The City Built on a Toxic Dump - Love Canal Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- The in-depth story of the Love Canal Environmental Disaster.
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In the early 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company purchased the “Love Canal” and used it as a dumpsite for chemical by-products. Hooker Chemical maintained several factories that dealt with perfumes, dyes, and synthetic resins. Many of the resulting chemical by-products were caustic and could potentially cause great harm if someone came into direct contact with them. However, factories had to keep up with demand, so Hooker kept pumping out more products, which produced more and more toxic waste. Finally, after about ten years, 19,800 tons of toxic waste had been buried just twenty-five feet under the ground in the Love Canal. The site was filled with chemicals only contained by the walls of their steel drum prisons. When the dumpsite was established, the canal had been drained and lined with clay to protect against leakage. But, as we now know, those safety measures were far from adequate.
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Contrary to popular opinion, the school district was the real villain.despite being warned that the clay should not be disturbed and no structures with basements should be erected they ignored it, with devastating effect.
True
Quite a few villains in this story I think
I mean the company could have properly processed the chemicals too, rather than sticking them in the ground.
@@filanfyretracker That's about environmental regulations at the time
@@marekholub8668 I had a two stroke motorcycle that kick out loads of smoke at high speed perfectly acceptable in 1975
"Hooker dumps toxic waste into love canal" sounds like a fake news crawl from a video game
"Hooker's love canal found to contain sludge!"
awedoggo I use to go to Beer 🍻 Blasts at Hooker Dock’s and Hooker On the Lake, back then the park was for Employees only. Non Employee’s had to find an open parking area outside the park on Dead ☠️ End road & bring small BBQ grill on Lake Ontario NY (Now Porter On the Lake, open to public now days)
@@krashd yeah an old friends basement had Green and Brown and Red slime oozing in from Love Canal
Thing is it’s still there and only clay capped off with monitors gauging any and all leaks
Yeah right
Sounds like a sleepy porno. “Hookers: Dirty Love Canals 69”
LMAO
Let's be perfectly clear, here -- Hooker Chemical "sold" the site to the city of Niagara Falls only after the city threatened to seize the site from Hooker Chemical via eminent domain. Hooker - knowing what would happen - told the city repeatedly that it was not a suitable site for a school or housing. When the company realized that the city was going to seize it anyway, they "sold" it to the city for a single dollar, and an acknowledgement of the city assuming liability for the site, despite the company telling them specifically that it was not suitable for anything but a park, if that. It was the city - _not_ Hooker Chemical - that wanted to develop the area into a residential neighborhood, complete with an elementary school. The city knew that the site was a toxic hellscape, but they didn't care...until it blew up in their faces, and they started screaming to blame "eVil bUsInEsS sCuM".
The people who suffered as a result didn't suffer because of evil corporate greed, but because of an out-of-control city government with delusions of adequacy, that refused to take responsibility for its actions.
To be fair, the people making the decisions usually aren't the ones who get caught dealing with the aftermath afterwards.
People who make these kind of decision usually expect it to come to a head 40 - 50 years later and it is somebody else's problem. The Love Canal was a special case. All of this went down in a 10 - 15 year period.
Whether it was the 50's or the 70's, the town's leadership either knew what they were doing, or knew what had been done, and refused to take any responsibility for it. Instead, they made every effort to blame anyone but themselves.
Soooo, just another day in politics then.
Hearing the video talk about the $1 sale as if Hooker was pulling a fast one led me down here to complain about it, but I see that's already been taken care of. It's a bit of a kick in the nuts for (eventually) Occidental - "We don't want to sell you the site, you'll build houses on it and it's not safe."
"Sell it to us or we'll seize it."
"Fine, but we'll sell it to you for a dollar and we want it in plain English that we're telling you it's hazardous and DON'T BUILD ANYTHING ON IT DAMMIT."
"Sure, whatevs, here's your dollar."
*proceeds to build and gets everyone sick*
"Those damn Hooker Chemical people got our citizens sick!"
To pretend like the business play zero role in this is laughable. They are the ones that polluted the land for profit! They also played a role in downplaying how bad it was.
Funny how the company told them what was in the ground, But they decide it was a good idea to build a school and house on the land. And somehow that was the companies fault?
It was a ticking time bomb. Had this construction not happened and compromised the integrity of casement, eventually the storage containers would have corroded and ruptured. And these chemicals would have had a few decades to mix creating even a worse witch's brew. The crazy thing is this was but one dumping ground for one company. There were thousands of companies in the US doing such practices in the US before environmental regulation came into play.
@Super Dave problem being, it is hard to call it fair to punish someone who didn't break any laws, by changing a law and blaming them for breaking it earlier......especially when they had a government signature for liability during the sale.....notnapproving what was done, but that strikes me as unfair.
@@75ur15 the kid with three rows of teeth, or the kid with no arms, or an entire population with cancer or incurable disases - think its unfair they bought a toxic wasteland for a home.
@SWIFTO_SCYTHE the people who bought it knew what it was, got it pretty much for free and they made a choice to build, I would hold them responsible, but the ones who just didn't have any further use, but, clearly told the new owners what it was and how dangerous
Which is why I firmly blame the local government for creating this disaster. Yeah, the company bears some responsibility, however, if they owned the land and were legally allowed to dump there. Perhaps it could be argued that just to make sure they should have not sold the land or, should have paid to have the barrels removed before they sold it. However, the town bought the land and built on it knowing that it posed a serious risk. But they went ahead anyway.
A word of advice to land developers and aspiring designers: when you are given advanced warning that your new land is a dumping ground, don't pretend potential problems don't exist.
Sounds to me like it worked out fine for the land developers. I mean, they sold the houses they developed. They got paid, they didn't get sued, win on the land developers. Heck, they got to sell a lot of it twice. Really just need to make sure you're the middleman of the disaster chain. So yeah, go build your school wherever. Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy.
and be careful what you name your brand,the hooker company made lube and perfume
@@marvinnazbith1083 lol Magic School Bus reference!
Fantastic advice there. No one else would ever have thought of that. And I'm sure the land developers and aspiring designers will see this and take your advice to heart 👍
But where is the profit to be made from that? Some people just want money no matter the cost. Developers will continue to cut corners to save costs and its only a matter of time before those cut corners show their head in a another disaster. Just look at Grenfell Tower and the cheap cladding they used
My mom went to elementary school there before it was shut down and she’s had nonstop health problems her entire life she knows more people from school that have passed than people still alive
:(
Me too.
just your mom or were others there too? do others in your family have health problems oo?
Rand Road Elementary?
I passed away too 😊
The northern, rich areas of Oakland County, Michigan are built on landfills filled with PCBs, asbestos, and other contaminants from Detroit’s Industrial Age.
The residents have no idea what is underneath them.
Auburn Hills currently has a massive landfill. Right by the old Palace that was recently demolished.
Methane gas can be smelled and tasted in the air at all the Mc Mansions.
would you like to see another environmental disaster video? When researching Love Canal, I came across many more. 1950-70s were crazy
@@DarkRecordsDocs might I suggest Times Beach, Missouri? It's a wild story that involves Dioxin
@@BoulevardFan28 I've added it to the list of topics. You can always send suggestions here: bit.ly/DarkHistoryTopics
You can't smell or taste methane gas. I believe that gas would be hydrogen sulfide.
@@USSTOLEDOSSN769 Thanks for the clarification. I could definitely smell and taste something wasn’t right.
Can we all just take a minute and appreciate the fact that at one point this area was technically the "Hooker Love Canal"
Lol.
someone paint over the C
@@mooeykazooeySay less. You're hired.
@@mooeykazooey "meeyow" indeed. 😂🤣💀
"..the miscarriage rate in Love Canal.." Not words I ever thought I would hear in the same sentence lol.
This was really the fault of the housing developers and the city. They selected a toxic waste dump, bought it cheap, ignored the warnings, and made it worse by breaching containment. BUT it's far easier to sue a rich company than sue the city or the construction firm who definitely did not have the money to pay for the harm they did.
It's a shame that's how lawsuits have to work, you don't sue who is most responsible but sue who is most able to pay.
The company didn't even want to sell. The govt. Threatened eminent domain.
A company recklessly dumped toxic waste, which created the issue to begin with.
@@frevazz3364 no they didn't. They actually followed and exceeded the industry and governmental guidelines. If the city hadn't bothered it, it never ever would have leaked. Read the full story before commenting nonsense.
@@frevazz3364 The company did everything within the law at the time correctly so you can't say the recklessly dumped toxic waste. I know most of the time the big company is at fault but we still need to respect the times where it wasn't on a corporation. This is one of them.
I have a friend who grew up on 99th. They never moved out. He sent me a picture of the "love canal goo" that came out of his sump pump. It looks like sewage but slightly more organic,and luminescent ever so slightly. Truly fucking scary
is there a possibility that you still have that picture and can upload it somewhere?
Having *actually* worked on top of a Superfund site, I can say that remediation work is not an easy task. I was not involved in the cleanup, the facility I worked at (A former nuclear anti aircraft missile site of the USAF) was actually the center of the Superfund site. It was related to the improper disposal of chemicals related to the maintenance of the missile fuel systems. I can tell you our facility was very strict on dealing with hazardous chemicals. Every year we had to get certified in the disposal/handling of hazardous waste. I'll also say I'm old enough to remember when Love Canal was in the news. 😎
Great video for sure.
thank you for sharing your experience, very interesting to hear about from someone who worked at a Superfund site
Who did the certification, a government agency perhaps? I seen that map with all of the chemical waste sites 💀 very scary is a under statement. There are probably more than the ones that are shown on that map.
@@chuckking4188 It was done by outside contractors (the training) many of whom were people who had worked on big cleanups. I also had the opportunity to attend a week long certification course in Hazardous Waste and Emergency Response, or the famous acronym HAZWOPER training. That taught me just enough to know I never want to live near railroad tracks or major trucking routes. There's some scary crap rolling around out there. 🤔
Proper disposal is cheaper in the long run for any company. Cheaply disposing will bite them in the profit margins much worse than proper lawful disposal
@@SWIFTO_SCYTHE that may be true. but is it true that proper disposal is cheaper for the current owners and investors in a company, with regard to the limited future period in which they see themselves continuing to own the company in comparison to divestment in favor of contemporary alternatives? that's the real economic issue at work, not what's best for a company 10-20 years in the future.
Here in the UK a local refuse tip (now closed) has dangerous things buried within it. As a child I sometimes played there and would often find things and can remember very clearly one particular find. In one particular 'crater' within the tip I happened upon large glass blocks. Now, as a child that's what I thought they were but I had a closer look and I'll describe as an adult what it actually was: Rounded drum shaped glass lumps - imagine pouring molten glass into a 25 gallon drum and peeling the drum away - that's the size and shape. The glass was of a low grade and clear. In the centre of the glass lump was a tin - much like a small paint tin with a pop off lid. The tins were about 8 inches tall. The tins were painted a pale orange colour and had a symbol on the side - as a child I didn't know what it was. I now know that sign to be a radiation sign. Both myself and other children spent ages throwing stones at the glass breaking it but we never managed to get to the middle of the glass and the tins. Yes - there was about 5 of these glass lumps.
My local tip has radioactive waste dumped into it. The waste does not register with the tips official contents (here in the UK we can check). I also know exactly which part of this now closed tip the radioactive waste is dumped and I can also confirm that it's not very far down into the ground - perhaps 6 feet or less.
I have no idea whatsoever the radioactive waste actually is. Being a small tin I can only assume it's an isotope/source? Someone reading this will know better than I do!
For anyone wondering: The tip is in SE Northumberland and I saw these glass things in about 1972.
Apparently they’re still dumping nuclear waste in N or want to at least. It’s called vitrified toxic waste.
Sounds like medical waste for xrays. At least they covered it in glass. But 6 feet?
Pretty sure it was a company that did that and cut costs by just burying it in a field somewhere.
Every government has some sort of authority that deals with radioactive materials. Probably a ministry like environmental or internal affairs (sorry, I have no idea what ministries you've got over there) will be in charge of that. If nothing else, you can probably contact the closest university with a chemistry department, they'll know who to contact.
Hopefully no kids are still getting in that area, and you and your friends from back then haven't been affected. Mentioning it to your doctor on your next visit might be worth it though, just to be on the safe side.
I think they sued the wrong people. Hooker warned the school board about the dangers. The local government should have been held responsible, not Hooker.
I visited the area recently. Ironically it is becoming a dumping ground again. This time for more household waste (TVs, electronics, etc.).
There are toxic dumping grounds all over the western Salt Lake Valley in Utah. After my bf and I moved back to the area, we drove past an area that had been completely vacant when I was a kid, and it's now covered in luxury apartment buildings. We're just waiting for the lawsuits to start. Just down the road are a bunch of new stores. Bad move...
Wait ... Where in SLC 😳
@@howdycowboy247 the area that came to mind immediately was along Winchester west of 700 W, where WINCO is and up the hill. Then there's the lake itself... ugh
@@jacquelynsmith2351 wooooooof. Glad I'm not over in that area but I'll have to look into this more! I had NO idea
And then there's US Magnesium up on the western side of the actual salt lake. I was driving through there once with a buddy after camping and we came across signs warning of the danger of the pollution and that it's an EPA Superfund site.
The thought of my very favorite (by a long shot. Employee owned) grocery chain having a store on a toxic site gives me pause. How they ever thought that mere dirt was enuf to protect from chemicals is a wonder.
As a Canadian I will never forget this . I feel so sorry for these people.
Don't think this doesn't happen in Canada. Look up the chemical dumping in Port Hope, Ontario. They still have many properties that haven't been remediated.
This is the Americans Niagara
Everyone in Southern Ontario should remember this - I'm surprised that many don't. The chemicals from Love Canal and many other sites flowed into the Niagara River. I believe this is why things like cancer and autism are so common in the Niagara region in Canada. Our side of the border is toxic too.
@@Halopowneri think he knows that. He’s saying cause it’s close to him (probably lives in Ontario)
There is a similar site near where I live. There were over 27,000 drums of hazardous chemicals removed from the site in the 90s. I don't know if there were residents nearby or not, but it's definitely still scary. There are far too many of these kinds of places. 😔
And then there was times beach Missouri and the Denny farm thanks to chemical companies
In the late 1970s I played in a park (next to an abandoned factory) in Jersey City, NJ that, after really heavy rainfall, exposed all the barrels under the playground. That was the last time my parents let me play in that park...
I assume now it was the same situation, sell the land to the city for a dollar, and tell them its only safe for a park...
27,000 is that all ???
Are you talking about Rocky Flats
Verona? That place scary. Still find barrels as of 2010s
We lived in an area outside of Detroit where it was eventually found to be contaminated by medical waste, buried years earlier but undisclosed. We played in that field, where our feet occasionally poked holes into the ground. It was strange since we had no idea what made the ground in this large field so oddly bumpy and sometimes "weak". A grade school was built on the site which eventually was found to flood with pools of liquid contaminants in the lower areas....The school was closed, the area sealed off and the buildings torn down after several years. it is still a closed-off area. (This was in the mid-80's). A lot of people suffered illnesses, and home values dropped.
Good job! I am a former resident that lived on a 101st street From the time I was born in 73 until 83.. We were one of the last families to leave With the exception of the 2 family homes that still occupy the street
ive seen several on this subject, this is by far the best
thank you, this means a lot :)
I watched a documentary on this event back in high school. I asked why they built a neighborhood on a toxic dumping ground. I was told that the people dumping the chemicals had no idea that they would leak and cause problems.
Thank you for recognizing Lois Gibbs. Her constant vigilance in Love Canal did indeed help bring about significant new environmental legislation, and inspired many to join the fight. Her trainings and hazardous waste news bulletins helped many other communities initiate remediation of toxic sites in their neighborhoods.
I'll never forget all of those wonderful smells growing up in Wyandotte, Michigan (think Detroit River) in the early 1980s.
You should do one on the Sydney Tar Ponds located in Sydney NS. Makes Love Canal look like a block party.
As someone living in Ohio, this is tragically relevant at the moment.
what is happening in Ohio?
@@juliag.5443 The Toxic Chemical Train Derailment and Explosion. It's World News. Where Have you been ?
@@mcmans. not in America, and it didn't appear in news in my country
@@mcmans. starting to sink in that the world doesnt revolve around wealthy eurocentric people yet? just like the majority of the species couldnt give af about ukraine because we're too busy getting tortured to death by rich europeans to have a reason to feel bad for any european. since all of them endorse and enable the treatment the rest of the species is forced into
@@mcmans. which is btw, the reason most americans did not want to get involved in any of the world wars. we knew that preventing europe from collapsing would only lead to more suffering for everyone outside of it. and look at that! they were 1000% correct!
What a tragedy, but really opened up the country’s eyes to the dangers of improper chemical disposal and chemical use in general. Back in the 60s and 70s, we were all obsessed with having heavily marketed “chemical miracles” in our garages so our lawns would be the greenest on the block without weeds and our gardens would be insect free. I remember my mom and dad regularly spraying the lawn and garden and no one ever thought about what hidden dangers these chemicals could have.
We are still using this stuff.
Have lived in Niagara Falls my entire life, currently live right down the road from Love Canal, my dad lived there when he was a kid...developed cancer in his 50s. It's atrocious what the American govt did to unsuspecting Americans...and now come to learn there is lots of radiated areas around the cities various parking lots. Love Canal and the Niagara Falls area was America's little toxic waste dump.
Even radioactive waste…
@@roydrink what do yous think of the sourthen tip ik of some potential sites that arnt even known or just swept under the rug
@@bannana6290 There are thousands of places where knowingly or unknowingly ’bad stuff’ was dumped. There’s over two dozen in Niagara county alone last I checked.
Nash rd in north Tonawanda. Not that long ago there were hazmat suits going in the backyard of a family friends house to reseal whatever contaminant was there. The wife died of cancer at a very early age (40-45). Another family friend who lives across from them has mentioned that nobody wants to buy their house because of that. And most of the people that live on that street had someone in their households who died of cancer. The government is refusing to acknowledge exactly how devastating these issues are and the effects of them.
The road is not that far from love canal.
My dad taught me to never go near a hooker’s love canal.
His advice definitely paid off.
Based papa
there's a new, luxury, 1 million/house development going up in my hometown. Anyone who grew up there remembers when that area was a toxic waste dump for the local Pharma companies. To this day, nothing will grow in the center of the area. What is Toll Brothers planning on doing? Pouring topsoil on that section and turning it into a landscaped area and surrounding it with McMansions. All the kids in those houses will have cancer in 20 years. They'll start dropping like flies in their teens, 20s, 30s.
ALL the kids? Seems like you are exaggerating
The american dream,often turns out to be a nightmare,full of lies and deception..But this is absolutely horrifying..😮😩
You'd think this was about land near Chernobyl or something..To know that babies are being put at risk even within the womb,is absolutely heartbreaking..No amount of money can fix the health issues that will linger for generations..😞
It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
@@theFLCLguy No truer words have been spoken..
@@theFLCLguy American dream more like nightmare lol
@@theFLCLguyclown
Think Love Canal is bad?
Try Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG)
If you live (or have ever lived) anywhere near the lower Allegheny River, all of the Ohio River, the Mississippi River (from whre the Ohio joins it to the eventual river terminus), even if you live in New Orleans. Also noting this even effects large areas of the entire Gulf of Mexico.
Trace it all back to East of Pittsburgh.
A place that once had a PPG facility, Ford City.
That starting fifty years ago, and continuing on to today...
PPG has dumped and continues ro dump some of the most lethal toxins known to man into the Allegheny River. So lethal, that they still maintain levels of being lethal all the way to the area in and around New Orleans.
Those rivers are the drinking water of over ten million people. Also used for recreation such as fishing, boating, and swimming. If you live anywhere near any of these rivers, never drink your tap water.
Holy fuck... I'd hoped we learned that cutting corners with waste disposal. Clearly, this shouldn't be happening; have you been personally affected by the spills? I can't even imagine how many people that'll affect.
How are they getting away with it?
Yes, send it to China 🇨🇳, so they can dump it in the ocean, the veins and arteries of our mother earth 🌎
@@whirledpeas3477 oh like us Americans do? The fact you’re talking like we are any better is funny. 🤣💀
@@WocketInMyPocket_ nice emojis, get back to me when you grow up.
Can we appreciate the government forced Hooker Chemical to sell them the dump and was fully aware of the danger?
I'm puzzled as to why the chemical company paid up. The fault lie with the school board that built the new homes and school. They should have paid the families for the damage, not the chemical company.
The government passed a retroactive law that said despite doing everything right, being forced by the courts to sell and making the city sign a 17 page document saying that the land was dangerous it was still they fault for selling cintamated land.
Basically the government changed rules to protect the city government who knowing poisoning hundreds of people order to make a quick buck.
Scapegoat, I guess. Just use the words "corporate greed" and everyone will scream in anger at the company and forget the role the govt played
They were the ones who put it in the ground, and sold the land. Just because they made them sign a paper means nothing really. They knew what would happen. They shouldn't have sold the land at all
@@missykeatings9114The land was going to be taken away anyways. The chemical company knew the dangers of this land hence why they were so adamant against selling it. It's the government's fault for ignoring the warnings that the chemical company told them. If anything, the government should do the clean up on the land since they wanted it so badly before developing it. It's insane how the company had to pay up and take the blame because of the usual "corporate greed" mentality.
I learned about this event in collage, we read Lois Gibb's book detailing the events and her and the city's fight to get answers and help. For anyone wondering, the book is titled "Love Canal and the birth of the environmental health movement"
I live in South NJ, and essentially my whole town is a brown field/super fund site. It was worse when my parents were growing up tho. In my small town we had so many defunct gas stations, a home heating oil storage facility, a water tower on contaminated ground, a junk yard amongst others. Hell, even the Lipari Landfill is near by. What a mess 😂 great content mate!
There was a guy who bought almost an entire mountain in the Catskills. He planned on building a resort hotel on the hillside. He cleared the trees and was ready to break ground when some of the locals finally told him that a chemical factory used to operate on that hillside. He then disappeared and wasn't seen again. Everyone in town thinks he had a chemical test done on the soil and found something really really bad. Since then, because he cleared all the trees, landslides and floods became a regular occurrence and its believed the runoff leeched into the river, poisoning the town.
I remember hearing about Love Canal as a kid but didn’t know the whole story. Thanks for the video.
IMHO the local school board and government bears the brunt of the blame for this. They were clearly told that the place was dangerous and unfit for human inhabitants. Yet they ignored that known reality and built there anyway completely disregarding the risks below that were clearly stated when they acquired the property.
BTW shortly before this happened I had finished college and was just starting out in a career in Chemistry. Hooker Chemicals was one of the companies that considered my application. By then they were already owned by Occidental. BTW they turned me down for a job. I didn't have enough "experience" at the time. :)
Loving this channel soooo much! I found it through ur video on the MS Estonia when I couldn't sleep, youtube recommended me a video on the Titanic, so I've been getting a lot of videos on ship crashes which are pretty interesting, so I watched ur video on the Estonia. It was well done, so I checked out the rest of your channel and its so interesting. It also helps me sleep cuz I listen to them like a podcast!
Another toxic story in and around Niagara Falls, largely unknown. Remember the Manhattan Project? Due to the experience and skill of the chemical industry, the radioactive ☢️ products needed were manufactured and milled in some of the plants. In the 70’s / 80’s many employees were suffering/ dying from the effects of their exposure. These effects were largely unknown at the time and for many years forgotten. When all this was realized, it was the beginning of the rust belt era. Many building were found to be radioactive and hade to be torn down, increasing the economic downturn until this day.
My interest in this? I was born on an island one mile downstream from Love Canal, and my school was on the border of the first nuclear ☢️ dump in the USA. I’m thankful that I’m in my 60’s without any negative effects.
I am glad some of you made it out without all the negative effects. I am not from there, but with all the comments in here. I do wonder how many of our health issues are from stuff like this. I'm sure it's all over the world.
That you know of.
That film does turn out right
Model city. One street long. Been there selling insurance door to door. WNY is such a dump.
Glad I moved. My cousins who lived on grand Island (where oxy/hooker factories greet you with a horrible stink) are both hearing impaired, and their mother had breast cancer in her late 30s. F that place.
Thanks for sharing. Many people of 20s, 30s and some after are uninformed of how much maltreatment of wastes has happened before our time and believe it's all controllable.
Not the chemical factories fault imo.... Was 100% the school boards fault who sold the land to build homes on after they were told it was dangerous
Having done a huge report on this I agree. Though at the time ('80's) the local mind set was about jobs and unions. If you know anything about this area then you're aware lessons have not been learned.
the chemical company should of never been able to just sell off extremely toxic land for 1$ and not be subject to cleaning it up.
the city and school board that ignored all the warnings are just as guilty as the chemical plant.
@@Sneaky-Snek "the chemical company should never been able to just sell off extremely toxic land... ...just as guilty as the chemical plant"
You seem to be suggesting the company was somehow malicious/guilty in this disaster and wanted to make a quick buck selling bad land. It didn't. It wanted to keep the land and told the government/school-district (paraphrasing) "you really don't want this land. It's supposed to hold this waste for geological timescales (the sealed clay+barrel tomb being considered an appropriate disposal method, at least at the time), so you can't build things here."
Any sane entity or individual would have at this point either said "ok nevermind we don't want your land anymore," or if enough money was in the budget (unlikely) pay enough to the chemical company (Hooker or some other contractor) to fully cover the costs of removing the waste and disposing of it in some other safe manner.
The government/school district did neither. It threatened the company with imminent domain (ie government wants your land and is going to take it without your consent if you don't sell it for an "appropriate" price). The company was losing the land either way, so it sold it for a dollar. Not to make a profit, but to make sure there would be a contract explicitly stating all the hazards associated with not treating the waste tomb with the respect it deserved.
I'd argue the company has almost no guilt in the disaster at all.
@@Sneaky-Snek Hooker was innocent of any wrongdoing IMHO
Wow, can’t believe they made my Cities: Skylines savefile into a real place!
This horrible event was part of my dissertation for Medical Anthropology. Scary as hell
Fantastic video! Thank you for taking the time to make and share this. Well done!
Thanks for the interesting episode I look forward to more in the future.
Great content 👌, thanks for all the work you put into your videos. They really are good quality. Keep up the great work 👍.
Much appreciated!
Suddenly I remember 1 song,popular in the 80s with chorus "we build this city...we build this city on toxic dump..ohh.."
As a person from niagra county this is not the only place they dumped they found waste from the Manhattan project near a school also a whole park near the niagra river with barrels popping out of ground no wonder so many suffer from cancer here
The school is Lewiston-Porter, my alma mater. It’s reported the the principal has to monitor the football field when it’s wet.
Nash rd in north Tonawanda was on the news a couple years ago. They covered up whatever barrels where there about 6-7 years ago. It was practically in some back yards of people. That rd specifically has a high rate of cancer than normal statistically.
The stupidity of humanity borders on disbelief at times
I worked at several Superfund sites in the 80s and 90s in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia and Colorado. I now suffer from idiopathic neuropathy and my daughter has multiple sclerosis. I can't sue anyone... because I literally signed my life away to work those jobs. Ah, the hubris of youth.
This is terrifying
I remembered hearing about this when I was a kid. Our teacher read the story to us.
You left out the deal transferring the land to the government, school board, it was stated that it could not be built on. Hooker chemical sued to stop the school board from selling land to developers and the courts ruled the school board could sell the land. Hooker did everything it could to stop what happened but the courts would not enforce the terms of the contract. Also the cannel was not lined with clay it was dug through clay and had the land been used as a park as was originally agreed to no one would ever have gotten sick
Times Beach had an episode like this, this ain’t the only one
I had to give you a dislike my friend. Hooker Chemical Company NEVER wanted to sell the land to the CIty (the school district) But the city used eminent domain to take the land for a dollar. That was why they put the warning in the contract to not build there, even though they knew the city would. The city was solely responsible for this mess. Hooker and Oxidental were mere victims in this debacle. Buffalo was and still is an industrial shit-hole of a city. So dumping chemicals in a clay vault would have been fine forever had the City not forced them to sell and then built a school ontop of it!
The amount of physical harm this did to people can't be overstated. I grew up in Niagara falls Ontario and the amount of people with thyroid problems (my mom included) is statistically abnormal. Couldn't imagine the extent of the damage and if people from that area on both sides of the border are still being affected. Sadly, this isn't the only toxic dumping story in the area too. Look at the cyanamid dumping grounds and the hockey arena built on top of it lol. It's literally right in the middle of the city. I used to ask my dad about it all the time as to why it was all fenced off. Niagara was a weird place to grow up.
I live in buffalo NY and I think someone should make a movie about this....
This is sad, because they knew of the issues, SHAME ON THE CITY FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN!!!!
First off this is a killer documentary! Super detailed and interesting but not overly dramatic. Im surprised hollywood hasn't made a recent movie about this story, similar to dark waters and aaron brockovitch
ERIN brockovitch was a legal assistant who worked with a highly unscrupulous attorney - the movie was the result
ERIN Brockovitch was a nitwit "investigatior" working for an ambulance-chasing lawyer, that is all ther was to it
My town had an active superfund site for many years cleaning up radioactive thorium dumped by Lindsay Light and Chemical Company. I remember friends in high school getting $1000 checks when they went to dig up their front yards to dispose the waste laying under the neighborhood.
My grandmother used to live near love canal. She developed hyperthyroidism and died of renal failure later in life.
I remember reading about this for a reading test in school. It’s stuck with me since
The fact that perfumes produce toxic and acidic, caustic chemicals as byproducts has made me hate consumerism even more.
I drive past that area occasionally. It’s been rebranded to “Black Creek Village”, the houses just outside of the main containment area are beautiful, and someone maintains the grass inside the chainlink fence - hello hazard pay! It’s like putting a murderer in a tuxedo
Interesting that there are still people living near the area suffering from "mysterious" health conditions. I suspect that may indicate that either the contamination spread further than they're willing to admit, or the "safe" distance is not actually the recommended safe distance for prolonged amounts of time (eg the safe distance from a roadway would probably be shorter than the safe distance from a house since the length of exposure is considerably less when just driving through).
Why would they not have at least. "At least!" Sealed the dump zone in the beginning with types of concrete cement and other sealants, such and asphalt, or liners, bonding agents to further keep things from leaving the cement coffin..?
$$$, it would cost too much to do the right thing.
Clay works much better then concrete at containing chemicals. When the canal was sealed, it was never planned to be touched, so there was no need to be more complex.
One of the subject areas I teach is Environmental Science. When we get into groundwater, I always bring this case up. This is an excellent short, concise video that I can use to convey more information about the story. Thank you.
I remember this disaster when I was a kid. So horrible what the chemicals did to the families.
East Palestine, Ohio are you watching this? When all is said and done, I have a strong feeling that you too will end up being remembered like the Love Canal. A situation where our government is hiding the truth.
The government is hiding the truth? Why is the government even involved it’s Norfolk southern’s problem, why aren’t they taking care of it?
They caused the problem, they didn’t clean up the problem, now the federal government has to step in.
Every time a private corporation screws up why do you blame the government?
If you look at the National Geographic magazine cover for March 1985, there's a guy in a hazmat suit with respirator holding up a metal bar covered with black sludge. This was in Swartz Creek, MI (just Southwest of Flint) where the company Berlin and Farro buried thousands of metal drums full of toxic solid and liquid waste that eventually leaked into the ground water. Houses were built near the area years later. The well water of the residents living near this rural area dumpsite became contaminated and the people began developing cancer and other health problems much like they did at Love Canal. The site eventually became a superfund and was capped off but the damage was already done.
Flint, MI My Home...
I remember my parents talking about this in the late 70s/early 80s. It's beyond horrible, and I'm laughing. But not at what happened. It's cringe laughing at the dark comedy of the horrific errors and terrible decisions made.
I remember this very well, as always big companies claimed innocent to what they did ( dump chemicals ) and still do when they think they can get away with it
It took me a while to finally get around to getting this bit of history. I only know about love Canal in the midst general way
Hooker Chemicals, Grand Island NY. I'm 60+ and remember this well.
my god this sounds like from the dark ages… the 50s, 60s and 70s had some very horrible events
I went to kindergarten and 1st grade in the toxic area, before it was identified.
I was a kid when this happened. I'm 49 now. It made local news on a regular basis for what seemed like a few years. I didn't understand what was happening at the time but I knew it was bad. It was skull and bones toxic. To this day, Niagara falls NY stinks of chemicals, although I don't know if this is why that is. It just isn't a nice place whatsoever.
I did in fact find this video interesting:)
...may you rise to he top of the algorithm!
America moment
Ya goddamn right. A certified MURICAN classic
I hear so much about Love Canal, but each video has some new information that other vids don’t. I think yours is my fav on the subject.
I also threw in a suggestion for a future video, about Nyanza chemical site in my state. It was cleaned up, but it’s begun leaking again, making streets glow in the dark.
$1 for a bunch of land 💀 WHAT THE FUCK THAT’S THE BIGGEST RED FLAG EVER
Good reminder why the EPA exists. Businesses exist to make money, and they will squeeze every dollar they can out of every step in the process. Strict governmental oversight, regulation & enforcement of public safety issues are absolutely vital, and should not be relaxed to help someone make a buck.
So because I lived in Thorold Ontario this really interested me. I looked up the area at 5:02 on Google Maps and when you look at 95th street there's a field that's all blocked off and the road looks more like a sidewalk
All the “bring factories back to the US!” people always forget that factories have a huge amount of toxic byproducts, which sooner or later, end up in the soil and water supply. It is a debatable topic and agree that good to produce some vital products in country, but having factories in your town often means stink (from paper plants, etc), smog, noise, traffic, water contamination and even health problems, for very few jobs (you don’t need a person to pull a lever like on the 1950s, now it is automated). It isn’t all sunshine and “jobs!” with factories.
Just drove through there the other day and people are still living there and refused to leave their homes.
Couldn't imagine buying out a company and then being sued for something that you didn't have anything to do with.
I faintly remember this from my youth. This is the first time I've learned details about it.
Nobody from love canal is suffering from "inexplicable" health problems lol. They're all very explicable problems.
I remember hearing about Love Canal in the news when I was a kid.
While the city officials just ignoring the warnings and being completely incompetent when it came to health and safety led to the disaster, just dumping toxic waste in rusty barrels and covering it with clay is still woefully inadequate...and the fact that the Hooker company warned about it shows that they knew how ineffective it was at containing their leftovers. Since I don't know the wording of those negotiations I can only speculate, but I have to wonder if Hooker explicitly said what exactly they had left there, or if they vaguely hinted at something that could have been misinterpreted. All in all, the level of willful ignorance on all official levels is just staggering, and I wish I could say surprising.
I always thought it was on Long Island. Learn something new everyday.
I live in an area historically contaminated with creosote, about a year ago a utility came to extend some sewer lines and tapped into the contaminated soil. The contamination took place 50 years ago the underground channels of creosote were found under a ditch about 6km away from the site. The fumes were intolerable. Watching this does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about living here.
My first thoughts when I heard that deadly chemical byproducts were being dumped anywhere near Niagara falls, just sounds like the single dumbest idea in the world. Then to build a neighborhood right next to it just takes the cake. Things in the mid 1900s were just different times.
Oh my god, this is so tragic and horrifying! I can’t believe this happened in the same state I live in yet I was never aware.
H: “Well sell you this land for 1$”
School district: “Okay”
H: “But if anything wrong it’s not our problem, and we’ve made you fully aware of the issues… agreed?”
School: “Agreed”
School: *builds housing and school on a confirmed toxic waste site they bought for $1 off a company named hooker*
Something: *goes wrong*
School: I WANT DAMAGES I WANT MY MONEY I WANT MY MONEY I WANT IT NOW I WANT I WANT
Living in a similar situation now. I live 2 miles from a landfill that was not properly maintained and this community that I live in is suffering. Health issues. It's terrible. No one will help.
This popped up in recommended after the train derailment in Ohio....
Yeah, that's comforting
Just popped into my head that the average person is afraid of chemicals, and exhaust fumes.
As a tradesmen, I’m laughing. I work with so many chemicals that evaporate that I was high after work for years.
When scientists and doctors finally listened and approved respirators as normal PPE. I was 21. I had been working with dangerous chemicals with no PPE for 5 years.
I used to stick weld, and braze without a respirator. Explains why I cough. Ahahahah
Are you still
Alive?
I grew up in south central PA and I remember this being in the news in the 70’s but never knew where it was until years later. It’s a shame we didnt know more about these chemicals before allowing them to be dumped in a ditch and buried.
I don’t know how anyone could sleep at night knowing what they were doing.