Before going to the library on Wednesday, I knew I wanted to choose a topic that related to the environment. I am, and always have been, very passionate about the environment and I want to spend my life saving it. However, since this was a very broad topic, I also knew I would have to narrow it down significantly. As I was going through websites, I remembered something I had learnt about in my AP Environmental Science class in high school: Love Canal, New York.
Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. In the 1900s, Love Canal was used as a chemical dumping ground for industrial waste. Triggered by some heavy rainfall in 1978, these chemicals started leaching into the people’s water supply, not to mention the ridiculous amount of environmental damage that was already occurring. Animals and plants were dying, and this leaching of chemicals caused health problems in humans such as birth defects, miscarriages in pregnant women, high white blood cell counts, leukemia, and many more.
Pregnant women and infants were the first to be displaced from this dangerous location. Soon after, the entire neighborhood needed to be relocated because of how toxic the environment had become. As a result, people became significantly more aware of the risks associated with waste-dumping, and the government introduced Superfund, which is a government-mandated program designed to fund the cleanup of toxic and polluted sites. The paradigm shift before and after the disaster of Love Canal was one of increased awareness and action against the dumping of chemicals. Science won, and a change was finally under way.