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(Post Script to the April 27th Posting – I didn’t die at 5 PM but lived to do more yard work!)
Today’s Blog Post
Lois Gibbs – the Heroine of Niagara Falls
Have you ever heard of Lois Gibbs? She is 59 years old now – does that give you a hint? Many that lived through the 1978 era will possibly remember her. If you were anywhere near the Toronto area – or Buffalo you would have heard of her. Any guesses yet?
If I told you she had a 7 year old boy in 1978 attending his school near by – would that help? If I told you that her younger child, a daughter became very sick along with her older brother – would that help? How about… they were becoming sick because they went to that school and also because of their house?
Still not enough clues?
How about… if I add words Niagara Falls, New York to the clue list? No? Then maybe if I add the words “Love Canal” – would that help?
Lois Gibbs was a shy and quiet housewife that had difficulty speaking to other people. In her early years she would be no different than any other mom that got her kids ready for school and then went off to do her thing locally. She was like other women at the time that were stay at home moms.
Lois Gibbs today is the executive director of “CHEJ” or “Center for Health, Environment and Justice”. It was first called “Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste” – which kind of sounded like they might be selling off Hazardous Waste of some sort.
She has received a number of awards and degrees for what she accomplished and is still working at. She has lost her family through it but remarried a supporter that continues to work alongside of her.
This week she has become another one of my heroes or heroines.
I just completed the reading of Niagara – A history of the Falls by Pierre Berton. Pierre alone was a Canadian Hero for me. His books were many… and this one may have been his last. He died in 2004 at 84 years old.
As I look back at the story of the Love Canal which was directly across the Lake Ontario from Toronto and Oakville, I am thunder struck in 2010 to realize that I was not that concerned for what was happening in 1978 – across the Lake from where I lived.
To bring it home a little closer, the water that I drank at that time was from Lake Ontario. And when you read the whole story of Niagara you will realize that not only was the Love Canal leaching tons of some of the most horrible toxins the world has known into the ground around it – it was also eventually making its way into Lake Ontario… YUK!
Between 1976 and 1978 a local reporter by the name of Michael Brown wrote stories about the tragedy unfolding.
But the Love Canal started much earlier than that…
Quote from the Wikipedia site…
“The name Love Canal came from the last name of William T. Love, who in the early 1890s envisioned a canal connecting the two levels of the Niagara River separated by Niagara Falls. He believed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much needed hydroelectricity; however, the power scheme was never completed due to limitations of direct current (DC) power transmission, and Tesla's introduction of alternating current (AC). Furthermore, the Panic of 1893 caused investors to no longer sponsor the project. Congress also passed a regulation in which water was not to be removed from the Niagara river because Congress wanted to preserve the Niagara Falls.
After 1892, Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara Falls in order to reach Lake Ontario. He began to envision a perfect urban area called "Model City" and prepared a plan that called for the construction of a vast community of beautiful parks and homes along Lake Ontario. Unfortunately for Love, his plan was never realized. He was barely able to start digging the canal and build a few streets and homes before his money ran out. Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal, about 50 feet (15 m) wide and 10 to 40 feet (3 m to 12 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River, was ever dug.
There is little information about those who actually worked for Love. Historically, canal building was exhausting, dirty and often very dangerous. Immigrants were usually the workers selected to perform this arduous work and additionally, before even digging, all the trees and vegetation needed to be removed.
With the project abandoned, the canal gradually filled with water. The local children swam there in the summer and skated in the winter. At some time in the 1920s, the canal became a dumping site for the municipality of Niagara Falls. By the 1940s, a company by the name of Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company) founded by Elon Hooker began a search for a dump to store the increasing amount of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump its wastes in the Love Canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing fifty-five gallon metal or fibre barrels. This dumpsite was in operation until 1952 in which 21,000 tons of chemicals such as "caustics, alkalines, fatty acids and chlorinated hydrocarbons from the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, solvents for rubber and synthetic resins" were added. These chemicals were buried at a depth of between twenty to twenty-five feet. In 1947, Hooker bought the canal and the seventy foot wide banks on either side of the canal. After 1952, the canal was covered with dirt and vegetation such as grass began to grow on top of the dumpsite.”
End Quote
From some where after 1942 when the barrels of chemicals started to leak until the 1970s… many people were dieing and the ones that didn’t were simply sick. The toxic waste leaked and leaked and leaked making its way to the river and the Lake Ontario.
And we drank it.
Pierre Berton pointed out that at Niagara Falls they have a regular service that pulls out the dead bodies of people that commit suicide by jumping into the river above or below the falls. Some are found others are not.
When they shut down the American Falls at Niagara the engineers found some interesting things in the falls path. The first was a body of man that was caught on the rocks half way up… then further down was the body of a lady. Both were possible suicides. If the falls had not been shut down for repairs these may well have been there until the natural process took place.
And we drank it.
Mind you Toronto and the surrounding areas are good citizens and simply put the water that they take out of Lake Ontario – back into the Lake a little further out. This is done so that cities further down stream can use it when it gets their way. And they can drink it too.
But before the water ever reaches Niagara Falls it has been used by all the cities along the Lake Erie an Lake Huron and Lake Superior for maybe years before Toronto gets it. It is the best filtered water in the world I am sure – both my human means and by mechanical means.
And we all drank it.
Now if you live in Saskatchewan or Manitoba.. or even Alberta – you should be OK. BC however.. you cannot be sure which bear used it first…
The more I think it through and ponder what has taken place around me… I admire Lois Gibbs and her people. They have done things the rest of us have never even thought about… let alone cared. We just drank it!
~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Gibbs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal#Early_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Berton
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