Epa Declares Love Canal Clean

Its discovery 25 years ago led to the creation of the EPA Superfund Program for the cleanup of toxic waste sites. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency says cleanup work is finished at the infamous Love Canal dumpsite in Niagara Falls, New York. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell has more:

Transcript

Its discovery 25 years ago led to the creation of the EPA Superfund Program for the cleanup of
toxic waste sites. Now the Environmental Protection Agency says cleanup work is finished at the
infamous Love Canal dumpsite in Niagara Falls, New York. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bud Lowell has more:


The Love Canal neighborhood became a national symbol for the problems of toxic waste in 1978.
Nine hundred families were evacuated. An elementary school and two streets of homes were
bulldozed. The remaining landfill was sealed off.


Today, EPA says the 70-acre site can come off the Superfund List but Mike Schade with a
Buffalo-based group called the Citizens Environmental Coalition isn’t so sure. He says about 22-
thousand tons of World War II era chemical byproducts remain buried at the Love Canal site.


“Now, while the EPA and Occidental are monitoring the landfill, time will prove that landfill will
eventually leak. It’s really, inevitable.”


Schade believes the EPA announcement seeks to defuse criticism of a recent U.S. Senate vote.
That vote blocked reauthorizing a law taxing oil and chemical companies to support the
Superfund program.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bud Lowell.

Related Links