"Love canal lawsuits assert repeat of area’s toxic history" by Carolyn Thompson | Associated Press, November 10, 2013
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Thirty-five years after Love Canal’s oozing toxic waste scared away a neighborhood and became a symbol of environmental catastrophe, history could be repeating itself.
New residents, attracted by promises of cleaned-up land and affordable homes, maintain in lawsuits that they are being sickened by the same buried chemicals from the 1970s industrial disaster in the Niagara Falls neighborhood.
And now fracking is the rage!
‘‘We’re stuck here. We want to get out,’’ said 34-year-old Dan Reynolds, adding that he’s been plagued by mysterious rashes and other ailments since he moved into the four-bedroom home purchased a decade ago for $39,900.
His wife, Teresa, said she’s had two miscarriages and numerous unexplained cysts.
‘‘We knew it was Love Canal, that chemicals were here,’’ she said. But when she bought the house, she said she was swayed by assurances that the waste was contained and the area was safe.
Meanwhile, the holy fart-misters are out hollering about their fraud! See why I'm surly?
Six families have sued over the past several months. Lawyers familiar with the case say notice has been given that an additional 1,100 claims could be coming.
The lawsuits, which don’t specify damages sought, contend Love Canal was never properly remediated and dangerous toxins continue to leach onto residents’ properties.
The main target of the lawsuits, Occidental Petroleum Corp., which bought the company that dumped the chemicals, contends the waste is contained and that state and federal agencies back up those findings....
The latest case is all too familiar to Lois Gibbs, the former homemaker who led the charge for the 1970s evacuation and warned against resettling the area. She recently returned to mark the 35th anniversary of the disaster.
Some anniversaries get loads of promotion and coverage, others.... 'enh!?
Love Canal’s notorious history began when Hooker Chemical Co. used the abandoned canal from 1942 to 1953 to dump 21,800 tons of industrial hazardous waste. That canal was later capped, and homes and a school were built on top of it.
Also see: Boston Globe Fishing Net
But snow melt from an unusually harsh winter in 1977 seeped into the buried 16-acre canal and forced chemical waste into groundwater and to the surface.
Residents began complaining of miscarriages, urinary and kidney problems, and mental disabilities in their children.
We never learn.
President Jimmy Carter in 1978 issued a disaster declaration that led to evacuation and compensation for more than 900 families. The crisis also led to federal Superfund legislation to clean up toxic sites.
For some reason my printed paper also has the phrase "The Reynoldses are unconvinced that the containment" before space ran out.
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Meanwhile, Fukushima has mostly been forgotten except that progress has been made (sigh)!
