School). Hooker was obviously reluctant to do so over the blatant dangers of building a school on a toxic waste dump. Nonetheless, the school board simply threatened to take it over through "eminent domain." Hooker even took the school board on a tour of the property warning them of the dangers. But in the end Hooker was pressured into selling the land to the city for $1. However, as much as they were forced into selling the land, they still have share some responsibility, as they did accept a $2,382.96 tax deduction.

Early on in the construction of the school, Hooker's fears of health risks, not helped by the fact that neither they, nor the city was held responsible for any problems regarding the property, were realized. First the school's location had to be moved because there were two pits of chemicals dumped there. Then the city began construction of sanitary and storm sewers in 1957. The following year, children playing in the area were exposed to the open chemicals and developed skin irritation. Hooker again warned the board to stop digging, but the school board ignored them.

During all this homes were being built around the contaminated and leaking (due to the constant construction, the clay barrier had cracked). By 1977 the dangers were obvious and Love Canal was a disaster area as chemical odors filled the Love Canal neighborhood. Orange goo was oozing through sump pumps. Children and animals were getting chemical burns from playing in dirt and there were reports of chemical explosions throughout the area.

What had happened was that as a result of the cracking of the clay barrier and natural corrosion of the steel drums they were kept in, the chemicals had traveled form the dump site through underground passageways called "swales."

Today, the government has found more than 400 deadly chemicals, including dioxin, in the Love Canal region and the area is fenced off (though it isn't really guarded). More than 700 families were forced to move and many homes were demolished.

"They [the government] said, 'Don't go in your basement. Don't eat out of your garden. Don't do this, don't do that, but it's perfectly safe to live in Love Canal.'" -- Lois Gibbs

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Peter Jennings. The Century
http://web.globalserve.net/~spinc/atomcc/history.htm

A little follow up...

By the time the year 1980 had rolled around, more than 248 individual chemicals were identified in the Love Canal waste site by U.S. government scientists. For those of you noders who are chemically inclined, what follows are a selected list of some of your heavier hitters, those considered the most toxic at the time.

• Benzene - scientifically linked with cancer, especially leukemia in humans.
• Toluene - a clear, colorless, sweet-smelling liquid that occurs naturally in crude oil. It is produced from petroleum refining as a by-product of styrene production, and coke-oven operations
• Chloroform - chemical used at one time as an anesthetic. Causes cancer in animals.
• Trichloroethylene - an industrial solvent. Causes cancer in laboratory animals.
• Tetrachloroethylene -a man-made substance widely used for dry-cleaning and metal-degreasing operations. Can cause central nervous system effects leading to dizziness, nausea, difficulty in speaking and walking, among others.
• Hexachlorobenzene - a by product of the manufacture of industrial solvents. Can eventually cause liver damage.
• Xylenes - primarily man-made chemical produced from petroleum and coal. Occurs naturally in petroleum and coal tar.
• C-56 - trade name used by Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp. for hexachlorocyclopentadiene used in the manufacture of Miran and Kepone. Little known about effects on humans, but in industrial use, very low exposure recommended.
• 2,4-D - a herbicide sometimes used to keep down weeds in roadside ditches. Also known as 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid.
• Mirex - a pesticide used against ants. Thought to cause liver damage and some animal birth defects.
• Kepone - a pesticide used against ants and roaches. Suspected of causing cancer in humans.
• PCBs - term used to describe approximately 200 chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls used in electrical/electronics and plastics industries. Known to cause severe liver damage to humans and have a variety of bad effects on fish and wildlife. Manufacture is now banned.

Source
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/lovecanal/chemlst.html
http://onlineethics.org/environment/lcanal/hertz.html

One of the most disturbing things about Love Canal is that it isn't alone. For a start, the Valley of the Drums is just as bad-there are around 4000 drums of waste, in the open air, rusting and leaking, that have been dumped over a ten year period. The EPA has been trying to sort things out, and is currently installing a clay cap and trench to halt further contamination, but the drums are still there-they are strewn over previously unspoilt countryside, and leaking into the surrounding area.

In Berkshire, England, there is a similar project springing up to build on a chemical waste dump. The only difference between this project and Love Canal is that the wastes are being removed first. Still, the surrounding area has a chemical odour, and there is the question of the safety of shipping chemical wastes around-the groundwater at the site is in danger of contamination anyway, and removal of the drums will do nothing to help that as the chemicals have already leached.

Both ICI and General Electric have been dumping PCBs at sea or in rivers, and the same chemicals have been found in salmon sold in Scotland. The infamous Sellafield plant in Cumbria, North England, has been discharging radioactive wastes (mainly Technetium) into the sea, and the isotope has been found in supermarket fish and on the coast of Ireland, which is a good 100 miles away. Sellafield beach, which was apparently a fantastic holiday spot, now has large signs warning of radionucleide contamination (bathing would understandably be lunacy).

The Mayak site in Cheylabinsk, Russia, has been steadily discharging waste into the Techa River, and has scattered over the country pollution equalling in radioactivity to that of Chernobyl. La Hague in France is pumping out nuclear waste into the sea also, and Greenpeace protesters managed to shut off the pipe for a day or two and set up a webcam at the scene, right when the OSPAR convention on waste dumping was on.
Love Canal was one incident. There are many more like it, thanks to the sheer stupidity of our forefathers. Think about it.

Sources: Berkshire residents, Greenpeace (archive.greenpeace.org/mayak), Bellona, E2, personal knowledge