Poisoned Earth: The Tragedy at Love Canal tells the dramatic and inspiring stories of ordinary women who fought against all odds for the health and protection of their families. In the late 1970s, the citizens of Love Canal, a working-class community in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools, and playgrounds were built on a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking poisonous ingredients and wreaking havoc on their physical condition. Through interviews with many ordinary housewives-turned-activists, the film shows how they challenged those in power, forced America to shoulder the human burden of an unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the historic Superfund bill.
The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund and the Better Angels Society
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Mutual Freedom of Insurance
Robert David Leon Gardiner Foundation
Carlisle Businesses
The American Experience Trust
For the U. S. experience
FILE VIDEO: Arthur Tracy, Love Canal resident: I need to say something. I’m sure God will send me to hell because I discovered it here on Earth.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Niagara Falls, New York, May 1980
FILE VIDEO: Arthur Tracy, Love Canal resident: I’m almost 65 years old. I’m tired of being a yo-yo. Thrown this way. Thrown this way. Pulled to the other side. Someone happens to say to me, what are you doing, Mr. Tracy?After 35 years on this Love Channel, I’ll tell you what IArray is. Just give me my 28. 5 for which you appraised my house. All I’ve got is my 28. 5 and give it to me tonight and I’ll go in that direction and never watch the Love Channel again.
Residents: We’ll get out. We have to get out. We’ll get out. We’ve got to get out. We’ll get out. We’ll get out.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: It’s hard to believe. That may not happen in the United States of America.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: For years, the Love Canal Homeowners Association has cited evidence of significant fitness disorders in the neighborhood. Birth defects and miscarriages. . . Severe migraines. Respiratory diseases. . . There are already 8 cases of cancer in a street of about fifteen houses. Resident: I think I have disorders with my daughter and we just found out that the other one has rheumatoid arthritis. We have hearing disorders in all children. The baby has a deformed foot, so he just runs constantly to hospitals and the children’s hospital.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: People were talking about their poor health, but no one knew exactly why they were in such poor health or why so many other people were in such poor health.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Today, a quarter of a century after its introduction, chemical tea is coming out of the ground.
Amy Hay, Historian: People didn’t know they were living on 22,000 tons of poisonous chemicals.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Health experts have discovered more than 80 dangerous chemicals oozing from the surface.
Jennifer Thomson, Historian: All of a sudden, everything explodes. More and more people are getting sick. You know, black dust gets into their houses.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The family is afraid to even go to the basement because of the high values of an explosive chemical called toluene.
Richard Newman, Historian: Love Canal was the first chemical crisis to spread before the eyes of Americans.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: We’re dying, literally dying from benzene. All those other compounds cause cancer. Now talking about nerve gas. There’s just no way. . .
Lois Gibbs, resident: It’s much worse than I imagined. Certainly, much worse than they say.
FILE VIDEO: Luella Kenny: Can you tell me when I’m going to lose more young people because one is already dead?Please tell me those things.
Patti Grenzy, Resident: We were struck by the fact that, right now, we’re on our own. We have to get there. Possibly they wouldn’t do it for us.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: That prompted me to do something about it.
Carol Jones, resident: We want to do something.
Barbara Quimby, resident: I mean, the fight came to us, we didn’t look for it.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: Every single one of you singles in this room is a killer. Resident: They are a group of sadists with health problems.
Patti Grenzy, resident: They would see us as hysterical housewives and say, well, they were passing by to give up. They will go back to knitting and their young children and everything will pass. But we were more powerful than that.
Richard Newman, Historian: This women’s organization has become the face of environmental reform. But surely there was no roadmap.
FILE VIDEO: Barbara Quimby: I’m tired of being a guinea pig. I want to get out. Try me later, but my God, get me and my children out now.
Jennifer Thomson, Historian: The concern that this could happen to all of us, and the fact is that it affects other people as well, in places across the country.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The Love Channel is just the tip of a harmful and frightening chemical iceberg. Lois Gibbs: I’m going to move until I understand why.
Lois Gibbs, resident: I’m not thinking about creating a movement or anything like that. I think about survival. How are we going to get out of here? We have to do anything and I don’t care what it takes.
Barbara Quimby, Resident: It was a fantastic neighborhood. For a kid, oh my God, we laughed a lot there. A lot of times we were just closer to school to play baseball or something, but we’d end up where we called the Black Lagoon.
Patti Grenzy, Resident: On the surface, there was an oily substance, like a green and a blue. And if you threw something at it, it would bubble and sink. That’s why we call them quicksand.
Barbara Quimby, resident: It was like a wonderland. We had these rocks that we called pop rocks, and we just slid them over them and they really had a flame. It was like fire. And the one thing I don’t forget is that my mom was screaming for our shoes. This time I had bought a new pair of shoes and I came home and he said, “What?It looks like your shoes are burned. What happened to everyone?”The rubber that surrounds it? They probably wouldn’t buy you new shoes. What are you doing?” I only play at school. ‘I mean, no one went to investigate and asked: why are those shoes burning?
Resident Lois Gibbs: I discovered the space on 101st Street, the one in the Love Canal community. Most of them were initial spaces. And it was the best community from my point of view. To the south was the river Niágara. Au To the north, there was a creek and the kids could just go and walk along the creek and pick tadpoles or, you know, it was just a wonderful little stream, very shallow, wonderful for the kids. We moved in with Michael, who was a year old at the time, a healthy boy, and then we had our little girl. In fact, I thought I had done a lot. I had this space and a husband who had a paid job and these lovely kids. You know, everything seemed to be going well.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: Love Canal was subsidized by the government. My husband didn’t make a lot of money and they made this small business a very smart deal to move in. We were paying $135 a month to live in a new logo. home, which was unusual. I wasn’t going to question it. So we were very lucky to have fallen at the right time.
Luella Kenny, Resident: I’ve lived in Niagara Falls my whole life. When I got married, my husband was from Niagara Falls. We had two kids and we saw this beautiful brick space on Love Canal with an acre of land around it and it was sitting on a creek and it was just ideal and we were thinking about what position to raise your kids.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, Resident: I moved on to the progression called Griffon Manor. It is a new housing project with a logo. A great place. Flowers, the green grass. There was like a little pond that the kids played in and there were trees and things like that, and they swayed on the branches and so forth.
Carol Jones, Resident: We had a little backyard in the front and in the back, we were looking at, I’m going to call it water, but a swampy lot that looked oily. Sometimes it smelled like burnt rubber or a strong cleaner. . It’s just a bad smell. Enough to drown. But we don’t pay attention to it. It’s common for us to smell those smells.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: People knew when they were approaching our space because we had a terrible smell behind our space. In fact, the whole neighborhood.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The mail carrier even wears a fuel mask on his delivery route. Postman: It smells awful. You’ve been given this space at 510 99th Street, it’s one of the worst smells I’ve had here in a long, long time, it’s terrible.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: If you drove down Buffalo Avenue, where all the chemical industries are, you’d feel that way. My dad worked at Hooker Chemical. Es the smell we had in our backyard. That’s why it’s very familiar. It smelled like Dad.
CHEMICAL SOCIETY FILE VIDEO: Narrator: Today and in the years to come, the global seeks greater things for a better life through chemistry. The science that has played a major role in the perfection of virtually everything we use.
Richard Newman, Historian: Niagara Falls is a place synonymous with chemicals.
CHEMICAL COMPANY STOCK VIDEO: Narrator: Chemists make things as different as insecticides for the farmer and cosmetics for women.
Richard Newman, historian: A dozen other chemical corporations along the banks of the Niagara River. Before you see the mist of Niagara Falls, you smell all that chemical production. It’s permeating the car, it’s in the air, it’s thick.
CHEMICAL COMPANY STOCK VIDEO: Narrator: Substances sent in tank with names like styrene, vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile.
Lois Gibbs, resident: Chemicals were part of our lives. You know, when you smell the chemicals, you smell the smart economy. You knew you’d have to put food in the t, that you’d have to pay your mortgage, that you might one day buy a new car.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: I know, Union Carbide is there.
Marie Rice, Reporter: Goodyear and Goodrich, I think, are there too. And then, of course, Hooker, Hooker Chemical.
Michael Brown, Reporter: Hooker is from Niagara Falls. From caustic soda for chlorine to pesticides and herbicides, especially chlorinated hydrocarbons. Hundreds of chemicals, just about any chemical you could ever need. Of course, at the same time, those chemicals create toxic substances. waste.
STOCK VIDEO FROM A CHEMICAL COMPANY: Narrator: Hazardous waste is generated through the production of paints, pesticides, plastics, leather, textiles, and medicines. The challenge is to scale up systems that can take care of the millions of tons of hazardous waste produced each year. One year.
Michael Brown, Reporter: Chemical corporations in Niagara Falls and across the United States were pouring into holes. They were digging, digging, and burying their garbage. That’s how we got rid of him.
CHEMICAL COMPANY FILE VIDEO: Narrator: The 55-gallon drums are used as boxes for solids. They are stacked compactly in the mobile landfill and then covered with a canopy to prevent rainwater from entering and waste from being left inside.
Michael Brown, Reporter: In the 1950s, no one knew the biological ramifications of many of these chemicals.
FILE VIDEO: Grace McColf: I used to eat garlic, wild onions, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, and carrots. We used to have everything, beans, Italian beans, regular beans, all kinds of things and. . .
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: No one can just grow a garden. We grew a beet that weighed almost seven pounds and probably would have taken an awl to cut it in half, because it looked like a little bowling ball. It’s the only beet that ever grew. I thought my husband wasn’t doing a very smart job planting. I didn’t know that.
Resident Barbara Quimby: So many animals have died. It was inexplicable. They had no fur left, otherwise many of them would die of cancer. This is general because it has happened to other people’s animals as well.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: And then anything happened. We saw other people develop what they thought was asthma. People started to have kidney problems, bladder problems, some young people had behavioral problems, a total change from their current state.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: So there were problems. It smelled bad, but the snowstorm of 1977 was the worst thing that could have happened to us. It was this snowfall that caused the barrels to rise.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: More than 150 inches of snow have fallen this year, about 4 times the overall average. This represents the worst typhoon of the worst winter in the city’s history. Downtown Buffalo is like a ghost town, almost every business is paralyzed, as are the thousands of people in the city.
Michael Brown, Reporter: In 1977, I was a reporter for the Niagara Gazette covering the city of Niagara Falls. The winter had been very harsh and when the snow melted, it was a scene. I don’t forget that there were drums expuestos. se would collapse and chemicals would come out that would start seeping into the ground.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: In my backyard, there was a hole in the ground, about the length of a plate. And there was a black goo inside and it smelled bad and everything was frothy around the edges and all that. And as the days went by As time went on, these gaps got bigger and bigger. And this black thing started popping up in other people’s gardens.
FILE VIDEO: Reaspectnt: I’ve lived here for 10 years and they tried to tell me it was tar, but no one came here to check it. They said, ‘How about we dig it up?’ I tried to dig it up. It’s very deep and it’s all over the garden. It’s on the side of the field. It’s even in my neighbor’s garden.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, Resident: And then there’s going to be something that gets stuck in the basements of our homes in Griffon Manor. Black mud. And no matter what we did, we couldn’t get rid of it.
Michael Brown, Reporter: People are starting to tell me things, and I knew it was anecdotal information, but I also knew something bad was going on.
Richard Newman, historian: Residents are starting to realize all the strange things that have been happening in the community for years. The first thing citizens do is contact their local elected officials. Niagara Falls officials are pushing them back. It was then that they discovered an angel in John LaFalce, who was the representative of the Niagara Falls dominion in Congress.
Bonnie Casper, congressional aide: We told several citizens that we would pass out and watch the canal. And they welcomed us into their house. We entered the basement and saw the mud. It was like black tar. He couldn’t even describe the smell.
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: Well, it didn’t smell like lasagna sauce. To me, it smelled like chemicals, and I didn’t know exactly which chemicals, I’m not sure if they’re harmful, but what you don’t know can harm. you.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: Maybe we saw a couple of barrels and we saw the school, so there was the playground on the canal. The locals told us that their kids played there all the time, you know, they played on the canal, they played. . . That’s where they were going. It was their backyard.
FILE VIDEO: Officer: Give me your name.
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: I wanted to know how it had become a chemical dump. And then, how is it possible that this land could have been used for housing, a school, a playground where children played on a daily basis. The challenge was very serious and I was going to do whatever I thought was obligatory. And that was not the disposition of the other officials.
FILE VIDEO: Michael O’Laughlin, Mayor of Niagara Falls: I’m worried about people. But, as mayor, I can’t jeopardize our city. And a first duty I have. . .
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: Some other people were very, very concerned that it would tarnish the symbol of the city.
FILE VIDEO: Michael O’Laughlin, Mayor of Niagara Falls: And I’m continually warned to be wary of making egregious statements that could incriminate the city.
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: Niagara Falls, of course, is known for its tourism industry. And there’s an understandable fear about the effect it would have.
Richard Newman, Historian: For centuries, Niagara Falls has had an oversized lifestyle in the American mind. People visited them to be inspired by nature and feel its power. It’s moving, it’s sublime. But starting in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many other people visited the falls for anything else. They are determined to expand them for commercial use.
FILE VIDEO: Narrator: The mighty waters of Niagara Falls pour about 9,000 cubic feet of water over this 165-foot cliff.
Richard Newman, historian: In the 1880s, when hydroelectric developers came to Niagara Falls, they altered the falls. They electrified them. They make it a component of a new era of hydropower.
FILE VIDEO: Narrator: To satisfy the desires of industry and the well-being of humanity.
Richard Newman, Historian: Not only in upstate New York, but also in the Midwest. Niagara Falls is at the center of America’s commercial dream.
Michael Brown, Reporter: In the 1890s, there was a railroad entrepreneur, William T. He had the idea of building a canal from the upper reaches of the Niagara River, bypassing the falls, to the lower reaches of the river. This will be used for transport and at the same time generate electricity.
Richard Newman, historian: Love sought to produce something called Model City, merging commercial power and utopian design. It tells other people that I can create a bigger hydroelectric plant, that I can generate more wealth, more investment in the area, and other things. people are willing to do so because they see Niagara Falls as the next big step in American commercial life. William Love was so successful in his investment plan that he had enough cash to start digging out parts of his channel. And he’s telling other people that you’re walking through the long-term site of America’s commercial power center, right here at Love’s Canal.
Michael Brown, Reporter: I mean, it looked like some kind of showboat. He walked around with a marching band, flyers and advertisements, and even had a diddy that sounded like the Yankee Doodle. “Everyone has come to the city, those who have left, we feel sorry for us, because we are all having a good time in the new Love-style city. “Yes, Love’s new style town. Soon after it went bankrupt.
Richard Newman, Historian: In many ways, it’s a Ponzi scheme. He promises to pay other people in the long run, but the long run is fast approaching. You can’t pay off all those debts. Love’s Canal never ends. Model City never ends. Both dreams lie fallow and are something of a monument to failure. But there’s a dirt furrow in the Niagara Falls landscape that will stay there. No one knows what to do with it. Enter: Hooker Electrochemical Company in Niagara Falls.
Keith O’Brien, Author: In the 1940s, when the war effort was in full swing, Hooker Chemical was generating more chemicals than ever before. And like any manufacturer, he needed a stall to sell his waste and tea.
Richard Newman, Historian: Hooker Chemical finds an ideal ground for this, just six miles from its production site, where William Love began building his synthetic river 50 years earlier. They believe it’s the best thing to do to bury chemical waste.
FILE VIDEO: Bruce Davis, Hooker VP: The canal was dug out further, then the drums were stacked in this mini safe and then covered with 4 feet of clay.
Charles Warren, Regional Administrator, EPA: At the time, there was no law regulating those spills, so they can just dispose of them in any way they see fit.
FILE VIDEO: Arthur Tracy: They backed up those trucks, you know, and put a drum in here. Sometimes the lid would come off, no, because they were sealed. Interviewer: Now, what happened when the water hit? Arthur Tracy: It would open and there would be a flash of flame, like a chimney emerging in the air. Boom, it would disappear, you know.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: Everybody knew Hooker was a chemical plant. In fact, people were familiar with many of the chemicals he had produced. But no one knew what waste had been dumped. And no one knew literally how many drums were buried in Love. Channel.
Richard Newman, historian: They filled the entire domain with about a hundred thousand barrels of chemicals. The folks at Hooker Chemical didn’t think in terms of long-term chemical risks. And they had this idea that, by getting rid of those substances, even if they made it this far. Coming out of the drums of chemicals, the landscape itself would suck them up like a big sponge.
Michael Brown, Reporter: In the 1950s, Niagara Falls was a developing city. Everything was going very well financially.
Amy Hay, Historian: Most of the people who bought painted houses in Hooker and other chemical corporations in Niagara Falls. So it was a wonderful community that had smart transportation to get to their paintings at the chemical plants.
Richard Newman, Historian: It was a time when people looked at the landscape and didn’t care what was underneath. And Love Canal, the chemical-covered landfill, was seen in the 1950s as a huge opportunity for progress.
Keith O’Brien, Author: In the spring of 1953, Hooker Chemical turned the land over to the Niagara Falls School Board for a dollar and they pulled out of the Love Canal business.
Richard Newman, Historian: The Niagara Falls school board presents an agreement with Hooker Chemical that essentially says there is chemical waste buried under the Love Canal site, but does not say precisely what kind of chemical waste is in the soil. This is where the 99th Street School will be installed. They will work with developers to build a subdivision that will have a new housing inventory and playgrounds. The culprits of the hazardous waste dump didn’t care what happened next. They don’t want to know, they don’t want to know because government officials didn’t pressure them. The other inhabitants of Niagara Falls don’t want to scare the chemical industry. Less wisdom is better for business.
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: In the summer of 1977, I wrote to the head of the Hooker Corporation and said, “I need to know exactly what you buried. “And I need to know if what you buried can just be dangerous.
Michael Brown, Reporter: Everybody’s had a story, from rashes to cancer. They’re talking about birth defects, they’re talking about miscarriages. My editor prevented me from publishing much of the fitness effects because I wanted to hear them from an official fitness point of view. When we saw what was happening on Love Canal, it was very difficult to stay in the spotlight because it’s like watching a twist of fate in slow motion.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Fear can be seen on people’s faces today as men, women and young people piled up the former chemical sale for blood tests at an open-air community school.
Richard Newman, Historian: As state officials receive more information, they begin to conduct extensive testing.
FILE VIDEO: Official: We are looking for evidence of leukemia, anemia, and toxic liver disease.
Richard Newman, historian: They also moved into people’s homes, they went into people’s basements, they monitored leachate, they tested what kind of chemicals were seeping into yards.
Michael Brown, Reporter: They had started doing aerial tests and for 3 months I tried to get the effects of those tests. No one wanted to tell me what it was and I eventually discovered that there was benzene in the air, which was incredibly alarming. It is a known human carcinogen.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The EPA has known 3 compounds in amounts 5,000 times higher than the degrees considered as Array and 3 others that are known to cause cancer in animals measured at 250 times the degrees of exposure.
Michael Brown, Reporter: And then things got worse. Hooker had another sale right in front of Love Canal. They also had a landfill next to the water plant that supplies water to the city of Niagara Falls. And their largest landfill is called Hyde Park Landfill, and that landfill is three, four times bigger. Love Channel Length. How come we don’t know?How is it possible that we don’t know?
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Not only do state officials not know what chemicals are buried here in the Love Channel, but they don’t even know how many chemical dumps there are in Niagara County.
Charles Warren, Regional Administrator, EPA: The EPA has said we want to do an inventory of poisonous sites across the country. And in doing so, we discovered many sites of all kinds. We had them there and no one was doing anything. about them and, at the time, we didn’t think we had the weapons to deal with those sites.
Keith O’Brien, author: The EPA, one of the youngest federal agencies, is still getting its feet on its feet. It was founded in 1970 by Richard Nixon and caught up, especially when it came to orphan landfills and chemical dumps. They were scattered all over the United States.
Charles Warren, Regional Administrator, EPA: They did a count on us, and it was in the thousands.
Richard Newman, Historian: Almost every state has a challenge like Love Canal, and each and every one of them can simply be a ticking time bomb.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: After living at Love Canal, maybe a year, Michael started to be in poor health, so, you know, first it was asthma, then it was a urinary disorder and then when Michael was in kindergarten, he was spending a lot more time in school, and that’s when he had his first attack. We were at a fast food place and I thought he was drowning, but he wasn’t drowning and that scared me. The pediatrician had no answer, so I read those articles and I read things about benzene, toluene, and other chemicals; I didn’t even know how to pronounce them at the time. And then they were talking about the school on 99th Street. I was like, wait, wait, what’s going on here? I think Michael was in poor health because he was in school and also because we played on the playground almost every day. So I started a petition to close the 99th Street school.
ARCHIVED VIDEO: Reporter: How many chemicals are known to be found underground here?Official: So far we know of 88 express chemicals that have been known. Reporter: And among those 88, how many are suspected of causing cancer?Officer: My number is 11.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: It was scary. They were running around with their moon attacks and came in with all kinds of machines and other things so they could test the ambient air in the basement. They said there was benzene, toluene, trichloroethylene, and all those “enos. “It was Greek for all of us. And before long, Lois came to my back door and I said, oh my God, we were going to school together. We were in Girl Scouts together.
Lois Gibbs, resident: So we sat in his living room and talked for a while. She talked about her miscarriages and all the other health issues she had. Debbie was the first to agree to go door-to-door with me.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: I just felt, it sounds silly, but it was like a calling that I had to do this and I absolutely decided to do it.
Patti Grenzy, resident: I Lois was going out on the street with her petition and I was like, oh my God, what are you selling?There were articles in the paper, but I had two young men and one on the way. I didn’t pay much attention to the news. Lois started talking to me about birth defects, miscarriages, stillbirths, and all that. When you’re pregnant, it’s pretty scary to hear that. We all think it’s not going to happen to me, but it’s going to happen to the guy, you know, on the street. Well, we ended up being the guy around the corner. It happens to us.
TEXT ON SCREEN: AUGUST 2, 1978
Keith O’Brien, Author: By August 1978, state officials may no longer endorse this issue. They made this sensationalist announcement, encouraging the evacuation of some two hundred families living closer to the canal. But these were only pregnant women or children under the age of two. Of course, other citizens of the community promptly questioned their own health and that of their children.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Heisner: I’m scared. We made the decision to get out of this somehow.
Richard Newman, historian: People realize that they weren’t just living in a leaky landfill, they were living in a chemical crisis zone. And that sparked all sorts of scary conversations.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: The day after New York State declared a public fitness emergency, officials attended 99th Street for a network meeting.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: This is the first opportunity citizens had to vent their frustrations in the ears of state officials. The state’s fitness commissioner, Robert Whalen, tried to tell the crowd that Albany is doing everything it can to get rid of the poisonous chemicals seeping into their homes, but other people feel the wheels of government are moving too slowly. Resident: And you represent us. You’re going to be in trouble. We’re going to do it all. . .
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: The assembly was meant to be a shouting game from the beginning because now we’ve gotten data on what we’ve been exposed to and how harmful it is.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: 8 months pregnant woman here. We’ve been living in this space for two years. Nobody told us what happened, man, nothing. She’s been there for 8 months. What are you going to do for my child?The damage is done, man, the pain is done.
Richard Newman, Historian: The state fitness department focused primarily on the first two housing circles around the old canal dumps. People who weren’t in one or two houses in the circle thought they were trapped in a death zone.
Patti Grenzy, Resident: Ring 3 was right outside that area where we lived. Our front yard overlooked the backyards of the houses on 99th Street. So we were very close.
Richard Newman, Historian: If it’s a ticking time bomb for fitness, why are only other people living on 97th and 99th streets being evacuated?
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Whalen was also criticized for advising that only pregnant women and children under the age of two evacuate the area. Lois Heisner: Could you tell me if I let my three-year-old stay?What do you expect from us? This is my son. What’s the difference?What about seven-, eight- and ten-year-olds?
Keith O’Brien, Author: Up until that point, those other people believed that the government was there to protect them. This administration has done the right thing with Americans. They were families whose husbands had served in Vietnam. These were mothers who don’t see themselves as part of the feminist movement.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: I don’t see anything happening in New York State that’s more than the lives of those people.
Keith O’Brien, Author: But the network that night changed forever.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: As families with pregnant women and young children left their Love Canal homes to move into surplus military housing. New York State officials. . .
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: I can get a very good sense of the homeowners there, but I can also sense that it can be a very expensive undertaking.
FILE VIDEO: John LaFalce: I’m aware of your problems. Me with them. I know their health issues, their housing issues, their school issues. So I asked the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration to declare this an emergency and crisis zone. . .
Richard Newman, Historian: Up until that point, the only mistakes that the federal government had declared as an emergency or crisis were the mistakes caused by grasses, i. e. , hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. But Love Canal is hogging all the resources of the local government. government. And you get to the point of an herbal crisis.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: For the first time, a strictly man-made crisis has been declared a federal emergency, allowing the government to provide assistance to the region.
Lois Gibbs, resident: When Carter talks about his emergency, we say, yes, now the White House knows we exist. We’ve got a challenge and, you know, they’re going to help us.
FILE VIDEO: Hugh Carey, Governor of New York: Silver. That’s the news, money.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Governor Hugh Carey travels to Niagara Falls to meet with citizens of the 99th Street school.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Hugh Carey spoke to others in the besieged Love Canal region.
Keith O’Brien, Author: That afternoon at school, Carey announces that they’re only going to evacuate citizens from the neighborhood, but that they’re going to buy their homes.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: In one of his most popular moves, the promise to pay off homes that are now worthless on the full market.
Michael Brown, Reporter: To the other people who were near the canal, Governor Hugh Carey was a white gentleman coming in on horseback. So there was a lot of relief in one aspect and then there were the other people who were stuck. There were about 700 families left and, you know, those other people watch almost daily as more and more stuff comes out on Love Canal.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Cleaning up the canal will cost more than $9 million. And once the paintings are started, they will take 3 months to finish.
Richard Newman, Historian: They need to make sure that the chemicals are contained and that they don’t leach into other homes in the subdivision or in the neighborhood.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The plans call for the installation of a layer of clay over the canal.
Richard Newman, Historian: They’re going to seal it and cover it with clay so they don’t remove the poisonous chemicals from the soil.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: There will also be a chain-link fence around the Love Canal area.
Richard Newman, Historian: But the first thing they do is put a fence in the community separating the houses of the first ring, rings one and two, from the rest of the community.
Michael Tolli, resident: They put up the fence. The first two rows of houses were abandoned. It was strange. There are tons of people around, and then there’s no one around. And now it’s a ghost town.
Ernie Grenzy, Resident: The fence right in front of my yard. And they say, “Okay, not okay, that, across the street. “And that’s how we live for a long time. It was devastating. I mean, you’re basically worried about your kids and my wife who’s pregnant, what’s going to happen to the baby?And you get frustrated because there’s nothing you can do about it.
Richard Newman, Historian: The other people at Love Canal thought that the government was going to save them, that once they declared that there was a challenge in Love Canal, they would be saved. And they learned that those officials faced a challenge that was as new to them as it was to the locals.
Keith O’Brien, Author: They learned that in order to escape their homes, even in the face of the magnitude of the problem, they had to organize.
TEXT ON SCREEN: A few days after the emergency was declared, a small organization of citizens formed the Love Canal Homeowners Association.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: Our first Love Canal owner’s workplace at 99th Street School. It’s a classroom. And as I knocked on everyone’s door, they identified my face. And so I elected president. I’m afraid to be a leader. You know, I’m a shy, quiet user and all of a sudden, a bunch of other people are chasing me, and they’re angry, frustrated, and terrified, so it’s not just about being a leader, it’s about being a leader. in a crisis.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: Our main goal is that anyone who wanted to leave could do so with their home purchased at fair market value. I wanted to pass out, like all my neighbors. I wanted to leave. I need someone to buy my house. Because those are all the assets I had in the world and I was looking to move and I was looking to have that happy life that I had before when I took my son to school, when I made my husband’s lunch, and when I baked a green meal. cake for St. Patrick’s Day. I tried to get it all back.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: As president of the Love Canal Homeowners Association, Gibbs went from being a low-key stay-at-home mom to a community advocate to an outspoken advocate for the hazardous waste disposal factor. Today, the homeowners agreement works on this house, one of the homes deserted by the Love Canal evacuees. Lois Gibbs: We probably want a doctor tonight. Marie Pozniak: In John. Et now, did he tell you about the six-hour moment? Lois Gibbs: Why don’t you get in touch with Mike?? Marie Pozniak: Why don’t you answer that phone? Lois Gibbs: Love Channel. Lois.
Barbara Quimthrough, Resident: I went to the workplace every day and opened up. There was a central organization and we were there every day. The phone kept ringing. People were coming in. Lois called us all by our last name. It’s like we’re serving, you know, in the military or something.
Grace McColf, resident: My kids were small, so they were with me. I did fundraisers, I sent letters to all kinds of corporations looking to raise money so we could do things, you know, have meetings, print flyers.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: I was finally elected vice president and Lois was joking. I was vice president of the art branch because most of the symptoms you saw in that community developed through me. By that time, I had already moved, so when I found a daycare, I would go back to the office and work with the girls. I just didn’t have the center to leave them when I had the opportunity to get away from any danger; My center wouldn’t let me. Gut told me, you have to stay there and help.
Patti Grenzy, resident: When you look back, back in that day, it was men who did things. Men did not see women as intelligent, determined, or outside their family circle. In the office, there were retired men. Then there were the men who worked shifts so they could be there too, but for the most part they were women. It was the mothers who did the legwork.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: All right, tell him we’re going to open a clinic tonight, probably at Jan’s hotel, in room 416. I just don’t know the time yet. Marie Pozniak: It deserves to be noon, and why does the state have to make it less difficult for them than it is for us?
Keith O’Brien, Author: Almost all the other people who fought to escape were women, and almost all the other people who were on the force were men. And that’s how it became a real war between the sexes.
FILE VIDEO: Patti Grenzy, Resident: Mrs. Kenny lost a child, I lost a baby before she was even born, my next-door neighbor was stillborn. Your child is in poor health, your child is in poor health, how many more?Young people want to be in poor health, how many more young people want to die, we’re not going to let that happen.
Amy Hay, Historian: Motherhood activism has a very long history in the United States. And that’s anything that mobilizes apolitical women. It starts with an honest preference for protecting your children. But then once they realize how hard it is and how well it works, it plays into the media, they realize they have a winning strategy.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Band leader Lois Gibbs is an attractive, articulate and media-savvy star.
Keith O’Brien, Author: The press enjoyed those women. They were drawn to the story of Lois Gibbs.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The board bought all this land from Hooker for a dollar.
Resident Barbara Quimby: Lois said we want to be aware of what’s going on. He went on to say that we had to stay on the front page. We can’t let them leave us.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: We’ve been tasked with keeping up the pressure on President Carter, and to do that, we’re going to have to send telegrams, shout and scream, and be heard.
Richard Newman, Historian: People who often, too often, tout the Love Canal saga as a media event about Lois Gibbs and the owners’ struggle. But there are other people in the neighborhood, other people who don’t own assets on Love Canal. , who had many of the same fears, many of the same considerations as the owners.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Right on the downtown side of the canal, one of the last public subdivisions of the city of Niagara Falls. It’s called Griffon Manor and is home to about 250 families.
Carol Jones, resident: Griffon Manor, it was just a very close-knit community. Most of the families were really similar to each other. Even before Love Canal was in the news, my mom was talking about it. I don’t forget what she said: there is more going on here than meets the eye. We’ll have to do something. Our table was completely covered. My mom had grades in both one and both. There was study material, newspaper clippings. She obtained information from surveys she had collected from other people with physical disorders and discovered that many other people living at Griffin Manor had concerning ailments. As I remember, my mother deserved to have been in the news one and two days because she was there talking to reporters, answering questions and providing information, just like Lois Gibbs. But there were many nights when we were watching the news and there was no clip of anything she had discussed, and she would just sit at the table and then hang her head and cry. Array Love Channel in Mansion Faucet. There were two other places. It was like being in two other cities.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: How many families are there among the tenants in a similar situation?Jannie Freeney: I would say that at least a portion of the population in this domain is seriously ill. Resident: I have lived here for about 4 years. I have a seizure disorder.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: The tenants didn’t care about their fitness like the landlords did. Some fitness professionals said this was the reason they were sick because we weren’t taking good care of our kids.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: And my doctor, I still don’t need to say what the cause is or what is similar.
Richard Newman, Historian: Tenants feel marginalized on many levels. The citizens of Griffon Manor shaped their own activist organization.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: To the other people who live in the Niagara Falls Housing Authority, there will be an assembly especially for us because that’s what happens to us. We are immersed in other people who own houses or outside. . . Resident: Why don’t you buy one?! Resident: Why don’t you buy one?!
Jannie Grant-Freeney, Resident: We’ve had a lot of meetings with the owners. They were depraved people. What they wanted was for us not to complain. They want to be taken care of, and once they have been taken care of, the tenants will have to be taken care of.
FILE VIDEO: State Official: Governor Carey was in Buffalo yesterday and he pointed out to me that we don’t deserve to have other people go outside the existing perimeters and especially Griffon Manor. And he, so we’re very, very aware of that. And we’re going to keep an eye on him. I promised Mrs. Gibbs that she might be next. . .
Carol Jones, Resident: My mom and Lois Gibbs talked about what was going on at Griffon Manor. Nothing leads me to believe that Lois was looking for someone to be forgotten, but they had other roles to play. Lois’ role was to take care of the other people who lived outside of Griffin Manor and my mother’s role was to take care of the other people inside. And it’s become a kind of festival to get what you can just for others. people you represented.
Keith O’Brien, Author: The owners believed that the citizens of Griffon Manor could simply move in. They were renters, they didn’t invest in their space with their savings.
Amy Hay, Historian: But Griffon Manor is one of the most productive social housing complexes in Niagara Falls. They had three- or four-bedroom sets, which meant that if you had a giant family, you could live as a family. comparable public housing anywhere else in Niagara Falls.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: We had giant families, so of course we had to rent a space or a big apartment and it just wasn’t affordable for people. So it was devastating. It was. It’s like being in a fireplace but you can’t get out. Sometimes, you know, it makes you want to cry now because they had no way out. Blocked.
TEXT ON SCREEN: OCTOBER 1978
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Finally, in the late afternoon, green light. Workers dressed in airbags and disposable uniforms were there as the shoveling was removed from the Canal of Love. Little by little, the smell that the locals live for years began to follow the current through the air. The cleanup began two months after the evacuation of the first two rings of the Love Canal neighborhood, but environmental and fitness testing continued.
FILE VIDEO: Health Officer: As you all know, two of the contaminants that were discovered in the canal are benzene, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride. However, I must say that, from what we have noticed and evaluated, there is no evidence. of benzene toxicity.
Stephen Lester, Toxicologist: The state was constantly repeating and trying to reassure the citizens and the public that they had the stage down and that, you know, there was no cause for alarm.
FILE VIDEO: Health Officer: We are finding abnormalities in the liver, based on the studies that have been done. This is to be expected in any population, as you know that there are things that can cause liver disease besides poisonous chemicals.
Stephen Lester, Toxicologist: They would say, you know, with something like benzene, you would know that it affects the blood, the central nervous system, and causes liver damage. But since you’re only exposed to seven servings equal to a million, what’s in your space here, doesn’t mean you’re going to get any. This means you’re at risk. Of course, this doesn’t mean anything to people.
FILE VIDEO: Official: More than two hundred more chemicals have been identified. Interviewer: This is what the citizens learned. Tests show that some young people in the area have liver abnormalities. They don’t know if poisonous chemicals are responsible. But the locals weren’t happy with the answers, and the crowd was raising questions. Resident: I have an eight-and-a-half asthmatic girl. My doctors told me to get her out of that domain. Should I stay in this space until it gets worse?
Richard Newman, Historian: The other people at the New York State Department of Health had their jobs cut. Scientists work in the labs and have protocols. These protocols are objective and disinterested. And every time you communicate about anger, feelings, emotions, subjectivity, things that the citizens of Love Canal communicate about, you’re compromising the process.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: People are afraid. I worked at Stauffer Chemical for 23 years. I have noticed that men die from the fumes.
Richard Newman, Historian: So when the fitness officers come into the box and start communicating with the residents, the first thing they realize is that they don’t even know how to communicate with them.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: They didn’t say anything, they went around in circles all night, all night. This gentleman may not even answer a question.
Amy Hay, Historian: Many citizens didn’t have a degree beyond high school. So there were tensions of elegance and genre that were deeply exposed.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: In other fields of science, we communicate about holes in our wisdom. Here it is almost our wisdom that is a small hole in our ignorance. In reality, we know very little about exposure to these chemicals.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Beverly Paigen has conducted groundbreaking studies on environmental risks. He had written articles suggesting that air quality might contribute to lung disease and that smog might contribute to asthma.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: I met Beverly Paigen through my brother-in-law, and he brought her in as a scientist, fitness scientist, who could be a big help. And she attended the first meeting. She’s leaving, I know you’re all disappointed by the chemical exposure and I don’t know what that means yet, but I’d like to help you find out.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: Array. . For liver function, blood cell counts will be performed. . .
Amy Hay, Historian: It approaches citizens in a very different way than the Department of Health. He was experienced, but he wasn’t an authority.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: Any questions?
Amy Hay, Historian: She listens to them. It considers its considerations about the presence of diseases in this ever-widening exterior to be legitimate.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: Some problems may not be solved by cleaning. Apart from the first doorbell. . .
Stephen Lester, Toxicologist: The Department of Health kept saying that if you’re off the fence, you’re not at risk. But there was no basis for saying there was no science to say that. And the fence has become a symbol of who was and who wasn’t. The locals, of course, looked at that fence and asked: what are you talking about?These chemicals are in the air. They are not stopped through the metal fence. Therefore, it has also become a line of war between what the network was looking for and what the state was willing to do.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: There was a guy on 102nd Street who had just come back from the Cleveland clinic and had been diagnosed with epilepsy. He’s never had any central nervous system formula problems, and all of a sudden he’s got this crazy seizure problem.
Lois Gibbs, resident: We had to investigate to find out what’s going on in the outdoor network. Was it our imagination that this group of epileptics were our imagination? Is it a coincidence that these women suffer miscarriages or is it real?So we just wanted to see what was going on. We wanted to find out. No one else would tell us that we will find out for ourselves. And that’s when we did the fitness study.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: One community had severe lung and core problems, and the community had women’s cancers, and then in my area, there were a lot of miscarriages.
Lois Gibbs, resident: So we went back and started interviewing other people in the spaces where there’s a cluster of diseases, and the elders were telling us about an old creek that was there and how it was filled in with structure and then with soil.
Keith O’Brien, Author: In 1978, the State Department of Health discovered aerial photographs of the community just before Hooker Chemical began turning the land into a landfill. And in those photographs, there were a series of streams, or as they called them ravines, running through the community and moving in all directions. When Lois began to connect the dots, to locate these clusters around the old ravines, and Beverly studied them for herself, she was alarmed.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: Well, it’s pretty interesting. This creek here has very few diseases, and this creek has never crossed the Love Canal. There’s no disease here. There are about 40 houses here and there are about seven or 8 points. There are about 40 houses here and there are at least 50 points. These are just a block away. Or they’re in a creek, but one creek crossed Love Canal and another didn’t. This is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence I have. . .
Keith O’Brien, author: If it was true that human fitness disorders seemed to persist in the old swamps, then it was true that the human risk was much broader than the state and federal government had originally indicated. Beverly Paigen finally made it to an assembly in Albany with those maps and data. And he recalled that when he was handed that tube of maps and photographs on the plane that day, he felt as if he was using something explosive. He said it felt like he was using a bomb.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: So I flew to the New York State Department of Health and came up with this hypothesis. Why not look at the diseases in those ditched homes compared to the ditchless homes to see if there is a difference in the incidence of disease. And they agreed to do it. What happened was very different, I’ll never know, because I got hit on the plane, drove back to Buffalo, picked up the paper at the airport, and there was a front-page article attacking my hypothesis.
Keith O’Brien, author: The same fitness doctor she had met in Albany had spoken to the press and they rejected what she had presented that day.
FILE VIDEO: Marie Rice: The women told us that the state dismissed their studies as “useless knowledge about housewives. “
Resident Barbara Quimby: They thought we were housewives.
Patti Grenzy, resident: We’re stupid little housewives.
Marie Rice, Reporter: I’ve never heard of something so insulting. . .
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: Array. . . Useless Knowledge of Housewives?Yes, a lot of hours are spent on this paperwork.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: I’m not a scientist. I’m a stay-at-home mom, as I’ve noted several times in the newspaper. My knowledge is not useless. It’s not useless and it’s not invalid. Every single other member of that audience gave me that knowledge. They don’t lie. What they’re doing in the Department of Health is going to take six months, eight months, ten months. And if we go back and wait another six months, we’ll have dead children.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. David Axelrod, New York State Commissioner of Health: Dr. Paigen would readily admit that the procedures he used to gather knowledge are not acceptable.
Jennifer Thomson, Historian: From the state’s perspective, the aptitude test simply accumulated anecdotal knowledge and mapped it to an understanding of the community environment, which is very complex. I would want to know what chemical was present, how long it had been there, how did it interact with people’s individual biological makeup, how much time they spend in their homes, what are they exposed to at work?It is virtually unlikely, to identify causation.
Keith O’Brien, author: So for David Axelrod, for the EPA, and for others in New York and Washington, it was very tricky to know where to draw the line. Who was and who wasn’t?
Richard Newman, Historian: What we see over and over again with Love Canal is that it’s a novelty. And they’re looking to plug a dangerous spot underneath a busy neighborhood. How do you do that? This has never been done before.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: A lot of those chemicals have a very low ignition point. So if your probe fails and hits a barrel, it can cause an explosion, right?Official DEC: I would say no, because we’ll be using steel. detecting before anything else. We probably wouldn’t be researching any area. . .
Lois Gibbs, Resident: The paintings themselves are absolutely terrifying. No one knew what would happen if a spark from the backhoe hit a barrel or something, the whole thing would explode.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: We’re talking about the option of the whole landfill exploding. State Official: Well, not the entire landfill, though, there may just be an explosion, there might just be fuel exposures or something like that. I probably would. It may not happen, but you can’t be sure it won’t.
Patti Grenzy, Resident: What are we going to do if it explodes?
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Buses are on standby with a charge of $6,000 per day in case of emergency evacuation of workers.
Patti Grenzy, resident: So they set up buses in the community and stayed there with the engines running all day. The concept that in an emergency, the bus drivers they hired would sit there and wait for you and your kids to run down the street. street to get on the bus in case of an explosion.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Another precaution has been taken for citizens still living in the neighborhood. They participated in a bus evacuation of the domain on Monday with 60 bus drivers involved in the simulated evacuation plan. Transport breakdown: all Love Canal charter buses on this frequency. When you get to the Love Canal website, sign up.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: We had our papers and backpacks in a position to grab and run away. It’s like your mortgage, your fitness insurance, whatever you keep in case of a fire, right?We’ll have to grab our baby. We grabbed our backpack and, you know, it was crazy. We literally had to wake up to the truth every day that we would possibly have to run for our lives.
Luella Kenny, Resident: I started reading all those articles in early August. I knew what was going on, that they were evacuating the whole area. And I thought, oh, it’s a block and a part away. And it’s not really like that for me. I was running full time. I would come in at 7:30 in the morning, come home and pick up the kids from school. Steven was nine, Chris was eleven, and Jon was six. Actually, Jon was a little imp, you know, and he had curly hair. black hair and a very sweet smile and there was something special about him, something very special. It’s been forty-five years, but I’m still sorry, you know, I’m still sorry.
Luella Kenny, Resident: Jon has been in the hospital for a whole month. The nurses liked him because he is not a complicated patient. He didn’t complain. Eventually, through treatment, he went into remission and was sent home. As soon as he returned home, after a few days, he was no longer in remission. I would take him to the hospital and go into remission. Then I would take it home. Then the remission disappeared and the same story. So it’s very strange. Unfortunately, I didn’t know, I mean, he was playing in the garden, he was a little kid. You know, his favorite pastime was gambling in the back of the house. We just didn’t know what in the garden.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Hooker Chemical’s landfills have been a concern for some time in Niagara Falls. For many, that concern has become a total concern now that the lethal dioxin has been discovered in Love Canal. Dioxin is a byproduct of a herbicide widely used by the U. S. military to defoliate Vietnam’s dense jungles.
Michael Brown, Reporter: Months before it was considered an emergency, I knew that Hooker had made dioxin components, at least two hundred tons. This is as much dioxin as was spilled in Vietnam with all of Agent Orange. It is estimated that he is in the Love Channel.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. Beverly Paigen: Well, dioxin is a very poisonous chemical, the most poisonous chemical ever produced by man. . .
Stephen Lester, Toxicologist: Dioxins are a very potent carcinogen and their effects are in the trillions, which is even difficult to understand.
ARCHIVED VIDEO: Doctor: Now, 1/30 ounce of this dioxin will kill five million guinea pigs. Dr. Laverne Campbell, New York State Department of Health: It’s understandable that we’re concerned about the discovery of dioxins, but this is not a surprise or compels us to make additional recommendations at this time. The commissioner said there was no evidence to imply that the dioxin lines discovered in the leachate posed an immediate health hazard to citizens in the area. Resident: How do the kidneys, heart, eyes, or any other important organs work?Do you know this? Dr. Laverne Campbell: I don’t know the answer. Resident: Who knows about this at the New York State Department of Health?Dr. Laverne Campbell: There are several, Dr. Axelrod adds. Resident: Could you bring this user here to answer those questions?Dr. Laverne Campbell: He was here the other night. Lois Gibbs: I have an e-book on this, an e-book on toxicology. That will tell you. The last thing is death. Laverne Campbell: That’s the answer. Get it out of there.
Luella Kenny, resident: In mid-September, Jon was so sick that he spent all his time lying on the couch. When we took him to the hospital, his abdomen was so distended that we had to put him in braces. He was soon discovered in an oxygen tent, it is possible that he simply was not breathing and seemed scared. And he had those big brown eyes looking at us from there. And we tried to reassure him and tell him that everything was going to be okay and that we were going to be close to him, because they wouldn’t let us stay. My mom made eggplant and parmesan sandwiches. We went to eat in the cafeteria and suddenly we heard her doctor asking for intensive care. Norman and I ran out of that room. We threw the sandwiches in the trash and did it and I mean, we knew it. We just knew it. The first thing I said was, “I need an autopsy,” because, you know, they told me it was the most productive disease a child can have. You just can’t leave it like that. People said, “Well, yes, Mrs. Kenny, her son’s death was probably due to chemicals. ” I kept saying, I said, “I don’t think so. ” I said, “I need to see the evidence first. ” » Maybe it’s the scientist in me. My husband was also a scientist, so we tried to be objective. I mean, I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon if I don’t have any proof.
My husband and I went to medical libraries and started researching and I discovered all these articles that said that nephrosis can be caused simply by exposure to chemicals. It was one of the worst emotions I’ve ever had because I didn’t need it. You’re wondering, I mean, how did you miss that?You know, but you did. Later, they come out and say there are dioxins where my space used to be. There are 32 billion-equivalent portions in this creek. I mean, Jon was there the whole time. You know, you blame yourself. Why didn’t we move?Why didn’t you do that? I mean, you deserve to have been careful.
Patti Grenzy, resident: When Luella lost her son. Once you get over the feeling of horror for them, somewhere in the back of your mind, that little voice tells you that it can be just you. Maybe it’s just your kids.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: They also discovered it in my backyard. They discovered dioxin on the surface of the floor where my kids crawled on all fours and chewed toys and everything. So it was getting scarier and scarier.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Residents must stop cleanup operations of the Love Canal and their families must be evacuated due to the high amounts of poisonous chemical dioxins that have been found.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: We felt that yes, the cleaning was harmful and that the other people doing it didn’t really know what they were doing, it was more of an experiment. If you alter the chemicals, you release them into the air. We already had problems with them, but when we opened them we didn’t know if people were going to drop dead or what, but sometimes I sit down and think, have I done this?
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: We had trucks going through the community with dirty tires after driving through the canal itself, and then other people would walk down the road and pass by the house and everything was a mess. We knew then that digging only made things worse in the community. We had to provoke holy hell to prevent this.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Symptoms of picketing are being raised tonight in the Love Canal community of Niagara Falls, New York, as citizens retreat to avoid excavation work.
TEXT ON SCREEN: DECEMBER 1978
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The reception was not warm for the staff at the structure at Love Canal this morning. They were greeted by angry canal citizens who protested at each and every gate leading to the area.
Lois Gibbs, Resident: We protest literally every day. Most of the time, we’re at both ends of the canal, not letting trucks in.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: In addition to yelling, protesters also lectured employees about the risks of dioxin, a harmful chemical that was. . .
Keith O’Brien, Author: Initially, politicians weren’t afraid of Lois Gibbs or any other mother, but after a few months they were. Especially Governor Hugh Carey. Se running for re-election. He’s in a dogfight to win. Governor Carey has made several visits to the Niagara Falls area and made sure to be photographed with Lois Gibbs.
Lois Gibbs, resident: I was a political risk to him. Maybe I’ll knock it down. The same was true of President Carter. I was his enemy. I was his worst nightmare. We thought Governor Carey was the one who could give us what we wanted, so we just attacked him. Every time he arrived somewhere in Western New York, there was an organization of other people who greeted him.
FILE VIDEO: Luella Kenny: Well, my seven-year-old son is already dead, Governor Carey. Governor Carey: Now, you don’t attribute the death to what happened. Luella Kenny: Yes, I am, and I have enough proof of that. . Governor Carey: Let me put it this way. You know that this state has spent $23 million to help the citizens of Love Canal. Luella Kenny: I know they spent it and have been away from me for seven months. Resident: We don’t need you to delete it first, we need Move it first before we leave it blank. Resident: You mean those kids who are in poor health all the time?Governor Carey: I think the kids could be in danger if they get brought here and walk around in the rain. Residents: Chemicals are more dangerous.
Luella Kenny, resident: He looks at us and says, “Well, if you’re so worried about your kids, why don’t you bring them home?Don’t stay here in the rain. You know, after a while, you’ll be able to take it. “A lot.
FILE VIDEO: Luella Kenny: Should I Lose Another Child?Governor Carey: In a day, we’ll know if the assessment. . . Now, please, I’m not the one who causes the deaths of the young people around. Here, I’m the governor who can. . . Resident: Yes, you are because you have the strength to move us. Governor Carey: We have relocated everyone who has been affected through the. . . Resident: We are moved!
Patti Grenzy, resident: My mom used to say that they just use you, that it’s the media. I said, yes, Mom, but we used them. We kept them busy with stories, so they would scratch our backs and we would scratch their backs.
Ernie Grenzy, resident: On Saturdays, I can come by and protest and we bring our kids and we yell, “We’ve got to get out, we’ve got to get out. And I don’t forget to be at home. ” one day and my daughters were 3 and two years old or so. “And I can hear from the bathroom, they’re in the bathtub, they’re yelling, “We’ve got to get out, we’ve got to get out. “It was fun at first, but once it settles in, you really wonder: how do they do it?Because we don’t know.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Locked houses are visual evidence of fear, yet experts say the disruptions here go beyond what can be seen. Love Canal has been called an intellectual fitness disaster. Resident: My marriage is damaged right now. . .
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, Resident: In our community alone, I was amazed to see how many people got divorced. People were angry and angry and there was nowhere to express that anger, so wives and husbands were fighting. My husband didn’t understand why he had done it. continue. I tried to tell him that those other people helped you out and that without those other people we would still be stuck in Love Canal. I had two fights. It wasn’t the right time.
FILE VIDEO: Resident Debbie Cerrillo Curry: What do you think you’re going to do with moving expenses?And I don’t care where they come from in this area. These other people can’t move in and locate that initial money. It’s just not there. Judith Smith, Federal Emergency Management Agency: I told you I didn’t have simple answers for you. We just arrived today and started collaborating with New York State.
Ernie Grenzy, resident: The state held the maximum of its meetings and press releases and all that while I was in the pictures and letting the women fight. And the state made a big mistake in doing so, because women fought harder than any man. Hell has no fury comparable to that of a woman helping to support her children.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: In February 1979, 3 months after Dr. Beverly Paigen presented the Resident Duct Theory, the New York State Department of Health completed its own study. Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod visited Love Canal to announce the state’s findings on miscarriage rates. and birth defects.
FILE VIDEO: Marie Rice: This is the first time the Health Department has given serious thought to the studies collected through the HOA. David Axelrod: When we looked at all the data, we found that there is indeed a threat to the fetus that is almost doubled in birth defects, in miscarriages. . .
Amy Hay, Historian: The Department of Health has looked at reported miscarriages and realizes that the number is higher, much higher than it should be. Subsequently, there is evidence that the chemicals may have been distributed through typhoon sewers. This lends credence to the concept that the chemicals were dispersed by other means from the canal site.
Carol Jones, Resident: The fact that I identify with it is huge. But maybe my mother realized it too late. There are so many things from the past that you can’t replace, and I know I wish they’d heard it all the time.
FILE VIDEO: Dr. David Axelrod: We have also presented to the Governor our advice that children under the age of two be removed from the canal until they are over two years of age, or until detailed environmental knowledge is available. . .
Lois Gibbs, resident: They agreed to temporarily move pregnant women and children under the age of two to an outdoor community. This means that when your child turns two, they will want to return to that home. Or if your pregnancy ended prematurely, you had to go back to that space. Can you believe you’ve had a miscarriage and return to the space that caused the abortion?It was just crazy.
FILE VIDEO: Patti Grenzy: Don’t you think I’m just as involved with my three-year-old as I am with the baby I’m carrying?Officer: I’m sorry. Can you please answer? Resident: We need to get out of here. We will no longer follow their regulations. Resident: We need to get out. We need to get out now. And do anything about it.
Michael Tolli, resident: You would hear from all the mothers, you know, who are concerned and involved about their children’s expansion. I’ve heard that several times.
FILE VIDEO: Michael Tolli: . . . ask Dr. Axelrod a question
Michael Tolli, Resident: That night, I hadn’t planned to ask a question, but then it came out.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: It was very difficult not to have a solution ready. Even with hurricanes and natural disasters, it was a transitory relocation. By beating other people in transient homes until the waters receded, they cleaned up the dust. of homes after a flood and other people stabilized their homes or did what they did. But it wasn’t a permanent move. We had to think outside the box.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: There are 32,000 known chemical waste dumps in the United States. More than 800 are now hazardous to public health.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: Once other people saw this across the country, they would find themselves in the same situation. And that would mean it’s possible that more members of Congress will take up the challenge and take action.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The EPA has a bill prepared to create a $500 million Super Fund to fund emergency cleanup and damage resulting from spills and abandoned debris.
John LaFalce, U. S. Representative: It had to be a big bill. And that’s what Superfund is called, which means there’s a lot of cash out there. And, of course, we also had a big problem: how to fund the Superfund. ? And I guarantee you that the corporations that had to contribute some of the cash to the fund did not do so of their own volition.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Hooker Chemical says tonight: Don’t blame us for the chemical disaster. Bruce Davis: We’ve alerted everyone to the nature of those chemicals in the past, but we didn’t have any about this landfill for 25 years. .
Keith O’Brien, author: The sale of the land for a dollar in 1953 came with a very important caveat. If, in the long run, there were disruptions involving environmental hazards, that would be the city’s problem.
FILE VIDEO: Bruce Davis: Hooker Chemical has denied any legal duty related to the Love Canal situation.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: It immediately tells them they knew there was a problem. Now, the school board can’t understand their ideas, but I don’t know if they didn’t need to know or if they were naïve enough to think that Hooker gave it to them just because they were good corporate citizens.
Keith O’Brien, Author: At the end of the day, the other people on the school board weren’t scientists. City officials were neither scientists nor chemistry experts. The only other people who were at Hooker Chemical, and they knew how that land was going to be used. And they sold it anyway.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Today it was learned that in 1958, young people playing near the school were burned with chemicals. The company and the school board were aware of this, but neither notified the neighborhood. Jerome Wilkenfeld, who was then head of safety at Hooker Chemical, was questioned. Al Gore: You had evidence that young children used it as a playground and had probably been burned because of the chemicals it contained, and yet you were reluctant to tell them there was a danger and tell them what the chemicals were. Because you were worried about exposing the school board to some legal liability?Reporter: Recently, Hooker flooded local newspapers with full-page classified ads in hopes of enhancing his public symbol in the wake of Love Canal.
FILE VIDEO: Narrator: Your light bulb is made of argon, a fuel that helps keep it going. Your shower curtain is made of decorative water-resistant plastic. His suit is made of chemical fibers that give him a smart look for longer.
Jennifer Thomson, Historian: It’s said that we deserve to expect some negative effects from the conveniences of modern life. We all bear the burden of toxic ingredients in our environment. But I would say that only a few other people have the option to choose. What will happen. Only a few other people get to choose what is regulated, and for the most part, the rest of society, and especially its poorer members, are guinea pigs for those ingredients.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: AUGUST 1979. One after the state declared a state of emergency
Richard Newman, Historian: The summer of 1979 was a turning point in the Love Canal crisis. Last year there were two state declarations of fitness and one federal declaration of emergency. But most families still live on Love Canal. And with corrective measures, summer dust and heat, odors are worse than ever.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: We still have people in very poor health, some of them hospitalized and in infected homes and no one is doing anything.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Residents have reported that it’s even tricky to get out. And Lois Gibbs used that as leverage. He said other people couldn’t live like that. And in the end, state officials agreed to a short-term solution. Governor Carey was still opposed to any further evacuation, but he was still trapped in his home, whether they were homeowners or citizens of Griffon Manor. , had the option of staying in local hotels.
FILE VIDEO: Hotel Manager: So you want lodging for your family.
Keith O’Brien, Author: And all of a sudden, in Niagara Falls, other people were living almost like refugees in their own city.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: Well, we have our neighbors. Resident: That’s right.
Grace McColf, Resident: Basically, this whole lot is made up of other people from Love Canal.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: This is your new home.
Grace McColf, Resident: We’d put the kids to bed and then at 8 o’clock we’d sit in the hallway and talk. It’s like our living room.
Keith O’Brien, author: The state spends about $7,500 per day to house other people in hotels in Niagara Falls for more than two months. At that rate, they may have purchased a space in the community about every three days.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: So, at the end of the year, I don’t think we’re in a much better position than we were at the beginning. We’re still here. We still have people. . .
Keith O’Brien, Author: At the time, the locals had been fighting for a year. At the time, if you had asked them if they were winning, the answer would have been no. Many of them were still trapped in their homes. But they were actually winning because as the days went by they kept this story in the news. They refused to back down. They fought over and over again. They kept showing up at meetings. Love Canal’s moms weren’t leaving.
FILE VIDEO: John LaFalce: I wonder if we can get your attention, please.
TEXT ON SCREEN: MAY 1980. Almost two years after the state declared a state of emergency
FILE VIDEO: Charles Warren, EPA official: Where tests were conducted as part of the evidence collection procedure for the Justice Breakdown lawsuit and the EPA against Hooker Chemical.
Charles Warren, Regional Administrator, EPA: The EPA was going to sue Hooker. So the chromosome test was about getting evidence. I was disappointed when I saw the results, and then they said, well, you have to pass out and let them know about it. And I did, but I knew it was bad news and that it was happening to cause panic.
ARCHIVED VIDEO: Charles Warren: Dr. Picciano concluded that 11 of 36 Americans tested had significant chromosomal aberrations, which can be a harbinger of long-term fitness problems, as well as cancer, birth defects, miscarriages and other reproductive problems . However, I think we want to emphasize that the results need further confirmation and that the data is currently under further review. Resident: You might have gotten us out of there two years ago. The federal government has finally, after two years, revisited desire as the pinnacle of its thinking about the housewives it has continued to demean. We know what’s happening. We also did some studies and we want to get out of there. We wish our youth to pass out today. Reporter: The study reinforces fears that toxic chemicals, which appeared on Love Canal three years ago, may be linked to high rates of miscarriages, birth defects and cancer. Barbara Quimby is one of those affected. Barbara Quimby: People are nervous. They just mentally can’t take it anymore, not when it comes to their children. This is the worst. I think we can handle most of it ourselves, but when it affects young people, it’s very difficult to deal with. Reporter: Eight-year-old Brandy Quimby suffers from several birth defects and is mentally retarded. That’s why her parents were not surprised when they were informed that each of them could have chromosomal damage.
Barbara Quimby, resident: In a way, it was a response because my husband and I didn’t know what was wrong. But it was hard, because again, it was like, fuck, bitch, you did that to my son. He was only 26 years old. Hooker that he would have no more children. They made the resolution for me.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: Well, we have abnormalities in our chromosomes. . .
Richard Newman, historian: The study of chromosomes is very controversial. Shortly after its publication, the study was flagged and declared flawed.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: On Thursday, state fitness commissioner David Axelrod said the EPA’s action in releasing him was irresponsible.
Stephen Lester, Toxicologist: It was just a pilot test to see if there was any evidence. As a result, this study has been criticized for not being a comprehensive study. But in research, the first thing to do is a pilot exam. . You don’t devote the resources to doing a full exam without knowing what you have.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Officials continue to emphasize that the study was designed for evidence, not clinical outcomes.
Barbara Davis Blum, Deputy Administrator, LFS: There was no group. They took other people who already had disorders as part of the study.
FILE VIDEO: Resident: My husband has two, they count to two and mine five. So they said hers was general and mine wasn’t.
Barbara Davis Blum, Deputy Administrator, EPA: It was actually a flawed study, but it didn’t suit anybody. That was the hardest thing I did in my entire tenure at EPA. Oh my God, I felt sorry for those people.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: Before that, did you plan to have more children?Resident: We were talking about that. Interviewer: What’s next? Resident: I would be afraid to give birth to a child.
Lois Gibbs, resident: People have lost their minds because of the study of chromosomes. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
FILE VIDEO: Residents: We to get out, us to get out, us to get out, us to get out. . .
Lois Gibbs, Resident: All of a sudden, there were a lot of other people outside in the workplace and they were angry. I mean, to the bone, angry.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Politicians and fitness officials are having to scramble to deal with this, and they’re sending several more people to Niagara Falls, adding two EPA officials.
Marie Rice, Reporter: Then the two EPA officials came in that day and were going to tell the citizens who were gathering outside. But the crowd got a little bigger and a little agitated.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: Spread the word. Nobody, we’re not going to do anything violent. We’re just going to leave them at home. Nothing more than that. Bodies block the doors. Is that okay? And don’t let them out. Residents: Pretty good. No one else. No one’s going out. Come on guys! Sit down! Lois Gibbs: If I let the two EPA representatives walk through that door, you know what would happen to them?
Charles Warren, Regional Administrator, EPA: I’ve talked to Lois Gibbs a few times. She said, look, there’s an angry mob here. We believe we should stay here and protect them. I said, okay, but let’s not do it. It looks like a hostage situation. If you’re looking to threaten us in any way, I don’t think it’s productive.
FILE VIDEO: Lois Gibbs: And we’re going to hold them hostage until the White House responds to the Love Canal scenario by relocating those citizens who are suffering. Well, John, if I were to take those two Americans to this porch, those citizens would tear them apart. literally, physically. Reporter: HOA President Lois Gibbs sat down with Congressman John LaFalce in Washington to check in and get answers. LaFalce is expected to meet with President Carter at this time at a dinner at the White House. We deserve to have more data tonight after that. Lois Gibbs: We’ve gained more attention in part of a day than we’ve been fighting to end the suffering of the citizens of Love Canal. And it’s very sad to have to go through that. excessive to get the attention of the White House, and it’s. . .
Lois Gibbs, Resident: So Wednesday at noon was our deadline. We didn’t know what would happen Wednesday at noon. We didn’t have any plans.
FILE VIDEO: Marie Rice: Within seconds, law enforcement pushed their way through with determination. A few minutes later, the two hostages were to exit through the side door.
Keith O’Brien, Author: Lois had created this kind of fake delay. She just made it up. And you know, the White House didn’t necessarily want to respond to that. But in the internal memo exchanges between Jimmy Carter and his chief of staff, there’s a sense that those other people have suffered enough.
TEXT ON SCREEN: WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1980
Lois Gibbs, Resident: And so, on Wednesday at noon sharp, I found a chair outside the Love Canal office because I knew everyone would be there. And I picked up the rotary phone and called the White House, because they had press. release.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: One last question. Lois Gibbs: Very, very happy. Very happy. And all those other people who have been looking to get out for so long can still get out and that makes me happy.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: People have no idea what we women have endured, the paintings we’ve done, the blood, sweat and tears. But I was once called a hero. I never will. He called me a hero and I never felt that way. But I did what I had to do.
TEXT ON SCREEN: OCTOBER 1980, 26 months after the first evacuation
FILE VIDEO: Jimmy Carter: There will never have to be another Love Channel in our country. There is no way to make a good enough restitution, however, this agreement will at least give the families of the domain the monetary freedom to pack their bags and leave if they wish.
Richard Newman, historian: We don’t know what the effects would have been if other people had been forced to stay for a year, five, or ten years.
FILE VIDEO: Government Representative: President Carter asked you to move up to the level: Lois Gibbs, who is in charge.
Richard Newman, Historian: If at any point those women, anyone in this activist community, the landlords, the tenants, everybody who lived on Love Canal had stopped, the motion would have been very different and less successful. Love Canal fundamentally and replaced the way Americans viewed environmentalism. It wasn’t just about landscapes, oceans, and pristine forests, but about our everyday living environment.
Bonnie Casper, Congressional Aide: It really opened other people’s eyes to what was going on, to the direct effect on other people. And what were we going to do as a society to help those other people and then save them from that?Happening?
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: The Superfund bill was signed into law today by President Carter. This is one of the latest legislative victories of the Carter administration.
Keith O’Brien, author: In December 1980, Congress worked together to pass what is definitely one of the most sweeping legislative packages ever passed.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: Love Channel, the first of more than 1,200 known Superfund sites through the EPA.
FILE VIDEO: Reporter: This measure allocates $1. 6 billion to plug poisonous waste spills and landfills over the next five years.
Richard Newman, Historian: Hundreds and thousands of sites have been identified, cleaned up, and removed from the flow as posing a hazard to the environment. And the price of it is immeasurable.
ARCHIVED VIDEO: Reporter: But even with an additional $5 million from New York State, the citizens of Love Canal are finding they’re no better off.
Richard Newman, Historian: One of the debates has been how much cash would be allocated to landlords and tenants. And in the end, the tenants were marginalized, and even the last to leave.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: Later, they paid for the movement of people, but the challenge was finding a place to move.
FILE VIDEO: Phil Donahue: You’re renting your house. You’re already out, right? Resident: No, I didn’t faint. Phil Donahue: Why don’t you pass out? Resident: Where do I go through, Phil?Phil Donahue: When you talk about tenants, what do you mean?Resident: We live right across the street from the owners fence. We live about 250 feet away from them.
Carol Jones, Resident: By the time we moved in, my mom had already given up. My mother took us back to the old neighborhood. We walked about a mile and a part down Hooker’s Road, to where we grew up. Let’s go back to chemicals.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: Health studies conducted over the next three decades found that the citizens of Love Canal had more than twice the rate of birth defects, but not a higher incidence of cancer than in the county. In 1983, the EPA repeated the chromosome test and discovered that there is no greater incidence of damage than in Niagara Falls.
Debbie Cerrillo Curry, resident: I made money. He helped us buy a new house. My children, each of them won a sum of money. But in fact, that doesn’t make up for the pain and suffering I’ve endured over the years. Yes, it still hurts. I lost a marriage because of it.
Luella Kenny, Resident: I mean, you can give me all the cash in the world. That will bring me back to Jon. That’s all I care about.
Jannie Grant-Freeney, resident: Who can compensate you for the damages of your child, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother?
FILE VIDEO: Governor Carey: Today we begin what we might call the next and most productive break in this most unhappy story, the Love Channel Saga. People will see the inside of the fence where the houses have been closed. The domain will be designed, contoured to be attractive, safe and secure. Interviewer: Do you think anyone would really need to come back?Governor Carey: That’s the question, yes. And I think we can get this territory hot again. I’m sure the mayor doesn’t need to see this as a community that will be devastated and erected as a monument to decadence. No, it can’t be that.
Richard Newman, Historian: If you make a stop on the Love Canal website today, you might not see the words Love Canal anywhere. There is no sign that says “the world’s most notorious environmental crisis happened here. “Huge chain-link fence. You will see a huge expanse of land within the fenced domain that is out of bounds. You may not know that there are still about 22,000 tons of hazardous waste underground.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: In 1988, New York State decided that homes on the west and north sides of Love Canal could be safely re-inhabited and put up for sale.
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