Risk Assessment: Tools, Techniques, and Their Applications

4.3 Love Canal

In 1920, Hooker Chemical (Hooker) had turned an area in Niagara Falls into a municipal and chemical disposal site (11, 12). In 1953, the disposal site was filled and relatively modern methods were applied to cover the disposal site. A thick layer of impermeable red clay sealed the dump. The idea was that the clay would seal the site and prevent chemicals from leaking from the landfill.

A city near the chemical disposal site wanted to buy it for urban expansion. Despite the warnings made by Hooker, Niagara Falls School Board eventually bought the site for the amount of $1. The published literature on the event said that Hooker could not sell the site for more money because they did not want to earn money off the project. As part of the housing development process, the city began to dig to develop a sewer. When construction crews dug up the ground for the sewer, it damaged the red clay cap over the disposal site. Blocks of homes and a school were built and the neighborhood was named Love Canal.

Love Canal seemed like a normal, regular neighborhood. The only thing that distinguished this neighborhood from others was the strange chemical odors that often hung in the air and an unusual seepage noticed by inhabitants in their basements and yards. Children in the neighborhood often became sick. The families living in the Love Canal housing area had a higher than normal rate of miscarriages and birth defects (11).

Lois Gibbs, an environmental activist, noticed the high occurrence ...