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Inside nearby houses, thick, gummy substances began oozing through cellar walls and clogging sump pumps. Some houses were pervaded by strange smells that occupants said gave them headaches. Most puzzling, the incidence of serious illness, including cancer, was much higher in this neighborhood than in other areas of Niagara Falls. Miscarriages seemed to occur frequently; and so many children were born with birth defects that street signs were posted warning motorists of deaf youngsters. Two of Alice Kline's children are troubled; one is hyperactive, another developed an ulcer-like stomach condition at age seven. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Peter Stoler last week, she admitted: "I used to think that our house was cursed by a devil."
By 1978 the people of Love Canal got vivid proof that their devil was manmade. Heavy rains turned the former canal into a quagmire of mud, puddled here and there by iridescent pools that fumed and bubbled. The landfill's topsoil began to wash away, revealing Hooker's metal casks, some of them badly corroded and leaking their caustic contents. Says one state environmental official: "It was like a Hieronymus Bosch painting; it really looked like hell."
Analysis revealed that the dump contained more than 80 different chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS), hexachlorocyclopentadiene (or C56 for short), benzene, toluene, tetrachloroethylene and other polysyllabic byproducts of pesticide production. Some, like the powerful solvent dioxin, are suspected carcinogens. Still others cause anemia, loss of hair, seizures and skin rashes.
Following the flight of the first group of families, the state began constructing a drainage system aimed at preventing the chemicals stored in the corroding barrels from seeping into any more homes. But it got scant help from Hooker, which is now the target of a barrage of lawsuits totaling several billion dollars by the U.S. Justice Department, New York State and various residents. The company has consistently reminded critics that at the time it was done the dumping was legal and that it had waived all responsibility for the property when it was turned over to the school board. Hooker also insists there is no positive proof that its chemicals are to blame for the variety of illnesses.
True enough, but the circumstantial case seems to be getting stronger. Last December Mrs. Gibbs, in her own informal survey, found that only two of the eight women in the Love Canal area who gave birth in 1978 and 1979 had delivered normal babies. In March, Cancer Researcher Beverly Paigen of the Roswell Park Memorial Institute in nearby Buffalo told congressional investigators that the miscarriage rate among women in the contaminated sector was a startling 25.2% compared with 8.5% before they moved into the neighborhood. But what triggered the latest crisis was a study showing an unusually high incidence of serious genetic damage among people living in the area. Conducted for the EPA by a small Houston-based research lab, Biogenics Corp., the study showed abnormalities in the chromosomes of eleven of the 36 area residents who were tested.