518 101st Street, Love Canal Neighborhood, Niagara Falls, New York, May 1994

From the 1920's through the 1950's, the city of Niagara Falls, the United States Army, and the Hooker
Chemical Corporation dumped over two hundred different toxic chemicals into Love Canal. Many of
them contained dioxin, one of the most lethal chemicals known. In 1953, Hooker Chemical covered the
then-dry Love Canal with a thin layer of dirt, and sold it to the Niagara Falls Board of Education for one
dollar. The terms of the sale stipulated that if anyone incurred physical harm or death because of the
buried waste, Hooker could not be held liable. A school was constructed on the site of the waste dump
and private homes were built nearby.

In the late 1970's, an unusual high number of birth defects, miscarriages, cancers, and other illnesses
were reported in the Love Canal neighborhood by the Niagara Falls Gazette. Lois Gibbs, whose two
children developed rare blood disorders, led a successful grassroots campaign to have the State of
New York purchase the homes of five hundred families, enabling them to relocate.