Date of Graduation

2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

Committee Chair

Gary L. Winn

Abstract

In the spring of 1978, a young homemaker named Lois Marie Gibbs discovered that her child was attending an elementary school built on top of a 20,000 ton, toxic chemical dump in Niagara Falls, New York. Out of desperation, she organized her neighbors into the Love Canal Homeowners Association and struggled more than two years for relocation. Opposing the group’s efforts were the chemical manufacturer, Hooker Chemical Corporation, and local, state, and federal government officials who insisted that the leaking toxic chemicals, including dioxin the most toxic chemical known to man, was not the cause of high rates of birth defects, miscarriages, cancers and other health problems. Finally in October 1980, President Jimmy Carter delivered an emergency declaration which moved approximately 700 families from this hazardous area and signified the victory of this grassroots movement. The site became an engineering and environmental disaster that awoke a nation to the hazards of toxic chemicals in our environment. Gibbs, through her work at Love Canal, was able to alert the public to problems with the way corporations and government agencies manage industrial waste.

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