Re: Manhattan Project Legacy

[denison8@wideopenwest.com]

There's been a lot of debate on the list lately over whether the 

folks who buried potentially hazardous materials around Niagara falls 

(and a host of other sites) were wrong to do so.  A lot of the 

discussion has centered on the fact that the regs of the time allowed 

the companies to dispose of the materials in ways we would find 

utterly unacceptable today.  Let us also keep in mind that the 

companies that buried the materials are not necessarily responsible 

for the fact that the burial sites are now near (or under) populated 

areas.



Love Canal (right up in NN's home turf) is a prime example.  If you 

look deeper than the surface media coverage and activist hype, you 

learn that Hooker Chemical used the best practices of the day when 

they disposed of their hazardous waste in the canal.  The company 

never wanted to relinquish control of the property, because the 

management and employees knew that there was some very nasty stuff 

buried there.  Hooker sold the property to the Niagara Falls school 

board under duress (the city threatened to condemn the property and 

take it under imminent domain without paying Hooker anything at all). 

Hooker agreed to the sale because it was the only way to get deed 

restrictions on the use of the property written into the contract. 

When it bought the site, the city assumed all liability for future 

problems caused by the buried chemicals.  Despite the fact that the 

company no longer had any legal liability, Hooker fought tooth and 

nail to keep the school board and the city from doing stupid things 

like building schools and houses on the property and breaching the 

canal walls for sewer runs.  But when people started getting sick, 

who got the blame?  Hooker, of course.  The USEPA listed various 

government entities in the lawsuit, but admitted that it did so only 

to assure cooperation with the cleanup order.  To the best of my 

knowledge, the people and government agencies that were responsible 

for putting unsuspecting citizens in harm's way never really paid for 

their criminal stupidity.



The moral of the story: don't cast blame before you know the whole 

history of the site.  Things are rarely as simple as they seem.



-- 

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Eric Denison                     Where do you stand?

1729 Penworth Drive              Take "The World's Smallest

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(614) 433-0387



"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of

servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home

from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms. Crouch

down and lick the hands of those who feed you. May your chains

set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our

countrymen." - Samuel Adams

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