Essay, Research Paper: Love Canal: An American Tragedy

Merely three ounces of the chemical dioxin can kill in excess of one million people and

has been deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the "most potent animal

carcinogen." (The Love Canal Disaster 1). In the 22,000 tons of chemicals detected as leaking in

the Love Canal neighborhood in New York, the 130 pounds of dioxin was just one chemical

among 248 found. Love Canal was an abandoned canal that Hooker Chemical Company used to

legally dump their toxins. (Love Canal, An American Tragedy 1).The toxins were discovered as

hazarous in 1978 (Affleck 1) and people were evacuated as medical tests showed mutations

resulting from the disaster. (Rachel's Hazardous Waste News #182 1). Although this site happens

to be America's most famous toxic waste disaster, it is just one of many. If you look beyond the

chemical companies legal dumping that has been highly overplayed as "as fault"

and trace back to how this disaster originally began it is quite clear who is responsible. The

government is truly at fault for allowing the legalization of dumping toxins and not regularly

monitoring the sites and their potential problems.

The entire disaster basically comes down to one issue, the government allowing

legalization of dumping toxic wastes. Allowing chemical companies to dispose of toxins may be

convenient and cheap for the government, but as Love Canal has proved, it has cost America life

and land. Truly that amounts to a sum much larger than the government is willing to give. The

government had never looked into the effects of the chemicals that were being disposed of and

simply continued to let companies discard their wastes although they were hazardous. The

governments legalization shows how little they cared about what could potentially happen with

toxic wastes. Had the government closely monitored this site as required in the Resource

Conservation and Recovery Act then possibly this disaster could have been prevented. The

leakage was detected in 1978 by state officials in the basements of homes. (Love Canal, Is it the exception or the rule? 1). If the government would have monitored the love canal toxins for the

past 30 years, surely the toxins would have been discovered prior to the 1978 sighting and

possibly the destruction of land and lives could have been prevented. If the government was

going to take on the responsibility of allowing toxic wastes to be dumped, then they should have

been aware of what could happen and been monitoring Love Canal all along. At some point

responsibility needed to be taken, not by the chemical company but by the government who

allowed this type of disposal to go on.

The Love Canal area was evacuated by the government in 1980 when it was proven

scientifically that genetic mutations like respiratory and kidney problems, cancer, birth defects,

liver disease and the many other medical problems that developed as a result of the Love Canal

disaster. (CNN). When toxic chemicals were first found at Love Canal the government did very

little to help for quite sometime. People desperately wanted to relocate with government help and

only a few were able to do so. After evacuation the government declared homes "100% safe"

and refused to study the health of the remaining residents. (Rachel's Hazardous Waste News #182

2). Residents who knew that something was wrong went out on their own to have their health

assessed because the government refused to help them.

The government is now renaming Love Canal as "Sunrise City" and selling homes on the

"now-safe" contaminated land for 10%to 15% below market value. (Rachel's Hazardous Waste

News #182 2) They say that the land is safe even though the chemicals will not decompose for

approximately 20,000 years. New York state environmental officials covered chemicals with a

temporary clay cap to keep rain out and installed drain pumps to divert the flow of chemicals.

President Bush and the EPA said that these all were temporary measures which will eventually

fail. (Affleck 2). They are running chemicals in the same direction Love Canal did, into the

basements of homes being sold as "safe." The EPA hired a scientist to compare the Love Canal

land with two other New York neighborhoods. (CNN). Conveniently, the two neighborhoods

were contamined also so the tests showed up no different than the other neighborhoods.

Apparently profiting off selling land is more important than concentrating on solving this toxic

waste problem. It comes down to convenience. If the government lets others dump chemicals

and then they just sell the "habitable" land to poor families and prosper from the sale, why not? It

is necessary that America is aware of how the government has treated the ill and taken advantage

of civilians by reselling contaminated land. The government is truly at fault for allowing the

legalization of dumping toxins and not regularly monitioring the sites and their potential problems.

In 1980 the Superfund was established by the EPA as a national toxic waste cleanup fund.

The fund has spent over 10 billion dollars claiming they would cleanup 1,000 chemical dumps and

since then only about 50 sites have been cleaned up. (The Love Canal Disaster 5). The

government still allows industries to dump while a fund just sits there waiting to spend money to

clean up the mess. There is no need to continue a fund that will be doing nothing to solve the

problem except eternally cleaning up sites. The only solution to ending the toxic waste disaster is

to make it illegal to dump and put energy and money into developing ways to safely dispose

chemicals. Who knows how long it will take the government to realize that this is a huge

problem. Possibly it will take another Love Canal incident to uproot for this ongoing fight for

protection from toxins to be addressed.

Although the government allows the dumping of toxic wastes, ethically Hooker Chemical

Company should have looked deeper into dumping the hazardous wastes. Just because it is

allowed doesn't necessarily mean that it is right. Obviously the toxins disposed into Love Canal

were harmful. However, the government is basically forcing the companies to dump in such

ways. Because the government hasn't come up with any ingenious ways to safely

dispose wastes the chemical companies can't do so. Hooker Chemical Company was only doing

their job. They acted legally when dumping toxins and did the best they could in properly

disposing the chemicals.

Hooker Chemical Company sold the land to the government knowing it was

contaminated. A school needed to be built so the school board district approached Hooker

Chemical Company who did not want the virtual wasteland. (Corley 2). Hooker though did not

want to risk the public so they went as far as to dig into the ground and show the tests the

government executives that chemicals were there. Impermeable cement and a ceramic cap was

placed on top to prevent leakage. These precautions Hooker Chemical Company took in selling

the land was definatly more than sufficient. (The Love Canal Disaster 3). Despite Hooker's

warnings, the government bought the land. Hooker sold the contaminated land for $1.00 and in

returned was loosened of all liability. (Love Canal, An American Tragedy 1). It is obvious that

Hooker Chemical Company was acting legal taking precautions and looking out for America and

not trying to prosper financially.

The Love Canal disaster will remain tragic forever as lives were destroyed and land was

ruined. It is easy to push events like this one aside when you are not the one suffering at hand.

Had one been one of those affected by Love Canal and developed a disease such as cancer you

most definatly would be enraged with the government for allowing people to discard toxins that in

turn hurt you. The definition of government is the public policy and affairs of a nation guided,

ruled, and controlled by the authoritative administration. (Webster Dictionary 198). If the

government cannot guide us safely through life and control possible hazards to our health than

who truly can? The Love Canal disaster is just one small scale on the spectrum of future toxic

disasters our government is walking us into.