Love Canal - Early History

Early History

The Love Canal came from the last name of William T. Love, who in the early 1890s envisioned a canal connecting the Niagara River to Lake Ontario. He believed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much needed hydro electricity; however, the power scheme was never completed due to limitations of direct current (DC) power transmission, and Tesla's introduction of alternating current (AC). Furthermore, the Panic of 1893 caused investors to drop sponsorship of the project. Also, Congress passed a law barring the removal of water from the Niagara River, to preserve Niagara Falls. After 1892, Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara Falls, reaching Lake Ontario. He envisioned a perfect urban area called "Model City" and prepared a plan with a community of parks and homes along Lake Ontario. His plan was never realized. He began digging the canal and built a few streets and homes when his funds were depleted. Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal, about 50 feet (15 m) wide and 10 to 40 feet (3 m to 12 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River, was dug.

There is little information about those who actually worked for Love. Canal building was exhausting, dirty and often dangerous. Immigrants usually performed this arduous work, along with removing all trees and vegetation.

With the project abandoned, the canal gradually filled with water. The local children swam there in the summer and skated in the winter. In the 1920s, the canal became a dump site for the City of Niagara Falls, with the city regularly unloading its municipal refuse into the pit. In the 1940s, the U.S. Army began using the site to dump wastes from the war effort during World War II, including some nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project, the rest of which was dumped in nearby Lewiston, New York at the Niagara Falls Storage Site.

By the 1940s, Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company), founded by Elon Hooker, began searching for a place to dump the large quantity of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump wastes in the canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing 55-US-gallon (210 L) metal or fibre barrels. In 1947, Hooker bought the canal and the 70-foot-wide (21 m) banks on either side of the canal. The City of Niagara Falls and the army continued the dumping of refuse.

In 1948, after World War II had ended and the City of Niagara Falls had ended self-sufficient disposal of refuse, Hooker became the sole user and owner of the site.

This dumpsite was in operation until 1953. During this time, 21,000 tons of chemicals such as "caustics, alkalines, fatty acids and chlorinated hydrocarbons from the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, solvents for rubber and synthetic resins" were added. These chemicals were buried at a depth of twenty to twenty-five feet. After 1953, the canal was covered with soil, and vegetation began to grow atop the dumpsite.