Enviornmental Expense: Understand The Responsibility To The Environment

Beginning in 1942, Hooker Chemicals and Plastics (now Occidental Chemical Corporation (OCC)) established a landfill which was used for the disposal of over 21,000 tons of various chemical wastes, including halogenated organics, pesticides, chlororbenzenes and dioxin. Dumping ceased in 1952, and, in 1953, the landfill was covered and deeded to the Niagara Falls Board of Education (NFBE). While the dump was not effectively developed, which resulted in failed containment, the deeding of the property…a sale at the price of $1…properly reported the waste site and excluded Hooker Chemical from most liability.

Subsequently, the area near the covered landfill was extensively developed, including the construction of an elementary school and numerous homes.

By the early sixties contamination began to emerge from the 16 acre chemical waste site, later to be identified in 1978 by NY state’s EPA as a hazard and evacuated, and then taken over by the US EPA as a Superfund Waste Site, prosecuted and managed for 21 years from 1983 to 2004 as one of the most noteworthy examples of environmental distress in the history of the United States… at least one that we can point our fingers at as an example of public adoption of an industrial environmental expense.

In 1995 the EPA suit against Occidental Chemical Corporation was finalized and OCC was charged a settlement totaling $129M to meet the claims against Hooker Chemical.

Attorney General Janet Reno said the settlement "should send

a message of federal persistence and tenacity."

"If Congress will give us the resources, we will work to get

polluters to pay their share," said Reno.  She noted that

Congress is currently attempting to cut environmental

enforcement.

The cost however for the Love Canal cleanup has been estimated at $250 million, though no one knows for sure. Studies indicated that numerous toxic chemicals migrated into surrounding areas. Runoff drained into the Niagara River, contaminating the river sediment. Dioxin and other contaminants migrated from the landfill to the existing sewers, which drained into nearby creeks. Those sediments are recognizable today in samples taken from these waterways.

Red dots represent EPA Superfund sites today.

Ironically, twelve years after the neighborhood was abandoned, the state of New York approved plans to allow families to move back to the area, and homes were allowed to be sold. In 2004 the EPA removed the site from the superfund list…

Love Canal is not the only hazardous waste site in the country that has become a threat to humans--only the best known. Indeed, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that up to 2,000 hazardous waste disposal sites in the United States may pose "significant risks to human health or the environment," and has called the toxic waste problem "one of the most serious problems the nation has ever faced."

 This is a prime example of industry benefiting from the environmental expense that comes from manufacturing. Air pollution, contamination, water waste and pollution are just the start of the list that needs to be compiled and the effects that need to be corrected so that we better understand how to become a sustainable planet…now and into the future. It isn’t about taxing industry to solve non-industrial problems. Its about correcting the problems caused by oversight and intentional pollution and waste that is experienced when organizations fail to understand their responsibility to the environment.