Love_Canal

Love Canal The Love Canal In the 1890s, William T. Love began digging a canal near Niagara Falls, New York. The canal was never finished, leaving a seemingly useless hole in the ground. But when industries starting flocking to the area in later years, this trench, Love Canal, was bound to find a use. In the 1930s, various companies began dumping chemical waste into the canal. Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation purchased the land in 1942,and through 1953, they disposed an enormous amount of hazardous wastes into the canal. Instead of finding a proper place for the wastes, the company merely covered the canal over. The Niagara Falls Board of Education acquired the land and constructed a playground and elementary school there, selling the rest of the land to real estate developers. Through the next two decades, chemicals that had been dumped in Love Canal began to leach through the soil and leak into peoples' basements, contaminate underground pipes and pollute the air. It was not until the 1970s, however, that the damaging capabilities of the chemical waste recognized. The first tests on the canal, love, through, new, area, york, tests, results, land, chemical, began, wastes, waste, usepa, soil, should, school, niagara, health, ground, government, falls, environmental, elementary, companies, chemicals, been, aware, air, york's, years, willingness, william, various, useless, until