American Experience (1988) s36e04 Episode Script

1
ARTHUR TRACY:
I want to say something.
I'm sure that God is not going
to send me to hell,
because I found it here on Earth.
(crowd laughing and applauding)
I'm 65 years old, almost.
I'm sick and tired
of being a yo-yo,
pulled this way, pulled that way,
pulled the other way!
(crowd cheers and applauds)
Now, somebody's gonna say to me,
"What do you want, Mr. Tracy,
after 35 years in this Love Canal?"
Well, I'll tell you what I want.
Just give me my 28.5
that you appraised my house for.
WOMAN: All right!
TRACY: All I want is my 28.5,
and give it to me tonight,
and I'll go down that road,
and I'll never look back
at the Love Canal again!
(crowd cheering and applauding)
CROWD (chanting): We want out!
We want out! We want out!
We want out!
We want out! We want out!
♪
BONNIE CASPER (stammers):
It was hard to believe.
This could not happen in
the United States of America.
REPORTER: For years, the Love
Canal Homeowners Association
has cited evidence of
significant health problems
in the neighborhood.
REPORTER 2:
Birth defects and miscarriages.
REPORTER 3:
Severe migraine headaches.
REPORTER 4: Respiratory disease.
WOMAN: Already eight cases
of cancer on a 15-house street.
WOMAN 2: I thought I just had
problems with my one daughter,
and we just found out in January
our other one has rheumatoid arthritis.
We have hearing problems
with all the children.
Uh, the baby, he has a deformed foot,
so it's just, it's just constantly, still,
running to the hospitals
and children's hospital
CASPER: People were talking
about how they were ill,
but nobody exactly knew
why they were so ill,
or why so many people were so ill.
REPORTER: Now, a quarter
of a century after it went in,
chemical waste is coming
out of the ground, and it's
AMY HAY: People had
no idea that they were
living on top of 22,000 tons
of toxic chemicals.
REPORTER: Health experts found
more than 80 dangerous chemicals
oozing to the surface.
JENNIFER THOMSON:
All of a sudden, on a dime,
everything blows up.
More people are sick.
There's, you know, black sludge
coming into their homes.
REPORTER:
The family is afraid to even go
in the basement
because of high readings
of an explosive chemical called toluene.
RICHARD NEWMAN:
Love Canal was the first
chemical disaster to unfold
before Americans' eyes.
LOIS GIBBS (archival): We are
dying, literally dying, from benzene.
We're getting cancers from
all these other compounds.
Now you're talking about nerve
gas there's just no way
(in interview): It's much worse
than I even imagined.
Certainly much worse than
what the government is saying.
Can you tell me when I'm not
gonna lose any more children,
because one is already dead?
Please tell me those things.
PATTI GRENZY:
It really hit it home for us
that, at this point, we're on our own.
We have to make this happen.
They're not gonna do it for us.
So, that spurred me
to want to do something.
We've got to do something.
I mean, the fight came to us.
We didn't look for it.
Each and every one of you
in this room are murderers.
You're a bunch of sick, sadistic people!
PATTI GRENZY: They looked
at us as hysterical housewives,
and they figured,
"Oh, well, they'll give up.
"They'll go back to their knitting,
and to their babies,
and this will blow over."
But we were stronger than that.
♪
NEWMAN: This incredible group
of women become the faces
of environmental reform.
But there was absolutely no road map.
BARBARA QUIMBY:
I'm sick of being a guinea pig.
I want out.
Test me later, but my God,
get me out now and my kids.
THOMSON: The fear was that
it could happen to all of us.
And the thing was, it was
happening to other people,
in places throughout the country.
REPORTER: The Love Canal
is merely the tip of a dangerous
and terrifying chemical iceberg.
I am not moving
until I get an answer why.
(in interview):
I wasn't thinking about building
a movement or anything like that.
I was thinking about survival.
(crowd jeering)
How do we get out of here?
We need to do something,
and I don't care what it takes.
(projector whirring)
♪
QUIMBY: It was just
such a nice neighborhood.
To a child, oh, my goodness,
we had fun there.
A lot of times, we would just be
more near the school,
playing baseball or something,
but we always ended up where the,
what we called the Black Lagoon.
(camera shutter clicks)
PATTI GRENZY: On the surface,
it had, like, an oily substance to it,
like, a, a green and a blue.
(shutter clicks)
And if you dropped something into it,
it would bubble up and sink.
So we called it quicksand.
QUIMBY: It was like a wonderland.
We had these rocks
that we called pop rocks.
And we used to just slide them across,
and they would actually have a flame.
It was like fire.
And, oh, I remember, my mother
always yelled about our shoes.
This one time,
she had bought me new sneakers.
And I came home, and she said,
"What? It looks like
your sneakers are burnt.
"What happened
to all the rubber around it?
"You're not getting new sneakers.
What are you doing?"
"I'm just playing at the school."
(laughing): I mean, nobody
went and investigated and said,
"Why are these shoes burnt?"
♪
GIBBS: I found the
house on 101st Street,
the one in the Love Canal neighborhood.
It was starter homes for the most part.
(dog barking in distance)
And it was the perfect neighborhood,
from my perspective.
It had the Niagara River to the south.
To the north was a creek,
and the kids could go
and walk along the creek
and pick up pollywogs, or
You know, it was just a cute, little,
very shallow creek, good for children.
We moved in with Michael,
who was one years old by then,
a healthy little boy, and,
and then we had our little girl.
(camera shutter clicking)
I really believed I achieved so much.
I had this house and a husband
who was gainfully employed
and these beautiful children.
Everything seemed to be fine.
DEBBIE CERRILLO CURRY: Love
Canal was government-subsidized.
My husband wasn't making
very much money,
and they made that a very
tasty little deal to move into.
We paid $135 a month
to live in a brand-new home,
which was really unusual.
I wasn't going to question it.
And so we felt quite lucky that
we fell in at the right time.
I lived in Niagara Falls all my life.
And when I married, my husband
was from Niagara Falls.
We had two boys.
We saw this beautiful
brick house in Love Canal
with one acre of land all around it.
And it sat on a creek, and it was just,
it was just ideal, and we were thinking,
"What a place to raise your children."
JANNIE GRANT-FREENEY: I moved
to the development called Griffon Manor.
It was a brand-new housing project.
It's a beautiful place.
Flowers, the grass was green.
There was, like, a little pond
that the kids used to play in,
and had trees and all of that,
and they would swing on
the branches and what have you.
CAROL JONES: We had
a small yard in the front,
and in the back, we would see
I'm gonna call it water
but swampland that just looked oily.
(slide shifts)
At times, it smelled like burnt rubber
or a strong cleanser.
It was just a foul, foul odor.
Often, enough to choke you.
But we didn't pay that any attention.
It was normal to us
to smell these smells.
(slide shifts)
CURRY: People always knew
when they were getting close
to our home,
because we had this horrendous
smell behind our house.
Actually, the whole neighborhood.
REPORTER: The mailman even
carries a gas mask on his delivery route.
MAILMAN: It smells like hell.
You got that one house
at 510 99th Street.
It's one of the worst smells
I ever had around here
in a long, long time it's terrible.
♪
CURRY: If you were to
drive down Buffalo Avenue,
where all the chemical industries were,
you would smell that.
My dad worked in the Hooker Chemical.
That was the smell
we had from our backyard.
That's why it was real familiar.
It smelled like Dad.
(theme playing)
FILM NARRATOR:
Today and for the years to come,
the world looks for better
things for better living
through chemistry,
the science that has played
a major part in the perfection
of practically everything we use.
NEWMAN: Niagara Falls in the 1970s
is a place that is
synonymous with chemicals.
FILM NARRATOR: Chemists make
things as far apart
as insecticides for the farmer
and cosmetics for beautiful women.
NEWMAN: Roughly ten
different chemical companies
are situated along the banks
of the Niagara River.
Before you see the mists
of Niagara Falls,
you smell all of that chemical production.
It permeates the car,
it's in the air, it's thick.
FILM NARRATOR: Substances are
shipped out in tank cars and bear names
like styrene, vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile.
GIBBS: Chemicals
were a part of our life.
You know, when we smelled chemicals,
you smelled a good economy.
You knew that you were gonna be
able to put food on the table.
You were gonna be able
to pay your mortgage.
You're gonna be able
to buy a new car someday.
FILM NARRATOR: When modern
chemistry and modern industry
join hands in serving modern America.
♪
MARIE RICE: There
was a spot in Niagara Falls
called Chemical Row, because
there were so many chemical
manufacturers along there.
♪
Places like
Carborundum and DuPont and Olin.
I know, like, Union Carbide was there.
Goodyear and Goodrich, I think,
was also along there.
And then, of course, Hooker
Hooker Chemical.
♪
MICHAEL BROWN: Hooker
originated in Niagara Falls.
They had started out electrochemicals.
Everything from caustic soda for chlorine
to pesticides, herbicides,
especially chlorinated hydrocarbons.
Hundreds of chemicals.
Just about any type of chemical
that you would need.
Of course, at the same time,
these chemicals create toxic waste.
FILM NARRATOR:
Hazardous wastes are generated
from the production
of paints, pesticides, plastics,
leather, textiles, medicines.
The challenge is to develop
systems to handle the millions
of tons of hazardous wastes
produced every year.
BROWN: Chemical
companies in Niagara Falls
and across the United States
were dumping in holes.
They were digging, excavating,
and, and burying their waste.
That was the way you got rid of it.
FILM NARRATOR: 55-gallon drums
are used as containers
for solid materials.
They are stacked compactly
in the landfill cell,
and then cover is applied
to keep the rainwater out
and keep the waste in.
BROWN: No one back in the '50s
knew quite the ramifications, biologically,
of many of these chemicals.
GRACE MCCOULF: I used to have
garlic and wild onions and strawberries
and tomatoes and cucumbers.
(exhales): Beets, carrots.
We used to have everything beans.
Italian beans, regular beans.
Just all kinds of stuff, and
CURRY: Nobody could
get a garden to grow.
We had one beet grow,
and it weighed almost seven pounds.
And you probably would've needed
an axe to cut it in half,
'cause it was like,
like a small bowling ball.
That was the only beet that grew.
I thought my husband wasn't
doing a very good job planting.
(chuckles): I didn't know.
♪
QUIMBY: We had so many animals die.
It was unexplained.
The fur would just be off of them,
or so many of them died cancer.
It seems normal,
because it happened to
other people's animals, too.
(kids calling in background)
GRANT-FREENEY: And then there
was something else strange happening.
We would see people were developing
what they thought was asthma.
People started to have kidney
problems, bladder problems.
Some of the children
had behavior problems,
a complete change from how they were.
CURRY: So, there were issues.
It did smell.
But the blizzard of '77
was the worst thing
could have happened to us.
That blizzard is
what brought those barrels up.
♪
REPORTER: More than 150 inches
of snow have fallen so far this year,
almost four times the normal average.
What it adds up to is the worst
storm of the worst winter
in the city's history.
Downtown Buffalo is like a ghost town,
nearly all business at a standstill,
just like the thousands
of cars that have
BROWN: In 1977, I was a
reporter for "The Niagara Gazette"
covering the city of Niagara Falls.
There had been a very hard winter,
and when the snow melted,
it was an incredible scene.
(camera shutter clicks)
I remember
there were drums exposed,
they were collapsing,
and chemicals came out
and started seeping through the ground.
(camera shutter clicks)
CURRY: In my backyard,
there was a hole in the ground,
about the size of a dinner plate.
And it was black goo in it, and it smelled,
and it was all foamy
around the edges and stuff.
And as the days went on,
that hole kept getting bigger and bigger.
And this black goo started to show up
in other people's backyards.
MAN: Lived here a good ten years,
and they tried to tell me that it's tar,
but nobody's been around to check it.
They said, "Well, how about
digging it up?"
I've tried to dig it up.
It's just way down deep, and
it's all over the backyard.
It's in the side of the field.
It's even in my neighbor's backyard.
And then there started to be
something backing up
in the basements of our homes
in Griffon Manor.
(camera shutter clicks)
Black sludge.
And no matter what we did,
we couldn't get rid of it.
BROWN: People start telling me things.
And I knew it was anecdotal,
uh, information,
but I also knew something bad
was going on.
NEWMAN: Residents
are starting to acknowledge
all the weird things
that have been going on
in the neighborhood for years.
So, the first thing they do
is reach out to their
local politicians.
Niagara Falls officials
really push them off.
That's when they find an angel
in John LaFalce,
who is the representative
for the area of Niagara Falls
in Congress.
CASPER: We told several
of the residents that we would
come out to, to look at the canal.
(talking softly)
CASPER: And they
took us into their homes.
We went into the basements,
and we saw the oozing.
It was like black tar.
I couldn't even truly describe the smell.
Well, it didn't smell like lasagna sauce.
(laughs)
It, uh, it smelled like chemicals to me.
Uh, and I wasn't sure what chemicals.
I wasn't sure if it was harmful.
Um, but what you don't know
can hurt you.
(camera shutter clicking)
CASPER: We could see
a couple of the barrels.
And we saw the school.
So there was the playground
on the canal.
The residents told us that their kids
played in it all the time.
You know, played in the canal,
played, that's where they went.
That was their backyard.
(people talking in background)
MAN: Okay, give me your last name.
WOMAN: Okay.
LAFALCE (in interview):
I wanted to know how it became
a dump site for chemicals,
and then how that land could
have been used for housing,
used for a school, used for a playground
where kids would be playing
on a daily basis.
(talking in background)
LAFALCE: I considered the
problem a very serious one
and was gonna do
whatever I thought necessary
to deal with it, and
that was not the disposition
of other officials.
MICHAEL O'LAUGHLIN: I am
concerned about the people, all of them.
I can't, as a mayor, though,
jeopardize our city.
And a first responsibility I have
LAFALCE: There were some
who were very, very worried
that this might tarnish
the image of the city.
O'LAUGHLIN: And I'm
continually being cautioned
to be careful not to make
blatant statements
that could incriminate the city.
♪
LAFALCE: Niagara Falls, of course,
was known for its tourist industry.
And there was
an understandable concern
about the effect that it would have.
NEWMAN: For centuries, Niagara
Falls has had this outsized existence
in the American mind.
People have visited it to be overawed
by nature, to feel its power.
It's moving.
It's sublime.
But beginning in the
19th and early 20th centuries,
a lot of people visited
the falls for something else.
They're dead set on developing
it for industrial use.
FILM NARRATOR: The
mighty waters of Niagara Falls
pour some 9,000 cubic feet
of water per second
over this 165-foot precipice.
NEWMAN: In the 1880s, when
hydroelectric power developers
arrive in Niagara Falls,
they change the falls.
They electrify it, they make it
an important part of a new era
of hydroelectric power.
FILM NARRATOR:
To serve the needs of industry
and the welfare of mankind.
NEWMAN: Not just in Western
New York, but across the Midwest,
Niagara Falls is at the very center
of the American industrial dream.
♪
BROWN: In the 1890s, there
was a railroad entrepreneur,
William T. Love.
He came up with the idea to build a canal
from the upper Niagara River,
circumventing the falls,
to the lower river.
It was gonna be for transportation
and at the same time create power.
NEWMAN: Love wanted to produce
something called Model City, merging
industrial power with utopian design.
He tells people,
"I can create a bigger
hydroelectric power station.
I can generate more wealth,
more investment in the area."
And people are willing to believe it,
because they see Niagara Falls
as the next big thing
in American industrial life.
William Love is so successful
in his investment plan
that he actually has enough money
to start digging out portions of his canal.
And he's saying to people,
"You're walking in the future site
of American industrial power
right here at Love's Canal."
("Yankee Doodle" playing)
BROWN: I mean, he sounded
like kind of a showboat.
He would go around
with a brass band and circulars
and advertisements.
You know, he even had a ditty
that was to the sound
of "Yankee Doodle."
"Everybody's come to town,
those who've left we pity,
"for we all have a great old time
in Love's new Model City."
(chuckling):
Uh, yeah, Love's new Model City.
Uh, he went bankrupt soon afterwards.
♪
NEWMAN: In many
ways, it is a Ponzi scheme.
He promises to pay people in the future,
but the future comes on fast.
He can't pay all those debts.
Love's Canal is never finished.
Model City is never completed.
Both of these dreams lie fallow.
And they're sort of a monument
to failure.
But there is a groove of earth
in the Niagara Falls landscape
that's gonna sit there
no one knows what to do with it.
Enter Hooker Electrochemical
Company in Niagara Falls.
KEITH O'BRIEN: In the 1940s,
with the war effort in full swing,
Hooker Chemical was producing
more chemicals than ever before.
And like any manufacturer,
it needed someplace
to dump its residues and wastes.
NEWMAN: So, Hooker Chemical
locates a great area for this
just four miles away
from its production site,
where William Love started building out
his artificial river 50 years beforehand.
They think, "This is perfect
for burying chemical waste."
BRUCE DAVIS:
The canal was further excavated.
And then the drums were stacked
into this mini vault.
And then the drums were covered
over with four feet of clay.
CHARLES WARREN: And at the time,
when there were no laws that
governed that dumping,
so they just were able to dispose of it
in any way they thought was appropriate.
They would back those trucks in.
You know? MAN: Yeah.
And they would put a drum off here.
Sometimes the lid would come off,
sometimes it wouldn't,
because they were sealed.
Yeah, now, what happened
when that hit the water?
It would come open. Yeah.
And there would be a flash of flame,
like fire going up in the air.
Boom, it would go, you know.
Everybody knew Hooker
was a chemical plant.
People certainly knew
many of the chemicals
that they had produced.
Nobody knew, however,
what they had actually dumped
as waste material.
And nobody really knew how many
drums were buried in Love Canal.
NEWMAN: They filled up
the entire area with about
100,000 chemical barrels.
People at Hooker Chemical
weren't thinking in terms
of long-term chemical risks.
And they thought,
when they dumped this stuff,
even if it broke out
of the chemical drums,
the landscape itself would just
absorb it like a big sponge.
(kids talking in background)
BROWN: In the 1950s, Niagara
Falls was an expanding city.
Everything was going
great guns, economically.
HAY: Most of the
individuals who bought homes
worked at Hooker
and other chemical companies
in Niagara Falls, and so it was seen
as this great neighborhood
that had good transportation
to their jobs at the chemical plants.
NEWMAN: This is a time when people
looked at a landscape
and didn't worry about
what's underneath it.
And Love Canal,
the covered-over chemical dump,
is actually viewed in the 1950s
as a great developmental opportunity.
O'BRIEN: In the spring of 1953,
Hooker Chemical sold the land
to the Board of Education
in Niagara Falls for a dollar.
And they got out of
the Love Canal business.
NEWMAN:
The Niagara Falls school board
signs an agreement
with Hooker Chemical,
which basically says that
there is chemical waste buried
underneath the Love Canal site,
but it doesn't say exactly what type
of chemical waste is in the ground.
This is where they're gonna put
the 99th Street School.
They're gonna work with developers
to build out a subdivision,
which will have
new housing stock, playgrounds.
People who are in charge
of hazardous waste landfilling
were not really concerned
about what happens next.
They don't want to know,
they don't need to know,
because government officials
were not pushing them.
For people in Niagara Falls,
you don't want to scare off
the chemical industry.
Less knowledge is better for business.
LAFALCE: In the summer of '77,
I wrote to the head
of the Hooker Corporation,
saying, "I want to know
exactly what you buried.
And I want to know if what you
buried could be dangerous."
BROWN: When I first
came onto the story,
it was an environmental problem.
It was not considered
a health threat at that time,
at least not that anyone was telling me.
I was shocked when I went door to door
and found out that people were actually
becoming ill
from what was in their homes,
the odors that were very obvious
at the time.
I contracted asthma.
I lived here three years
and discovered I had cancer.
Two children that are legally blind.
My child has rheumatoid arthritis
and asthmatic bronchitis,
and she is missing part
of her second teeth.
BROWN: Everyone had a story,
from skin rashes to cancer.
They're talking about birth defects.
They're talking about miscarriages.
My editor held me back
from printing a lot of the health effects,
because he wanted to hear it
from a health official.
When you saw what was going on
at Love Canal
(sniffs)
(voice breaking): It was,
uh, very, very difficult
(sniffs, exhales)
to remain a reporter,
because it was like watching
an accident in slow motion.
(sniffs)
CHILD: Ow, ow, ow, ow!
That's it. CHILD 2: Ow.
Hold still. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. REPORTER:
You could see the fear
on faces today as men,
women, and children gathered
at a neighborhood school
on the edge of
the former chemical dump
for blood tests.
NEWMAN: As state officials learn more,
they start extensive testing.
MAN: We're looking
for evidence of leukemias,
anemias, toxic liver conditions.
NEWMAN: They also
set up in people's homes.
They went into people's basements.
They monitored leachate,
tested what kind of chemicals
were maybe seeping into backyards.
(talking in background)
BROWN: They had
started to conduct air tests.
And for three months, I tried to
get the results of those tests.
No one would tell me what they were.
And, finally, I found out
that there was benzene in the air there,
which was extremely alarming.
That's a known human carcinogen.
REPORTER: The E.P.A. identified
three compounds in quantities
5,000 times higher
than levels considered safe.
And three others known
to cause cancer in animals
measured at 250 times
safe exposure levels.
BROWN:
And then, things got even worse.
Hooker had another dump
that was just across the road
from Love Canal.
They also had a dump site
next to the water plant,
supplies the water
for the city of Niagara Falls.
(camera shutter clicking)
And their biggest dump was
called the Hyde Park Landfill.
And this dump was three, four
times the size of Love Canal.
How come we didn't know this?
How could we not know this?
Not only do state officials
not know what chemicals
are buried here in the Love Canal,
they don't even know how many
chemical landfills there are
in Niagara County.
WARREN: The E.P.A. said, "We need
to get an inventory of
toxic sites over the country."
And when we did that, we found
many sites of all kinds.
We had them out there,
and nobody was doing anything
about them.
And, at the time,
we didn't think we had the weapons
to really deal with those sites.
O'BRIEN: The E.P.A. was one
of the youngest federal agencies,
still really finding its footing.
It was founded in 1970
by Richard Nixon.
And it was playing catch-up,
especially when it comes to
orphaned dumps and chemical landfills.
They were scattered all across America.
WARREN: We actually got a tally,
and it was in the thousands.
(helicopter engine running,
people talking on radio)
NEWMAN: Almost every state
has a problem like Love Canal.
And every single one
could be a ticking time bomb.
(talking softly)
Watch where you're going.
GIBBS: After we lived at
Love Canal maybe a year,
Michael started getting sick.
So, you know, first it was, like, asthma.
Then it was a urinary disorder.
And, and then, when
Michael was in kindergarten,
he was spending a lot more time
in the school,
and that's when he had his first seizure.
We were actually at a fast food
restaurant,
and I thought he was choking,
but he wasn't choking.
And, uh, it scared the dickens out of me.
The pediatrician had no answer.
And so I'm looking at these articles,
and I'm reading this stuff
about benzene and talulene,
and other chemicals I didn't
even know how to pronounce 'em
back then.
And then they were mentioning
the 99th Street School.
I'm, like, "Whoa.
Whoa, what is going on here?"
I believe Michael got sick
because he was in the school,
and also because
we played on the playground
almost every single day.
(children calling in background)
So I put together a petition
to close the 99th Street School.
REPORTER: How many
chemicals have been identified
as being underground here?
MAN: So far, we know
of 88 specific chemicals
that have been identified.
REPORTER: And of those 88, how
many are suspected of causing cancer?
MAN: I think the number's 11.
CURRY: It was really
getting kind of frightening.
They were running around
in their moon suits.
And they came in with
all kinds of machines and stuff
so they could do the
ambient air in the basement.
They'd say you had benzene and
tolulene and trichlorethene
and all these enes, and
that was Greek to all of us.
And then it wasn't too long
after that when Lois
showed up at my back door,
and I said, "Oh, my God,
we went to school together.
We were in Girl Scouts together."
GIBBS: So, we sat in her living room
and talked for quite a while.
She talked about her miscarriages,
and she talked about all of the
other health problems she had.
Debbie was the first one
that agreed to go door-knocking
with me.
CURRY: I just felt sounds
silly but it was like a calling
that I had to do that, and I was hellbent.
PATTI GRENZY: I remember Lois
coming down the street with her petition.
And I remember thinking, "Oh,
God, what's she selling?" (chuckles)
There were articles in the paper,
but I had two young kids
and one on the way.
I didn't pay that much attention
to the news.
Lois began telling me about
birth defects and miscarriages
and stillborns and all that.
That's pretty scary, when
you're pregnant, to hear that.
We all think,
"That's not gonna happen to me.
That happens to the guy,
you know, down the street."
Well, we found ourselves
being the guy down the street.
It was happening to us.
(helicopter whirring)
REPORTER: Today in Albany,
the New York State Health Department
declared a health emergency
in the neighborhood and recommended
O'BRIEN: By August,
state officials couldn't sit
on this problem anymore.
They make this stunning announcement,
encouraging the evacuation
of about 200 families
living closest to the canal.
REPORTER: Pregnant women
and families with young children
O'BRIEN:
But it was just pregnant women
or children under the age of two.
WOMAN: My child went
to that school for a while.
O'BRIEN: Other people in
the neighborhood wondered
immediately, of course,
about their own health,
the health of their children.
LOIS HEISNER: I am really, really afraid.
We have decided we're going
to get out, one way or another.
But right now
NEWMAN: People
realized they were living
not simply on top of a dump
that was leaking,
they were living in
a chemical disaster zone.
And that set off all sorts
of terrorizing conversations.
(man talking in background)
♪
I want to talk first
about a number of things
REPORTER: This was the
first chance residents had
to vent their frustrations into
the ears of state officials.
State Health Commissioner Robert
Whalen tried to tell the crowd
that Albany is doing all
that it can to get rid
of the poisonous chemicals
seeping into their homes.
But the people feel that
the wheels of government
move too slowly.
And you guys represent us!
You're gonna have problems!
We're gonna do everything
CURRY: The meeting was
It was doomed to be a screaming
match right from the beginning,
because we have now been
given some information
of what we've been exposed to,
and how dangerous it really is.
Eight-month-pregnant woman here.
We've lived in that house for two years.
Nobody told us this was happening, man.
Nothing.
She's been there for eight months.
What are you gonna do for
my kid? What are going to do?
Nothing! MAN (faintly):
Where you gonna go?
The damage is done, man,
the damage is done.
(audience applauding)
NEWMAN: The State Health
Department was really most focused
on the first two rings of homes
around the old canal dumping grounds.
People who weren't in
Ring One or Ring Two homes
thought that they were trapped
in a death zone.
PATTI GRENZY: Ring Three
was just outside of that area,
which is where we lived.
Our front yard faced
99th Street homes' backyards.
So, we were really, really close.
If this is a ticking health time bomb,
why are you only evacuating
people who live
on 97th and 99th Streets?
REPORTER: Whalen was
also criticized for advising
only pregnant women and kids
under two to evacuate the area.
(shouting): Would you please tell me,
do I let my three-year-old stay?
What do you expect of us?
That is my child!
MAN: Ma'am, the
Where is the difference?
What about the seven-
MAN 2: There is no
difference! And the eight-
and the ten-year-olds?
WOMAN: The ten-year old kids?!
(applauding)
O'BRIEN: Up until that moment,
these people believed
that government was there
to protect 'em.
That government did right by Americans.
These were families who had husbands
who had served in Vietnam.
These were mothers
who didn't see themselves as
part of the feminist movement.
I can't see anything going on
in the state of New York
that is more important
than these people's lives.
(audience cheering and applauding)
O'BRIEN: But the community
changed that night.
Changed forever.
♪
REPORTER: As families with
pregnant women and small children
moved out of
their Love Canal homes today
and into surplus military housing,
New York State officials
LAFALCE: I could very well understand
the perspective
of the homeowners there.
But I could also understand
that this might be a very
expensive undertaking.
I'm aware of your problems.
I've been living with them.
I'm aware of your health
problems, your housing problems,
your school problems.
So I've requested
that the Federal Disaster
Assistance Administration
declare this an emergency
and a disaster area.
NEWMAN: Up until that
time, the only disasters
that had ever received emergency
or disaster declarations
by the federal government
were natural disasters.
So hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes.
But Love Canal is
overwhelming all the resources
of the local government it's
even overwhelming the state,
and it's rising to the level
of a natural disaster.
REPORTER: For the first
time, a strictly manmade disaster
has been declared a federal emergency,
allowing the government to
provide assistance to the area.
GIBBS: When Carter
says it's an emergency,
we're, like, "Yes, now the White House
"knows we exist,
"we have a problem,
and, you know, they're gonna help us."
Money, that's the
That's the good news, money.
O'BRIEN: Governor Hugh Carey
comes to Niagara Falls
to meet with residents
at the 99th Street School.
REPORTER:
Hugh Carey talked to residents
of the beleaguered Love Canal area.
O'BRIEN: And that night in the school,
Carey announces that
not only will they be evacuating
residents of the neighborhood,
but they will buy their homes.
REPORTER: In one of
his most popular moves,
a promise to pay full market value
for the now worthless houses.
(applauding and cheering)
BROWN: For the people
who were close to the canal,
Governor Hugh Carey was a white
knight, came in on a horse.
So there was a lot of relief on one hand.
And then you had the other
people, who were stuck.
There were about 700 families
left behind,
and people are watching,
just about daily, as more
and more is coming out
about Love Canal.
REPORTER: It's going to cost more
than $9 million to clean up the canal.
And once the work actually begins,
it will take three months to complete.
NEWMAN: They want to make
sure that the chemicals are contained
and they don't leak out to further homes
in the subdivision or neighborhood.
REPORTER: The construction
plans call for the installation
of a clay cap to be
laid on top of the canal.
NEWMAN: They're going to seal it up,
and it will be covered over with clay.
So they're not taking toxic
chemicals out of the ground.
REPORTER: A chain link
fence will also be installed here,
around the Love Canal area
NEWMAN: But the first thing they do is,
they put a fence through
the middle of the neighborhood,
separating the inner-ring homes,
Ring One and Two,
from the rest of the neighborhood.
(slide shifts)
MICHAEL TOLLI: I remember
them putting up the fence.
The first two rows of houses
were abandoned.
It was strange.
There's tons of people around,
then there's nobody around.
Then, then, you know, now it's a
ghost town.
♪
ERNIE GRENZY: The fence
was right down in front of my yard.
And they're saying,
"You're okay, this, this
Across the street is not okay."
And that's how we lived for a long time.
(birds cawing)
It was devastating.
I mean, you're worried about
your kids primarily.
And my wife being pregnant,
what's going to happen to the, the baby?
And you're, you're frustrated,
because you, you can't do
anything about it.
♪
NEWMAN: Residents at
Love Canal, they really thought
that the government
were going to rescue them,
that once they declared that
there was a problem
at Love Canal, that they would be saved.
And they learned that these
officials were dealing with
a problem that was as new to
them as it was to the residents.
O'BRIEN: They realized
that in order to escape
from their own homes,
in order to even understand
the scope of the problem,
they need to organize.
♪
GIBBS: Our first Love
Canal Homeowners office
was at the 99th Street School.
It was a classroom.
And because I had knocked
on everybody's door,
they recognized my face.
And so I was voted in as president.
I was terrified of being a leader.
I'm a shy, quiet person,
and all of a sudden,
having hundreds of people
counting on me, and they are angry.
And, and frustrated and terrified, and so
it isn't just being a leader,
it's being a leader in a crisis.
♪
RICE: Lois was very nervous,
and I always will remember it.
She had her notes kind of scribbled
on a small piece of paper,
and she was standing in front
of the microphones
and her hands literally shook,
she was so nervous.
But what was so interesting
for reporters,
we saw her go from that
to being unbelievable
in front of the cameras.
Come a long way.
We've gotten Ring One evacuated,
we've gotten Ring Two evacuated.
We now have an emergency.
They're talking about purchasing
our homes in Washington.
The decision is not made.
There's only one thing that's going
to make the decision,
and that's public opinion.
(audience members exclaiming)
So none of you should be
GIBBS (in interview):
Our main goal was,
anybody who wanted to leave
could leave,
with their homes being purchased
at fair market value.
I wanted out, just like all my neighbors.
Wanted out I wanted to be gone.
I wanted somebody to buy my house.
'Cause that's all the assets
I had in the world.
Um, and, and I wanted to move,
and I wanted to have that happy life
I had before, when I would
walk my son to school,
when I would pack
my husband some lunch,
and when I would cook a green
cake for St. Patrick's Day.
I wanted it all back.
REPORTER: As president of the
Love Canal Homeowners Association,
Gibbs has gone from quiet housewife
to neighborhood advocate
to an outspoken spokesperson
on the topic
of hazardous waste disposal.
Now the Homeowners Association
works out of this house,
one of the homes abandoned
by Love Canal evacuees.
(phones ringing)
I mean, we definitely
need a doctor tonight.
POZNIAK: At John's. John's.
Now, she told you about the 6:00 bit?
Yeah, why don't Because
they have to be certified
Why don't you talk to Mike Okay,
why don't you answer that phone?
(chuckles) Love Canal.
Lois.
QUIMBY: I went to the
office every single day
and opened up.
There was a core group,
and we were there every day.
The phone never stopped ringing.
People would come in.
Lois called us all by our last name.
It was like we were in the service.
You know? In the Army or something.
MCCOULF: My kids were little,
so they were in the office with me.
I did some fundraising,
sent letters to all kinds of businesses
trying to raise money so that we
could do things,
you know, give meetings,
print up flyers.
(people talking in background)
CURRY: I was eventually
voted in as the vice president,
and Lois always used to kid me
I was the vice president of the
art department,
because most of the signs
you saw in that neighborhood
were built by me. (Chuckles)
At that time,
I had already moved,
so when I could find childcare,
I would come back to the office
and work with the girls.
I just didn't have the heart to leave them
when I had the opportunity to move away
from all of the danger.
My heart wouldn't allow it.
My gut told me, "You have
to stay there and help."
PATTI GRENZY:
When you look back at that time,
the men were the ones
that got things done.
Men didn't look at women
as being smart,
as being determined,
or stepping outside the circle
of their family.
At the office, there
were some men that were retired.
Then there were men that worked
shift work,
so they could be there, as well,
but for the most part, it was the women.
It was the moms
that did the groundwork.
Okay, tell her that we're going
to set up a clinic tonight,
probably at Jan's hotel, uh, in room 416.
I just don't know the time yet.
That should be 12:00
and why does the state want
to make things easier for
themselves instead of us, huh?
O'BRIEN: Almost everyone
fighting to escape was a woman,
and almost every person in power
was a man.
And so it turned into this real
gender battle.
Mrs. Kenny lost a child,
I lost a baby before it was even born,
my next-door neighbor had a stillborn.
Her son is sick, her son is
sick how many more kids
have to be sick?
How many more kids have to die?
We're not gonna let it happen.
HAY: Activism connected to motherhood
has a long, long history in America.
And it is often something that will
mobilize, uh, apolitical women.
(slide shifts)
It starts with a sincere desire
to protect their children.
(slide shifts)
But then, once they realize how
powerful that is,
and how, how effectively
it plays in the media,
they realize they have a winning strategy.
REPORTER: The leader
of the group, Lois Gibbs.
A media star: Attractive,
articulate, and persistent.
O'BRIEN: The press
absolutely loved these women.
They gravitated
to tell the story of Lois Gibbs.
Lois Gibbs leads the fight for the people
still living in the Love Canal area.
Lois Gibbs continues to have doors
slammed in her face.
Homeowners president Lois Gibbs
has fought for relocation
for over 700 Love Canal families.
She's with us tonight.
Mrs. Gibbs, 700 families
(in interview): Instinctively, I
knew history was being made here.
And I just felt I had
a ringside seat to history
and I didn't have to buy a ticket.
The Education Board bought
from Hooker,
for the price of a dollar, all this land.
QUIMBY: Lois said, "We
have to stay in the news."
She kept saying, "We have
to keep this front page.
We can't let them forget about us."
GIBBS (archival): We have to keep
the pressure on President Carter.
And in order to do that, we're
going to have to send telegrams,
scream and holler, and be heard.
(applauding and cheering)
NEWMAN: Folks covering
the Love Canal saga
as a media event often
too often focused in on
Lois Gibbs and
the struggle of the homeowners.
(talking in background)
NEWMAN: But there are other
people in the neighborhood,
people who don't own property
in Love Canal,
who had many of the same fears,
many of the same concerns
as the homeowners.
O'BRIEN: Just on the
downtown side of the canal
was one of the newest
public housing developments
in the city of Niagara Falls.
It was called Griffon Manor,
and it was home to about 250 families.
(children calling)
JONES: Griffon Manor,
it was just a close-knit community.
Most of the families there were
related to each other.
Even before
Love Canal was on the news,
my mother was talking about it.
I remember she said,
"There's more going on here
than meets the eye
we've got to do something."
Our table was completely covered.
My mother had notes everywhere.
There was, uh, research
material, newspaper clippings.
There was data from surveys
that she had taken from people
with health issues, and she
found that a lot of the people
who lived in Griffin Manor had
illnesses that were concerning.
From my memory,
my mother should have been on
the news every day,
because she was always
out there talking to reporters,
answering questions,
offering information,
just as Lois Gibbs was.
But there were many nights
when we would watch the news,
and there would be no clips of
anything that she had discussed.
And she'd just sit there at the table,
and then she'd just put her head
down and she'd just cry.
Love Canal was not Griffon Manor.
They were two different places.
It was like being in two different cities.
MAN: How many
families are there amongst
the renters in a similar situation?
I would say at least half of the population
in that area are severely ill.
MAN: Like, I've been living out here
since I was about four years old.
I have a, a seizure disorder.
GRANT-FREENEY (in interview): Renters
were not getting their health addressed
as the homeowners were.
Some of the healthcare professionals,
they were saying that because of us
not taking care of our children properly,
that's the reason why they were sick.
And my doctor, she still don't want to say
that, uh, this the,
is the cause, or, you know, related to it.
You know?
NEWMAN: Renters feel
marginalized on a number of levels.
So Griffon Manor residents form
their own activist organization.
WOMAN: Okay, to the people that live
in the Niagara Falls Housing Authority,
there will be a meeting specifically for us,
because this is what happens to us.
We get jumbled into people
that own homes
WOMAN: Why don't you buy one?
WOMAN 2: Why don't you buy one?
(audience clamoring)
GRANT-FREENEY: We had
many meetings with homeowners.
They were mean people.
What they wanted us to do
was to stop complaining.
They needed to be taken care of,
and then when they got taken care of,
then address the renters.
Governor Carey was in Buffalo
yesterday,
and he especially pointed out to me that,
don't forget the people on the outside
of the present perimeters,
and especially Griffon Manor.
(crowd clamoring) And he, and he
He, and, so we're very, very aware of it
and we're going to be watching it.
I promised, uh, Mrs. Gibbs
she could be next.
(audience applauding)
JONES: My mom and
Lois Gibbs talked about
what was going on in Griffon Manor.
There's nothing that makes me believe
that Lois wanted anyone
to be forgotten about.
But they had different roles to play.
Lois's role was to take care of the people
who lived outside of Griffon Manor,
and my mother's role was to
take care of the people inside.
And it became somewhat
of a competition
to get what you could for
the people that you represented.
♪
O'BRIEN: Homeowners believed
that people living in Griffon Manor
could just move.
They were renting.
They weren't invested into their
homes with their life savings.
(children calling in background)
HAY: But Griffon Manor was
some of the best public housing
in Niagara Falls.
They had units with
three or four bedrooms,
which meant that if
you had a large family,
you could actually live like a family.
There was no comparable
public housing anywhere else
in Niagara Falls.
GRANT-FREENEY: We did
have large families, so of course
you would have to rent a house
or a large apartment,
and it just wasn't affordable for people.
So it was devastating, it really was.
It's like you're in a fire,
but you can't get out.
Sometimes, you know,
it make you want to cry now,
because
(breathes deeply)
They had no way out.
No way out.
REPORTER: Finally, late
this afternoon, the green light.
Workers wearing air packs
and disposable uniforms stood by
as the first shovel of dirt
was removed from the Love Canal.
Slowly, the odor that the residents here
had been living with for years
started to permeate the air.
♪
MAN: As you all know,
two of the contaminants that
have been found in the canal
are benzene and chloroform
and carbon tetrachloride.
I'm happy to say, however,
that based on what we have seen
and evaluated,
there is no evidence of benzene toxicity.
STEPHEN LESTER: The
state was constantly repeating
and trying to reassure
the residents and the public
that they had things under control,
and that, you know,
there's no cause for alarm.
MAN: We are coming
across some abnormalities
in the liver function studies
that were performed.
This is to be expected in any population.
As you know,
there are a variety of things
that can cause liver disease
besides toxic chemicals.
LESTER: They would explain
that something like a benzene,
you would know that it affects the blood,
it affects the central nervous system,
causes liver damage.
But because you're exposed to
only seven parts per million,
which is in your house here,
that doesn't mean you'll get those.
It means you're at a risk of that.
That, of course,
doesn't mean anything to people.
MAN: There are upwards
of 200 different chemicals
that have been identified.
REPORTER: Here's what
the residents did learn.
Tests do show
that some children in the area
have liver abnormalities.
They don't know whether
toxic chemicals are responsible.
But these residents were not
satisfied with the answers,
and the questions poured out
from the angry crowd.
I have an eight-and-a-half-
year-old asthmatic.
I have been told by my doctors
to get her out of this area.
Do I have to stay in that house
until there is worse?
NEWMAN: The folks in the New
York State Health Department
had their work cut out for them.
Scientists work in labs
they have protocols.
Those protocols are objective
and disinterested.
And any time you talk
about anger, feelings, emotions,
subjectivity
the things that Love Canal
residents are talking about
you compromise the process.
And the people are scared.
I worked for Stauffer
Chemical for 23 years.
I've seen men die,
from fumes. (Audience murmuring)
NEWMAN: So when health
officials show up on the ground
and they start talking to residents,
the first thing they realize is,
they don't even know
how to talk to them.
MAN: They did not say one thing!
They went around in circles
all night long.
All night! This gentleman right here
couldn't even answer a question!
(audience cheers and applauds)
HAY: Many of the residents did
not have degrees beyond high school.
And so there was embedded class
and gender tensions
that are really exposed.
GIBBS (archival): We asked the state
to have the state scientists down here
who could answer
the residents' questions.
They didn't do it.
PATTI GRENZY: We were more
or less self-educating ourselves
with the help of some other people.
The more you learned, the more
frightening it was,
the more determined that we were
to succeed at this.
♪
LESTER: I was just overwhelmed
with how hard they worked to learn,
and Lois at one point asked me
for my toxicology text,
from when I was in school,
and I gave it to her.
So they were devouring this stuff,
and they very quickly
became very versed.
And they were highly motivated,
because they weren't getting answers
from the Health Department,
and so where could
they turn to get answers?
BEVERLY PAIGEN:
In other fields of science,
we sometimes talk
about gaps in our knowledge.
Here, it's almost,
our knowledge is a little gap
in our ignorance.
We really know very little about
exposure to these chemicals.
O'BRIEN: Beverly Paigen had done
groundbreaking research
about environmental hazards.
She had written papers
suggesting that air quality
might contribute to lung disease.
That smog might contribute to asthma.
GIBBS: I met Beverly Paigen
through my brother-in-law,
and he introduced her as a scientist,
a health scientist, who could be helpful.
And she came by to the first meeting.
She goes, "I know everybody is
really upset
"about the chemical exposure,
"and I don't know what that means yet,
but I'd like to help you figure that out."
to test for liver function.
There will be counts done
on your blood cells
HAY: She approaches the
residents in a very different manner
than the Department of Health.
She had expertise,
but she did not walk in
as the authority.
Any other questions?
HAY: She listens to them.
She takes it as legitimate, their concerns
that there are illnesses in that broader,
expanded, outer ring area.
PAIGEN: There may be some problems
that will not be solved by the cleanup.
Besides the first ring
LESTER: The Health
Department constantly said,
"If you're outside of the fence,
you're not at risk."
But there was no basis for saying that.
There was no science for saying that.
And the fence became a symbol
of who was safe and who was not.
The residents, of course,
looked at that fence
and said, "What are you talking about?
"These chemicals are in the air.
They're not being stopped
by the chain link fence."
(camera shutter clicks)
So it also became a battle line between
what the community wanted
and what the state was willing to do.
GIBBS (archival): There was a man
on 102nd Street who just came back
from Cleveland Clinic
diagnosed an epileptic.
He's never had any central
nervous system problems
of any sort,
and all of a sudden, you know,
he's got this crazy seizure problem.
(in interview):
We needed to try and find out
what's going on in the outer community.
Was it our imagination,
this cluster of epileptics?
Is it a coincidence
that these women
are having miscarriages,
or is it real?
Because the soils are contaminated
(in interview):
And so we just wanted to see
what was really going on.
We wanted to find
no one else would tell us,
so we'll find out for ourselves.
And that's when we did the health study.
O'BRIEN: Lois Gibbs and
the other mothers didn't know
how to conduct health surveys.
Beverly Paigen gives them
a way to do that.
She tells them what questions
to ask, how to ask them.
And with her help, uh,
they're able to start
building their own data.
GIBBS: We were at my
house one night, and we're, like,
putting these things on a pin map,
and it was, like, "Red is for miscarriages,
blue is for cancer,"
whatever the color code was.
And we were realizing that,
"Oh, my gosh,
some of these things
are really clustering."
Like, "Epilepsy around my house,
um, and, you know,
birth defects over here."
CURRY: One neighborhood was
severe heart and lung problems,
and another neighborhood
was female cancers.
And then in my area,
there was a lot of miscarriages.
GIBBS: So we went back
and started interviewing people
in those areas where there
was clustering of diseases.
And the old-timers would tell us
about an old creek that was there.
(slide shifts)
And how it was backfilled
with, um, construction waste
and then dirt.
O'BRIEN: Sometime in 1978,
the State Department of Health
unearthed aerial photographs
of the neighborhood
just before Hooker Chemical
began using the land as a dump.
And in these photographs,
there was a series of streams,
or, as they called them, swales,
that cut through the neighborhood,
moving in every which direction.
But when Lois began
to connect the dots,
finding these clusters
around the old swales,
and, and Beverly studied it for herself,
she was alarmed.
PAIGEN: Well, this is actually
quite interesting.
This stream here has
very little disease along it,
and this stream never
intersected Love Canal.
There's no disease along here.
There are about 40 homes in here,
and there's about seven or eight dots.
There are about 40 homes in here,
and there's at least 50 dots.
These are just half-a-block away.
They're both on a stream,
but one stream intersected
Love Canal and one didn't.
This is some of
the strongest evidence I have
O'BRIEN: If it was true
that human health problems
seemed to follow the old swales,
then it was true that the human threat
was much farther than state
and federal officials
had originally indicated.
Beverly Paigen ultimately flew
to a meeting in Albany
with these maps and with this data.
And she recalled
that when she boarded the plane
that day
with this tube
of, of maps and photographs,
that she felt like she was
carrying something explosive.
She said she felt like
she was carrying a bomb.
PAIGEN: So I flew to New
York State Health Department
and proposed this
as a hypothesis to them.
"Why don't you look at disease
in these homes
"which are along swales,
"compared to the homes which are not,
to see if there's a difference
in disease incidence?"
And they agreed to do that.
What happened, though,
was quite different.
I'll never forget it,
because I got on the airplane,
flew back to Buffalo,
picked up a newspaper
in the airport, and there
was a story on the front page
attacking my hypothesis.
O'BRIEN: The same health officials
that she had met with in Albany
had spoken to the press,
and they dismissed
what she had presented that day.
RICE (archival): The women
told us the state office had
dismissed their studies
as "useless housewife data."
They thought
we were useless housewives.
We're just dumb little housewives.
I never heard of anything so insulting.
The "useless housewife data"? Yeah.
And there was
hundreds and hundreds of hours
put into that paperwork.
GIBBS (archival): I'm not a scientist.
I am a housewife, as I've seen
quoted in the paper many times.
My data is not useless,
it is not pointless, and it's not invalid.
Every one of these people
in this audience plus
gave me that data.
They don't lie.
What you're doing in
the Health Department
is going to take six months,
eight months, ten months.
And if we sit and
wait for six more months,
we're going to have dead children.
♪
(in interview): Government
talked down to us all the time.
"Where did you learn epidemiology?
You can't even say it."
But we weren't intimidated.
"It was fine do whatever you want.
But we're going to keep moving."
Cancer's not the only thing
these chemicals cause.
GIBBS: But I think Beverly
didn't feel the same way.
She was a professional, a researcher,
and she worked for the New York
State Health Department,
so the ramifications
for her actions was tremendous.
DAVID AXELROD:
Dr. Paigen will readily admit
that the procedures
which she used for the gathering
of data are not generally acceptable.
THOMSON: From the state's
perspective, all the health study did
was amass anecdotal data
and map it onto one understanding
of the neighborhood's environment,
which is very complex.
You would need to know
what chemical was there,
how long it had been there,
how that interacts
with people's individual
biological makeup,
how much time they actually
spend in their house,
what do they get exposed to at work?
It is virtually impossible
to establish causality.
O'BRIEN: And so for
David Axelrod, for the E.P.A.,
for other officials
in New York and Washington,
it was very difficult to know
where to draw the line.
Who was safe and who wasn't?
(machinery whirring)
NEWMAN: Over and over again,
what you see with Love Canal
is that it was a first.
They're trying to clean up
a hazardous waste site
that sits below an occupied
neighborhood.
How do you do that? It's never
been done before.
A lot of these chemicals have
a very low igniting point.
So if your prober went down
and it hit a barrel,
that could cause an explosion, right?
I would say no,
because we'll use the metal
detection (audience clamoring)
ahead of anything else.
We will not be probing
any area All right
GIBBS (in interview): The
work itself was totally terrifying.
Nobody knew what was going to happen.
If there was a spark from the backhoe
hitting a barrel or something,
the whole thing would blow up.
REPORTER: We're
talking about the possibility
of the entire dump exploding.
MAN: Well, not the entire dump,
but there could be an explosion.
There, there may be, uh,
exposures of gas or something like that.
Those are, are probably
not going to happen,
but you can't be sure they're not.
What are we going to do
if this blows up?
REPORTER: Buses are standing
by at a cost of $6,000 a day,
just in case of an emergency evacuation.
PATTI GRENZY: So they
put buses in the neighborhood,
and they sat there with
their engines going all day.
The idea was that
if there was an emergency,
those bus drivers
that they hired would sit there
and wait for you and your
children to run down the street
to, to get on a bus
if there was an explosion.
REPORTER:
Another precaution was taken
for residents still living in the area.
They participated in a test bus
evacuation from the area Monday,
with 60 bus drivers involved in
the simulated evacuation plan.
DISPATCHER (over radio): All Love
Canal charter buses this frequency,
upon arriving at the Love Canal site,
please check in.
(talking in background)
GIBBS (in interview): We had
our papers and our knapsacks
ready to grab and run.
This is like your mortgage,
your health insurance,
the stuff you put in a safe in
case of a fire, right?
We're going to have to grab our baby,
grab our knapsack, and it, it was insane.
We literally, every single day,
had to wake up to the reality
that we may have to run for our lives.
KENNY: I started
reading all of these articles
around the beginning of August.
I was aware of what was happening,
that they had been
evacuating the whole area.
And I'm just thinking,
oh, it's a block and a half away
and it really doesn't affect me.
I was working full time.
I would go in at 7:30 in the morning
and come home and be able to
pick the children up at school.
Steven was nine years old
and Chris was 11,
and Jon was six years old.
Jon was such a little imp.
He had this black curly hair,
had the sweetest smile,
and there was something
special about him,
something very special.
It's 45 years later
now, but I still feel
You know, I still feel it.
June of 1978, Jon suddenly,
his stomach was distended
and he was swelling up,
so it looked like he was getting allergies.
But the pediatrician took one look at him,
and, and she knew exactly
what was wrong with him,
that he had immune response disease
called minimal lesion nephrosis.
But they told me it was the best
disease a child could have,
because it's treatable,
and, and he'd be over it
by the time he's 14.
Most children with nephrosis
do very well.
Um, they may have, uh, a relapse
sometime
shortly after the initial episode,
but most of them go on to,
to lead perfectly healthy lives
with no further recurrences.
KENNY: Jon was in the
hospital for a whole month.
The nurses loved him because
he was not a difficult patient.
You know, he didn't complain.
Finally, with treatment,
he went into remission
and he was sent home again.
As soon as he would come home,
within a few days,
he was no longer in remission.
I would take him in the hospital,
and he'd go into remission.
Then I'd take him back home again.
Then the remission was gone,
and it was the same story.
So it was very strange.
Unfortunately, I didn't know, I mean,
he was playing in the backyard,
he was a little kid.
You know, his favorite pastime would be
to play games in the back of the house.
We just didn't know
what was in the backyard.
(news theme playing)
REPORTER: Hooker Chemical
landfills have been a cause
for concern for quite
some time in Niagara Falls.
For many, that concern
has turned to outright fear,
now that the deadly chemical dioxin
has been discovered at Love Canal.
REPORTER 2: Dioxin is
a by-product of a herbicide
used widely by the U.S. Army
to defoliate dense Vietnamese jungles.
BROWN: I knew, months before
it was considered an emergency,
that Hooker had manufactured
components of dioxin,
at least 200 tons of it.
That was as much dioxin
as had been spread in Vietnam
with all the Agent Orange.
That was the amount
that you could calculate
as being in the Love Canal.
PAIGEN: Well, dioxin
is a very toxic chemical,
most toxic chemical
that's ever been made by man.
LESTER: Dioxin is a
highly potent carcinogen.
And it causes its effects
at the parts per trillion level,
which is even hard to comprehend.
MAN: Now, 1/30th of
an ounce of this dioxin
will kill five million guinea pigs.
LAVERNE CAMPBELL:
We are naturally concerned
over finding dioxin,
but it does not come as a
surprise, nor does it cause us
to make any further
recommendations at this time.
The commissioner said
there is no evidence
to indicate that the trace
amounts of dioxin
found in the leachate
pose an immediate health hazard
to residents of the area.
MAN: How does it affect the
kidneys, the heart, the eyes,
or any vital organs? Do you know this?
CAMPBELL: I don't know
the answer. Who does know
in the Health Department
of New York State?
There are a number,
including Dr. Axelrod.
Now Could, could this
person be brought here
to answer these questions?
He was here the other night.
I've got a book on it, toxicology book.
It'll tell you ultimate is death.
CAMPBELL: That's the answer.
Get it out of there.
KENNY: By the middle of
September, Jon was so sick,
he just spent the whole time
laying on the couch.
When we took him to the hospital,
his stomach was so distended,
we had to put suspenders on him.
Soon he was in an oxygen tent,
couldn't breathe, and he looked scared.
He had those big, brown eyes
that were staring out at us through there.
And we tried to reassure him,
and tell him he'd be okay,
and that we were going
to be nearby, that
You know, 'cause they wouldn't
let us stay, you know?
(people talking in background)
My mother had packed some
eggplant Parmesan sandwiches.
We went to the cafeteria to eat,
and all of a sudden, we hear his doctor
being paged to the I.C.U.
(woman speaking on intercom)
Norman and I ran out of that room.
We threw the sandwiches
in the garbage.
And we went there, and,
and, um, I mean, we knew.
We just knew.
The first thing I blurted out
was, "I want an autopsy,"
because they told me
that it was the best disease
that a child could have.
You just can't believe it,
that he was gone, like that.
People said, "Well, yes, Mrs. Kenny,
probably your son's death
was due to the chemicals."
I kept saying, I said, "I don't think so."
I said, "I, I want
to see the evidence first."
Maybe it's the scientist in me.
My husband was also a scientist,
so we were trying
to be objective, I mean,
I'm not going to jump on a
bandwagon when I have no proof.
My husband and I went
to the medical libraries,
and we started researching.
I found all of these articles
that said that nephrosis
could be caused
by exposure to chemicals.
♪
It was one of the worst feelings
I've ever had,
because I did not want it to be that.
You just wonder, I mean,
how did you miss it,
you, you know?
But you did.
♪
Later on, they come out and they say
there's dioxin behind
where my house was.
There's 32 parts per billion in that creek.
I mean, Jon was back there all the time.
♪
You know, you blame yourself
"Why didn't we move?
Why did you do this?
Why didn't you do that?"
I mean, "You should
have been paying attention."
(dog barking in distance)
PATTI GRENZY:
When Luella lost her son,
once you get past
feeling so horrible for them,
then, somewhere in the back
of your mind,
that little voice is saying,
"That could be you.
That could be your kids."
(machinery running)
CURRY: They found
it in my backyard, too.
They found dioxin on the surface soil,
where my kids crawled
on their hands and knees
and chewed on the toys and all.
(slide shifts)
So it was getting scarier and scarier.
REPORTER: The residents
want the cleanup operations
at the Love Canal to stop,
they want families
to be evacuated
because of high amounts
of the toxic chemical dioxin
that has been found.
GRANT-FREENEY: We felt that
yes, the cleanup was dangerous,
and that the people doing it
really didn't know what they were doing.
It was more like an experiment.
(machinery running)
If you're disturbing chemicals,
then you're releasing them into the air.
We were already having problems
with them,
but to open them up,
we didn't know if people were
going to be dropping dead
or what, but (chuckles)
Sometime I sit back and I says,
"Did I live through that?"
CURRY: We had the trucks driving
through the neighborhood with dirty tires
after they had driven on the canal itself.
And, and then people would walk
down the road,
and they'd go in their homes,
and, and it was just a mess.
So we knew that digging
was making things worse
in the neighborhood.
We had to raise holy hell to stop that.
Picket signs are up tonight
in the Love Canal area
of Niagara Falls, New York,
as angry residents
try to stop excavation work.
REPORTER: It was not a warm welcome
for construction workers
at the Love Canal this morning.
They were greeted
by angry canal residents
walking a picket line at
each gate leading into the area.
GIBBS: We protested literally every day.
Mostly us at either end of the canal,
not letting the trucks come in.
REPORTER: In addition to yelling,
picketers also lectured every worker
on the hazards of dioxin,
a dangerous chemical
which was discovered
GIBBS: We never were
able to actually stop them,
but it was more to
educate our local leaders
and our local community,
but also the media, to say,
"Look at, this is what's happening."
REPORTER: Eight more arrests today
at the Love Canal area
of Niagara Falls, New York.
OFFICER: Take a seat in the car, please.
O'BRIEN: Initially,
politicians weren't afraid
of Lois Gibbs or any other mother.
But within a couple of months,
they were.
Especially Governor Hugh Carey.
He was up for reelection.
He was in a dogfight to win.
(talking softly)
O'BRIEN: Governor
Carey made multiple visits
to the Niagara Falls area.
He made sure he was
photographed with Lois Gibbs.
(camera shutter clicks)
GIBBS: I was a political threat to him.
I could unseat him.
(shutter clicks)
The same was true
with President Carter.
(shutter clicking)
I was their enemy.
I was their worst nightmare.
We decided that Governor Carey
was the one who could give us
what we wanted,
and so we just targeted him.
(people yelling indistinctly)
Every time he came to anywhere
in Western New York,
there was a troupe of people
who would go and greet him.
Well, my seven-year-old son
is already dead, Governor Carey.
Now, you're not attributing the
death to what happened Yes, I am.
All right. And I have
plenty of evidence for it.
Let me put it this way.
You're aware this state
has spent $23 million
to help the residents of Love Canal.
If there's any way that
I'm aware they've spent it
and they've avoided me
for seven months.
WOMAN: We don't want
you to just clean it up first.
We want to be moved out first
before you clean it up. All right.
WOMAN 2: You want to tell
these kids that get sick all the time?
We've moved all, we've
I think the children
might well be exposed, in danger
by being brought out here
and walking around in the rain this way.
(all talking at once)
KENNY (in interview):
And he's looking at us, saying,
"Well, if you're so concerned
about your children,
why don't you take them home?"
You know, "Don't stand here
out in the rain."
You know, after a while,
you can just take so much.
Within, within a Do I
have to lose another child?
Within a day, we'll know
whether the evaluation
Now, please, I'm not the one
who's causing the death
of children around here.
I'm the governor who
came WOMAN: Yes, you are,
because you have
the power to relocate us.
We relocated everyone
who was affected by the
We are being affected!
RICE: Those women
kept that story out there,
and they quickly learn,
especially for us, the television media,
we can't tell a story without pictures.
So they would come up with
all different ways to get our attention,
which would get the cameras there.
(camera shutter clicking)
REPORTER: Reacting to White
House refusal to buy their homes,
angry residents of
chemically polluted Love Canal
dragged out dummies in the street
and burned the Carter family in effigy.
(people cheering)
(chanting):
We want FEMA! We want FEMA!
PATTI GRENZY: My mother
used to say, "They're just using you,"
meaning the, the media.
I said, "Yeah, Ma, but we're using them."
We kept them busy with stories,
so they kind of, like,
scratched our back
and we scratched their back.
ERNIE GRENZY: On Saturdays,
I could go and I could protest,
and we brought our kids,
and we would be yelling,
"We want out, we want out."
And I remember being home one day,
and, and my girls were three and
two, or less,
and I hear from the bathroom,
they're in the tub,
they're yelling,
"We want out, we want out."
It was funny at first,
but then after it settled in,
you're wondering, you know,
really, how does it affect them?
'Cause we don't know.
REPORTER: The boarded-up houses
are the visible evidence of fear,
but the experts say
that the problems here
go far beyond what you can see.
Love Canal has been called
a mental health disaster.
WOMAN: My marriage
is broken up right now.
I, I have no other
CURRY: Just our block alone,
I, I was flabbergasted
to see how many people divorced.
(camera shutter clicking)
People were riled up and angry,
and there was no place to
take that anger to,
so then the wives and
the husbands were fighting.
(shutter clicking)
My husband couldn't understand
why I had to keep going.
I tried to explain to him that,
"These people helped you get out,
"and if it wasn't for those people,
we'd be still stuck in Love Canal."
I had two fights going on.
It was, was not a good time.
(archival): What do you
suppose you're going to do
about moving costs?
And I don't care where
they're from in this area.
These people can't afford to move out
and come up with this front money.
It's just not there.
I said I didn't have
any easy answers for you.
We've just come up today,
and we've begun to work
with the State of New York.
ERNIE GRENZY: The state
held most of their meetings
and their press releases
and all that stuff while I was at work, and
left the wives to fight.
And the state made
a big mistake by doing that,
because the women
fought more than any man could.
Hell hath no fury like a woman
guarding her children.
♪
RICE (archival): This was the
first time the Health Department
had given serious consideration
to research gathered by
the Homeowners Association.
AXELROD: When we
examined all of the data,
we found that there was indeed
an increase in risk for the fetus
of approximately twofold
in congenital malformations,
in spontaneous abortions
HAY: The Department of Health
analyzed the reported miscarriages,
and they realized that it is higher,
much higher than it should be.
There is some evidence later on
that the chemicals
might have actually been distributed
via the storm sewers.
But the miscarriage data
absolutely lends credence
to the idea that there are other ways
the chemicals have been
dispersed from the canal site.
Pregnant women living in the canal area
extending from 97th to 103rd Street
should be removed from the area.
NEWMAN: This is the first
time Griffon Manor residents
are included in an official
declaration by the state.
JONES: The fact that it was
being recognized was huge.
But my mother felt that it was
a, a bit too late.
There are just so many things
that you can't change
from the past, and I know she wished
that they had heard her from the
beginning.
AXELROD: We have
also brought to the governor
our recommendation that
children under two years of age
be removed from the canal
until such time as
they are older than two,
or until such time as
extensive environmental data
(crowd jeering)
GIBBS: They agreed to move
pregnant women and children under two
temporarily in the outer community.
Meaning when your child
reaches the age of two,
you must come back to that home,
or, if your pregnancy terminated early,
you had to move back to that home.
You can imagine having a miscarriage
and moving back to the home
that caused you
to have a miscarriage?
That was just insane.
You don't think I'm as concerned about
my three-year-old as I am
of this baby I'm carrying?
No, what (audience yelling)
MAN: I'm sorry, can he
answer the question, please?
We want out of here.
We're not going to play by
your rules anymore.
(screaming): We want
out, and we want out now!
And do something!
MCCOULF: She's overdue,
she's not important to you?
TOLLI: You would hear all the mothers,
worried and concerned
with their kids, uh, growing up.
(voice trembling)
So I heard that many times.
Dr. Axelrod a question.
(in interview): That night,
I didn't really have any plan
for a question, but then, uh,
it just came out.
I'm Michael Tolli, and I want to know
if I can go home and live with
my mother and father again.
MAN: Tell 'im! I had to go
to my grandmother's house.
I want to know if I'll be able
to grow up to be a normal man.
WOMAN: Good kid.
(crowd applauding)
CROWD (chanting):
We want out! We want out!
We want out! We want out!
O'BRIEN: I began to
think of David Axelrod
as living inside a, a political vise.
On the one hand,
he had Governor Hugh Carey,
who didn't want to spend
any more money in Niagara Falls
and didn't want to evacuate anyone else.
And on the other hand,
he had these 700 families
who were desperate
to escape their homes.
And David Axelrod was
stuck right in the middle,
trying to find a way out.
And there simply wasn't a clear path.
CASPER: It was very difficult
to not have a ready solution.
(slide shifting)
Even with hurricanes
and natural disasters,
it was temporary relocation.
Putting people in temporary homes
until the waters receded,
they cleaned up the muck and mire
from the homes from a flood,
and people stabilized their homes
or did whatever they did.
But it was not permanent relocation.
We had to really think outside the box.
REPORTER: There are 32,000
known chemical waste dumps
in the United States,
more than 800 now considered
dangerous to public health.
CASPER: We needed legislation
that said, "If you pollute,
"you are going to pay
"for the damage to the environment
that you have caused."
But E.P.A. people said to me
it would be helpful politically
if this were not just a
Western New York problem.
(explosions pound)
REPORTER: Shakopee,
Minnesota, outside Minneapolis.
A spectacular fire
burns 4,000 waste drums,
sending noxious clouds of smoke,
and some of the barrels, into the sky.
CASPER: Once people saw
that it was across the country,
then they were going to be
in the same situation.
REPORTER: Outside
Louisville, Kentucky, January
CASPER: And it would mean
that you could bring
more members of Congress
to bear on the problem
and get action.
REPORTER:
E.P.A. has prepared legislation
to establish a
half-billion-dollar Superfund
to help pay for emergency
cleanup and damages
resulting from spills
and abandoned waste.
LAFALCE: It had to be a big bill.
And that's how it came to be known
as the Superfund,
meaning there's a lot of money there.
And of course, we had a big
issue, as well.
How do you fund the Superfund?
And (laughs)
I, I assure you
that the companies who had to
put up a portion of the money
for the fund
did not come along willingly.
REPORTER: Hooker
Chemical tonight is saying,
"Don't blame us for
the chemical catastrophe."
We have alerted everybody
to the nature of those chemicals
in the past.
We had no control over that landfill site
for a 25-year period.
O'BRIEN: The sale of
the land for a dollar in 1953
came with a very important caveat.
Should there be any
future problems at the site
involving environmental hazards,
it would be the city's problem.
DAVIS: Hooker Chemical has denied
all along that it has any legal liability
associated with the Love Canal situation.
CASPER: That tells you right there,
they knew. (Chuckles)
They knew that there was a problem.
Now, the school board,
I can't get in their heads,
but I don't know
if they didn't want to know
or they just actually
were naïve enough to think
that Hooker was just giving it to them
because they were
good corporate citizens.
O'BRIEN: Ultimately, people
at the Board of Education
were not scientists.
City officials were not
scientists or chemical experts.
The only people who were
were at Hooker Chemical.
And they knew how that land
was going to be used,
and they sold it anyway.
REPORTER:
Today it emerged that in 1958,
children playing near the school
were burned by chemicals.
The company and
the school board knew,
but neither warned the neighborhood.
Jerome Wilkenfeld, who was then
a Hooker Chemical Company
safety official,
was questioned.
AL GORE: You had
evidence available to you
that children were using it
as a playground
and had been burned,
probably by the chemicals there,
and yet you were reluctant to tell them
that there was a, a hazard
and tell them what the chemicals were,
because you were afraid that you would
expose the school board to
some legal liability?
Yes.
REPORTER: Recently,
Hooker has been peppering
local newspapers
with full-page advertisements,
hoping to spruce up its public image
O'BRIEN: Hooker goes on a sort of
PR offensive,
and begins to take out advertisements
in all the local media,
reminding people of
the jobs they provided,
reminding people of all the money
they injected back into the city.
NEWMAN: When that doesn't work
and the complaints don't go away,
Hooker officials,
when they testify before Congress, say,
"Look, you all should know
"that we produce really toxic stuff.
"But we also produce miracles
in American life.
"Everything that American industry
"and consumer life is based on
"depends on chemicals,
"and sometimes we have to recognize
that chemicals are made from
hazardous material."
FILM NARRATOR: His electric light bulb
contains argon,
a gas that keeps it burning.
♪
His shower curtain is
decorative waterproof plastic.
His suit contains chemical fibers
that keep it looking better longer.
His car is made stronger
THOMSON: It's oftentimes argued
that we have to expect
some negative effects
from the conveniences of modern life.
FILM NARRATOR: Protected
with all-winter anti-freeze.
THOMSON: We all bear some burden
for the presence of toxic
substances in our environment.
FILM NARRATOR:
Better things for better living
through chemistry.
THOMSON: But I would argue
that only some people have choices
about what gets produced.
FILM NARRATOR: Progress has
been rapid during the 20th century.
Only some people have choices
about what gets regulated.
And for the most part,
the remainder of society,
and in particular its poorest members,
are oftentimes the guinea pigs
for these substances.
(reverse signal beeping)
NEWMAN: Summer of 1979
is a real tipping point
for the Love Canal crisis.
In the last year,
there have been two
state health declarations
and one federal emergency declaration.
But the majority of families
are still living in Love Canal,
and with remediation
and the summer dust
and the summer heat,
the smells are worse than ever.
(phones ringing)
GIBBS (archival):
We still have people very sick,
some of them hospitalized,
and contaminated homes
O'BRIEN: The residents reported
that it was hard to even go outside.
And Lois Gibbs used this as leverage.
She argued that people
couldn't live like this.
And ultimately, state officials agreed
to a short-term fix.
Governor Carey still remained opposed
to any more evacuations,
but anyone still trapped
inside their homes,
both homeowners
and the residents of Griffon Manor,
were given the opportunity
to stay in local hotels.
Maybe you need accommodations
for your family okay.
O'BRIEN: And suddenly,
across Niagara Falls,
people were living almost like
refugees in their own city.
Well, we still have our neighbors.
WOMAN: That's right.
MCCOULF: Basically that whole floor
was Love Canal people.
Well, that's your new house.
MCCOULF: We would get the kids
to go to bed, and then,
at 8:00, we would sit in the
hallway and talk.
That was like our living room.
O'BRIEN: This was
summer in Niagara Falls,
which was still a very
popular vacation destination.
Hotel managers didn't want
a bunch of Love Canal families
in their hotel rooms, in their hallways,
children everywhere.
They became known at this point
as the "Love Canal people."
One time, a waitress comes
to take our order, and she said,
"Are you Love Canal or are you normal?"
And I just looked at her and said,
"Well, I'm both."
♪
O'BRIEN: The state was spending
about $7,500 a day
to put up people in hotels
for more than two months.
At that rate,
they could've bought
a home in the neighborhood
about every three days.
GIBBS (archival): As a
result, at the end of the year,
I don't feel we're that much better off
than we were at the beginning.
We're still here, we still have people
O'BRIEN: The residents at that
point had been fighting for a year.
At the time, if you would've asked them
if they were winning,
the answer would've been no.
(slide shifting)
Many of them were still
trapped in their homes.
(slide shifting)
But effectively, they were winning,
because with every single passing day,
they were keeping this story in the news.
They were refusing to back down.
They were fighting again and again.
They kept showing up to meetings.
The Love Canal mothers
wouldn't go away.
LAFALCE: I wonder if we
could have your attention, please.
(conversations soften)
We could have your attention
and your quiet.
REPORTER:
For the more than 700 families
left behind here at Love Canal,
the nightmare took on
new dimensions last Friday,
when the Environmental
Protection Agency
released a preliminary health study
done on 36 residents.
O'BRIEN: The E.P.A. commissions
a new study to examine
about three dozen residents
of the neighborhood,
and they want to study these people
for chromosomal damage.
Where the testing was undertaken
as part of the process
to gather evidence for the E.P.A.
and Department of Justice lawsuit
against Hooker Chemical
(in interview):
E.P.A. was going to sue Hooker,
so the chromosome study
was trying to get evidence.
I was upset when I saw the results,
and then, then they said,
"Well, you have to go up there
and talk to them about this."
And I did,
but I knew it was very bad news,
and it was going to cause a panic.
Dr. Picciano concluded that
11 of the 36 individuals examined
exhibited significant
chromosomal aberrations,
which can be an early warning
of future health problems,
including cancer, birth defects,
spontaneous abortions,
and other reproductive problems.
However, I think we want to stress that
the results need further confirmation,
and it's, the data is now
under intensive review.
WOMAN: Had us out
of there two years ago.
The federal government
has finally, after two years,
come up to the high-level
thinking of housewives
that they have constantly put down.
We know what's going on.
We did research, too.
And we want out of there.
We want our kids out.
Today.
♪
REPORTER: The study adds
to fears that toxic chemicals,
which surfaced at Love Canal
three years ago,
may be connected to a
high number of miscarriages,
birth defects, and cancer.
Barbara Quimby is one of those affected.
The people are just at their wits' end.
They just can't handle
any more mentally,
not when it comes down to your children.
That, that's the worst.
I think we can just about
take anything ourselves,
but when it's affecting your children,
it's very hard to cope with.
REPORTER:
Eight-year-old Brandy Quimby
has several birth defects,
and she's mentally retarded,
so her parents were not at all surprised
to hear that each of them might
well have chromosome damage.
QUIMBY (in interview):
In a way, it was an answer,
'cause my husband and I
didn't know what was wrong.
But it was hard,
'cause again, it's, like,
"Damn you, Hooker, did this to my child."
♪
I was only just 26.
Hooker decided I'm not having
any more children.
They made the decision for me.
Well, we have got abnormalities
in our chromosomes, and
NEWMAN: The chromosome study
is very controversial.
Soon after it was released,
the study was flagged
and defined as flawed.
REPORTER: Thursday, State
Health Commissioner David Axelrod
said the E.P.A.'s action in
releasing it was irresponsible.
LESTER: It was just a pilot study
to see if in fact there was evidence.
So, that was criticized
for not being a full-fledged study.
But, in research,
the first thing to do is a pilot study.
You don't devote the resources
to do a full-fledged study
without knowing what you have.
REPORTER: Officials keep stressing
that the study was designed
for evidence,
not scientific results.
BARBARA DAVIS BLUM:
There was no control group.
They took people
who already had problems
as part of the study.
Like, my husband has two,
they have a count of two,
and mine's five.
So they said his is normal and mine isn't.
BLUM: So, it was
certainly a flawed study,
but there was no comforting anyone.
It was the hardest thing that I did
the entire time that I was E.P.A.
God, I really felt for those people.
REPORTER: Before this, were
you planning to have more children?
We were talking about it.
REPORTER 2: And now? And now
I'd be afraid to bring
another child into the world.
GIBBS: People lost it
around the chromosome study.
That was a straw that broke the
camel's back.
ALL (chanting):
We want out! We want out!
We want out! We want out!
GIBBS: Suddenly,
there were hundreds of people
at the office outside.
And they are angry.
I mean, to-the-bone angry.
(yelling indistinctly)
O'BRIEN: Politicians and
health officials have to scramble
to handle this,
and they send multiple people
to Niagara Falls,
including two E.P.A. officials.
Yeah, I realize that, uh, but I don't
RICE: So the E.P.A.
officials came there that day,
and they were going to
speak to the residents
who were gathering outside.
But the crowd started
getting a little bit bigger,
and it got a little bit hectic out there.
Pass the word around, nobody
We're not going to do anything violent.
We're just going
to keep 'em in the house,
nothing more than that
body-barricade the doors.
Okay?
And don't let 'em out.
GIBBS: That enough? No one else.
WOMAN: No one's
coming out. Come on, guys!
Sit!
MAN: Come on, get over here, all of you.
WOMAN: Guard the windows,
all the way around the house.
MAN: Over here, come on, get
over WOMAN: Around the house!
GIBBS: If I was to let
the two E.P.A. representatives
come out this door,
does anybody know
what would happen to 'em?
(others shouting)
WARREN: I talked to Lois
Gibbs a number of times.
She was saying, "Listen,
there's an angry mob here.
We think we should
keep 'em here and protect 'em."
And I said, "Okay, but let's
"Let's not make it where it looks like
"a hostage situation.
"If you're trying to
threaten us in some way,
I don't think that's productive."
And we are holding 'em hostage
until the White House responds
to the Love Canal situation
in relocating these residents
who are suffering.
Well, John, if I was
to send these two individuals
out on that front porch,
the, those residents
would rip them apart,
literally, physically.
REPORTER: Homeowners
Association president Lois Gibbs
spoke with Congressman
John LaFalce in Washington
to try to get some answers.
LaFalce is set to meet with
President Carter at this hour
at a dinner meeting at the White House.
We should have more information
tonight after that.
We have gotten
more attention in half a day
than we have in the two years, period,
that we've been fighting
to stop the suffering
of Love Canal residents.
And it's really, really sad
when you have to go to this extreme
to get any kind of attention
from the White House,
and that's not
I stood by the back door,
'cause I was the big guy,
and there were police everywhere.
(camera shutter clicking,
police radio running)
The crowd was building,
and they were getting
more and more angry,
and the police were standing
with their billy clubs,
and their hands on their guns,
and it was a really scary situation.
(crowd clamoring)
GIBBS: The FBI said,
"Okay, Lois, here's the deal."
They knew it was
gonna blow up any minute.
And they said,
"We're going to come in
and get them in five minutes."
We have just talked to the White House.
(in interview):
So I went out on the front steps
and said, "Look, guys,
we made our point."
GIBBS: I have told the
White House and this is upon
your approval
that we will allow
the two E.P.A. representatives
to leave.
But if we do not have
a disaster declaration
Wednesday by noon,
then what they have seen here today
is just a "Sesame Street" picnic
in comparison to what we will do.
(crowd cheering and applauding)
Love Canal residents
are tired of being sensible,
reasonable in dealing with these turkeys,
'cause they're not listening to us.
We'll let these two representatives go,
but if we don't get
something on Wednesday,
White House better watch the hell out.
(crowd cheering and applauding)
(in interview): So Wednesday at noon
was our deadline.
We didn't know what was going
to happen Wednesday at noon.
We had no plan.
RICE (archival): Within
seconds, law enforcement officials
determinedly pushed their way inside.
A few minutes later,
the two hostages
were let out the side door.
(crowd clamoring,
camera shutters clicking)
O'BRIEN: Lois had created
this sort of false deadline.
She just made it up.
And the White House didn't need to
respond to that, necessarily.
But in internal memos back and forth
between Jimmy Carter
and his chief of staff,
there is a sense that these people
have suffered long enough.
♪
GIBBS: And so Wednesday,
precisely at noon,
I got a chair outside of
the Love Canal office,
'cause I knew everybody would be there,
and took the rotary dial phone
and called the White House,
because they had a press release.
(archival): Going to read it to me.
If you can keep it real quiet,
I'll be able to repeat it
so you can hear it.
(people talking in background)
An emergency to permit
the federal government
and the State of New York to undertake
REPORTER: Good evening.
President Carter today
declared an emergency exists
in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls,
and the Environmental
Protection Agency
promptly announced that 700 families
still living there will be moved out.
REPORTER:
In making the announcement,
the E.P.A.'s Barbara Blum said it comes
partly in response to growing pressure
from those who live near Love Canal.
It was time to move those people out.
The emotional climate up there
was quite understandably high.
(people cheering)
CURRY: Champagne, guys!
(woman speaking softly, crowd cheering)
(cheering continues)
Here's to the homeowners
and all their hard work.
(crowd clapping and cheering)
(exclaiming)
(camera shutter clicking)
GIBBS: Essentially,
everyone who wanted
to leave could leave,
and that was really a huge, huge step.
You didn't have to prove you were sick,
you didn't have to have a little baby,
you didn't have to be pregnant.
You know, you didn't have to
have chromosome damage.
You could just leave.
REPORTER: One more question
how do you feel after all this?
Very, very happy.
Very happy.
And all those people who've been
trying to get out so long
can finally get out, and
it just really makes me happy.
(crowd cheering and clapping)
♪
CURRY: People had no idea
what us women went through
and the work that we did,
and the blood, sweat, and tears.
♪
But one time, I was called a hero.
(voice trembling): I'll never forget that.
Called me a hero, and I never felt that.
(breathes deeply)
But
I did what I had to do.
(birds cawing)
JIMMY CARTER: There must never be
in our country
another Love Canal.
There's really no way
to make adequate restitution,
but this agreement will at least
give the families of the area
the financial freedom
to pack up and leave
if they choose to do so.
NEWMAN: We don't know
what the impacts would have been
if people were forced to
stay another year,
another five years, another ten years.
MAN: President Carter
asked her to come to the stage.
Lois Gibbs, who, who is responsible
(audience applauding)
NEWMAN:
If at any moment those women,
anyone in that activist community
the homeowners, the renters,
anyone who lived
in Love Canal stopped,
it would've been a very different
and less successful movement.
Love Canal changed
the way that Americans
thought about environmentalism
fundamentally and forever.
It wasn't simply
about pristine landscapes,
about oceans, about forests,
it was about our day-to-day
living environment.
CASPER: It really opened up
people's eyes as to what was going on
the direct impact on people.
And what were we going
to do as a society
to help these people
and then prevent this from happening?
REPORTER: The Superfund
bill was signed into law
by President Carter today.
REPORTER: It is one of
the last legislative victories
for the Carter administration.
O'BRIEN: In December 1980,
Congress worked together
to pass what is definitively
one of the most sweeping
legislative packages
that they had ever passed.
REPORTER: That
measure allots $1.6 billion
for cleaning up toxic waste
spills and dumps
NEWMAN: Hundreds and
hundreds of sites have been identified,
cleaned up,
taken out of circulation
as environmental hazards.
And the value of that is immeasurable.
REPORTER: But even with
an additional $5 million tossed in
from the State of New York,
Love Canal residents are finding out
they are not better off.
NEWMAN: One of the debates
was always how much money
would be allocated
to homeowners and renters.
And at the end,
renters were still marginalized,
and if anything, the last to leave.
Later on, they did pay for
people to be moved.
But the problem was finding
somewhere to move to.
PHIL DONAHUE:
And you, you rent your home?
You're out now, aren't
you? No, I'm not out.
Why don't you get out?
Where am I going to go, Phil?
When you say renters,
what do you mean?
We live right across the fence
from the homeowners.
We live about 250 feet from them.
JONES: By the time we moved out,
I think my mother
had pretty much given up.
♪
My mom moved us back to,
to the old neighborhood.
We went about a mile
down the road from Hooker,
right back to where we grew up.
Right back to the chemicals.
♪
OLIVER KOPPELL:
We found that Hooker Chemical
was clearly and specifically negligent.
There are a number of
proceedings which remain
to determine exactly how much
Hooker will pay
to the state and others injured
by the negligent handling of wastes
and the transfer of property
to school authorities
CURRY: I got some money.
It helped us buy a new home.
My children,
they each got a sum of money.
But that sure don't pay for
the pain and suffering
I've had through the years.
(crying): Yeah, sometimes it still hurts.
I lost a marriage over it.
I mean, you could give me
all the money in the whole world.
It's not going to bring Jon back to me.
That's all I would care about.
GRANT-FREENEY: Who can
compensate you for your child dying?
Your mother dying?
Your dad dying, your sister, your brother?
Mm-mm.
(sniffs, exhales)
I don't think we got full justice, no.
I'd want them to
stand right there and say,
"We're guilty."
That's what I would've
liked to have seen.
Hooker still will not admit they're wrong.
The City of Niagara Falls
will still not admit it's wrong.
That's not justice.
To have justice, the truth should be told.
We begin today what we might call the
next and best chapter
of this very sad story,
the Saga of Love Canal.
The people will see, inside the fence,
where the homes have
now been boarded up,
those homes will be removed,
the area will be landscaped,
contoured to be attractive,
to be safe, to be secure.
REPORTER: Do you think someone
would actually want to come back to,
a new family would want to
come into that area?
That's the question, yes,
and I do believe that we can
make the area attractive again.
I'm sure the mayor doesn't
want to regard this
as an area that's going to
stay blighted and,
and stand as a monument to decay.
No, it can't be that.
♪
NEWMAN: If you go to
the Love Canal site today,
you will not see the words
Love Canal anywhere.
There's no signage anywhere that says
"the world's most famous
environmental disaster
occurred here."
But what you will see
is a huge chain link fence.
You will see a huge area of land
inside the fenced-in zone
that is off limits.
You might not know there
are nearly 22,000 tons
of hazardous waste
still underneath the ground.
♪
KENNY: I, I was just
Just, just mortified.
One day, I see a pregnant woman
with her toddler,
two of the most vulnerable
people in the world,
right next to 20,000 tons of chemicals.
Why would the city build a playground
right next to a toxic waste dump?
QUIMBY: And I just think,
didn't we get the word out enough?
What didn't we do that we could have,
you know, prevented that?
♪
♪
♪
♪