Love Canal

Rare card · No. 40777

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a 0.28 km2 (0.11 sq mi) landfill that became the site of an environmental disaster discovered in 1977. Decades of exposure to dumped toxic chemicals harmed the health of hundreds, often profoundly. The area was cleaned up over a period of twenty-one years in a Superfund operation. Love Canal's history began in the 1890s. William Love, a local real estate entrepreneur, conducted a large-scale dig project to obtain hydroelectricity to power a city he planned to build along the canal. Work halted in 1906 after alternating current (AC) electricity supply systems and conservationist concerns made the project impractical. The abandoned dig project left a one mile (1.6 km) long, about 40 ft (12 m) deep trench. In the 1920s, the canal became a dump site for municipal refuse for the city of Niagara Falls. During the 1940s, the canal was purchased by Hooker Chemical Company, which used the site to...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Buffalutheran, CC0