Thoughts about industry and government
From my recent visit to the Love Canal in Western New York — a brief comment in the wake of recent government actions we are witnessing.
Reflections on Why I Cannot Stay Away
Dear Friend and Reader:
On my third visit to Love Canal in recent years, I started to get a sense why I keep going back; why I cannot stay away. I first put my feet on the ground there in the summer of 1983 as a university junior and features editor of a campus news magazine.
What happened at Love Canal is a cautionary if not prophetic tale of how people run the country — and how local leaders run their community. Because while Love Canal ended up a national issue, all of its origins are local. Responsibility falls squarely on the Niagara Falls School District for putting a school on the site above the objections of the chemical polluter.
The scene above used to be a vibrant suburb of about 750 single family starter homes and 250 low-income apartments — a seemingly perfect place for kids to grow up, in Niagara Falls, NY. The row of three trees marks where Wheatfield Ave. continued west toward the now-gone 99th St.
Just outside the frame to the right was the 99th St. Elementary School, built in 1955. It was walking distance from all the homes in the development.
The people who lived there thought they had a real piece of the American dream. There were homes on all of these streets, as you can see from the site plan below.
The Only Clue in the Photo
The fence is the only clue in this photo what this place is really about. It runs north/south along the abandoned 100th St. and surrounds a 16-acre patch of land that is now cordoned off from the public. Under the ground are 23,000 tons of chemical and nuclear waste on top of which the school and the neighborhood were built.
The waste is mostly from World War II industry and shortly after; by the early 1950s the Niagara Falls school district told the chemical company that owned it that it wanted to build a school.
Company engineers personally took the locally-elected school board members to the site and demonstrated why it would not be appropriate for a school. They did so by shoving a pole in the ground and showing the citizen leaders that it came out coated in chemical sludge.
The school district said that if the company did not sell them the land, they would take it by eminent domain. So the company complied, adding to the deed what became one of the most famous clauses in real estate history:
Prior to the delivery of this instrument of conveyance, the grantee herein [the school district] has been advised by the grantor [the chemical company] that the premises above described have been filled, in whole or in part, to the present grade level thereof with waste products resulting from the manufacturing of chemicals by the grantor at its plant in the City of Niagara Falls, New York, and the grantee assumes all risk and liability incident to the use thereof.
The district built the school and then sold the rest of the land to developers, who built the homes and the apartments that later had to be evacuated.
It Was About the School District
Much has been made of the actions of Hooker Chemical, and the atrocious conduct of the EPA and the New York State Department of Health throughout this incident (actions which continue to the present day). Yet I’ve read or heard no criticism of the most basic and local level of government, the school board, whose members were and are elected locally.
The problem with government is that by its existence, it absolves responsibility. That is the nature of groups generally, but especially government and its immense power. Nearly all the time, there is no accountability. Worse, there is the pretense of responsibility, with endless levels of bureaucracy and an agency for everything.
But the school district created this themselves, and not a single person in that government institution was held accountable, legally or otherwise.
The Grave of the American Dream
Love Canal is the symbolic grave of the American Dream. When I walk those streets, I think of the hundreds of families who came there expecting a good life, trusting what they were told, and then not understanding why their children, cats and dogs were getting sick. They did not understand the miscarriages in the young moms.
They were told it was all their fault.
They were told they had a virus, and that is why they were sick. When a bird took a sip of water from a toxic stream and died in front of residents and state officials, they were told the bird caught the flu.
Families and lives were torn apart by the crisis. Walking through the streets, you see the little mounds of dirt where the homes were buried into their basements and covered over. And that is how it’s done.
This scenario is best documented in the recent PBS documentary Poisoned Ground. (Ignore the disclaimer at the end — that’s a lie stuck in by the New York State Department of Health. I know those people well.) There is also a recent, excellent book called Paradise Falls by Keith O’Brien. I didn’t want to read it but I could not put it down.
Here are more recent photos of the scene from last September. These are better than the ones below. Thank you to Charlie Lemay for coaching me on how to portray the scene more accurately. My 2023 interview with Luella Kenney (below) is must-hear.
With love,
Your faithful astrologer,
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE HOJO MEETING DESCRIBED IN THE ARTICLE CHIRON: KEY TO THE GEMSTONE FILE
https://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/IBTHoJo.pdf
Thanks for sharing about Love canal. I’ve been helping fight the bill in house judiciary tomorrow for the second time here in Tennessee that would give all pesticide companies immunity. The lobbyist have sold (captured) our state representatives a bunch of fear porn about not being able to farm and eat. It’s absolutely sickening.