Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS

[Music] I want to say something I'm sure that God is not going to send me to hell because I found it here on Earth I'm 65 years old almost I'm sick and tired of being a yoyo pull this way pull that way pull the other way oh somebody's going to say to me what do you want Mr Tracy after 35 years in This Love Canal I'll tell you what I want just give me my 285 that you appraised my house for all I want my 285 and give it to me tonight and I'll go down that road and I'll never look back at the Love Canal again [Applause] we we we we it was hard to believe this could not happen in the United States of America for years the Love Canal homeowners association has cited evidence of significant health problems in the neighborhood birth defects and miscarriages severe migraine headaches respiratory disease already eight cases of cancer on a 15 house Street I thought I just had problems with my one daughter and we just found out in January our other one has rheumatoid arthritis we have hearing problems with all the children uh the baby he has a deformed foot so it's just it's just constantly still running to the hospitals and children's people were talking about how they were ill but nobody exactly knew why they were so ill or why so many people were so ill now a quarter of a century after it went in chemical waste is coming out of the ground and people had no idea that they were living on top of 22,000 tons of toxic chemicals Health experts found more than 80 dangerous chemicals oozing to the surface all of a sudden on a dime everything blows up more people are sick there's you know black sludge coming into their homes the family is afraid to even go in the basement because of high readings of an explosive chemical called To Love Canal was the first chemical disaster to unfold before Americans eyes we are dying literally dying from Benzene we're getting cancers from all these other compounds now you're talking about Nerf gas there's just no way much worse than I even imagined certainly much worse than what the government is saying can you tell me when I'm not going to lose any more children because one is already dead please tell me those things it really hit home for us that at this point we're on our own we have to make this happen they're not going to do it for us so that spurred me to want to do something we've got to do something I mean the fight came to us we didn't want look for each and every one of you in this group are murderers buis people they looked at us as hysterical Housewives and they figured oh well they'll give up they'll go back to their knitting and to their babies and this will blow over but we were stronger than that this incredible group of women become the faces of environmental reform but there was absolutely no road map sick of being a guinea pig I want out test me later but my god get me out now and my kids the fear was that it could happen to all of us and the thing was it was happening to other people in places throughout the country the Love Canal is merely the tip of a dangerous and terrifying chemical Iceberg I am not moving until I get an answer why I wasn't thinking about building a movement or anything like that I was thinking about Survival how do we get out of here we need to do something and I don't care what it [Music] takes major funding for American Experience is provided by at Liberty Mutual We Believe progress happens when people feel secure that's why we exist to help people Embrace today and pursue tomorrow liy liy liyy Liberty Mutual Insurance is a proud sponsor of American experience as an american-based supplier to the construction industry car is Comm committed to developing a diverse workplace that supports our employees advancement into the next generation of leaders from the manufacturing floor to the front office learn more at car.com it was just such a nice neighborhood to a child oh my goodness they had fun there A lot of times we would just be more near the school and playing baseball or something but we always ended up where the what we called the Black Lagoon on the surface it had like an oily substance to it like a a green and a blue and if you drop something into it it would Bubble Up and sink so we called it quicksand it was like a Wonderland we had these rocks that we called pop rocks and we used to just slide them across and they would actually have a flame it was like fire and oh I remember my mother always yelled about our shoes this one time she had bought me new sneakers and I came home and she said what it looks like your sneakers are burnt what happened to all the rubber around it you're not getting new sneakers what are you doing I'm just playing at the school I mean nobody went and investigated and said why are these shoes [Music] burnt I found the house on 101st Street the one in the Love Canal neighborhood is the starter homes for the most part and it was the perfect neighborhood from my perspective it had the Nia River to the South to the north was a creek and the kids could go and walk along the creek and pick up PWS or you know it was just a cute little very shallow crate good for children we moved in with Michael who was 1 years old by then healthy little boy and and then we had our little girl I really believed I achieved so much I had this house and a husband was gainfully employed in this beautiful children everything seemed to be [Music] fine Love Canal was government subsidized my husband wasn't making very much money and they made that a very tasty little deal to move into we paid $135 a month to live in a brand new new home which was really unusual I wasn't going to question it and so we felt quite lucky that we fell in at the right time I lived in Niagra Falls all my life and when I married my husband was from nagra Falls we had two boys we saw this beautiful Brick House in Love Canal with one acre of land all around it and it sat on a creek and it was just it was just ideal and we were thinking what a place to raise your children I moved to the development called Griffin Manor it was a brand new housing project it's a beautiful place flowers the grass was green there was like a little Pond that the kids used to play in and had trees and all of that and they would swing on the branches and what have you we had a small yard in the front and in the back we would see I'm going to call it water but swamp land that just looked oily at times it smelled like burnt rubber or a strong cleanser it was just a foul foul odor often enough to choke you but we didn't pay that any attention it was normal to us to smell these smells people always knew when they were getting close to our home because we had this horrendous smell behind our house actually the whole neighborhood the mailman even carries a gas mask on his delivery route it smells like hell you get that one house at 510 99 street it's one of those worst smells I ever had around here in a long long time it's terrible if you were to drive down Buffalo Avenue where all the chemical industries were you would smell that my dad worked in the hooker chemical that was the smell we had from our backyard that's why it was real familiar it smelled like dead today and for the years to come the world looks for better things for Better Living Through Chemistry the science that has played a major part in the Perfection of practically everything we use nager falls in the 1970s is a place that is synonymous with chemicals chemists make things as far apart as insecticides for the farmer and cosmetics for beautiful women roughly 10 different chemical companies are situated along the banks of the nager river before you see The Mists of Niger Falls you smell all of that chemical production it permeates the car it's in the air it's thick substances are shipped out in tank cars and bear names like styrene vinyl chloride acrin night trial chemicals were a part of our life you know when we smell chemicals you smell a good economy you knew that you're going to be able to put food on the table you're going to be able to pay your mortgage you're going to be able to buy a new car someday modern chemistry and modern industry join hands in serving modern [Music] America there was a spot in NRA Falls called chemical row because there were so chemical manufacturers along there places like carborundum and dupon and Olan I know like Union Carbide was there Goodyear and Goodridge I think was also along there and then of course Hooker Hooker chemical hooker originated in N Falls they had started out electrochemicals everything from CTIC soda for chlorine to pesticides herbicides Ides especially chlorinated hydrocarbons hundreds of chemicals just about any type of chemical that you would need of course at the same time these chemicals create toxic waste hazardous wastes are generated from the production of paints pesticides Plastics leather textils medicines the challenge is to develop systems to to handle the millions of tons of hazardous wastes produced every year chemical companies in Nago Falls and across the United States were dumping in holes they digging Excavating and and and burying their wayist that was the way you got rid of it 55g drums are used as containers for solid materials they are stacked compactly in the landfill cell and then cover is applied to keep the rainwater out and keep the waste in no one back in the 50s knew quite the ramifications biologically of many of these chemicals I used to have garlic and wild onions and strawberries and tomatoes and cucumbers beets carrots we used to have everything beans talion beans regular beans just all kinds of stuff and nobody could get a garden to grow we had one beet grow and it weighed almost 7 lbs and you probably would have needed an axe to cut it in half cuz it was like like a small bowling ball that was the only beat That Grew I thought my husband wasn't doing a very good job planting I didn't know we had so many animals die it was unexplained the fur would just be off of them or so many of them died of cancer it seems normal because it happened other people's animals too and then there was something else strange happening we would see people were developing what they thought was asthma people started to have kidney problems bladder problems some of the children had behavior problems a complete change from how they were so there were issues it did smell but the blizzard is 77 was the worst thing could have happened to us bad blizzard is what brought those barrels up more than 150 in of snow have fallen so far this year almost four times the normal average what it adds up to is the worst storm of the worst winter in the city's history downtown Buffalo is like a ghost town nearly all business at a stand just like the thousands of cars that in 1977 I was reporter for The niaga Gazette covering the city of niaga Falls there had been a very hard winter and when the snow melted it was an incredible scene I remember there were drums exposed they were collapsing and chemicals came out and started seeping through the ground in my backyard there was a hole in the ground about the size of a dinner plate and and it was black goo in it and it smelled and it was all foamy around the edges and stuff and as the days went on that hole kept getting bigger and bigger and this black goo started to show up in other people's backyards lived here a good 10 years and they try to tell me that it's tar but nobody's been around to check it it they said how about digging it up I've tried to dig it up it's just it's just way down deep and it's all over the backyard it's in the side of the field it's even in my neighbor's backyard and then there start to be something backing up in the basement of our homes in Griffin Manor black Sledge and no matter what we did we couldn't get rid of it people start telling me things and I knew it was anecdotal uh information but I also knew something bad was going on residents are starting to acknowledge all the weird things that have been going on in the neighborhood for years so the first thing they do is reach out to their local politicians Falls officials really push them off that's when they find an angel in John le Falls who is the representative for the area of niagar Falls in Congress we told several of the residents that we would come out to to look at the canal first because and they took us into their homes we went to the basements and we saw the oooing it was like black tar I couldn't even truly describe the smell well it didn't smell like lasagna sauce it uh it smelled like chemicals to me uh and I wasn't sure what chemicals I wasn't sure if it was harmful um but what you don't know can hurt you [Music] we could see a couple of the barrels and we saw the school so there was the playground on the canal the residents told us that their kids played in it all the time you know played in the canal played that's where they went that was their backyard okay give me your GL okay they wanted to know how it became a dump site for chemicals and then how that land could have been used for housing used for a school used for a playground where kids would be playing on a daily basis I considered the problem a very serious one and was going to do whatever I thought necessary to deal with it and that was not the disposition of other officials I am concerned about the people people all of them I can't as a mayor though jeopardize our city and a first responsibility I have there were some who were very very worried that this might tarnish the image of the city and I'm continually being caution to be careful not to make Blandon statements that could incriminate the city Niagara Falls of course was known for its tourist [Music] industry and there was an understandable concern about the effect that it would [Music] have for centuries Niger Falls has had this outsized existence in the American mind people have visited it to be over AED by nature to feel its power it's moving it's Sublime [Music] but beginning in the 19th and early 20th centuries a lot of people visited the falls for something else they're dead set on developing it for industrial use the mighty Waters of Niagara Falls pour some 9,000 cubic feet of water per second over this 165 ft precipice in the 1880s when hydroelectric power developers arrive in Naga Falls they change the falls they Electrify it they make it a important part of a new era of hydroelectric power to serve the needs of industry and the welfare of mankind not just in Western New York but across the Midwest nigar Falls is at the very center of the American industrial dream in the 1890s there was a railroad entrepreneur William T love he came up with the idea to build a canal from the upper niag River circumventing the falls to the Lower River it was going to be for transportation and at the same time create power love wanted to produce something called Model City merging industrial power with utopian design he tells people I can create a bigger hydroelectric power station I can generate more wealth more investment in the area and people are willing to believe it because they see Niagara Falls is the next big thing in American industrial life William love is so successful in his investment plan that he actually has enough money to start digging out portions of his canal and he's saying to people you're walking in the future sight of American industrial power right here at L's Canal I mean he sounded like kind of a showbo he would go around with a brass band and circulars and advertisements and they even had a diddy that was to the sound of Yankee Doodle everybody's come to town those who left we pity for we all have a great old time in L's new model City yeah L's new model City uh he went bankrupt soon afterwards in many ways it is a Ponzi scheme he promises to pay people in the future but the future comes on Fast he can't pay all those debts Love's Canal is never finished model city is never completed both of these dreams lie fallow and there's sort of a monument to failure but there is a groove of Earth in the niagar Falls landscape that's going to sit there and no one knows what to do with it enter hooker electrochemical company in Niagara Falls in the 1940s with the war effort in full swing hooker k was producing more chemicals than ever before and like any manufacturer it needed some place to dump its residues and wastes so hooker chemical locates a great area for this just 4 miles away from its production site where William love started building out his artificial River 50 years beforehand they think this is perfect for burying chemical waste the canal was further excavated and then the drums were stacked into this mini Vault and then the drums were covered over with 4T of clay and so and at the time when there were no laws that governed that dumping so they just were able to dispose of it in any way they thought was appropriate they would back those trucks in you know yeah and they would put a drum off here sometimes the lid would come off sometimes it wouldn't because they were sealed now what happened when that hit the water it would come open yeah and it would be a flash of flame like fire going up in the air boom it would go you know everybody knew hooker was a chemical plant people certainly knew many of the chemicals that they had produced nobody knew however what they had actually dumped as waste material and nobody really knew how many drums were buried in BL canal they filled up the entire area with about a 100,000 chemical barrels people at Hooker chemical weren't thinking in terms of long-term chemical risks and they thought when they dumped this stuff even if it broke out of the chemical drums the landscape itself would just absorb it like a big sponge in the 1950s Falls was an expanding City every everything was going great guns economically most of the individuals who bought homes worked at Hooker and other chemical companies in Niagara Falls and so it was seen as this great neighborhood that had good transportation to their jobs of the chemical plants this is a time when people look at a landscape and didn't worry about what's underneath it and Love Canal the covered over chemical dump is actually viewed in the 1950s as is a great developmental opportunity in the spring of 1953 hooker chemical sold the land to the Board of Education in Iger Falls for a dollar and they got out of the Love Canal business the nager fall School Board signs an agreement with hooker chemical which basically says that there is chemical waste buried underneath the Love Canal site but it doesn't say exactly what type of chemical waste is in the ground this is where they're going to put the 99th Street school they're going to work with developers to build out a subdivision which will have new housing stock playgrounds people who are in charge of hazardous waste landfilling were not really concerned about what happens next they don't want to know they don't need to know because government officials were not pushing them for people in Niagara Falls you don't want to scare off the chemical industry industry less knowledge is better for business in the summer of 77 I wrote to the head of the hooker Corporation saying I want to know exactly what you buried and I want to know if what you buried could be dangerous when I first came on to the story it was an environmental problem it was not considered a health threat at that time at least not that anyone was telling me I was shocked when I went door too and found out that people were actually becoming ill from what was in their homes the odors that were very obvious at the time and I contracted asthma I lived here 3 years and discovered I had cancer two children that are legally blind my child has rheumatoid arthritis an asthmatic bronchitis and she is missing part of her second teeth everyone had a story from skin rashes to cancer they're talking about birth effects they're talking about miscarriages my editor held me back from printing a lot of the health effects because he wanted to hear it from a health official when you saw what was going on at Love Canal it was uh very very difficult to remain a reporter because if it was like watching an accident in slow [Music] motion you could see the fear on faces today as men women and children gathered at a neighborhood school on the edge of the former chemical dump for blood tests as state officials learn more they start extensive testing test we're looking for evidence of leukemias anemia toxic liver conditions they also set up in people's homes they went into people's basement they monitored leeet tested what kind of chemicals were maybe seeping in backyards they had started to conduct air test and for 3 months I tried to get the results of those tests no one would tell me what they were and finally I found out that there was Benzene in the air there which was extremely alarming that's a known human curs Inogen the EPA identified three compounds in quantities 5,000 times higher than levels considered safe and three others known to cause cancer in animals measured at 250 times safe exposure levels and then things got even worse hooker had another dump that was just across the road from Love Canal they also had a dump site next to the water plant supplies the water for the city of Naga Falls and and their biggest dump was called the hide Park landfill and this dump was 3 four times the size of Love Canal how come we didn't know this how could we not know this not only do state officials not know what chemicals are buried here in the Love Canal they don't even know how many chemical landfills there are in Niagara County EPA said we need to get an inventory of toxic sites over the country and when we did that we found many sites of all kinds and we had them out there and nobody was doing anything about them and at the time we didn't think we had the weapons to really deal with those sites the EPA was one of the youngest federal agencies still really finding its footing it was founded in 1970 by Richard Nixon and it was playing catchup especially when it comes to orphaned dumps and chemical landfills they were scattered all across America we actually got a tally and it was in the thousands almost every state has a problem like Love Canal and every single one could be a ticking Time Bomb feet watch where you're going after we lived at L Canal maybe a year Michael started getting sick so you know first it was like asthma then it was a urinary disorder and and then when Michael was in kindergarten he was spending a lot more time in the school and that's when he had his first seizure we were actually at a fast food restaurant and I thought he was choking but he wasn't choking and uh it scared the Dickens out of me the pediatrician had no answer and so I'm looking at these articles and I'm reading this stuff about Benzene and tulene and other chemical I didn't even know how to pronounce them back then and then they were mentioning the 99 Street School I'm like whoa whoa what is going on here I believe Michael got sick because he was in the school and also because we played on the playground almost every single day so I put together a petition to close the 99 Street School how many chemicals have been identified as being underground here so far we know of 88 specific chemicals that have been identified and of those 88 how many are suspected of causing cancer I think the number is 11 it was really getting kind of frightening they were running around in their Moon suits and they came in with all kinds of machines and stuff so they could do the ambient air in the basement they'd say you had Benzene and taline and TR chlorine and all these e and that was Greek to all of us and then it wasn't too long after that when Lois showed up at my back door and I said oh my God we went to school together we were in Girl Scouts together so we sat in her living room and talked for quite a while she talked about her miscarriages and she talked about all of the other health problems she had Debbie was the first one that agreed to go door knocking with me I just felt sound silly but it was like a calling that I had to do that and I was hellbent I remember Lois coming down the street with her petition and I remember thinking oh God what's she selling there were articles in the paper but I had two young kids and one on the way I didn't pay that much attention to the news Lois began telling me about birth defects and miscarriages and stillborns and all that that's pretty scary when you're pregnant to hear that we all think that's not going to happen to me that happens to the guy you know down the street what we found ourselves being the guy down the street was happening to us today in Alban the New York State Health Department declared a health emergency in the neighborhood and by August State officials couldn't sit on this problem anymore they make this stunning announcement encouraging the evacuation of about 200 families living closest to the canal but it was just pregnant women or children under the age of two what I'm concerned about is my child went to that school for a long time other people in the neighborhood Wonder immediately of course about their own health the health of their children I am really really afraid we have decided we're going to get out one way or another but right now people realized they were living not simply on top of a dump that was leaking they were living in a chemical disaster Zone and that set off all sorts of terrorizing conversations I'm the director State operations for govern and here with [Music] Dr I want to talk first number of this was the first chance residents had to vent their frustrations into the ears of State officials State Health commissioner Robert whan tried to tell the crowd that Albany is doing all that it can to get rid of the poisonous chemicals seeping into their homes but the people feel that the wheels of government move too slowly and you guys represent us you're going to have problems we're going to do everything the meeting was it was doomed to be a screaming match right from the beginning because we have now been given some information of what we've been exposed to and how dangerous it really is 8 month pregnant woman here we lived in that house for 2 years nobody told us this was happening man nothing he's been there for eight months what are you going to do for my kids what are you going to do nothing get the dam is done man the damage is done the State Health Department was really most focused on the first two rings of homes around the old Canal dumping grounds people who weren't in ring one or ring two homes thought that they were trapped in a death zone ring three was just outside of that area which is where we live our front yard faced 99 Street homes backyards so we were really really close if this is a ticking Health Time Bomb why are you only evacuating people who live on 97th to 99 streets whan was also criticized for advising only pregnant women and kids under two to evacuate the area would you please tell me you want let my three-year-old stay what do you expect of us that is my child we is the difference what about the seven n 10 you're old k up until that moment these people believed that government was there to protect them that government did right by Americans these were families who had husbands who had served in Vietnam these were mothers who didn't see themselves as part of the feminist movement I can't see anything going on in the state of New York it is more important than these people's lives but the community changed that night changed forever as families with pregnant women and small children moved out of their Love Canal homes today and into Surplus military housing New York State officials I could very well understand the perspective of the homeowners there but I could also understand that this might be a very expensive undertaking I'm aware of your problems I've been living with them aware of your health problems your housing problems your school problems so I requested that the federal Disaster Assistance Administration declare this an emergency and a disaster area up until that time the only disasters that had ever received emergency or disaster declarations by the federal government were natural disasters so hurricanes tornadoes earthquakes but Love Canal is overwhelming all the resources of the local government it's even overwhelming the state and it's rising to the level of a natural disaster for the first time a strictly man-made disaster has been declared a Federal Emergency allowing the government to provide assistance to the area when Carter says it's emergency we're like yes now the White House knows we exist we have a problem and you know they're going to help us money that's the that's the good news money Governor Hugh Cary comes to Niagara Falls to meet with residents at the 99th Street School talked to residents of The Bard Love Canal area that night in the school Carrie announces that not only will they be evacuating residents of the neighborhood but they will buy their homes one of his most popular moves a promise to pay full market value for the now worthless hous for the people who were close to the canal governor carry was a white knight came in on a horse so there was a lot of relief on one hand and then you had the other people who were stuck there were about 700 families left behind and people are watching just about daily as more and more is coming out about Love Canal it's going to cost more than 9 million to clean up the canal and once the work actually begins it will take 3 months to you want to make sure that the chemicals are contained and they don't leak out to further homes in the subdivision or neighborhood the construction plans call for the installation of a clay cap to be laid on top of the canal they're going to seal it up and it will be covered over with Clay so they're not taking toxic chemicals out of the ground chain fence will also be installed here around the love canel area but the first thing they do is they put a fence to the middle of the neighborhood separating the inner ring homes ring One and Two from the rest of the neighborhood I remember them putting up the fence the first two rows of houses were abandoned it was strange there's tons of people around then there's nobody around then then you know now it's a ghost [Music] town the fence was right down in front of my yard and they're saying you're okay this this across the street is not okay and that's how we live for a long time it was devastating I mean you worried about your kids primarily and my wife being pregnant what's going to happen to the the baby and you're you're frustrated because you you can't do anything about it residents at Love Canal they really thought that the government were going to rescue them that once they declared that there was a problem at Love Canal that they would be saved and they learned that these officials were dealing with a problem that was as new to them as it was to the residents they realized that in order to escape from their own homes in order to even understand the scope of the problem they need to organize our first Love Canal homeowner's office was at the 99th Street School it was a classroom and because I had knocked on everybody's door they recognized as my face and so I was voted in this President I was terrified of being a leader I'm a shy quiet person all of a sudden having hundreds of people counting under me and they are angry and and frustrated and terrified and so it isn't just being a leader it's being a leader in a crisis Lois was very nervous and I always will remember it she had her notes kind of scribbled on a small piece of paper and she was standing in front of the microphones and her hands literally shook she was so nervous but what was so interesting for reporters we saw her go from that to being unbelievable in front of the cameras come a long way we've gotten ring one evacuated we've gotten ring two evacuated we now have an emergency they're talking about purchasing our homes in Washington the decision is not made there only one thing that's going to make the decision and that's public opinion right so none of you should be AIT our main goal was anybody who wanted to leave could leave with their homes being purchased at fair market value I want it out just like all my neighbors want it out I want it to be gone I wanted somebody to buy my house because that's all the assets I had in the world um and and I wanted to move and I wanted to have that happy life I had before when I would walk my son to school when I would pack my husband some lunch and when I would cook a green cake for St Patrick's Day I mean I wanted it all back as president of the Love Canal homeowners association Gibbs has gone from quiet housewife to Neighborhood Advocate to an outspoken spokesperson on the topic of hazardous waste disposal now the homeowners association works out of this house one of the homes abandoned by Love Canal of we we definitely need a doctor tonight now she told you about the 6:00 yeah why don't why don't you okay I have to think I went to the office every single day and opened up there was a core group and we were there every day the phone never stopped ringing people would come in every called us all by our last name it was like we were in the service you know in the army or something my kids were little so they were in the office with me I did some fundraising sent letters to all kinds of businesses trying to raise money so that we could do things you know have meetings print up Flyers that have to be I was eventually voted in as the vice president and Lois always used to kid me I was the vice president of the art Department because most of the signs you saw in that neighborhood were built by me at that time I had already moved so when I could find child care I would come back to the office and work with the girls I just didn't have the heart to leave them when I had the opportunity to move away from all of the danger my heart wouldn't allow it my gut told me you have to stay there and help when you look back at that time the men were the ones that got things done men didn't look at women as being smart as being determined or stepping outside the circle of their family at the office there were some men that were retired and there were men that work shift work so they could be there as well but for the most part it was the women it was the moms that did the groundw work okay tell her that we're going to set up a clinic tonight probably at Jen's Hotel uh in room 4:16 I just don't know the time so that should be 12:00 and what does the state want to make things easier for themselves instead of us huh almost everyone fighting to escape was a woman and almost every person in power was a man and so it turned into this real gender battle Mrs Kenny lost a child I lost a baby before it was even born my next door neighbor is still born her son is sick her son is sick how many more kids have to be sick how many more kids have to die we're not going to let it happen we want activism connected to Motherhood has a long long history in America and it is often something that will mobilize uh apolitical women it starts with a sincere desire to protect their children but then once they realize how powerful that is and how how effectively it plays in the media they realize they have a winning strategy the leader of the group Lois Gibbs a media star attractive articulate and persistent the Press absolutely loved these women they gravitated to tell the story of Lois Gibbs Lois Gibbs leads the fight for the people still living in the Love Canal area Lois Gibbs continues to have doors slammed in her face homeowners president Lois Gibbs has fought for relocation for over 700 Love Canal families she's with us tonight GI instinctively I knew history was being made here and I just felt I had a ringside seat to history and I didn't have to buy a ticket the education board bought from hooker for the price of a dollar all this Landis Lois said we have to stay in the N she kept saying we have to keep the front page we can't let them forget about us we have to keep the pressure on President Carter and in order to do that we're going to have to send telegrams scream and holler and be heard folks covering the Love Canal Saga as a media event often too often focused in on Lois Gibbs and the struggle of the homeowners but there were other people in the neighborhood people who don't own property in Love Canal who had many the same fears many the same concerns as the homeowners just on the downtown side of the canal was one of the newest public housing developments in the city of nagar Falls it was called Griffin Manor and it was home to about 250 families Griffin Manor was just a close-knit community commity most of the families there were related to each other even before Love Canal was on the news my mother was talking about it I remember she said there's more going on here that meets the eye we've got to do something our table was completely covered my mother had notes everywhere there was a research material newspaper clippings there was data from surveys that she had taken from people with health issues and she found that a lot of the people who lived in Griffin Manor had illnesses that were concerning from my memory my mother should have been on the news every day because she was always out there talking to reporters answering questions offering information just as L as Gibbs was but there were many nights when we would watch the news and there would be no clips of anything that she had discussed and she just sit there at the table and then she just put her head down and she just cry Love Canal was not good for manner there were two different places it was like being in two different cities how many families are there amongst the renters in a similar situation I would say at least half of the population in that area are severely ill like I've been living out here since I was about 4 years old I have a seizure to disorder renters were not getting their health addressed as the homeowners were some of the Health Care Professionals they were saying that because of us not taking care of our children properly that's the reason why they were sick and my doctor he still don't want to say that uh just the is a cause of you know related to it you know renters feel marginalized on a number of levels so Griffin Manor residents form their own activist organization okay the people that live in the nag housing authori there will be a meeting specifically for us because this is what happens to us we get jumbled into people that own homes buy one we had many meetings with homeowners they were mean people what they wanted us to do was to stop complaining they need to be taken care of and then when they got taken care of then address the renters Governor Cary was in Buffalo yesterday and he especially pointed out to me that don't forget the people on the outside of the prison perimeters and especially Griffin Manor and he and he he and so we're very very aware of it and we're going to be watching it I promise uh Mrs Gibbs she could be there [Applause] my mom and Lois Gibbs talked about what was going on in Griffin Manor there's nothing that makes me believe that Lois wanted anyone to be forgotten about but they had different roles to play Lois's role was to take care of the people who lived outside of gin Manor and my mother's role was to take care of the people inside and it became somewhat of a competition to get what you could for the people that you represented homeowners believed that people living in Griffin Manor could just move they were renting they weren't invested into their homes with their life savings but Griffin Manor was some of the best public housing in Niagara Falls they had units with three or four bedrooms which meant that if you had a large family you could actually live like a family there was no comparable public housing anywhere else in NRA we did have large families so of course you would have to rent a house or large apartment and it just wasn't affordable for people so it was devastating it really was it's like you're in a fire but you can't get out sometimes you know it make you want to cry now because [Music] they had no way out no way out finally late this afternoon the green light workers wearing air packs and disposable uniforms stood by as the first shovel of dirt was removed from the Love Canal slowly the odor that the residents here had been living with for years started to permeate the air [Music] [Applause] [Music] as you all know two of the contaminants that have been found in the canal are Benzene and chloroform and carbon tetrachloride I'm happy to say however that based on what we have seen and evaluated there is no evidence of benzene toxicity we don't see the state was constantly repeating and trying to reassure the residents and the public that they had things under control and that you know there's no cause for alarm we are coming across some abnormalities in deliver function studies that were performed this is to be expected in any population as you know there are a variety of things that can cause liver disease besides toxic chemicals they would explain that something like a Benzene you would know that it affects the blood it affects the central nervous system causes liver damage with excessive exposure but because you're exposed to only seven parts per million which is in your house here that doesn't mean you'll get those it means you're at a risk of that that of course doesn't mean anything to people there are upwards of 200 different chemic that have been identified here's what the residents did learn tests do show that some children in the area have liver abnormalities they don't know whether toxic chemicals are responsible but these residents were not satisfied with the answers and the questions poured out from The Angry Crowd I have an 8 and halfy Old asmatic I have been told by my doctors to get her out of this area do I have stay in that house there is worse the folks in the New York State Health Department had their work out for them scientists work in labs they have protocols those Protocols are objective and disinterested and anytime you talk about anger feelings emotions subjectivity the things that Love Canal residents are talking about you compromise the process the people are scared I worked at stop for chemical for 23 years I've seen men die from FS so when Health officials show up on the ground and they start talking to Residents the first thing they realizes they don't even know how to talk to they did not say one thing they went around in circles all night long all night this gentleman right here couldn't even answer question many of the residents did not have degrees Beyond high school and so there was embedded class and gender tensions that are really exposed we asked the state to have the state scientist down here could answer the resident's question they didn't do it I we were more or less self educating ourselves with the help of some other people the more you learned the more frightening it was the more determined that we were to succeed at this I was just overwhelmed with how hard they work to learn and Lois at one point asked me for my toxicology text from when I was in school and I gave it t her so they were devouring this stuff and they very quickly became very Versed and they were highly motivated because they weren't getting answers from the health department and so where could they turn to get answers in other fields of science we sometimes talk about gaps in our knowledge here it's almost our knowledge is a little Gap in our ignorance we really know very little about exposure to these chemicals Beverly Pagan had done groundbreaking research about environmental hazards she had written papers suggesting that air quality might contribute to lung disease that smog might contribute to asthma I met Beverly Pagan through my brother-in-law and he introduced her as a scientist a health scientist who could be helpful and she came by the first meeting she goes I know everybody is really upset about the chemical exposure and I don't know what that means yet but I'd like to help you figure that out to test for Li function there will be counts done on your blood she approaches the residents in a very different manner than Department of Health she had expertise but she did not walk in as the authority any other questions she listens to them she takes it as legitimate their concerns that there are illnesses in that broader expanded outer ring area there may be some problems that will not be solved by the cleanup besides the first ring the health department constantly said if you're outside of the fence you're not at risk but there was no basis for saying that there was no science for saying that and the fence became a symbol of who was safe and who was not the residents of course looked at that fence and said what are you talking about these chemicals are in the air they're not being stopped by the chain Ling fence so it also became a battle line between what the community wanted and what the state was willing to do there was a man on 102nd Street who just came back from Cleveland Clinic diagnosed and epileptic he's never had any central nervous system problems of any sort and all of a sudden you know he's got this crazy seizure problem we needed to try and find out what's going on in the outer community was it our imagination this cluster of epileptics is it a coincidence that these women are having miscarriages or is it real the soils are contaminated you don't and so we just wanted to see what was really going on we wanted to find out no one else would tell us we'll find out for ourselves and that's when we did the house study Lois Gibbs and the other mothers didn't know how to conduct Health surveys Beverly Pagan gives them a way to do that she tells them what questions to ask how to ask them and with her help um they're able to start building their own data we were at my house one night and we're like putting these things on a pinmap and it was like red is for miscarriages blue is for cancer whatever the color code was and we were realizing that oh my gosh some of these things are really clustering like epilepsy around my house um and you know birth defects over here one neighborhood was severe heart and lung problems and another neighborhood was female cancers and then in my area there was a lot of miscarriages so we went back and started interviewing people in those areas where there was clustering of diseases and the oldtimers would tell us about an Old Creek that that was there and how it was backfilled with construction waste and then dirt sometime in 1978 the State Department of Health Unearthed aerial photographs of the neighborhood just before hooker chemical began using the land as a dump and in these photographs there was a series of streams or as they called them swales that cut through the neighborhood moving in every which direction but when Lois began to connect the dots finding these clusters around the old swales and and Beverly studied it for herself she was alarmed well this is actually quite interesting this stream here has very little disease along it and this stream never intersected Love Canal there's no disease along here there are about 40 homes in here and there's about seven or eight dots there there are about 40 homes in here and there's at least 50 dots these are just half a block away they're both on a stream but one stream intersected Love Canal and one didn't this is some of the strongest evidence I have if it was true that human health problems seemed to follow the old swales then it was true that the human threat was much farther than state and federal officials had originally in indicated Beverly Pagan ultimately flew to a meeting in Albany with these maps and with this data and she recalled that when she boarded the plane that day with this tube of of maps and photographs that she felt like she was carrying something explosive she said she felt like she was carrying a bomb so I FW New York State Health Department and proposed this as a hypothesis to them why don't you look at disease in these homes which are long swes compared to the homes which are not to see if there's a difference in disease incidents and they agreed to do that what happened though was quite different I'll never forget it because I got on the airplane flew back to Buffalo picked up a newspaper in the airport and there was a story on the front page attacking my hypothesis the the same Health officials that she had met with in Albany had spoken to the press and they dismissed what she had presented that day women told us the state office had dismissed their studies as useless housewife data they thought we were useless Housewives we just dumb little Housewives I never heard of anything so insulting the useless housewife data yeah there was hundreds and hundreds of hours put into that paperwork I'm not a scientist I am a housewife as I've seen quoted in the paper many times my data is not useless it is not pointless and it's not invalid every one of these people in this audience plus gave me that data they don't lie what you're doing in the health department is going to take 6 Months 8 months 10 months and if we sit and wait for six more months we're going to have dead children government talked down to us all the time where did you learn epidemiology you can't even say it but we weren't intimidated it was fine do whatever you want but we're going to keep moving can is not the only thing these chemicals cause but I think Beverly didn't feel the same way she was a professional a researcher and she worked for the New York State Health Department so the ramifications for her actions was tremendous Dr Pagan would readily admit that the procedures which she used for the Gathering of data are not generally acceptable from the state's perspective all the health study did was amass anecdotal data and map it on to one understanding of the neighborhood's environment which is very complex you would need to know what chemical was there how long it had been there how that interacts with people's individual biological makeup how much time they actually spend in their house why do they get exposed to at work it is virtually impossible to establish causality and so for David Axelrod for the EPA and for other officials in New York and Washington it was very difficult to know where to draw the line who was safe and who wasn't over and over again what you see with Love Canal is that it was a first they're trying to clean up a hazardous way site that sits below an occupied neighborhood how do you do that it's never been done before a lot of these chemicals have a very low igniting point so if your PR went down and it hit a barrel that could cause an explosion right I would say no because we'll use the metal detection ahead of anything else we will not be probing any area the work itself was totally terrifying nobody knew what was going to happen if there was a spark from the back hole hitting a barrel or something the whole thing would blow up we're talking about the possibility of the entire dump exploding well not the entire dump but there could be an explosion there may be uh exposures of gas or something like that those are are probably not going to happen but you can't be sure they're not what are we going to do if this blows up buses are standing by at a cost of $6,000 a day just in case of an emergency evacuation so they put buses in the neighborhood and they sat there with their engines going all day the idea was that if there was an emergency those bus drivers that they hired would sit there and wait for you and your children to run down the street to to get on the bus if there was an explosion another precaution was taken for residents still living in the area they participated in a test bus evacuation from the area Monday with 60 bus drivers involved in the simulated evacuation plan all Love Canal Charter buses this frequency upon arriving at the L Canal site please check in we had our papers in our nap saacks ready to grab and run this is like your mortgage your health insurance the stuff you put in the safe in case of a fire right we're going to have to grab our baby grab our napsack and it it was insane we literally every single day had to wake up to the reality that we may have to run for our lives I started reading all of these articles around the beginning of August I was aware of what was happening that they had been evacuating the whole area and I'm just thinking oh it's a block and a half away and it really doesn't affect me I was working full-time I would go in at 7:30 in the morning and come home and be able to pick the children up at school stepen was 9 years old and Chris was 11 and John was 6 years old John was such a little imp he had this black curly hair and the sweetest smile and there was something special about him something very special it's 45 years later now but I still feel you know I still feel it June of 1978 John Suddenly his stomach was distended and he was swelling up so it looked like he was getting allergies but the pediatrician took one look at him and and she knew exactly what was wrong with him that he had immune response disease called minimal leion nephrosis but they told me it was the best disease a child could have because it's treatable and he'd be over by the time he's 14 most children with neosis do very well um they may have uh a relapse sometime shortly after the initial episode but most of them go on to uh lead perfectly uh healthy lives with no further recurrences John was in the hospital for a whole month the nurses loved him because he was not a difficult patient you know he didn't complain finally with treatment he went into remission and he was sent home again as soon as he would come home within a few days he was no longer in remission I would take him in the hospital and he'd go into remission then i' take him back home again the the remission was gone and it was the same story so it was very strange unfortunately I didn't know I mean he was playing in the backyard he was a little kid you know and his favorite pastime would be to play games in the back of the house we just didn't know it was in the backyard hooker chemical landfills of a cause for concern for quite some time in Niagara Falls for many that concern has turned to outright fear now that the deadly chemical dioxin has been discovered at Love Canal dioxin is a byproduct of a herbicide used widely by the US Army to defoliate dense Vietnamese jungles I knew months before it was considered an emergency that hooker had manufactured components of dioxin at least 200 tons of it that was as much dioxin as had been spread in Vietnam with all the agent orange that was the amount that you could calculate as being in a Love Canal well dioxin is a very toxic chemical most toxic chemical that's ever been made by man dioxin is a highly potent carcinogen and it causes its effects at the parts per trillion level which is even hard to comprehend now 130th of an ounce of this dioxin will kill five million guinea pigs we are naturally concerned over finding dioxin but it does not come as a surprise nor does it cause us to make any further recommendations at this time the commissioner said there is no evidence to indicate that the Trace Amounts of dioxin found in the lee8 pose an immediate health hazard to residents of the area how does it affect the kidney the heart the eyes or any V organs do you know this I don't know the answer who does know in the health department of New York State there are number including Dr Axelrod no could this person be brought here to answer these questions he was here the other night I've got a book on it toxicology book it'll tell you ultimate is death that's the answer get it out of there by the middle of September John was so sick he just spent the whole time laying on the couch when we took him to the hospital his stomach was so distended we had to put suspenders on on him soon he was in an oxygen tent couldn't breathe and he looked scared and he had those big brown eyes that were staring out at us through there and we trying to reassure him and tell him he'd be okay and that we were going to be nearby that you because they wouldn't let us stay you know my mother had packed some eggplant Parmesan sandwiches we went to the cafeteria eat and all of a sudden we hear his doctor being paged to the ICU Norman and I ran out of that room we threw the sandwiches and the garbage and we went there and and um I mean we knew we just knew the first thing I blurted out was I want an autopsy because they told me that was the best disease a child could have you just can't believe it that he was gone like that people said well yes Mrs Kenny probably your son's death was due to the chemicals and I kept saying I said I don't think so I said I I I want to see the evidence first maybe it's a scientist in me my husband was also a scientist so we were trying to be objective I mean I'm not going to jump on a bandwagon when I have no proof my husband and I went to the medical libraries and we started researching I found all of these articles that said that nephrosis could be caused by exposure to chemicals it was one of the worst feelings I've ever had because I did not want it to be that you just wonder I mean how did you miss it and you you you know but you did later on they come out and they say there's dioxin behind where my house was there's 32 parts per billion in that Creek I mean John was back there all the time you know you blame yourself why didn't we move why did you do this why didn't you do that I mean you should have been paying attention when lella lost her son once you get past feeling so horrible for them then somewhere in the back of your mind that little voice is saying that could be you that could be your kids they found it in my backyard too they found dioxin on the surface soil where my kids crawled on their hands and knees and chewed on the the toys and all so it was getting scarier and scarier the residents want the clean up operations at the Love Canal to stop they want families to be evacuated because of high amounts of the toxic chemical dioxin that has been found we felt that yes the cleanup was dangerous and that the people doing it really didn't know what they were doing it was more like an experiment if you're disturbing chemicals then you're releasing them into the air we already having problems with them but to open them up we didn't know if people were going to be dropping dead or what but sometimes I sit back and I says did I live through that we had the trucks driving through the neighborhood with dirty tires after they had driven on the canal itself and and then people would walk down the road and they go in their homes and and it was just a mess so we knew that digging was making things worse in the neighborhood we had to raise holy hell to stop that picket signs are up tonight in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls New York as angry residents try to stop excavation work it was not a warm welcome for construction workers at the Love Canal this morning they were greeted by Angry Canal residents walking up picket line at each gate leading into the area we protested literally every day mostly Al at either end of the canal not letting the trucks come in in addition to yelling Pickers also lectured every worker on the hazards of dioxin a dangerous chemical which was disced we never were able to actually stop them but it was more to educate our local leaders and our local community but also the media to say look at this is what's happening eight more arrest today at the Canal area of Niagara New York initially politicians weren't afraid of Lois Gibbs or any other mother but within a couple of months they were especially Governor du Cary he was up for reelection he was in a dog fight to win Governor kery made multiple visits to the Niagara Falls area he made sure he was photographed with Lois Gibbs I was a political threat to him I could unseat him the same was true with President Carter I was their enemy I was their worst nightmare we decided that Governor Carrie was the one who could give us what we wanted and so we just targeted [Music] him every time he came to anywhere in Western New York there was a troop of people who would go and greet himy old son is already dead no you're not attributing death to what happened yes I am and I have have plenty of evidence for it be put it this way you're aware this state has spent $23 million to help the residents of Love Canal I'm aware they and they for seven months clean it up first we want to be moved down first before you clean it off tell these kids I think the children might well be exposed in danger by being brought out here and walking around in the rain this way you don't Pro bring he's looking at us well if you're so concerned about your children why don't you take them home you know don't stand here out in the rain you know after a while you can just take so much do I have to lose another child within a day we'll know whether the evaluation now please I'm not the one who's causing the death of children around I'm the governor why because you have the power to relocate us we relocated everyone who was affected by the we are being affected those women kept that story out there and they quickly learn especially for us the television media we can't tell a story without pictures so they would come up with all different ways to get our attention which would get the cameras there reacting to White House refusal to buy their homes angry residents of chemically polluted Love Canal dragged out dummies in the street and burned the Carter family in [Music] [Applause] effigy my mother used to say they're just using you meaning the the media I said yeah Ma but we're using them we kept them busy with stories so they kind of like scratched our back and we scratched their back on Saturdays I could go and I could protest and we brought our kids and we would be yelling we want out we want out and I remember being home one day and and my girls were three and two or less and I hear from the bathroom they're in the tub they're yelling we want out we want out it was funny at first but then after it settled in you're wondering you know really how does it affect them cuz we don't know the boarded up houses are the visible evidence of fear but the experts say that the problems here go far beyond what you can see Love Canal has been called a mental health disaster my marriage is broken up right now I I no other just our block alone I I was flabbergasted to see how many people divorced people were riled up and angry and there was no place to take that anger to so then the wives and the husbands were fighting my husband couldn't understand why I had to keep going I tried to explain to him that these people helped you get out and if it wasn't for those people we'd be still stuck in the Love Canal I had two fights going on it was was not a good time what do you suppose you're going to do about moving cost I don't care care where they're from in this area these people can't afford to move out and come up with this front money it's just not there I said I didn't have any easy answers for you we've just come up today and we've begun to work with the state of New York the state held most of their meetings and their press releases and all that stuff while I was at work and left the wives to fight and the state made a big mistake by doing that because the woman fought more than any man could Hell hath no fury like a woman guarding her [Music] [Music] children this was the first time the health department had given serious consideration to research gathered by the homeowners association When We examined all of the data we found that there was indeed an increase in Risk R for the fetus of approximately twofold in congenital malformations in spontaneous abortions Department of Health analyzed the reported miscarriages and they realize that it is higher much higher than it should be there is some evidence later on that the chemicals might have actually been distributed via storm sewers but the miscarriage data absolutely lends Credence to the idea that there are other ways the chemicals have been dispersed from the canal site pregnant women living in the Canal area extending from 97th to 103rd Street should be removed from the area this is the first time Griffin Manor residents are included in an official declaration by the state the fact that it was being recognized was huge but my mother felt that it was a bit too late there are just so many things that you can't change from the past and I know she wished that they had Hur her from the we have also brought to the governor our recommendation that children under 2 years of age be removed from the canal until such time as they are older than two or until such time as extensive environmental data they agreed to move pregnant women and children under two temporarily in the outer Community meaning when your child reaches the age of two you must come back to that home or if your pregnancy terminated early you had to move back to that home you can imagine having a miscarriage and moving back to the home that caused you to have a miscarriage it was just insane you don't think I'm as concerned about my 3year old as I am of this baby I'm carrying I'm sorry can he answer the question we want out of here we're not going to play by your rules anymore we want out out now she's over is not important to you oh you would hear all the mothers but my daughter isn't important worried and concerned with their kids uh growing up so I heard that many times not answer a question that night I didn't really have any plan for a question but then uh it just came out I'm like a toy and I want to know if I can go home and live with my mother father again I had to go to my grandmother's house I want to know if I'll be able to grow up to be a normal man good kid [Applause] I began to think of David axod is living inside of a political Vis on the one hand he had Governor Hugh Cary who didn't want to spend any more money in Niger Falls and didn't want to evacuate anyone else and on the other hand he had these 700 families who were desperate to escape their homes and David Axelrod was stuck right in the middle trying to find a way out and there simply wasn't a clear path it was very difficult to not have a ready solution even with hurricanes and natural disasters it was temporary relocation putting people in temporary homes until the waters receded they cleaned up the muck and Meer from the homes from a flood and people stabilized their homes or did whatever they did but it was not permanent relocation we had to really think outside the box there are 32,000 known chemical waste dumps in the United States more than 800 now considered dangerous to Public Health we needed legislation that said if you pollute you are going to pay for the damage to the environment that you have caused but EPA people said to me it would be helpful politically if this were not just the Western New York problem Shaka Minnesota outside Minneapolis the spectacular Fire Burns 4,000 waste drums sending noxious clouds of smoke and some of the barrels into the once people saw that it was across the country then they were going to be in the same situation Louisville Kentucky January and it would mean that you could bring more members of Congress to bear on the problem and get action EPA has prepared legislation to establish a half billion dollar super fund to help pay for emergency cleanup and damages resulting from spills and abandoned waste there had to be a big Bill and that's how it came to be known as the super fund meaning there's a lot of lot of money there and of course we had a big issue is well how do you fund Superfund and I I assure you that the companies who had to put up a portion of the money for the fund did not come along willingly hooker chemical tonight is saying don't blame us for the chemical catastrophe we have alerted everybody to the nature of those chemicals in the past we had no control over that landfill site for 25e period the sale of the land for a dollar in 1953 came with a very important caveat should there be any future problems at the site involving environmental hazards it would be the city's problem hooker chemical has denied all along that it has any legal liability associated with a Love Canal situation that tells you right there they knew they knew that there is a problem now the school board I can't get in their heads but I don't know if they didn't want to know or they just actually were naive enough to think that hooker was just giving it to them because they were good corporate citizens ultimately people at the Board of Education were not scientists City officials were not scientists or chemical experts the only people who were were at Hooker chemical and they knew how that land was going to be used and they sold it anyway today it emerged that in 1958 children playing near the school were burned by chemicals the company and the school board knew but neither warned the neighborhood Jerome Wilkenfeld who was then a hooker Chemical Company safety official was questioned you had evidence available to you that children were using it as a playground and had been burned probably by the chemicals there and yet you were reluctant to tell them that there was a a hazard and tell them what the chemicals were because you were a afraid that you would expose the school board to some legal liability yes recently hooker has been peppering local newspapers with full page advertisements hoping to spruce up its Public Image hook goes on a sort of PR off come under Fire and begins to take out advertisements in all the local media reminding people of the jobs they provided reminding people of all the money they injected back into the city when that doesn't work and the complaints don't go away hooker officials when they testify before Congress say look you all should know that we produce really toxic stuff but we also produce miracles in American life everything that American industry and consumer life is based on depends on chemicals and sometimes we have to recognize that chemicals are made from hazardous material his electric light bulb contains Argon a gas that keeps it burning his shower curtain is decorative waterproof plastic his suit contains chemical fibers that keep it looking better longer his car is made stronger it's often times argued that we have to expect some negative effects from the conveniences of Modern Life with all winter atree we all bear some burden for the presence of toxic substances in our environment better things for Better Living Through Chemistry but I would argue that only some people have choices about what gets produced only some people have choices about what gets regulated and for the most part the remainder of society and in particular its poorest members are often times the guinea pigs for these [Music] substances summer of 1979 is a real Tipping Point for the Love Canal Crisis in the last year there have been two State Health declarations in One Federal Emergency declaration but the majority of families are still living in Love Canal and with remediation and the summer dust in the summer heat the smells are worse than ever we still have people uh very sick some of them hospitalized and uh contaminated homes the residents reported that it was hard to even go outside and Lois Gibbs used this as leverage she she argued that people couldn't live like this and ultimately State officials agreed to a short-term fix governor Cary still remained opposed to any more evacuations but anyone still trapped inside their homes both homeowners and the residents of Griffin Manor were given the opportunity to stay in local hotels and you need accommodations for your family and suddenly across Niagara Falls people were living almost like refugees in their own City well we still have our neighbors that's right basically that whole floor was Love Canal people that's your new house we've got the kids to go to bed and then at 8:00 we would sit in the hallway and talk that was like our living room this was summer in Niagara Falls which was still a very popular vacation destination Hotel managers didn't want a bunch of Love Canal families in their hotel rooms in their hallways children everywhere uh they became known at this point as the quote Love Canal people one time a waitress comes to take our order and she said are you love Canal or are you normal and I just looked at her and said well I'm both the state was spending about $7500 a day to put up people in hotels for more than 2 months at that rate they could have bought a home in the neighborhood about every 3 days as a result the end of the year I don't feel we're that much better off than we were at the beginning we're still here we still have people the residents at that point have been fighting for a year at the time if you would have asked them if they were winning the answer would have been no many of them were still trapped in their homes but effectively they were winning because with every single passing day they were keeping this story in the news they were refusing to back down they were fighting again and again they kept showing up to meetings the Love Canal mothers wouldn't go away I wonder if we could have your attention please you could have your attention and your quiet for the more than 700 families left behind here at Love Canal the nightmare took on New Dimensions last Friday when the Environmental Protection Agency released a preliminary health study done on 36 residents EPA commissions a new study to examine about three dozen residents of the neighborhood and they want to study these people for chromosomal damage the testing was undertaken as part of the process to gather evidence for the EPA and Department of Justice lawsuit against hooker chemical EPA was going to sue hooker so the chromosome study was trying to get evidence I was upset when I saw the results and then then they said well you have to go up there and talk to them about this and I did but I knew it was very bad news and it was going to cause a panic Dr Pano concluded that 11 of the 36 individuals Damon exhibited significant chromosomal aberration which can be an early warning a future health problems including Cancer birth effects spontaneous abortions and other reproductive problems however I think we want to stress that the results need further confirmation and it's the data is now under intensive review benefit you have pis out of there two years ago the federal government has finally after two years come up to the high level thinking of housewives that they have constantly put down we know what's going on we did research too and we want out of there we want our kids out today the study adds to fears that toxic chemicals which surfaced at Love Canal 3 years ago may be connected to a high number of miscarriages birth defects and cancer Barbara quiny is one of those affected the people are just at their with and they just can't handle anymore mentally not when it comes down to your children that that's the worst I think we can just about take anything ourselves but when it's affecting your children it's very hard to cope with 8-year-old Randy Quimby has several birth effects and she's mentally so her parents were not at all surprised to hear that each of them might well have chromosome damage in a way it was an answer cuz my husband and I didn't know what was wrong but it was hard cuz again it's like damn you hooker did this to my child I was only just 26 hooker decided I'm not having any more children children they made the decision for me well we have got abnormalities in our chromosomes and we chromosome study is very controversial about soon after it was released the study was flagged and defined as flawed Thursday State Health commissioner David Axelrod said the epa's action in releasing it was irresponsible it was just a pilot study to see if in fact there was evidence so that was criticized for not being a full-fledged study but in research the first thing to do is a pilot study you don't devote the resources to do a full-fledged study without knowing what you have officials keep stressing that the study was designed for evidence not scientific results there was no control group they took people who already had problems as part of the study like my husband has two they have a count of two and mine's five so they said his is normal and mine isn't so it was certainly a flawed study but there was was no comforting anyone it was the hardest thing that I did the entire time that I was EPA God I really felt for those people before this were you planning to have more children we were talking about it and now I'd be afraid to bring another child into the world you know people lost it around the chromosome study that was a straw that broke the camel's back [Music] [Applause] suddenly there were hundreds of people at the office outside and they are angry I mean to the Bone angry's coming out politicians and health officials have to scramble to handle this and they send multiple people to Niagara Falls including two EPA officials yeah I realized that uh I don't so the EPA officials came there that day and they were going to speak to the residents who were gathering outside but the crowd started getting a little bit bigger and it got a little bit hectic out there pass the word around nobody we're not going to do anything violent we're just going to keep them in the house nothing more than that barricade the doors okay and don't let him out sit all the way around the house over here come on around the house if I was to let the two new EPA Representatives come out the store and anybody know what would happen to us I talked to Lois Gibbs a number of times she was saying listen there's an angry mob here we think we should keep him here and protect him I said okay uh but let's let's not make it where it looks like a hostage situation if you're trying to threaten Us in some way I don't think that's productive and we are holding them hostage until the White House responds to the Love Canal situation in relocating these residents who are suffering well John if I was to send these two individuals out in that front porch the those residents would rip them apart literally physically Home Owners Association president Lo gives spoke with congressman John Leal in Washington to try to get some answers Leal is set to meet with President Carter at this hour at a dinner meeting at the White House we should have more information tonight after that we have gotten more attention in half a day than we have in the two years period that we had been fighting to stop the suffering of L Canal residents it's really really sad when you had to go to this extreme to get any kind of attention from the White House and that's not I stood by the back door cuz I was the big guy and there were police everywhere the crowd was building and they were getting more and more angry and the police were standing with their billy clubs and their hands on their guns and it was a real scary situation the FBI said okay Lo here's the deal they knew it was going to blow up any minute and they said we're going to come in and get them in 5 minutes we have just talked to the White House so I went out on the front steps and said look guys we made our point I have told the White House and this is upon your approval that we will allow the two EPA Representatives to leave but if we do not have a disaster declaration Wednesday by noon then what they have seen here today is just a Sesame Street picnic in compass Love Canal residents are tired of being sensible reasonable in dealing with these turkeys because they're not listening to us we'll let these two Representatives go but if we don't get something on Wednesday White House better watch the hell out so Wednesday at noon was our deadline we didn't know what was going to happen Wednesday at noon we had no plan within seconds law enforcement officials determinedly push their way inside a few minutes later the two hostages were L out the side [Music] door Lois had created this sort of false deadline she just made it up and the White House didn't need to respond to that necessarily but an internal memos back and forth between Jimmy Carter and his chief of staff there is a sense that that these people have suffered long enough and so Wednesday precisely at noon I got a chair outside of Love Canal office cuz I knew everybody would be there and took the rotary dial phone and called the white house because they had a press release going to read it to me if you keep it real quiet I'll be able to repeat it so you can hear it an emergency to permit the federal government and the state of New York to undertake good evening President Carter today declared an emergency exists in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls and the Environmental Protection Agency promptly announced that 700 families still living there will be moved out in making the announc epa's Barbara Blum said it comes partly in response to Growing pressure from those who live near Love Canal it was time to Mo move those people out uh the emotional climate up there was quite understandably [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hot essentially everyone who wanted to leave could leave and that was really a huge huge step you didn't have to prove you were sick you didn't have to have a little baby you didn't have to be pregnant you know you didn't have to have chromosome damage you could just leave one more question how do you feel very very happy very happy and all those people who've been trying to get out so long to finally get out and it just really makes me [Applause] [Music] happy people had no idea what us women went through and the work that we did and the Blood Sweat and [Music] Tears but one time I was called a hero I'll never forget that called me a hero and I never felt that but I did what I had to do there must never be in our country Another Love Canal there's really no way to make adequate restitution but this agreement will at least give the families of the area the Financial Freedom to pack up and leave if they choose to do so we don't know what the impacts would have been if people were forced to stay another year another 5 years another 10 years President Carter asked her to come to the stage Lois Gibbs who [Music] who if at any moment those women anyone in that activist Community the homeowners the renters anyone who lived in Love Canal stopped it would have been a very different and less successful movement Love Canal changed the way that Americans thought about environmentalism fundamental in forever it wasn't simply about pristine Landscapes about oceans about forests it was about our day-to-day living environment it really opened up people's eyes as to what was going on the direct impact on people and what were we going to do as a society to help these people and then prevent this from happening the super fund bill was signed into law by President Carter today it is one of the last legislative victories for for the Carter Administration and in December 1980 Congress worked together to pass what is definitively one of the most sweeping legislative packages that they had ever passed that measure all Lots $1.6 billion for cleaning up toxic waste fills and dum hundreds and hundreds of sites have been identified cleaned up taken out of circulation as environmental hazards and the value of that is immeasurable but even with an additional 5 million in from the state of New York Love Canal residents are finding out they are not better off many who have one of the debates was always how much money would be allocated to homeowners and renters and at the end renters were still marginalized and if anything the last to leave later on they did pay for people to be moved but the problem was Finding somewhere to move to and you you rent your home you're you're out now aren't you no I'm not out why don't you get out I where am I going to go Phil when you say renters what do you mean we live right across the fence from the homeowners we live about 250 ft from there by the time we moved out I think my mother pretty much given up my mom moved us back to uh to the old neighborhood we went about a mile down the road from hooker right back to where we grew up right back to the chemicals [Music] we found that hooker chemical was clearly and specifically negligent there are a number of proceedings which remain to determine exactly how much hooker will pay to the state and others injured by the negligent handling of wastes and the transfer of property to school authorities I got some money it helped us buy a new home my children they each got a sum of money but they sure don't pay for the pain and suffering I've had through the years yeah sometimes it still gets I lost a marriage over it I mean you could give me all the money in the whole world it's not going to bring John back to me that's all I would care about who can compensate you for your child dying your mother dying your dad dying your sister your [Music] brother I don't think we got full Justice no I'd want them to stand right there and say we're guilty that's what I would have liked to have seen hooker still will not admit their wrong the city in Niagra Falls will still not admitted wrong that's not Justice they have Justice the truth should be told we begin today might call the next and best chapter of this very sad story The Saga of Love Canal the people will see inside the fence where the homes have now been boarded up those homes will be removed the area will be uh landscaped contoured to be attractive to be safe to be secure you think someone would actually want to come back a new family would want to come into that area that's the question yes and I do believe that we can make the area attractive again I'm sure the mayor doesn't want to regard this as an area that's going to stay blighted and and stand as a monument to Decay no it can't be that if you go to the Love Canal site today you will not see the words Love Canal anywhere there's no signage anywhere that says the world's most famous environmental disaster occurred here but what you will see is a huge chain link fence you will see a huge area of land inside the fenc in zone that is off limits you might not know there are nearly 22,000 tons of hazardous waste still underneath the ground [Music] I I was just just just mortified one day I see a pregnant woman with her toddler two of the most vulnerable people in the world right next to 20,000 tons of chemicals why would the city build a playground right next to a toxic waste dump and I just think didn't we get the word out enough what didn't we do that we could have you know prevented that [Music] [Music] American Experience poisoned ground the tragedy at Love Canal is available on DVD to order visit shop PBS or call 1 1800 play PBS American Experience is also available with PBS passport and on Amazon Prime video [Music] [Music]

Channel: American Experience | PBS

Views: 487,734

Keywords: love canal, niagara falls, superfund bill, superfund site, epa, environmental protection agency, environmental racism, hooker chemical, lois gibbs, John LaFalce, Barbara Blum, Jannie Freeney, Dr. Beverly Paigen, griffin manor, al gore, Jamila Ephron, 1970s, american history, history documentary, cancer, jimmy carter, buffalo, asthma, environmental remediation, earth day, erin brokovich, earth month, blizzard of '77, chemical waste, toxic chemicals

Id: gR4YBDzPzd0

Length: 113min 35sec (6815 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2024