LOVE CANAL STORIES

45 gallon drums would occasionally pop up "through the grass in area backyards". "Chemical leachate dripped down basement walls". Children would come home "with a variety of ailments from coughs to chemical burns". The chemical burns could come from playing and rolling in the schoolyard as chemicals oozed out at the surface.

I am not aware of our local hazardous waste site having drums popping out of the ground years after they were buried on site. Yes there have been reports both verbal and documented of drums splitting open during burial but once "safely" buried and covered over they've tended to remain so until excavated decades later. The same thing goes for Varnicolor Chemical's Lot 91. This is making me wonder about Love Canal characteristics. Apparently after the Canal was dug and prior to drum disposal it was filled with water. Children swam in it during the summer and skated on it during the winter. Realizing that the purpose of the canal was to divert water from the Niagara River and produce hydrolectric power with it I am unsure as to whether the water in the canal was groundwater, river water or both. Regardless this may well be the reason for drums "popping up" in backyards. In other words rather than do the dirty deed of burying these drums on dry land they were disposed of in a highly water saturated environment. Partially filled rusty drums for example whose liquid contents have leaked out and been replaced with some air may well become buoyant.

Miscarriages, cancers, rashes and skin problems were rampant in the area. Generally young children are less tolerant of chemical wastes than adults and their health suffers quickly. Tumours in adults take much longer to become apparent and many cancers take decades after exposure before they they threaten health.

In Kitchener there were similar although hopefully less severe issues at Ralgreen Cresent. The Ottawa St. landfill in Kitchener and Bishop St. community in Cambridge had vapour intrusion issues. It was methane gas at the Ottawa St. landfill and Trichloroethylene (TCE) in Cambridge. Here in Elmira it was both disgusting air emissions as well as contaminated drinking water from our local wellfields. To the best of my knowledge there were no health surveys ever done in any of these local environmental crises.