Love Canal

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a 0.28 km² (0.11 sq mi) landfill that became the site of an environmental disaster discovered in 1977. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals killed residents and harmed the health of hundreds, often profoundly. The area was cleaned up over 21 years in a Superfund operation.

In 1890, Love Canal was created as a model planned community, but was only partially developed. In 1894, work was begun on a canal to the east of the Niagara River, meant to compete with the existing Welland Canal to the west of the Niagara, to link lakes Erie and Ontario, but the Love Canal was abandoned after only one mile (1.6 km) was dug. In the 1920s, the canal became a dump site for municipal refuse for the city of Niagara Falls. During the 1940s, the canal was purchased by Hooker Chemical Company, which used the site to dump 19,800 metric tonnes of chemical byproducts from the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, and solvents for rubber and synthetic resins.

Love Canal was sold to the local school district in 1953 for $1, after the threat of eminent domain. Over the next three decades, it attracted national attention for the public health problems originating from the former dumping of toxic waste on the grounds. This event displaced numerous families, leaving them with longstanding health issues and symptoms of high white blood cell counts and leukemia. Subsequently, the federal government passed the Superfund law in 1980. The resulting Superfund cleanup operation demolished the neighborhood, ending in 2004.

In 1988, New York State Department of Health Commissioner David Axelrod called the Love Canal incident a "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations". The Love Canal incident was especially significant as a situation where the inhabitants "overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around". The University at Buffalo Archives house a number of primary documents, photographs, and news clippings pertaining to the Love Canal environmental disaster; many items have been digitized and are viewable online.

Love Canal is a neighborhood located in the city of Niagara Falls in the northwestern region of New York state. The neighborhood covers 36 blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, stretching from 93rd Street comprising the western border to 100th Street in the east border and 103rd Street in the northeast. Bergholtz Creek defines the northern border with the Niagara River marking the southern border one-quarter mile (400 m) away. The LaSalle Expressway splits an uninhabited portion of the south from the north. The canal covers 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land in the central eastern portion.

In 1890, William T. Love, a former railroad lawyer, prepared plans to construct a preplanned urban community of parks and residences on the shore of Lake Ontario. Love, who would become notorious for similar real-estate schemes later in life, claimed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much-needed hydroelectricity. He named the project Model City, New York.

After 1892, Love's plan incorporated a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara River and its Niagara Falls, in direct competition with the existing Welland Canal to the west of the Niagara River; the canal would add a new water transportation route between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. He arranged backing from banks in New York City, Chicago, and England. During October 1893, the first factory opened for business. In May 1894, work on the canal began. Steel companies and other manufacturers expressed interest in opening plants along Love Canal. Love began having a canal dug and built a few streets and houses.^{[page needed]}

The Panic of 1893 caused investors to end sponsorship of the project. Then in 1906, environmental groups successfully lobbied Congress to pass a law, designed to preserve Niagara Falls, prohibiting the removal of water from the Niagara River. Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal was dug, about 50 feet (15 m) wide and 10–40 feet (3–12 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River.