Love canal happened in Niagara County; it is until recently that the Americans understood the seriousness of the enormous danger associated with ground pollution. In fact, the problem, since the incidence of the love canal, appears only to be increasing. Every year, hundreds of new chemical compounds are introduced to the environment, which already has about 70,000 such compounds (Newman, 2016). The wastes from America’s production industries of about 92 billion pounds annually are channeled into improvised underground storage places. There are more storage sites such that they have the probability of becoming as unsafe and risky as those at the Love Canal and some are presently dangerous and hazardous. To analyze the issue of environmental toxicology inherent in it, this paper explores the Love Canal case by Michael H. Brown. Michael H. Brown is a journalist for The Niagara Falls Gazette, and he reported on the Love Canal. The challenge is in how to locate the industries that channel their toxic wastes to underground storage sites and how to pay the great costs of cleaning these toxins before more tragedy comes up. No one in the communities of Niagara knows or gives attention to several hundreds of 55-gallon drums dumped in a vacated canal near Niagara Falls (van Gestel, Jonker, Kammenga, Laskowski, & Svendsen, 2016). In 1953, the canal, which was full of toxins, was sold to the city and reserved for building an elementary school, playground, or raising dwellings for small families. There were occasional ruins of the ground where drums had decomposed, and children were having skin rashes. Several homes were deteriorating speedily as due to infiltration by exceedingly toxic chemicals hidden in underground spaces. According to the investigations of the New York State Health Department, there were astonishing health issues such as birth defects, epilepsy, liver failures, headaches, and miscarriages among other diseases. This was because of the more than 80,000 tons of toxic wastes, which made most areas of Niagara County risky. After the discoveries of the adverse effects by the New York State Health Department, immediate steps were taken. The state started evacuating residents from the areas along the Love Canal. Two hundred homes were abandoned, the school was boarded and the country had a picture of what was happening in the region. New dumping basements were discovered in many unwarranted places. The investigations also revealed a landfill having several similar compounds such as Mirex, C-56, and lindane (Newman, 2016). These chemicals were utilized in the manufacturing of pest killers and plastics. New York State officials started to investigate the residents and employees in the Niagara University region owing to the dioxin concentrations. The state forced companies that contaminated the grounds and rivers in the region into a cleanup project. People have been involved in the haphazard dumping of litter and chemical components in whichever place they find themselves. Manufacturers of plastics, pesticides, and other products that contain large amounts of toxic substances should deposit them in designated landfill sites. Once the residues are dumped, there should be a way of detoxifying them so that they do not become more harmful to the environment (Newman, 2016). Farmers need to be careful with the chemical substances that they introduce into the environment. Humans should maximize the dumping pits that have been set aside for that purpose. Humans have done a large extent of the dumping. Dumping has always been declared illegal. Most of the industrialized regions have been determined to be a favorite spot for midnight carriers compensated for disposing of the wastes in swamps, sewers, dump pits, or left wells to escape the designated sites (van Gestel et al., 2016). Therefore, humans have deliberately been avoiding the approved sites and owning illegal and highly toxic dumpsites. Humans are blatantly violating environmental regulations and getting rid of contaminants in the wrong way by spilling them out from their trucks (Newman, 2016). The government must also have regulations that advocate for the treatment of the disposal sites and at the same time exercise control of wastes deposited in the environment. The Hazardous Waste Management Division must be reinforced so that they can spearhead the cleanup of dumpsites across the nation. We must recognize that the hazardous waste facilities that are situated in various regions present threats to the health of the public. They should rigorously intensify all looming hazard efforts to cleanse the waste facilities or reprimand the people who are avoiding the designated dumpsites (van Gestel et al., 2016). County officials and city agencies must be involved in this task of preventing chemical companies from contaminating the environment. In conclusion, it is difficult to tackle the problem of chemical compounds released into our environment. Even with the designated dumping grounds, the problem may not entirely go away. Therefore, there are no secure and self-contained dumpsites. The disposal methods must be reviewed to ensure that the environment is highly protected from chemical wastes. Environmentalists should advocate for waste to be rendered safe before being released into the environment. This is the only way that the problem will be under control. Presently though, the disposal sites must be treated so that chemical compounds are not released into the environment further.
References
Newman, R. S. (2016). Love canal: A toxic history from colonial times to the present . Oxford University Press.
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van Gestel, C. A., Jonker, M., Kammenga, J. E., Laskowski, R., & Svendsen, C. (Eds.). (2016). Mixture toxicity: linking approaches from ecological and human toxicology . CRC press.
