Love Canal: A Special Report to the Governor & Legislature: April 1981

History & Demographics

The former Love Canal landfill is a rectangular, 16-acre tract of land located in the southeast end of the City of Niagara Falls (est. pop. 77,050) in Niagara County (est. pop. 242,200) on the western frontier of New York State.

The landfill takes its name from William T. Love, whose plan it was in the 1890s to dig a power canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers to provide cheap hydroelectric power for a proposed model industrial city. The model city project and the partially dug canal were abandoned before the turn of the century when alternating current was invented, obviating the need for industry to locate near the source of power.

Aerial photography from 1938 depicts the canal as being about 3,000 feet long and almost 100 feet wide, extending in a north-south axis, with the southern end approximately 1,500 feet from the Niagara River. Much of the canal bed contained impounded water and there was no visible evidence of waste disposal in 1938. The excavation was reportedly used as a swimming hole for local residents for several decades into the twentieth century.

Manufacturing of chemical and allied products was and is a major industrial enterprise of Niagara County. According to 1970 data from the New York State Department of Commerce, there were in the county nine major chemical producing companies employing a total of 5,267 people. Recent surveys by the State Department of Environmental Conservation point to the presence of approximately 100 chemical dump sites in the county.

One of these is the Love Canal landfill, in which the Hooker Electrochemical Company, now the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation, admits to the deposition, between 1942 and 1953, of 21,800 tons of chemical wastes from its plants in Niagara Falls. These wastes -- some drummed, some not -- included chlorinated hydrocarbon residues, processed sludges, fly ash and other materials. The City of Niagara Falls also used the site for disposal of municipal wastes for a number of years, concluding in 1953.

In April 1953, Hooker sold the Love Canal property, to which it then held title, to the City of Niagara Falls Board of Education. Homebuilding directly adjacent to the landfill was accelerated in the mid-1950s and in 1954 a public elementary school was built on the middle third of the Love Canal property.

Aerial photography from 1956 shows continuing residential development and soil banks, some of them as high as 15 feet, surrounding parts of the canal bed. By 1966 these hills were no longer apparent, and two streets crossed the landfill north and south of the public elementary school. By 1972, virtually all houses with backyards directly abutting the landfill were completed.

In the mid-1970s chemical odors from the landfill were cited by residents as a source of discomfort in complaints made to local officials. Above normal precipitation during the period preceded the surfacing of chemically contaminated wastes in residents' backyards. In some houses directly adjoining the landfill an oily coating was discovered in basement sump pits; there also was evidence of underground chemical infiltration through cinderblock foundations in some first-ring homes.

The southern section of the landfill in 1978 presented a scarred, blighted appearance, further aggravated by subsidence of the fill, resulting in surfacing of barrels and exposure of chemical wastes. Despite these conditions, there is evidence that much of the landfill surface continued in use as a children's playground until April 1978, when the New York State Health Commissioner declared the area a threat to human health and welfare and ordered local health officials to restrict access to the landfill site by erecting a fence.

In spring 1978, when the State of New York first intervened at Love Canal, there were 99 homes with backyards directly abutting the canal in which 230 adults and 134 children resided. A total of 410 students were enrolled in the elementary school that had been built in 1954. In the surrounding residential neighborhood, at its outermost limits four blocks from the landfill, 2,618 people resided; the majority lived in one-family homes.

Task Force

Recognizing the complexity of the Love Canal situation and the necessity for close coordination of all State activities and assistance, the Governor, on August 3, 1978, directed the formation of an interagency Love Canal Task Force. The task force, headed by the State Commissioner of Transportation, included representatives of the departments of Health, Transportation, Environmental Conservation, Social Services, Banking, Insurance, Equalization & Assessment, Division of Housing & Community Renewal and Office of Disaster Preparedness. An on-site task force group, composed of representatives of the State agencies most directly involved, was immediately established and headquartered at the 99th Street School.

Of significance was the early involvement of area residents in task force decision-making. Representatives of homeowners and tenants associations and of local governments served as ex-officio members of the task force.

The task force was faced with three fundamental responsibilities: the relocation of affected families (to be coordinated by the Department of Transportation); the construction of a drainage system to prevent further migration of toxic chemical waste from the landfill (to be carried out by the City of Niagara Falls and the Department of Environmental Conservation); and the continuation of environmental testing and toxicologic and epidemiologic health studies (to be conducted by the Department of Health).

Toxicological Investigation

Since March 1978, the State Health Department's Division of Laboratories and Research has carried out more than 6,000 analyses of environmental and biological samples associated with the Love Canal.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also conducted extensive air, water and soil sampling in homes and yards throughout the Love Canal neighborhood, following a federal emergency declaration in May 1980.

The primary goals motivating all of the environmental and toxicological studies are: to identify the chemical compounds present in the Love Canal environment; to establish whether the kind or degree of chemical exposure bears a relationship to observed health effects; to determine the extent and means of chemical migration outward from the landfill; to validate the efficacy of remedial construction work undertaken at the site; and to develop improved methodologies for analyzing toxics in environmental samples and biological specimens.

Extensive environmental testing also has been carried out in support of State and federal litigation and State petitions for federal financial aid.

While the Love Canal toxicological study is far from complete and the answers to many of our questions remain elusive, the on-going investigation represents the most intensive effort ever undertaken to document the environmental and public health implications of previous inadequate methods of chemical waste disposal.

see Table 1). Municipal wastes, as well as some fly ash fill, were deposited in the canal. Reports that the federal government buried radioactive material at the Love Canal have not been substantiated.

Laboratory analyses of soil and sediment samples from the Love Canal indicate the presence of more than 200 distinct organic chemical compounds; approximately 100 of these have been identified to date.

Dioxin (2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin), considered one of the most toxic man-made compounds based on animal experimental studies, is one of the chemicals found in the landfill. Since dioxin (TCDD) is a contaminant byproduct formed during the manufacture of trichlorophenols (TCPs), its presence in the Love Canal was suspected when 200 tons of TCPs appeared on the list of chemicals buried at the site; its presence was confirmed in April 1979 using sophisticated analytical equipment at the University of Nebraska's Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry. The Department of Health has since acquired the same type of mass spectrometer and formed its own dioxin analysis capability.

The highest level of dioxin quantified to date at the Love Canal is approximately 300 parts per billion (ppb) in a storm sewer adjoining the canal. Lesser concentrations also have been found in leachate collected from remedial holding tanks, soil samples from the canal and backyards of nearby homes and sediment and marine life of two creeks bordering the Love Canal neighborhood.

Although dioxin is of concern, it is impossible to determine whether it represents the major toxic hazard at the Love Canal until the absolute risks for each of the major chemical species found at the Love Canal are estimated. Given the complex milieu of chemical wastes deposited in the canal, there is also the possibility of antagonistic, additive or synergistic effects.

Type of Waste Physical State Total Estimated Quantity-Tons Container Misc. acid chlorides other than benzoyl - includes acetyl, caprylyl, butyryl, nitro benzoyls liquid and solid 400 drum Thionyl chloride and misc. sulfur/chlorine compounds liquid and solid 500 drum Misc. chlorination - includes waxes, oils, naphthenes, aniline liquid and solid 1,000 drum Dodecyl (Lauryl, Lorol) mercaptans (DDM), chlorides and misc. organic sulfur compounds liquid and solid 2,400 drum Trichlorophenol (TCP) liquid and solid 200 drum Benzoyl chlorides and benzo- trichlorides liquid and solid 800 drum Metal chlorides solid 400 drum Liquid disulfides (LDS/LDSN/BDS) and chlorotoluenes liquid 700 drum Hexachlorocyclohexane (Lindane/BHC) solid 6,900 drum and nonmetallic containers Chlorobenzenes liquid and solid 2,000 drum and nonmetallic containers Benzylchlorides - includes benzyl chloride, benzyl alcohol, benzyl thiocyanate solid 2,400 drum Sodium sulfide/sulfhydrates solid 2,000 drum Misc. 10% of above 2,000 TOTAL 21,800 *Interagency Task Force on Hazardous Wastes, Draft Report on Hazardous Waste Disposal in Erie and Niagara Counties, New York, March 1979

CHEMICALS DISPOSED OF IN LOVE CANALBY HOOKER CHEMICAL CORP. (1942-1953)*

Chemical Water & Leachate Air Soil & Sediment Benzene ID** 522.7 µg/m3 <0.1-0.8 µg/kg α-Benzene Hexachloride 3.2 µg/l 0.002-0.1 µg/m3 ID β-Benzene Hexachloride 38 µg/l 3 µg/m3 ID δ-Benzene Hexachloride 6.9 µg/l 0.4 µg/m3 ID γ-Benzene Hexachloride

(Lindane) 50 µg/l ID 20 mg/gm Carbon Tetrachloride ID 5.0 µg/m3 Chlorobenzene 10 mg/l 0.1-172 µg/m3 0.4-2.9 µg/kg Chloroform 0.2-3.9 µg/l 0.5-24.0 µg/m3 0.2-2.3 µg/kg Chlorotoluene 75 mg/l 0.008-7650 µg/m3 ID Dichlorobenzene 3 mg/l <0.3-100.5 µg/m3 240 µg/kg Dichloroethane 0.2-4.8 µg/l <0.4-2 µg/kg Dichlorotoluene 95 µg/l <18-74 µg/m3 1,3-Hexachlorobutadiene (c-46) 22-114 µg/m3 Pentachlorobenzene 2.5 mg/l 0.5 mg/m3 58 µg/kg Tetrachlorobenzene 5 mg/l 0.01-74 µg/m3 11-100 µg/kg Tetrachloroethylene <0.3-0.8 µg/l <0.2-52 µg/m3 <0.3 µg/kg Tetrachlorotoluene 1 mg/l <0.01-0.97 µg/m3 ID Trichlorobenzene 52 µg/m3 0.03-84 µg/m3 34-64 µg/kg Trichloroethylene 52 mg/l 73 µg/m3 ID Trichlorophenol 0.1-11.3 µg/l ID 0.5-90 µg/kg Trichlorotoluene 34 mg/l 0.05-43.7 µg/m3 ID Toluene 250 mg/l 0.1-6.2 mg/m3 <0.l-l04 µg/kg Dioxin (TCDD) 1.4-5.1 ppt <2 ppt-312 ppt 1,2-Dichloroethylene 0.1-0.1 µg/l 334 µg/m3 PCB 0.64 mg/l 2-6 ppm Methylene Chloride <0.3-0.3 µg/l <0.7-11.6 µg/m3 Bis (2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate 8.1-24 µg/l * These analyses are a summation of work carried out by the Toxicology Institute, Division of Laboratories and Research, New York State Department of Health and various laboratories of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and their subcontractors.

** ID - Identified but not quantitated

ug/l -microgram per liter

ug/m3 - microgram per cubic meter

CHEMICALS FOUND AT THE LOVE CANAL*