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Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In the mid-1970s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 22,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical Company (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation). Hooker Chemical involuntarily sold the site to the Niagara Falls School Board in 1953 for $1, with a deed detailing the presence of dangerous chemical wastes and including a liability limitation clause about the contamination. Long after having taken control of the land the School Board proceeded to have it developed, including construction activity that substantially breached containment structures in a number of ways, allowing previously trapped chemicals to seep out. The resulting breaches combined with particularly heavy rainstorms released and spread the chemical waste, leading to a public health emergency and an urban planning scandal. In what became a test case for liability clauses, Hooker Chemical was found to be "negligent" in their disposal of waste, though not reckless in the sale of the land. The dumpsite was discovered and investigated by the local newspaper, the ''Niagara Falls Gazette'', from 1976 through the evacuation in 1978. Ten years after the incident, New York State Health Department Commissioner David Axelrod stated that Love Canal would long be remembered as a "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations". The Love Canal incident was especially significant as a situation where the inhabitants "overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around".〔Colten & Skinner, p. 153〕 ==Early history== The Love Canal came from the last name of William T. Love, who in the early 1890s envisioned a canal connecting the Niagara River to Lake Ontario.〔(【引用サイトリンク】first1=Joseph )〕 He believed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much needed hydro electricity; however, the power scheme was never completed due to limitations of direct current (DC) power transmission, and Nikola Tesla's introduction of alternating current (AC). Furthermore, the Panic of 1893 caused investors to drop sponsorship of the project.〔Blum, p. 21〕 Also, Congress passed a law barring the removal of water from the Niagara River, to preserve Niagara Falls.〔Levine, p. 9〕 After 1892, Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara Falls, reaching Lake Ontario. He envisioned a perfect urban area called "Model City" and prepared a plan with a community of parks and homes along Lake Ontario. His plan was never realized. He began digging the canal and built a few streets and homes when his funds were depleted.〔Berton, Pierre. Niagara: a history of the falls. McClelland & Stewart Inc. 1994.〕 Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal, about 50 feet (15 m) wide and 10 to 40 feet (3 m to 12 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River, was dug.〔 There is little information about those who actually worked for Love.〔Blum, p.20〕 With the project abandoned, the canal gradually filled with water.〔 The local children swam there in the summer and skated in the winter. In the 1920s, the canal became a dump site for the City of Niagara Falls, with the city regularly unloading its municipal refuse into the pit. By the 1940s, Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company), founded by Elon Hooker, began searching for a place to dump the large quantity of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump wastes in the canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing metal or fibre barrels. In 1947, Hooker bought the canal and the banks on either side of the canal.〔Levine, p. 10〕 The City of Niagara Falls and the army continued the dumping of refuse. In 1948, after World War II had ended and the City of Niagara Falls had ended self-sufficient disposal of refuse, Hooker became the sole user and owner of the site. This dumpsite was in operation until 1953. During this time, 21,000 tons of chemicals such as "caustics, alkalines, fatty acids and chlorinated hydrocarbons from the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, solvents for rubber and synthetic resins" were added.〔Blum, p. 22〕 These chemicals were buried at a depth of twenty to twenty-five feet (6 to 6.5 m).〔 After 1953, the canal was covered with soil, and vegetation began to grow atop the dumpsite. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Love Canal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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