August 7, 1978
President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency at Love Canal, a suburb of Niagara Falls, NY, due to 22,000 barrels of toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently. Ten years after the incident, New York State Health Department Commissioner David Axelrod stated that Love Canal would long be remembered as a “national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations.” The entire community has been demolished; cleanup took until 2004.
