Merely three ounces of the chemical dioxin can kill in excess of one million people and
has been deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the “most potent animal
carcinogen.” (The love canal Disaster 1).
In the 22,000 tons of chemicals detected as leaking in
the Love Canal neighborhood in New York, the 130 pounds of dioxin was just one chemical
among 248 found. Love Canal was an abandoned canal that Hooker chemical company used to
legally dump their toxins. (Love Canal, An American Tragedy 1).The toxins were discovered as
hazarous in 1978 (Affleck 1) and people were evacuated as medical tests showed mutations
resulting from the disaster. (Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News #182 1).
Although this site happens
to be America’s most famous toxic waste disaster, it is just one of many. If you look beyond the
chemical companies legal dumping that has been highly overplayed as “as fault”
and trace back to how this disaster originally began it is quite clear who is responsible. The
The Review on The Disaster at New Orleans
The city of New Orleans is one of the most culturally diverse urban centers in North America. It was founded in southeastern Louisiana on the banks of the Mississippi River some 180 km away from the Gulf of Mexico. It was built in 1718 on the east bank of the river and south of Lake Pontchartrain. The city was named for Philippe II, Duc d’Orleans, the regent of France during the era of Louis XV. ...
government is truly at fault for allowing the legalization of dumping toxins and not regularly
monitoring the sites and their potential problems.
The entire disaster basically comes down to one issue, the government allowing
legalization of dumping toxic wastes. Allowing chemical companies to dispose of toxins may be
convenient and cheap for the government, but as Love Canal has proved, it has cost America life
and land. Truly that amounts to a sum much larger than the government is willing to give. The
government had never looked into the effects of the chemicals that were being disposed of and
simply continued to let companies discard their wastes although they were hazardous. The
governments legalization shows how little they cared about what could potentially happen with
toxic wastes. Had the government closely monitored this site as required in the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act then possibly this disaster could have been prevented. The
leakage was detected in 1978 by state officials in the basements of homes. (Love Canal, Is it the exception or the rule? 1).
If the government would have monitored the love canal toxins for the
past 30 years, surely the toxins would have been discovered prior to the 1978 sighting and
possibly the destruction of land and lives could have been prevented. If the government was
going to take on the responsibility of allowing toxic wastes to be dumped, then they should have
been aware of what could happen and been monitoring Love Canal all along. At some point
responsibility needed to be taken, not by the chemical company but by the government who
allowed this type of disposal to go on.
The Love Canal area was evacuated by the government in 1980 when it was proven
scientifically that genetic mutations like respiratory and kidney problems, cancer, birth defects,
liver disease and the many other medical problems that developed as a result of the Love Canal
disaster. (CNN).
When toxic chemicals were first found at Love Canal the government did very
little to help for quite sometime. People desperately wanted to relocate with government help and
The Term Paper on Chemical Fertilizer vs. Organic Fertilizers
Agriculture is the most primitive occupation of the people which mainly needs land to grow different crops for food and as raw materials for different industries. Industrial use of agriculture for supplying raw materials came much later. Originally land was used for agriculture to supply food for human beings by the use of organic manures particularly animal dung. At the beginning land was used in ...
only a few were able to do so. After evacuation the government declared homes “100% safe”
and refused to study the health of the remaining residents. (Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News #182
2).
Residents who knew that something was wrong went out on their own to have their health
assessed because the government refused to help them.
The government is now renaming Love Canal as “Sunrise City” and selling homes on the
“now-safe” contaminated land for 10%to 15% below market value. (Rachel’s Hazardous Waste
News #182 2) They say that the land is safe even though the chemicals will not decompose for
approximately 20,000 years. New York state environmental officials covered chemicals with a
temporary clay cap to keep rain out and installed drain pumps to divert the flow of chemicals.
President Bush and the EPA said that these all were temporary measures which will eventually
fail. (Affleck 2).
They are running chemicals in the same direction Love Canal did, into the
basements of homes being sold as “safe.” The EPA hired a scientist to compare the Love Canal
land with two other New York neighborhoods. (CNN).
Conveniently, the two neighborhoods
were contamined also so the tests showed up no different than the other neighborhoods.
Apparently profiting off selling land is more important than concentrating on solving this toxic
waste problem. It comes down to convenience. If the government lets others dump chemicals
and then they just sell the “habitable” land to poor families and prosper from the sale, why not? It
is necessary that America is aware of how the government has treated the ill and taken advantage
of civilians by reselling contaminated land. The government is truly at fault for allowing the
legalization of dumping toxins and not regularly monitioring the sites and their potential problems.
In 1980 the Superfund was established by the EPA as a national toxic waste cleanup fund.
The fund has spent over 10 billion dollars claiming they would cleanup 1,000 chemical dumps and
The Essay on Agriculture and Government-owned Lands
Using the assigned readings for Week Four, write a 50- to 75-word response to each of the following questions. Your responses will be assessed according to the accuracy of the content. Minerals 1. How do minerals affect society? 2. What is the difference between metallic and nonmetallic minerals? Provide two examples from each category and discuss their uses. Mining 1. How are minerals extracted ...
since then only about 50 sites have been cleaned up. (The Love Canal Disaster 5).
The
government still allows industries to dump while a fund just sits there waiting to spend money to
clean up the mess. There is no need to continue a fund that will be doing nothing to solve the
problem except eternally cleaning up sites. The only solution to ending the toxic waste disaster is
to make it illegal to dump and put energy and money into developing ways to safely dispose
chemicals. Who knows how long it will take the government to realize that this is a huge
problem. Possibly it will take another Love Canal incident to uproot for this ongoing fight for
protection from toxins to be addressed.
Although the government allows the dumping of toxic wastes, ethically Hooker Chemical
Company should have looked deeper into dumping the hazardous wastes. Just because it is
allowed doesn’t necessarily mean that it is right. Obviously the toxins disposed into Love Canal
were harmful. However, the government is basically forcing the companies to dump in such
ways. Because the government hasn’t come up with any ingenious ways to safely
dispose wastes the chemical companies can’t do so. Hooker Chemical Company was only doing
their job. They acted legally when dumping toxins and did the best they could in properly
disposing the chemicals.
Hooker Chemical Company sold the land to the government knowing it was
contaminated. A school needed to be built so the school board district approached Hooker
Chemical Company who did not want the virtual wasteland. (Corley 2).
Hooker though did not
want to risk the public so they went as far as to dig into the ground and show the tests the
government executives that chemicals were there. Impermeable cement and a ceramic cap was
placed on top to prevent leakage. These precautions Hooker Chemical Company took in selling
the land was definatly more than sufficient. (The Love Canal Disaster 3).
Despite Hooker’s
warnings, the government bought the land. Hooker sold the contaminated land for $1.00 and in
returned was loosened of all liability. (Love Canal, An American Tragedy 1).
The Essay on Love Canal Hooker Beauchamp School
... the local government has threatened eminent domain Hooker never denied dumping chemical waste at the Love Canal (Beauchamp p. 110) nor did the company try to ... itself and the public, the company did have a duty to clean up the chemicals at Love Canal. But, Hooker does not have a duty ...
It is obvious that
Hooker Chemical Company was acting legal taking precautions and looking out for America and
not trying to prosper financially.
The Love Canal disaster will remain tragic forever as lives were destroyed and land was
ruined. It is easy to push events like this one aside when you are not the one suffering at hand.
Had one been one of those affected by Love Canal and developed a disease such as cancer you
most definatly would be enraged with the government for allowing people to discard toxins that in
turn hurt you. The definition of government is the public policy and affairs of a nation guided,
ruled, and controlled by the authoritative administration. (Webster Dictionary 198).
If the
government cannot guide us safely through life and control possible hazards to our health than
who truly can? The Love Canal disaster is just one small scale on the spectrum of future toxic
disasters our government is walking us into.
