Love Canal Containment Area (Niagara Falls, New York)

 place with historical importance, landfill site / rubbish/garbage dump, waste, EPA superfund

Comprising the full extent of the 1894-built Love Canal, the Love Canal Containment Area is currently the repository for over 21,000 tons of toxic industrial wastes dumped into the former canal by Hooker Chemical between 1942 and 1952.

Dug originally as the first segment of a planned shipping and hydroelectric canal running from the Niagara River due North to Lake Ontario, the Love Canal was designed by developer William T. Love to serve as both a power source and transportation gateway to his planned Model City which would lie along its banks. Financial problems doomed Love's plans after barely one mile of his 30ft deep canal had been dug, and the site remained idle until it became a municipal dump for the City of Niagara Falls in the 1920's. Following Hooker's purchase of the former canal and surrounding lands in 1942 and subsequent use of the site as a dumping ground for 55-gallon drums of industrial wastes, the canal dumpsite was sealed and left fallow until it was purchased by the City of Niagara Falls in 1953.

Niagara Falls' subsequent shortsighted development of the lands over and around the canal dumpsite resulted in one of the worst environmental and public health disasters in US History, with hundreds of residents sickened by exposure to leaking chemicals resulting from the dumpsite's clay liner walls being breached by construction crews building sewers, homes and schools. Following the declaration of a federal health emergency by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1978, residents of the Love Canal neighborhood were relocated and the vast majority of homes and buildings surrounding the former canal were razed.

Extensive remediation efforts aimed at containing the continual leaching of toxic chemicals from the canal dumpsite began in 1978 and continued well into the 1980's, eventually resulting in the majority of the 21,000 tons of waste dumped by Hooker Chemical being re-secured and consolidated into a 16-acre site. Surrounded by a thick plastic liner placed atop a thick clay layer, the chemical waste was subsequently re-buried at a depth of 25ft and now lies amid a comprehensive series of drainage systems which all feed into a centralized leachate treatment facility. Above this, a 40-acre soil and clay cap was laid over the entire area, which was also fitted with a centralized drainage system feeding the leachate treatment facility to prevent any contaminated runoff from reaching the Niagara River. With remediation efforts declared complete in 1985, the site's runoff was monitored and treated through 2004, when contaminants were consistently recorded at less than the level considered hazardous by the EPA.

Removed from the Superfund List in September 2004, the Love Canal Containment Area is now operated and monitored by Niagara County with EPA oversight.

www.epa.gov/region2/superfund/npl/0201290c.pdf