Love Canal is the name of a borough of Niagara of case in the State of New York. Love Canal designates at the same time one of the first large poison garbage scandals, which propelled the awaking environmental awareness of the neunzehnhundersiebziger years after decades of carefree handling chemistry waste.

Prehistory

Production of the channel section

The name deduces itself from the entrepreneur William T. Love, which wanted to establish a model city with planned 600,000 inhabitants in the early eighteen hundred nineties years. A channel should make navigation possible between Eriesee and Ontariosee, the downward gradient of the channel should water power for the planned settlement of many industrial plants supply. Love reached financing promises of banks of the group around John Pierpont Morgan and closed a remarkable contract with the State of New York, which did not only permit him the procurement of the building ground for the planned city, but also, to infer from the Niagara River as much water as it wanted, up to drying traps of the cases of Niagara.

The project was retarded first by the depression of the eighteen hundred nineties years and smashed themselves finally by the nearly contemporaneous development of ac technique by Nikola Tesla. Thus it had become possible, water power, converted into alternating current to transport and decentralized use over far distances. An economic basis for Loves project of an industrial centralization around an enormous was not given and the work was adjusted any longer, after a channel ditch had been dug by approximately 1.5 km length and 20 m broad.

Loves project company was liquidated, whereby last properties were sold still in the twenties of the twentieth century.

1920 - 1942 - use of the channel ditch as garbage depot

The channel ditch and surrounding properties were auctioneered 1920 and acquired by the city Niagara of case, which made the channel available as garbage depot for its flourishing chemical industry. Also the army of the United States used the dump, in order to bury wastes from attempts with chemical agents.

1942 - 1952 - intensification of the use as poison dumping ground by Hooker

Starting from 1942 the company Hooker Chemical and plastic corporation, a subsidiary of Occidental petroleum, expanded the deposit of poisonous wastes substantially. It acquired the area 1947 and stored until 1952 approximately 14,000 cubic meters poison garbage into the channel ditch. Then the capacity border was reached and to Hooker brought an insulating layer made of alumina up and brought the channel on environment level. The area was closed thereby for further refuse dump.

Settling the area

Purchase by the school administrative board and school's building

Since Niagara of case grew baby due to "the boom "strongly, the school administrative board was interested strong in cheap building ground in a primary school and stepped into negotiations with Hooker Chemical. These refused selling first, delivered however the country, after with expropriation one threatened. In the sales contract a non-liability for Hooker was expressly held and warned of the problems with the land development.

The location of the planned school had to be shifted during the construction work, because at the original place chemical-filled pits were discovered. The new location was directly over the former poison garbage depot. With the Schachtarbeiten became the clay stratum, which had let Hooker attach, broken through.

Build a residential area

1957 were opened the area for the land development with low-priced dwellings and single family houses. The land development was to a large extent final until the end of the sixties. The new owners were not cleared up over the poison garbage depot under their homes of one's own.

Adjacent resident initiative and resettling

The inhabitants began soon to deplore itself. Strange smells arose, in the gardens withdrew chemical substances from the earth's surface. Children in the primary school seemed to be constantly ill. Statistic evaluations resulted in a superelevated number of cases of cancer and measurement births in the area concerned.

At 1978 an adjacent resident initiative under guidance of Lois Gibbs, began the Love Canal Homeowner's Association to demand the investigation of the problems. Became the dangers concealed up to then admits. The adjacent resident initiative tried thereupon to prove the responsibility of Hooker Chemical it did not only have the parent company against Occidental petroleum, to fight but also against all authorities involved. It succeeded however to direct the attention of press and television on the scandal so that president Jimmy Carter explained the area on 7 August 1978 as the disaster area. A resettling of the concerning taken place however only starting from 1980. The primary school and a large part of the populated areas up and directly beside the channel ditch were torn off. Some older inhabitants decided however to remain in their houses.

The successful press work of the adjacent resident initiative became the model for environmental's groups in the whole western world.

Related links

• Report of the US-American environmental protection authority

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