Love Canal Scandal Analysis

“The EPA estimates that, of the 100 billion tons of hazardous waste produced each year in the United States, 90 percent is disposed of in an environmentally unsafe manner” (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). This statistic is staggering. Only 10 billion tons of waste are disposed of properly every year in the US. The Love Canal scandal is a prime example of a company producing toxic waste and disposing of it in an unsafe manner. This paper will give an overview of the Love Canal scandal, the cost, and the governments’ response.
The Hooker Chemical Corporation was one of the major players in the Love Canal scandal, and their role was the polluter. Following is some background information on the Hooker Chemical Corporation would burned over twenty
First, the moral cost would be things like Hooker Chemical knowingly dumping chemicals near schools where schoolchildren could come into contact with the chemicals, and instead of cleaning it up they swept it under the rug because cleanup cost a lot. Another moral cost would be residents unknowingly purchasing contaminated land, but the people selling the land knew it was
Hooker Chemical was the company that contaminated the ground water of the Love Canal area because of its unsafe business practices, and they tried to cover it up with the use of a clay cap. Then there is the Niagara school board who knowingly bought contaminated land and built a school on it and in turn, housing was built so a community could be developed around the school. Although both of these players are at fault, the collateral damage was the unknowing people moving into the Love Canal community. The citizens suffered from severe reproductive issues such as stillbirths and miscarriages, and giving birth to babies with birth defects both physical and developmental (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014). The children were effected immensely because they are more susceptible to the chemicals that surround them, and because of this, the side effects of being around these dangerous chemicals were even more harsh on the infants than the adults. The cleanup from the chemical dumping would take almost twenty years, and although Hooker Chemical was on the hook for 129 million for the cleanup efforts, other than that there was no other punishment handed down to Hooker Chemical (Rosoff, and Pontell, 2014) In order to prevent things like this from happening in the future we need to hold these companies accountable and give harsher