Blog Assignment #4: Selection 23 (Summary)

Controversy at Love Canal

Beverly Paigen

 

Image from: Love Canal Toxic Waste

This selection talks about the hazardous waste that was buried at Love Canal by Hooker Electrochemical Corporation.  Although Hooker claims that the hazardous wastes was disposed of properly, Hooker Electrochemical actually disposed of the hazardous waste in ha cheap and efficient way.  

The controversy arose when the Niagara Falls Board of Education approached Hooker Chemical, wanting to buy their site to build a school on.  Hooker Chemical had warn the Board that it is unsafe to build a school on this land and refused to sell it to them.  Hooker Chemical claims that the Board threaten to take the site by "eminent domain".  Soon after Hooker Chemical gave up their site to the Board making them sign a contract if any thing were to happened to the residents within this area, Hooker Chemical would not be liable.  

Soon after an elementary school was built, with surrounding new neighborhoods and in 1958, 3 children had suffered from chemical burns.  Paigen begins to plot the illness geographically, separating the neighborhood into wet and dry homes (Wet homes being built in swamps or bordering streams); looking at the number of miscarriages of women within these two areas.  Paigen had found out the women in the wet homes have a higher number of miscarriages compared to women in dry homes.  Paigen than goes into details on the birth defects and the elements of this controversy.  Paigen also goes over the steps that the community should take when an controversies arise in a community.