rights
“NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.—Twenty five years after the Hooker Chemical Company stopped using the Love Canal here as an industrial dump, 82 different compounds, 11 of them suspected carcinogens, have been percolating upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching their contents into the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school built on the banks of the canal.”
-August 1, 1978 issue of the New York Times
The Love Canal Homeowners' Association
The movement culture of the 1960s and 1970s made Americans aware that organized collective pressure by injured or disadvantaged persons could lead to political change. In addition, social movements identified personal experiences with broader economic, social, and political injustices. Both of these dynamics were illustrated by the LCHA.
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Lois Gibbs, a housewife in Love Canal, tells how she tried to deal with her family's health issues. She talked to her neighbors and discovered that she was not alone. The astonishing rate of birth defects and health problems spurred formation of the Love Canal Parents Movement (soon the Love Canal Homeowners' Association) in June 1978.
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Lois Gibbs’ concern over her child’s health led directly to collective action through the LCHA, in an example of the personal becoming political. The LCHA was intended to give the community a voice in the decisions made about them and their neighborhood -- specifically, exposure to toxic chemical wastes. The LCHA conducted studies and surveys that revealed startling data about birth defects in the area. The LCHA consisted of about 500 working class families who lived in a 10 block area surrounding the Canal. They united to deal with the environmental disaster through advocating for their rights.
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"The citizens of Love Canal provided an example of how a blue-collar community with few resources can win against great odds (a multi-billion-dollar international corporation and an unresponsive government), using the power of the people in our democratic system."
-Lois Gibbs
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evacuations
On August 7, 1978, Governor Hugh Carey announced that they would buy the 239 homes nearest the Canal at market rates. Later that day, President Jimmy Carter approved emergency financial aid. These were the first Federal disaster funds allocated to something other than a natural disaster.
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