Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present

Newman (Freedom’s Prophet), a historian and environmentalist, diligently digs into how and why Love Canal became “perhaps the world’s most famous toxic trash heap.” Located near Niagara Falls, N.Y., the area now resembles an ordinary patch of suburbia, but more than 20,000 tons of industrial waste lies buried underneath—dumped there in the 1940s and ’50s by Hooker Chemical when its on-site disposal facility got overwhelmed. In the 1970s and early ’80s, homeowners in a subdivision that had sprouted up around the canal zone complained of “odd odors and various health concerns”—including “chemical burns their children suffered after playing on fields covering the dump”—and worried about waste seeping into their basements. This wasn’t simply “a technical problem about hazardous waste containment,” Newman notes. “Love Canal was for them a chemical disaster.” He charts the work done by citizen-activist groups, such as the Love Canal Homeowners Association, to put pressure on government and health officials, and traces the rise of local grassroots activism. Along the way, Newman addresses issues of environmental racism and deindustrialization. He recognizes the influence of the dedicated and vocal women of Love Canal who “picketed, protested, and petitioned” to make their concerns known, and highlights continuing efforts to achieve environmental justice in the region. Illus. (May)