Love Canal Activist to Interact with Students and the Public
By Carrie Click
You can count them off on a few fingers – a select group of young American women in the second half of the 20th century who dared to stand up, demand answers and enact change regarding grave environmental hazards plaguing their families, neighborhoods and communities.
There was Karen Silkwood, made famous for her activism regarding the health and safety of nuclear facility workers, and there is Erin Brockovich, who led a successful legal battle against contaminated drinking water.
And there is Lois Gibbs who, in 1978, as a 27-year-old mother and housewife, refused to back down after discovering that her neighborhood was sitting on, next to and near 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals, resulting in serious health issues amongst her family and neighbors. After a two-year struggle, she successfully urged President Jimmy Carter to relocate herself, her children and more than 800 families from Love Canal, the name of their toxic neighborhood in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
The Sustainability Speaker Series at Colorado Mountain College’s campus in Edwards is hosting Lois Gibbs Nov. 5-6. While she is in Colorado, Gibbs will be involved in classes with sustainability studies students from throughout the college, and in workshops on environmental and community justice. A free public presentation featuring Gibbs will be held Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the auditorium at the campus in Edwards, followed by a reception.
Not a Canal at All
The name “Love Canal” sparks immediate recognition with those who were alive and aware of environmental issues during the late ’70s. Love Canal was built in the late 1890s to connect the upper and lower Niagara River, but the waterway was never finished. Instead, the land and half-built canal changed hands several times. It was filled in – used as a garbage dump and hazardous chemical disposal site through many years. It was eventually sold to the board of education in Niagara Falls. An elementary school was built on the canal property, followed by about 800 houses.
Residents didn’t know about their neighborhood’s toxic past when they bought houses in Love Canal and sent their children to school on top of a pile of dangerous chemicals. But after reading a series of articles by Mike Brown in the Niagara Gazette newspaper about hazardous waste problems in the Love Canal dumpsite located in her neighborhood, Gibbs started finding out.
From Innocent Housewife to Activist
Of particular concern to Gibbs was her son’s elementary school location, particularly since he was suffering a range of serious health issues. She started a petition around the neighborhood and learned of more health problems among her neighbors and of the widespread fear among residents that once Love Canal was identified as a polluted neighborhood, their home values would plummet.
After local, state and federal officials failed to convince her that her neighborhood was a healthy place to live and raise families, Gibbs began her struggle for relocation – and not only for herself and her family but for the entire Love Canal neighborhood. Those opposing her, including the former owner of the canal site, the Hooker Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, refused to accept that the chemicals found in Love Canal, including dioxin, were the cause of Love Canal residents’ birth defects, miscarriages, cancers and other health issues.
Mother of Superfund
Gibbs was successful in relocating and finding permanent, healthy homes for more than 800 families, and creating the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act – known as Superfund.
Today, Love Canal is three-fourths uninhabitable, according to the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. The 200 homes declared “habitable” and resold are now being investigated. New families are experiencing illnesses similar to the first Love Canal families. It’s known as the birthplace of Superfund and because of Gibbs’s grassroots activism and leadership abilities, she is known as the Mother of Superfund.
After Love Canal, Gibbs left upstate New York and headed for Washington, D.C., where she started the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. Her organization has assisted more than 11,000 grassroots groups in effectively demanding accountability from polluters and from the U.S. government when situations such as Love Canal arise.
The CMC-Edwards Sustainability Speaker Series will present “An Evening with Lois Gibbs” on Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m., at the college’s campus at 150 Miller Ranch Road in Edwards. The free talk will be followed by a reception.
Colorado Mountain College’s campus in Edwards is located at 150 Miller Ranch Road. For more information, contact Mercedes Quesada-Embid, Ph.D., associate professor of sustainability studies, at 569-2900, ext. 2946, or visit coloradomtn.edu/Edwards/ or the Facebook page of Colorado Mountain College in Edwards.