Love Canal
When one thinks about an environmental disaster, the image of a large explosion in a highly industrial area comes to mind. Such is not the case in the Love Canal emergency. Unlike most environmental disasters, the events of Niagara Falls's Love Canal weren't characterized by a known and uncontrollable moment of impact. It developed over a period of several decades, since the effects of leaching chemicals is uncertain and slow in development and the visual effects are very limited. This disaster could have been identified earlier or later for as far as the rest of the world was concerned there was no emergency until the authorities made it public. The importance of Love Canal is that acknowledging the danger that existed made the country and world aware of the hazards of abandoned toxic waste disposal sites.
The events that led up to President Jimmy Carter and the New York Department of Health declaring Love Canal the nation's first federal emergency for a nonnatural environmental disaster extend all the way back to the 1890s when the entrepreneur William T. Love wanted to build a canal to supply power to a utopian industrial community called Model City (Deegan 329). However, Love's dreams were crushed with the discovery of alternating electrical current which enabled manufacturing plants to be located further away from their sources of energy. Yet, Niagara Falls still became a center of chemical manufacturing due to the large amount of cheap electrical energy available. One of the chemical companies that was attracted to the area was Hooker Electrochemical Company (now a division of Occidental Petroleum Corporation), who in 1942, with the permission of the Niagara Power and Development Company began using the a...
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...the safety risk is worth assuming and that is something that each individual has to decide for themselves. In the meantime, it is up to companies, like Occidental/Hooker and the government, like the EPA or Department of Health to maintain safe production limits and methods of disposal, so that another such environmental disaster won't take place in the future.
Works Cited:
Deegan, John. "Looking Back at Love Canal." Environmental Science and Technology 21 (1987) : 328-331.
Hoffman, Andrew. "An Uneasy Rebirth at Love Canal." Environment 37 (1995) : 5-9.
Levine, Adeline. Love Canal: Science Politics, and People. Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1982.
Phibbs, Pat. "N.Y. state begins 5-year Love Canal health study that includes noncancer effects." Environmental Science and Technology 31 (1997) : 81A. http://web.globalserve.net/~spinc/atomcc/lovecana.htm
From 1937 to 1947, General Anastasio Somoza Garçia is in power and begins the start of a brutal family dictatorship funded by the U.S essentially making Nicaragua a more U.S. influenced nation, informally of course. In June of 1945, Nicaragua was recognized as a charter member of the United Nations and become the fir...
Love Canal was a small town in Niagara Falls, New York, located between two bodies of water: the Bergholtz Creek to the North and the Niagara River to the South. Seems innocent enough right? Wrong. This town was built on top of 21,000 tons of toxic waste (Verhovek). In the early 1890’s, William T. Love wanted to build a canal which would connect the Niagara River to Lake Ontario to generate hydroelectric power for his would be city. However, due to a severe drop in investors and laws passed by Congress, he was not able to bring his idea to life. By the time his funds were completely depleted in 1910, he had dug one mile of the canal, about 50 feet wide, and 10 to 40 feet deep and he had constructed a few streets and homes (Blum). In the 1920’s, the giant hole was used as a dumpsite for the nearby city of Niagara Falls, which lead the way into one of the most appalling environmental tragedies in American history (Beck). A small handful of people who decided they would not leave are all that remains of the town today; 90% of the buildings were demolished or boarded up (Verhovek).
Chernobyl, one word that still strikes pain and fear in the hearts of many, even after 28 years is still causing serious damage. It was largest nuclear disaster ever, Chernobyl was “. . . about 400 times more potent than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II . . .” (Walmsley “26 years on: helping Chernobyl's children”). The disaster was not immediately seen as a large threat, and this is why so many lives were taken or destroyed.
The Niagara River is the river which connects two great lakes together and is located in Ontario, Canada. It connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. A landform which is located around here, that you may be familiar with, is the Welland Canal which is used so that ships can bypass the falls. The Welland Canal first opened in 1829, and this version of the Canal was dug by hand. The Canal has been widened and deepened over time, and the last alteration to it was made in 1959. It is run by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, and has allowed ships to bypass the amazing Niagara Falls that are found in the Niagara River, as well as the rapids on the river. (1)
Water-power at Niagara Falls to Be Successfully Utilized: Its Objects, Facilities and Resources, Inducements for Manufacturers, Etc. Buffalo: Matthews, Northrup, 1886. 5. Print.
Throughout literature, especially in Milton’s time, the gender disparity between men and women has been unfairly defined: men are reasonable and therefore should lead, while women are passionate and thus should be led. However, these roles have often been misinterpreted, and have resulted in the idea that only men are reason manifest, while only women are passion incarnate. For example, in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Bobbo is rational in his approach to solving problems – count everything in monetary value – while Ruth often cries and evokes great emotion when facing struggles (Weldon, 20-24). However, Milton does not support this conventional idea of gender roles, as oftentimes Eve takes on Adam’s role as the voice of reason in sustaining the Garden of Eden, and vice versa. In Paradise Lost, Milton refutes the hieratical construct of gender inequality, by reversing the roles of Adam and Eve in terms of reason and passion, and instead prop...
Sheldon, Ian. “Food Principles: Regulating Genetically Modified Crops After The 2006 WTO Ruling.” Brown Journal Of World Affairs 14.1 (2007): 121-134.Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Shohet, Lauren. “His Dark Materials, Paradise Lost and the Common Reader.” Milton in Popular Culture. Eds. Laura Lunger and Gregory M. Colon Semenza. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Print.
In the 1930’s before the Love Canal area was turned into neighborhoods, the Hooker Chemical Company purchased the area and used it as a burial site for 20,000 metric tons of chemicals. In 1953 the Hooker Chemical Company sold the land to the Niagara Falls Board of Education for $1.00. There was a stipulation in the deed, which stated that if anyone incurred physical harm or death because of their buried wastes, they would not be responsible. Shortly after, the land changed hands yet again and this time home building began directly adjacent to the canal. Families who bought homes here were unaware of the waste buried in their backyards.
Lieb, Michael. Poetics of the Holy: A Reading of Paradise Lost. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
That Milton's Paradise Lost is unsurpassed--and hardly equaled--in English literature is generally accepted by critics and scholars. Whether it may have serious flaws, however, and what they may be, is less certain, for it is here that opinion varies. Of particular interest to some is the allegory of Sin and Death (II. 648-883). Robert C. Fox wonders that it has not been the subject of much more critical discussion, asking "Is it that Milton's readers are puzzled by this episode and, unable to explain its significance, prefer to pass it over in silence? Or do they regard it as so obvious in meaning that no interpretive remarks are necessary?" ("The Allegory" 354). Whatever the answer to Fox's query, his point is well taken; in a survey of the bibliography of the Modern Language Association from 1950-1980, fewer than twenty references specifically devoted to this allegory can be located, and many of these, rather than pursuing the question of its appropriateness and/or its importance within the total work, simply investigate its tradition and sources.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND BUREAU OF RECLAMATION. (1991! Summary Statistics. Washington, D C. , pp. 298.
of the book. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28. Mullen, Edward J. & Co.
Smith, Zachary A., and Grenetta Thomassey. Freshwater Issues: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. Print
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