A look back at the Love Canal disaster
The New York State Health Department declared an emergency at Love Canal on Aug. 2, 1978. The years that followed were filled with rage, acrimony and tears as Niagara Falls residents became environmental activists, watching as their old neighborhood was razed and as their struggle launched a global movement for environmental justice.
This abandoned house, captured in 1981, stood for years as a monument to the Love Canal disaster. Hooker Chemical dumped 21,800 tons of chemical waste in to the canal between 1942 and 1953. In 1981, when this photo was taken, the state was still involved in litigation with Hooker Chemical.
This circa-1940 photo shows Love Canal before it was contaminated. The canal was built by William T. Love in 1834 as a failed attempt to connect the Upper and Lower Niagara River.
A 1987 aerial view of Love Canal shows the task the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had set out for itself for a dioxin cleanup that would cost between $26 and $31 million.
An aerial view of Hooker Chemical Company shows its sprawling industrial campus along the Niagara River.
Love Canal shown in 1978.
In April 1978, Gov. Hugh Carey, center, appears with Niagara Falls Mayor Michael O'Laughlin and Hooker Chemical executives symbolically breaking ground on artificial turf for a $65 million Energy-From-Waste steam plant to be built on the financially troubled Niagara Frontier.
A young boy wears a sign demanding evacuation in August 1978.
On Aug. 6, 1978, Ken Moyer of 460 99th St. in Niagara Falls poses next to one of dozens of signs that have cropped up in the neighborhood.
From August, 1978, a neighborhood resident puts up a sign calling for evacuation.
Aug. 3, 1978: A woman holds her child at a public meeting about toxic waste near Love Canal.
Aug. 4, 1978: A Niagara Falls family honors the life of Joseph Heeney Jr. who died Feb. 25, 1978, at three months old, according to a sign they created.
Aug. 5, 1978: Spearheaded by sign-carrying youngsters, the residents of the chemically contaminated Love canal area of Niagara Falls continued their demands for help from the environmental nightmare in which they find themselves. Sign-carrying children ring the speakers area during in meeting in the fire hall that followed the parade.
An undated photo shows a Love Canal area resident wearing a concerned expression.
Aug. 6, 1978: From a News caption: "Love Canal Situation Stinks! That's what federal disaster relief administrator William Wilcox seems to be saying here as he and Rep. John J. LaFalce, D-Town of Tonawanda, toured the polluted Love Canal area in Niagara Falls.
Aug. 8, 1978: A young girl screams as her blood is drawn in this undated photograph.
Aug. 11, 1978: They're packing up all over the Love Canal area, both in the homes and in the 99th Street SChool, which has been closed. At the school, Joseph Cosimano gives teacher Betty McLean a hand in packing way some of her teaching supplies.
Oct. 29, 1978: There were some signs of protest from the Love Canal area at the Buffalo Airport on this day when President Carter stepped from his plane for a brief visit. This child was among those who brought their complaint directly to the president.
Dec. 13, 1978: Residents of the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls today continued to picket construction crews trying to clean up the chemically contaminated site, and more were placed under arrest. At left, Patti Grezny of 793 100th St. is arrested.
Dec. 4, 1978: Russell Koepka of the Love Canal Task Force surveys the new look at the Love Canal as workers begin installing the drainage pipes that will remove the toxic chemicals from the stricken neighborhood.
Jan. 11, 1979: Protesters picket at an unspecified location.
April 16, 1979: Protesters stand with an effigy of Gov. Hugh Carey and other signs implying that the federal, state and city government were not doing enough to solve the crisis.
In 1979, a sign warns of the presence of toxic chemicals near the 99th Street School in Niagara Falls.
Sept. 6, 1979: Claiming their homes are uninhabitable because of chemical fumes from remedial work at the Love Canal, about 50 residents attended an often-emotional meeting with state officials at Stella Niagara Educational Park, their "home" since state-financed motel accomodations ended Friday. Residents listened to the discussion, which ended with a promise from state officials to seek a decision from Albany on longer relocation.
Nov. 19, 1979: Before a backdrop of boarded-up houses, heavy-equipment operators work on the Love Canal chemical dump site at Niagara Falls.
Lois Gibbs reads an environmental report at her Niagara Falls home with her two young children at the kitchen table.
Barbara Quimby, a former Love Canal resident who moved to Grand Island, screams at Dr. John Deegan of the Environmental Protection Agency at a meeting in July 1982.
Lois Gibbs wears a look of concern at a public meeting with FEMA administrators in the 1980s. Gibbs was 20 when she moved to the neighborhood with her husband Harry will begin to raise two children, emerged as a protest leader and national environmental activist.
Lois Gibbs with her daughter Melissa in the 1970s.
An undated photo of Love Canal protestors.
Lois Gibbs at a community meeting.
This undated photo shows the "Love Canal Recipe": "1. Mix 82 Chemicals. 2. Place in Canal for 25 yrs. Yield: Sickness + Death."
A sign on the front yard of 9605 Greenwald Avenue in the early 1980s embodies what many residents felt during the Love Canal crisis.
Margaret Gizzarelli holds her daughter Donna in front of their home in the Love Canal area of Niagara falls prior to their evacuation from the area due to contamination from a nearby chemical dumping site.
May 22, 1980: Love Canal community residents gathered in Wesley Methodist Church in Niagara Falls on this day to hear details of the federal government's evacuation plan. At right is James Marshall, chief of staff of the Environmental Protection Agency's regional office.
A public meeting of Love Canal residents.
June 6, 1980: Kim Wilson of Buffalo joined Love Canal Homeowners Association members to protest what seems a bureaucratic "dead end" echoed by the Ninth Street sign near Environmental Protection Agency offices in Niagara Falls. The group protested the Carter administration's decision not to buy Love Canal homes and refusal to meet with association president Lois Gibbs in Washington.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, center, and Rep. John J. LaFalce meet with Lois Gibbs, far right and others at Love Canal in this undated photo.
An undated protest photograph.
June 21, 1980: Heather Kanipe, 2, has her measurements taken at the Love Canal Growth Center. Her measurements were taken in sitting and standing positions and she was also fingerprinted. One authority working with Love canal children said that the youngsters are showing the strain of living in a community whose name has become synonymous with the threat of toxic waste.
June 5, 1980: An unnamed woman wearing a shirt protesting conditions at Love Canal holds a young girl in her arms.
Aug. 8, 1980: Workers check for deadly dioxin in the Love Canal area.
A family packs up their belongings as they leave the neighborhood near Love Canal.
A family packs up their belongings as they leave the neighborhood near Love Canal.
May 21, 1980: Niagara Falls motel owner Joseph LaDuca looks over more than two dozen call slips from residents of the Love Canal district, after Canal homeowners learned that the federal government will pick up the tab for their temporary housing.
Oct. 26, 1980: Thousands of samples of water, soil and air from the Love Canal area are being packed and shipped to labs by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's sample bank at 9820 Colvin Blvd. in Niagara Falls. Stephanie Diamond, manager, keeps the books, while, from left, Guy Tucker, Jim Smith and Robert Johnson pack the samples.
A bulldozer takes down Love Canal-area houses.
June 9, 1983: Workmen demolish the 99th Street School in NIagara Falls. The school swas built in the mid-1950s and had been closed since 1978 because of chemical contamination from Love Canal. The school was the last remaining original structure in Love Canal's Rings I and II.
Sept. 11, 1983: Dark plastic is being placed over the clay covering the Love Canal.
In 1985, a bulldozer begins demolition of 38 vacant homes at Love Canal, which were damaged by arson and vandalism since their abandonment years earlier.
Oct. 5, 1986: Louise Lewis looks over the remnants of Lois Gibbs' home at Love Canal.
March 30, 1989: Demolition of low-income housing units alongside Love Canal is underway in Niagara Falls. Crews were working on the 250 vacant family units in the LaSalle Family Development that are being demolished because of uncertainty about the environmental safety of the area.
Oct. 30, 1987: A house at 464 102nd St. sits abandoned near Love Canal.
