Suggested Policy Changes for Love Canal

Since the early 1950’s people knew that something was not quite right in the Love Canal area of Western New York. There was an unusually high amount of birth defects, people were sick in this area more often than what can be considered normal, and there was strange liquids seeping up through the ground. As we all know now, the entire neighborhood was built on a highly toxic dumpsite. In the late seventies the government finally took action after years of protest by local citizens. The action eventually reached its height when in 1978 residents were forced to evacuate on the order of President Carter.

The government did take responsibility and a massive containment plan was undertaken. Initially, a drainage system was installed to collect leachate that had been seeping into the groundwater. Second, a large clay cap was placed over the actual dump site to insure that no chemicals would seep upwards into the soil. Following the containment effort of the government, people were again allowed to return to their homes. Not all did, and those homes vacated were sold at a rent low enough to attract people willing to live in a contaminated area in order to save money. Has this course of action been the proper one by the Federal government?

There have been a number of courses of action that have been thought about to alleviate this situation. One would be for the site to be contained further than it already is. The original cleanup and containment was done over twenty years ago and could be updated with safer and more modern devices. There certainly would be benefits to the people that live in Love Canal from modernization of the containment methods. The area would be safer, healthier and birth defects and other problems would most likely decrease. Not only would it be healthier, but there would be a major difference just in the peace of mind of the residents that are currently living in the area. This peace of mind does not come free. There is a major financial cost for an undertaking such as this and the question then is who pays for this modernization. The government paid for the initial containment, but it seems obvious that they are comfortable with the current situation. That leaves the homeowners to foot the bill, and a rather expensive bill it would surely be. Another cost would be that in order to complete this work the ground would have to be dug up, and possible some houses even destroyed. This inconvenience would be a cost and possibly force residents to move permanently or at least for an extended period of time.

A second more drastic option would be one that would come directly and be funded entirely by the government. This option would entail the government moving all of the people out of Love Canal. The government would purchase all of the homes and property. Using the power of eminent domain the homeowners could be forced to sell their homes and leave the area. This seems moralistic, after all how many other toxic waste sites have housing developments directly on top of them. The benefit here would be that the people would be protected from the waste forever. The land would just be abandoned and the waste would not be harmful because there would no longer be any residents that could be harmed. The cost in this option would be that the government would have to purchase the land with taxpayer dollars. Also the homeowners would incur the cost of being uprooted from their home and neighborhood, but perhaps it would be the most sensible thing. Despite the high initial cost, that would basically be the only one. There would be no ongoing costs as there could possibly be in the first option. If the first option was chosen and further containment was implemented in thirty years the same problem could arise again. The removal of residents eliminates the possibility of future problems of this nature.