Love Canal Scandal Analysis

“The EPA estimates that, of the 100 billion tons of hazardous waste produced each year in the United States, 90 percent is disposed of in an environmentally unsafe manner” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). This statistic is staggering. Only 10 billion tons of waste are disposed of properly every year in the US. The Love Canal scandal is a prime example of a company producing toxic waste and disposing of it in an unsafe manner. This paper will give an overview of the Love Canal scandal, the cost, and the governments’ response.
The Hooker Chemical Corporation was one of the major players in the Love Canal scandal, and their role was the polluter. Following is some background information on the Hooker Chemical Corporation would burned over twenty
million pounds of chemical waste from 1942 to 1953 all of this was occurring next to an abandoned waterway near Niagara Falls (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). Due to this unsafe disposal practice, the groundwater of Love Canal would eventually become contaminated from the burning chemicals. Hooker Chemical Corporation caused severe water pollution that has had harsh consequences. “Without water, of course there can be no human life; but water also can be directly related to disease and death” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The severity of the pollution on the Love Canal community due to this contamination was unknown until the sale and development of the land. Before the sale of the land the Hooker Chemical Corporation covered up the chemical dumping by installing a clay cap (Love Canal). The purpose of the clay cap was to contain the toxic soil and ground water and prevent it from leaching out. This cap was disturbed when soil tests were conducted by the Niagara school board before the inevitable purchase of the contaminated land for the large price tag of one dollar (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014).
This goes into the next main player of the Love Canal scandal, and that is the Niagara school board who knew that they were purchasing contaminated land. After the purchase of the land was final, the Niagara school board would begin the construction of the elementary school and housing around the school began as well (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). Although the contamination was not the fault of the school board, their actions were not moral either. To knowingly put people in harm’s way for profit is inexcusable. The Niagara school board knew that the land they were purchasing was contaminated but the price tag of one dollar was too good to pass up. Personally, I believe the Niagara school board played a role in the Love Canal scandal, but not as great as the Hooker Chemical Corporation.
The citizens of the newly formed Love Canal community would not be aware of the contaminated groundwater until 1977, and this was because of the melting snow causing black sludge to develop in people’s basements (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The black sludge would go on to be tested and it was shown to contain two hundred chemicals including dioxin and benzene, proven carcinogens or cancer causing chemicals (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). More and more studies were conducted on the people from Love Canal to see what was making them sick. In 1979, a study on the birth rate of the community was conducted and the study showed only one in every sixteen pregnancies from Love Canal residents resulted in a healthy baby and four resulted in a miscarriage (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). Children born with birth defects were also a common occurrence for the Love Canal community, and these birth defects ranged from learning disabilities to development issues (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014).
Another study was conducted the following year in 1980 and the findings were alarming. “Nine hundred children were studied and the results were that many children had seizures, learning problems, eye and skin problems, incontinence, and severe abdominal pain” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). All of these health problems effecting the youth of Love Canal were linked to the black sludge. The next study on the Love Canal community’s health issues would be conducted in 1987 and they found most of the same health problems, but they also found that the babies born in Love Canal had low birth rates in comparison to other areas, and also some developmental issues (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The major theme of all of these studies were the reproductive health of the people of Love Canal, and also the health of the children born there. The citizens of Love Canal would not get answers on what was causing the health problems that had been affecting their community for decades, not until 1994 when the EPA would final step in (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). For me, I do not understand what took so long for the EPA to get involved, because of the severe health problems that the Love Canal community had been suffering for decades, such as the severe birth defects. According to the EPA, many of the Love Canal problems were caused by a chemical called dioxin, which can cause severe health problems even in small doses (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). These people had been living in an environment surrounded by this dangerous chemical. One event that would bring to light some of Hooker Chemical Corporation’s unsafe disposal practices would occur in the late 1950’s. What happened was three school children were severely burned on leaking drums of chemicals placed by their school, but instead of cleaning up their mess Hooker decided to do nothing in order to avoid a hefty cleaning bill (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). “One of the confidential memos iterated: “We should not do anything unless requested by the school board” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). Therefore, Hooker Chemical would not clean up the mess that they made unless they were forced to do so. To me this is morally bankrupt because they should be willing to clean up the mess they made, in order to protect the existing community.
The Love Canal scandal had some costs attached to it like moral, physical, and fiscal costs.
First, the moral cost would be things like Hooker Chemical knowingly dumping chemicals near schools where schoolchildren could come into contact with the chemicals, and instead of cleaning it up they swept it under the rug because cleanup cost a lot. Another moral cost would be residents unknowingly purchasing contaminated land, but the people selling the land knew it was
contaminated.
The second cost was the physical cost and the people that felt these costs were the citizens of Love Canal. The first way we see this is the reproductive health of the citizens of Love Canal. Many women suffer from miscarriages and stillbirths at an alarming rate ever since the community was founded. One of the earliest studies on the health of the Love Canal citizens in 1979 found that four out of sixteen pregnancies would end in miscarriages (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). This number would only increase the longer they lived in Love Canal. The reason for this was because of the two hundred chemicals that were in their groundwater and eventually leaking in to their houses in the form of black sludge (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The chemicals also had an effect on the children living in Love Canal. Many children were born with serious birth defects such as severe developmental problems and learning disabilities, or physical deformities like cleft pallet or bone problems (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). “According to a former resident, whose seven-year-old son had died of kidney disease likely brought on by the exposure to dioxin” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). These problems were all traced back to the chemicals that contaminated Love Canal. The last cost was the fiscal cost. This would be the cost of cleanup for Love Canal. Love Canal would take almost twenty years to fully clean, and Hooker Chemical would have to reimburse the federal government 129 million dollars for cleanup, but it would cost even more to make Love Canal livable again (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014).
The government response to this scandal was rather slow in my mind because this had been going on for about two decades before the EPA would get involved to see what was making these people sick. Although the government did hold Hooker Chemical partially responsible by forcing them to pay 129 million dollars to the cleanup effort and the EPA also went after them legally, nothing would really come from it (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The theory that fit this scandal is the routine activities theory we learned in class. The motivated offender was Hooker Chemical and also the Niagara school board, then the suitable targets were the unsuspecting residents, and lack of capable guardianship is the federal government and the EPA.
To conclude, the Love Canal scandal had two main players involved and they are the Hooker Chemical Corporation and the Niagara school board.
Hooker Chemical was the company that contaminated the ground water of the Love Canal area because of its unsafe business practices, and they tried to cover it up with the use of a clay cap. Then there is the Niagara school board who knowingly bought contaminated land and built a school on it and in turn, housing was built so a community could be developed around the school. Although both of these players are at fault, the collateral damage was the unknowing people moving into the Love Canal community. The citizens suffered from severe reproductive issues such as stillbirths and miscarriages, and giving birth to babies with birth defects both physical and developmental (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The children were effected immensely because they are more susceptible to the chemicals that surround them, and because of this, the side effects of being around these dangerous chemicals were even more harsh on the infants than the adults. The cleanup from the chemical dumping would take almost twenty years, and although Hooker Chemical was on the hook for 129 million for the cleanup efforts, other than that there was no other punishment handed down to Hooker Chemical (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014) In order to prevent things like this from happening in the future we need to hold these companies accountable and give harsher
punishments.