A PREVENTABLE
DISASTER
The Hooker Chemical Company
told city officials about the buried
chemicals. But officials didn’t pass
along warnings to people who
bought homes in the Love Canal
neighborhood. The state of New York
eventually purchased the homes of
nearly 1,000 families in the area. It
also paid to relocate people.
Chemical
Company had
dumped chemical
waste in Love Canal
decades earlier. The site was later
covered with clay. It was then sold
to the city. A school was built on
the site.
Over time, chemicals ate through
the clay. They seeped up out of the
ground. Children spent their recess
on a playground with black, mucky,
toxic goop. These poisonous
chemicals made Love Canal
residents sick.
56
Percent of children in
Love Canal born with birth
defects from 1974 to
1978.
• Children in Love Canal
began getting sick in the
1970s.
• Toxic chemicals had been
buried in the area.
• Exposure to the chemicals
caused birth defects and
diseases.
Children
protest at a
neighborhood
rally in 1978.
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