context
Hooker Chemical's waste dumping met the permissive environmental and legal standards of the day. Moreover, Hooker was producing chemicals important for the war effort. However, when dumping ceased in 1952, the Company had a legal responsibility to fully disclose, and ameliorate, potential hazards. At the time, Hooker management and technical staff disagreed about how to manage the known hazards, and also about the company's responsibility for minimizing future damage.
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"[T]here was a general knowledge that these organic chemical residues that we were disposing of was a mixture of all kinds of things, who knows what, and it was in the ground all mixed together and we just had a general feeling that, by golly, it better stay there and we better keep control of it to be sure it stayed there. That was just a general feeling we all had." |
"The more we thought about it, the more interested . . . [we] became in the proposition and finally came to the conclusion that the Love canal property is rapidly becoming a liability . . . [we] became convinced that it would be a wise move to turn the property over to the schools provided we would not be held responsible for future claims or damages resulting from underground storage of chemicals." |
Personal interview with Professor Alex Klass, Environmental Law Professor at the University of Minnesota, May 11, 2014
hooker dumps love canal
Hooker perceived that the use of Love Canal as a dump might be a potential liability for the company, especially given the demand for residential growth. When they sold Love Canal to the Board of Education for $1, the deed of sale explicitly shielded Hooker from any associated legal liability.
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the school board
The School Board had a responsibility to understand the legal implications of the deed of sale and the possible hazards of ownership. As a government entity, they also held responsibility for the health and safety of the community and the protection of their individual rights.
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"We had no idea what was in there." |
homeowners
"I was . . . a regular housewife buying the American Dream. In 1978, I moved into this lovely home . . . five miles upstream of Niagara Falls, it had two elementary schools, it had churches, it had a convenience store. It was a perfect neighborhood." |
Individual homeowners who were experiencing negative effects did not complain because of concern for property values. Most of the residents worked in the chemical industry, and were reluctant to jeopardize their jobs.
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