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Introduction
What
is Love Canal?
Love Canal is
a part of Niagara Falls, New York that became infamous in
1978 when residents realized that many of their health problems
resulted from living next to a dump containing over 20,000
tons of chemicals. The Love Canal Homeowners' Association,
under the leadership of its determined spokesperson, Lois
Marie Gibbs, attracted national recognition to the community’s
plight and to its right to a safe environment. In the following
months and years, state agencies and independent researchers
conducted numerous health studies, many of which generated
additional controversy. Follow-up health studies on Love
Canal residents continue today.
Why a
collection of Love Canal health studies?
Many community
groups around the U.S. request health studies to examine
associations between environmental contamination and perceived
health problems. Love Canal and other community battles
have taught us that how studies are conducted and by whom
is crucial to deriving useful and credible information.
At the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH),
we push for community concerns and insights to be part of
the study process from the beginning to the end.
Some Love Canal
studies have become models for the way we do community environmental
health studies today. We hope this collection of lessons
learned over three decades of controversy at Love Canal
represents initial steps toward building a resource for
future community-based studies.
What’s
in the collection of Love Canal health studies?
Our collection includes original health studies from Love
Canal, along with journal articles, government hearings,
and correspondence about the health studies. We also collected
related books and videos on Love Canal. Please see “Health
Studies” for detailed, searchable bibliographies of
our collection, and for lists of additional Love Canal materials
not in our collection.
Please visit
other sections of this website for the
story of what happened at Love Canal as told by Lois
Gibbs, links for more information
and organizations working today on environmental health
issues, and upcoming community
education opportunities.
How can
I see the collection?
We invite activists, students, health and environmental professionals, and any other interested parties to view our collection. All original documents, books, and videos in our collection are available for on-site use in the Environmental Health Department of the BU School of Public Health. Please call 617-638-4620 prior to your visit. We are located in the South End of Boston at the corner of Albany Street and East Concord Street in the Talbot Building. Click here for a campus map.
Community
training sessions and workshops
The Boston University
School of Public Health organizes training sessions and
workshops on-site and at regional conferences to address
approaches to examining health effects in communities. These
sessions are designed in collaboration with grassroots organizations.
Please see “Workshops” for more information.
Program
for the Ecology of Human Systems
“Lessons
from Love Canal” is a project of the Program
for the Ecology of Human Systems (PEHS), which is jointly
sponsored by the Boston University School of Public Health
and the Resource Institute
for Low Entropy Systems (RILES). PEHS seeks to increase
popular understanding of the implications to human and environmental
health of technological choices and to influence public
policy respecting those choices. PEHS is funded by a grant
from Abby Rockefeller.
How to contact us
For further information
on the “Lessons from Love Canal,” please contact
envhlth@bu.edu or Richard
Clapp, BUSPH, 715 Albany St., #T4W, Boston, MA 02118, phone: 617-638-4620.
Website
This website
was created and is maintained by Rob Schadt as a project of the BUSPH Office of Teaching, Learning, and Technology. If you encounter any problems with the website, please contact Rob Schadt,
BUSPH, OTLT.
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