Growing Protest at Love Canal

As the seasons turned and a new year passed, Love Canal remained a whirlwind of remediation activity. “A plan is being set in motion now to implement technical procedures designed to meet the seemingly impossible job of detoxifying the Canal area,” EPA administrator Eckardt C. Beck declared in January 1979. Though a cold Western New York winter had set in, Beck explained that everything remained on track. “The plan calls for a trench system to drain chemicals from the Canal. It is a difficult procedure, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will yield some degree of success.” Beck reiterated that securing Love Canal’s poisons, rather than evacuating all area residents, remained the key to the neighborhood’s future. While conceding that no “one has paid more dearly already than the residents,” Beck commented that the Love Canal “tragedy” was well on its way to a successful resolution. Beck was wrong. In February, New York declared homes beyond the inner ring potential health hazards to pregnant women and children under age 2. Health officials recommended temporary evacuation but no more home buyouts. While roughly two dozen families exited, remaining residents exploded. If the broader neighborhood was deemed unsafe, they clamored, then everyone should be evacuated. The LCHA, several of whose members had been arrested in December for blocking remediation vehicles, intensified its protests but to no avail. Most Love Canal residents remained in a toxic environment. As one person put it dimly, the neighborhood itself had become a chemical “prison.” A local punk band called the Vores captured the area’s dark mood. “Contaminated. We’re all contaminated. Don’t get near us, or you’ll turn blue,” the band growled in a tune entitled simply “The Love Canal.” “Contaminated. We’re all contaminated. Don’t let us move in or you’ll get it too.” The troubling tenor of the times notwithstanding, Love Canal residents refused to give up.