"On This Day" In Engineering History

I am the type of person who is generally pretty critical of how much our government should do to "protect" us. Saying that, it's completely baffling that the situation at the Love Canal was allowed to happen. Even more so that the problem was just cast aside for so long! This is the type of situation where the government actually should step in, but didn't.

I'm especially disappointed that government officials, who are supposed to "serve & protect" citizens, didn't act immediately even after hearing stuff like this:

Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces.

*Shakes head* People shouldn't have to fight so hard just to live their lives.

Very interesting and informative articles - thanks, Moose!

I had a read of the articals and realized that I had been to the Falls in 76 as a kid! It makes no sence at all that the Government knew about it, the school board knew all about it, and even the chemical company made them sign a disclaimer stating that it was a toxic dump, but they kept on building and exposing the kids to those toxins! It makes me wonder what was going on in the heads of these people!

Yes, thanks for that Moose! An eye opener

Why is it not painfully obvious:

The "Big Brother Gov? holds the average TAX Payer in very low esteem. I mean this pattern is repeated through out each and every facit of our lives.

Take a hint guys, if you are not on the top of the pile here, you have no value:

Geese, how many buildings do you have to be hit with?????

Truman Brain wrote "It makes me wonder what was going on in the heads of these people!"

Not very much judging from the way things developed.

I've been on both sides of the education debate having worked as a teacher and as a private contractor for the state board of Ed.

In my experience, many of the school boards are populated by ignorant people. Many, especially in the poorer neighborhoods, don't even have a high school diploma. Yet they make decisions that have enormous consequences for students and teachers.

When these people get elected they choose administrators and make policy decisions that the administrators and teachers must carry out.

Given some of my experience, I am hardly going to defend teachers or boards of education either. Some are conscientious, dedicated and work hard. Many are not.

Politics and self interest dominate too many school boards. Add the element of ignorance mentioned earlier and it becomes clear why so many students in third world nations are outperforming our students academically.

There is much, much more to this than poisoned soil and water and lots of blame to go around.

Don't expect anyone to assume even part of the responsibility. They have the manufacturer, and it's they who have the deepest pockets. The rest is a faite accompli.

L.J.

And then there was the Cuyahoga River...that's the one that kept catching fire.

Ah, Cleveland... my home town.

It actually caught on fire 10 times, well... that were recorded anyway.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1642

And the one that actually gained national attention was one of the smaller ones. There is a lot of exaggeration when it comes to the river in Cleveland and I'm really glad that some had made an attempt to clarify:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-06/cwru-msc061704.php http://www.jcu.edu/chemistry/naosmm/2007/Cuyahoga%20Revisited.htm

Some photos as well:

http://www.clevelandmemory.org/SpecColl/croe/accfire.html

In closing the Love Canal and Burning River incidents are just a snap shot of an era. All over the world you will find these types of issues; the consequences of the industrial revolution.

The main thing to realize is all improper disposal methods used across the world do not come to light until after something goes wrong. Maybe, just maybe, when they build that new Super-Mega-Store complex just down the road from where you live, they might hit something. Do you live in the next Love Canal?

Was there ever a full accounting of all waste disposal sites? Is there a map somewhere that shows what was buried under my house and who put it there? And are they just sitting on it, hoping that nothing will happen? I mean, the clay barrier idea at Love Cannel had to originate from somewhere. How many more of these site are out there that they just got lucky with.... so far?

Something to think about.

JavaHead

The EPA's Superfund Site list is the closest I know of to a comprehensive disposal site list. Even so, it depended on historical knowledge and truth-telling, both of which were in rather short supply, it would seem. There have been so many - Times Beach, Kettleman Acid Pits, big ones that made the news, small ones that were beneath most people's radar.

There was an automobile tire dump just outside of Los Angeles that was smouldering back in the late '80's, had been for 10 years then, still was 10 years later, may still be today for all I know. It was kind of like the coal seam fires you hear about in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but huge piles of old tires instead.

In closing the Love Canal

Those families were never compensated for their loses.

Was there ever a full accounting of all waste disposal sites?

Ha! This stuff is from a time when industrialists were only interested completing projects and the margins.

I had heard years ago about many of the small rocky islands in the great lakes region being hollowed and filled without a concern of leaching into the lakes. We are playing roulette with these type unknowns.

There exist only a very few water sources on the globe today that can pass purity standards expected prior to WWII.

Sad...record left to us.

Hi EnviroMan,

The German clean-up of the Rhine river over the past 15-20 years or so shows the rest of us the post-industrial way forward. But the problem has shifted to new places - China has a water quality scale for its drinking water sources, where (1) is drinkable and (5) is dangerous for human health: most of their water sources are now at levels (4) and (5).

Connected to this is that fact that in 2005 alone, (6,000) Chinese-born infants, many of them with pollution-related health problems, were adopted by Americans. Many thousands more went to Western Europe and other prosperous places.

Fortunately for the kids from China, the American health care system helps them recover once they come here, but we all end up paying for this through shared health insurance premium pools.

So is a burning toxic river or Love Canal situation in China or India a problem for Americans or countries in the European Union? It might be.

-april05

It's a problem for all of us residents on this here mud-ball. The Rhine, the Yellow, and the Hudson Rivers all have contamination. The effects are both local and global. When it comes to disposal of waste, hazardous or not, the fact to remember is you can't throw stuff "away", there is no such place as "away". Just the farther it is from you, the closer it is to someone else. They matter too.

Just after reading the Wikipedia article about birth defects that include a girl becoming deaf, having an extra row of teeth, slight retardation, etc... it is disgusting. Especially since 56% of children born between 1974 - 1978 had a birth defect. It is amazing how people can ignore things just because the problems don't readily affect them!

Perhaps "The Hills Have Eyes" wasn't so far-fetched after all (*shivers* That movie was nasty)...

The important thing to realize from this episode is that Hooker adamantly refused to sell the sealed toxic dump to the School Board, over and over, until the school board pulled the old "eminent domain" trick on them. Hooker told the School Board not to break the surface of the ground below four inches. The S/B ignored them, and built the school, and sold (well, very nearly GAVE) the housing development land to a relative of a S/B member for the homes.

Hooker had disposed of the chemicals in what was then (late 40s/early 50s?) an acceptable method - with hindsight now, we know it wasn't the best way to do it, but the fact of the matter is, Hooker closed the dump, covered it with rubber sheets and topsoil and whatever else was the current science. It was the School Board and the County who wrestled the dump ground from Hooker, and then dug it up to build houses on. But who gets painted as the bad guys in 99% of all the news stories?