Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 238 views

    Love Canal Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Mayank Agarwal
    UEN002 – Energy and Environment is a 3 credit course at [UNIVERSITY NAME] with assignments worth 100 marks total. Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara River that was originally dug as a canal for industry but left unfinished. In the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company used the canal as a dump site for 25,000 tons of chemicals with no residents living nearby. In the 1970s, toxic chemicals from the dump site leaked into nearby basements due to heavy rainfall, exposing the health risks to the community that had developed around the site. The EPA found numerous hazardous chemicals in the basements that led to the evacuation of residents from the area.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Love Canal Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Mayank Agarwal
    238 views11 pages
    UEN002 – Energy and Environment is a 3 credit course at [UNIVERSITY NAME] with assignments worth 100 marks total. Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara River that was originally dug as a canal for industry but left unfinished. In the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company used the canal as a dump site for 25,000 tons of chemicals with no residents living nearby. In the 1970s, toxic chemicals from the dump site leaked into nearby basements due to heavy rainfall, exposing the health risks to the community that had developed around the site. The EPA found numerous hazardous chemicals in the basements that led to the evacuation of residents from the area.

    Original Title

    Love canal Tragedy.pptx

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    UEN002 – Energy and Environment is a 3 credit course at [UNIVERSITY NAME] with assignments worth 100 marks total. Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara River that was originally dug as a canal for industry but left unfinished. In the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company used the canal as a dump site for 25,000 tons of chemicals with no residents living nearby. In the 1970s, toxic chemicals from the dump site leaked into nearby basements due to heavy rainfall, exposing the health risks to the community that had developed around the site. The EPA found numerous hazardous chemicals in the basements that led to the evacuation of residents from the area.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    238 views11 pages

    Love Canal Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Mayank Agarwal
    UEN002 – Energy and Environment is a 3 credit course at [UNIVERSITY NAME] with assignments worth 100 marks total. Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara River that was originally dug as a canal for industry but left unfinished. In the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company used the canal as a dump site for 25,000 tons of chemicals with no residents living nearby. In the 1970s, toxic chemicals from the dump site leaked into nearby basements due to heavy rainfall, exposing the health risks to the community that had developed around the site. The EPA found numerous hazardous chemicals in the basements that led to the evacuation of residents from the area.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 11

    UEN002 – Energy and Environment

    3 Credits
    • 30 Marks – MST
    • 50 Marks – End Sem.
    • 20 Marks – Sessional (Quizzes/assignments/group presentations)
    What is Love Canal?

    • Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara


    river
    • The canal was part of a larger vision of William Love, who in
    1892 dug up the area in order to allow water to flow through
    Niagara and produce a sprawling industrial city
    • After Tesla developed alternating current in the mid 1890’s
    investors pulled out leaving the Love Canal unfinished and
    basically a big ditch
    The Seeds of the
    problem

    • The Hooker Chemical Company bought the

    canal/ditch in 1940’s as a chemical dump site

    • Some 25,000 tons of chemicals were dumped in

    this ditch, at that moment there are no residents

    • In 1952, Hooker stopped dumping the chemicals

    and covered it with dirt


    Mistakes are made…

    • The School Board of Niagara approached


    Hooker Chemical to sell the patch of land in and
    around Love Canal for a new school and a park

    • After much negotiation, Hooker sold the land for


    $1 telling the new owners about the dump
    underneath

    • The 99th Street School was constructed directly


    on top of the canal in 1953 and houses were
    build around the school
    The Rain comes…

    • Niagara Falls has a very high water table and


    1977 was an unusually rainy year
    • That being said, residents began to notice
    chemicals leeching into their basements
    • The EPA analyzed nearby basements and found
    benzene, a serious health risk as well as other
    chemicals such as chloroform
    Few of the chemicals found in the basements of
    the residents

    • 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p- • Toluene

    dioxin • chloroform

    • benzene
    • benzenehexachlorides
    • methylene chloride
    • tetrachlorobenzenes
    • lindane
    • dichlorobenzenes (hexachlorcyclohexane)

    • pentachlorbenzene • tetrachloroethylenes

    • polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) • trichloroethylene


    The Community Reacts
    The Community Reacts

    • A very scared community begins to panic over the implications


    of these chemicals

    • Since there was never such a chemical spill before, the


    government has no idea what to initially do

    • After many discussions, government on August 7, 1978 pays to


    move the inner ring houses or the closest to the ditch to new
    homes

    • The canal was then remediated and capped so no chemical


    would leach out
    The Community Reacts

    • While the inner rings were evacuated, the


    outer rings were not initially

    • After 2 years of constant demonstrations and


    health studies about the nearby residents,
    the remaining residents were evacuated
    At the end..

    • Love Canal showed the world that there is a real chemical


    threat from these dumps

    • While response teams trained in chemical spills are now in


    place, the residents of Love Canal were the victims of
    ignorance about chemicals and how to deal with them.

    • . Congress drew on information from the Love Canal case


    when it debated and passed CERCLA, the Comprehensive
    Emergency Response, Compensation and Liability Act
    (known informally as the "Superfund" Act).
    Thank you

    You might also like