Keith O’Brien- Paradise Falls

Speaking of Writers · Apr 14, 2022 · 10m

In the spring of 1977, residents of a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York grew concerned when noxious smelling substances began leaching into basements, floating in local streams and pooling in puddles in backyards and playgrounds. Shortly after, children started suffering mysterious burns while playing outside, and then kids started getting sick—some really sick. What most parents didn’t know was that their homes had been built next to what was once a giant pit called Love Canal, and that decades earlier, Hooker Chemical, the largest employer in the city, had used the canal…