Residents of toxic town Love Canal suffered devastating deformities after chemical dumping

Daily Mail​

19-06-2025

The residents of the now deserted toxic town of Love Canal in upstate New York suffered miscarriages, birth defects, and diseases including cancer in a horrific environmental disaster.
Love Canal was built as a model town in 1890 on a three-block patch of land on the eastern edge of Niagara Falls, and is named after its founder William T Love. A few years later work began on a canal to link lakes Erie and Ontario, but it was abandoned after only one mile was dug.
In the 1940s the canal was bought by the Hooker Chemical Company, which made dyes, perfumes, and solvents for rubber and synthetic resins. Between 1942 to 1953 the company used the canal as a landfill and dumped around 22,000 tons of toxic byproducts there.
Love Canal was sold to the Niagara Falls City School District for 1$ in 1953, and developed into a 'charming' rural neighborhood.
After leaving the site, the Hooker Chemical Company, which closed in 1968, covered the 16-acre hazardous waste landfill with a 2ft bed of clay, and around 100 homes and a public school were built on top of this.
Eckardt Beck, an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency visited the area in 1979, and reported meeting one woman who had two grandchildren with birth defects.
The girl was born 'born deaf with a cleft palate, an extra row of teeth, and slight retardation', while the boy had an eye defect.
Beck met two other men whose children had birth defects, and spotted 'puddles of noxious substances' which had 'a faint, choking smell'.
He continued: 'Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces.'
People in the surrounding areas of Niagara Falls say toxic waste still impacts the residents.
In a Facebook group about the town, a resident named Sally Ann wrote: 'The sad thing is that people believe that it's all 'fixed' and the chemicals don't go past the fence.
'It's still leaking into the ground. There are still active tank trucks that are pulling chemicals out of the ground.
'The part of the 102nd street dump on the river is visible from my dad's dock on Cayuga Island and I can see it from there. Everyone that lives around here is sick.
'My mother died from a rare autoimmune illness and my father has three different kinds of cancer. This is not coincidental.
'It's sad what they did to this area so many years ago. The repercussions will last forever.'
In the same Facebook thread, Susan Rufrano Waitzman revealed how her aunt lived in the town and got mouth cancer, which resulted in the palate of her mouth being removed.
Heidi Czewicz Barnett described how she had equally haunting memories of the place, writing: 'Lived on the corner of Colvin Boulevard and 97th Street. One of the original built houses.
'The fumes in the basement were so bad my mother used to pass out because of it and would always fall down the stairs to do laundry.
'My sister had boils all the time. My father used to watch contractors dig foundations for new homes and would ask what the green stuff was coming out of the ground.
'They told him to mind his own business. I myself came across some white rock that I thought was chalk and gave me a chemical burn all over my body. It's terrible.'
William T Love had planned the community around the canal as an energy supply, but the project was ditched due to economic fluctuations.
The EPA report noted that: 'In the 1920s the seeds of a genuine nightmare were planted [and] the canal was turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite.'
It is believed that 82 different compounds were dumped in the site, including 11 suspected carcinogens.
But after residents started complaining about chemical leaks and strange substances surfacing in their yards and basements that they said were leading to health problems, an investigation was launched.
Tests revealed that there were high levels of toxic chemicals in the soil, air, and water, prompting government action.
As a primary organizer of the Love Canal Homeowners Association, Lois Gibbs helped to bring wide public attention to the environmental crisis in Love Canal.
Both of her young children started to suffer from health issues, including asthma and seizures, after moving to the town.
After much campaigning, on August 7, 1978, the then-New York Governor Hugh Carey announced that the state would purchase the homes of residents affected by the Love Canal chemical contamination.
This decision came after a public health emergency was declared due to the hazardous waste site. The state's purchase aimed to facilitate the relocation of families from the most contaminated areas.
In his 1979 report, Beck noted that he was 'very pleased' with how the Love Canal relocation initiative was actioned. But he concluded: 'But this is not really where the story ends. Quite the contrary.
'We suspect that there are hundreds of such chemical dumpsites across this nation.
'Unlike Love Canal, few are situated so close to human settlements. But without a doubt, many of these old dumpsites are time bombs with burning fuses - their contents slowly leaching out. And the next victim cold be a water supply, or a sensitive wetland.
'Love Canal can now be added to a growing list of environmental disasters involving toxics, ranging from industrial workers stricken by nervous disorders and cancers to the discovery of toxic materials in the milk of nursing mothers.'