WEBVTT - Love Canal: Even Dirtier Than It Sounds

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, and welcome to the podcast. So I'm Josh, and

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<v Speaker 2>there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff

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<v Speaker 2>you should know. The I can't believe this happened, but

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<v Speaker 2>I can totally believe it.

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<v Speaker 1>Addition, Oh, I thought it was the Romantic Cruise in

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<v Speaker 1>the Gondola edition.

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<v Speaker 2>I know you'd think so. By the name of it,

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<v Speaker 2>Love Canal.

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<v Speaker 1>Love Canal sounds so wonderful.

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<v Speaker 2>For sure, it does. The love can No love canal

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<v Speaker 2>we're talking about today is not wonderful or nice at all.

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<v Speaker 2>Even before it was filled with toxic waste, it was

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<v Speaker 2>not so great to begin with.

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<v Speaker 1>Spoiler, Yeah, love.

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<v Speaker 2>Canals filled in toxic waste. As we'll see, Love Canal

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<v Speaker 2>was an incident in American history where America came to

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<v Speaker 2>grips with the idea that all the toxic waste it

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<v Speaker 2>had been burying for the last century, essentially, yeah, was

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<v Speaker 2>starting to intrude into the ground, and that there was

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<v Speaker 2>way more than just water pollution or air pollution. There

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<v Speaker 2>was such a thing as ground pollution, and all of

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<v Speaker 2>a sudden, all the toxic waste sites around the United

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<v Speaker 2>States suddenly seemed like ticking time bombs thanks to one

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<v Speaker 2>that actually went off.

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<v Speaker 1>That's right, and supplementary material are do we do one

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<v Speaker 1>in super funds? I know we did one on brownfield remediation.

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<v Speaker 2>That's the closest I think we came.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, that was an old one though, But you know,

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<v Speaker 1>if you're into that kind of thing, or maybe landfills too.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if you're a remediation fan, check it out.

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<v Speaker 1>But for this one, we should go back in time, correct, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>let's go.

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<v Speaker 2>Back all the way back to the eighteen nineties. We're

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<v Speaker 2>gonna head on up north to Niagara Falls, New York.

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<v Speaker 2>Not just the falls, but the city. There's a city

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<v Speaker 2>called Niagara Falls, and it is where where you would

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<v Speaker 2>stay if you were honeymooning in Niagara Falls, which is

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<v Speaker 2>something that people did for a very long time.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we also did one on going over Niagara Falls

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<v Speaker 1>and a barrel.

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<v Speaker 2>Totally did that. Feels like you're a fan of barrels,

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<v Speaker 2>check it out.

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<v Speaker 1>That feels like one of those that had to be

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<v Speaker 1>like an early fifteen minute episode.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh I really think it was like on par with

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<v Speaker 2>more like five.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, it was a long long time ago. Yeah, So

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen nineties. We are in Niagara. We look to our

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<v Speaker 1>right and we see a gentleman named William T. Love.

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<v Speaker 1>He says hello, he says hi. There. He's very excited

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<v Speaker 1>because he said, I've got an idea for you guys.

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<v Speaker 1>Niagara Falls is doing pretty great. Here's powering a bunch

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<v Speaker 1>of there's a bunch of industrial mills around. But I

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<v Speaker 1>have a vision that we can make this better. We

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<v Speaker 1>can build a model city if we just divert part

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<v Speaker 1>of this Niagara River over there on Lewiston Ridge. And

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<v Speaker 1>then he pointed that away whichever way that was sure,

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<v Speaker 1>and he said, we can double our hydro electric output

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<v Speaker 1>if we do that. It's just four miles down river,

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<v Speaker 1>and we can build this amazing neighborhood that has electricity

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<v Speaker 1>and telephone lines and anything you would want. And like

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<v Speaker 1>I said, we'll call it model city. And all you

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<v Speaker 1>got to do is let me build Love Canal. You

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<v Speaker 1>don't have to name it dat, right, but it'll be

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<v Speaker 1>seven miles long, eighty feet wide, and fifteen feet deep

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<v Speaker 1>and that's all we need to do.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So he wanted to set up a new fall.

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<v Speaker 2>He wanted to create a man made or human made

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<v Speaker 2>waterfall to generate hydro electric power which would power this

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<v Speaker 2>amazing town that he was building. I mean, because that

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<v Speaker 2>was quite a draw electricity, telephones, gas lines, sewer lines

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<v Speaker 2>in the eighteen nineties, like he would have gotten free takers,

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<v Speaker 2>and he got some investors for sure. And also, in

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<v Speaker 2>what would become a long standing tradition, the city of

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<v Speaker 2>Niagara Falls gave this random person carte Blanc to exercise

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<v Speaker 2>eminent domain and take people's land to carve a canal

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<v Speaker 2>from the Niagara River to a different part, to divert

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<v Speaker 2>some of it, to just do some really serious stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>And he's he got a lot of people interested. But

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<v Speaker 2>two things happened that killed the model city plan of

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<v Speaker 2>William T. Love. First, the Panic of eighteen ninety three.

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<v Speaker 2>It was a huge economic meltdown in the eighteen nineties,

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<v Speaker 2>scared a lot of investors. They wanted sure things from

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<v Speaker 2>that point on. And then the second thing was Nikola

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<v Speaker 2>Tesla's He came up with the method of long distance

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<v Speaker 2>electrical transmission. The whole reason William T. Love wanted to

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<v Speaker 2>build this electro hydroelectro plant is because you needed close

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<v Speaker 2>by electrical generation to power stuff. Tesla said, you don't

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<v Speaker 2>need that anymore. So at that point, William T. Love

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<v Speaker 2>just threw up his hands and moved to I think,

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<v Speaker 2>on some rural part of Ontario.

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<v Speaker 1>He went north. Yeah, very interesting. Seems like he goes

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<v Speaker 1>south after that.

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<v Speaker 2>You would think so, but he didn't. He went north

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<v Speaker 2>and it was like, I can't remember. It was like

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<v Speaker 2>the name of the town was rats something. It was

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<v Speaker 2>not a pleasant place to be. But he left behind

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<v Speaker 2>a legacy of sorts, didn't he he did.

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<v Speaker 1>He left behind you know, they got started on the

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<v Speaker 1>dam or I'm sorry, on the canal because I think

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<v Speaker 1>damn when I think hydro electricity. Look at me. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>not seven miles, but one mile of this thing had

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<v Speaker 1>been dug and so it's there. It's you know, I

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<v Speaker 1>don't know if it was the full eighty feet wide

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<v Speaker 1>and fifteen feet deep and a mile long, but it

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<v Speaker 1>was a huge, dug up swath of earth. And so

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<v Speaker 1>the city is like, all right, well, now we got

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<v Speaker 1>this here, I guess. You know, kids are swimming in

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<v Speaker 1>it in the summer and they're skating on it in

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<v Speaker 1>the other ten months out of the year. And in

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<v Speaker 1>the nineteen thirties a company came along the Hooker Electrochemical Company,

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<v Speaker 1>which made industrial chemicals and plastics and pesticides and all

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<v Speaker 1>kinds of stuff. And they said, I would like to

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<v Speaker 1>buy that land because we would like to or we

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<v Speaker 1>would like to buy that land because we would like

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<v Speaker 1>to do what everyone else does when they have toxic waste,

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<v Speaker 1>and that's bury it and steal drums. And that's a

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<v Speaker 1>You've already dug the hole for us, so exactly, you

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<v Speaker 1>did a lot of the work up front, and we'd

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<v Speaker 1>like to buy it so we can stick our drums

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<v Speaker 1>in there.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, William T. Love inadvertently dug out a trash pit. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>that the Hooker Company was like, heck, yeah, I looked

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<v Speaker 2>up the dimensions. I think it was something like three

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<v Speaker 2>thousand feet by ten feet deep by I think twenty

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<v Speaker 2>or something feet across, so it covered like sixteen acres essentially,

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<v Speaker 2>and that's a lot. You can fit a lot of

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<v Speaker 2>waste in a ten foot deep pit. Yeah, that's sixteen

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<v Speaker 2>acres total surface area. And they did. They ended up

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<v Speaker 2>so because they the Hooker Company, didn't make the products

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<v Speaker 2>that kill us. They made the ingredients that people put

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<v Speaker 2>into the products that kill us. So like they actually

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<v Speaker 2>created the dioxins and the PCBs and stuff that plastic

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<v Speaker 2>manufacturers and pesticide makers used in their products. So the

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<v Speaker 2>stuff they were throwing away as waste was as deadly

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<v Speaker 2>as it gets, essentially like just the most toxic of

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<v Speaker 2>toxic waste. But at the time people didn't realize that.

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<v Speaker 2>They knew you didn't want to be around it or

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<v Speaker 2>get it on your skin or breathe it in, but

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<v Speaker 2>they did not realize the extent of toxicity of some

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<v Speaker 2>of these things.

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<v Speaker 1>No, not at all. And they ended up over a

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<v Speaker 1>nine year period bearing close to twenty two thousand tons

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<v Speaker 1>of this stuff in the Love canal, and like you said,

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<v Speaker 1>every toxic compound and dioxin and carcinogen you can think

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<v Speaker 1>of practically as in there. And like you were mentioning,

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<v Speaker 1>it wasn't you know, it wasn't like it is today. Obviously,

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<v Speaker 1>first of all, the fact that you could do that

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<v Speaker 1>at all, but the way they did it, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>if the lid popped off after it was in there,

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<v Speaker 1>they didn't send someone down there to seal that lid.

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<v Speaker 1>If one of the drums got cracked or something, they

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<v Speaker 1>didn't say, oh, well, let's get down there and get

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<v Speaker 1>that drum out of here and repair it or put

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<v Speaker 1>the waist in a new drum. They were just like,

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<v Speaker 1>it's probably fine. They're hosing their hands and clothes off

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<v Speaker 1>with the hoses of nearby neighbors, and all of a sudden,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, problems start happening kind of right away. You know,

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<v Speaker 1>groundwater is rising, some of these drums are rusting, and

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<v Speaker 1>stuff starts leaching pretty quickly. So they said, all right,

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<v Speaker 1>we've filled this thing about as full as we can

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<v Speaker 1>full it. Not just them, but I think like all

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<v Speaker 1>like local the City of Niagara was dumping stuff in there,

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<v Speaker 1>and like all kinds of people were dumping stuff, right.

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<v Speaker 2>The Army dumped a bunch of stuff as well. It

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<v Speaker 2>was not just hooker, but they were far and away

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<v Speaker 2>the largest contributor to the toxic weights pit.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure. So this thing gets full, they said,

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<v Speaker 1>all right, we got a sixteen acre landfill. Basically, we're

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<v Speaker 1>gonna cap it with some clay shovel about a foot

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<v Speaker 1>and a half atop soil on it and call it

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<v Speaker 1>a day. And here's what we'll do, City of Niagara.

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<v Speaker 1>We would like to sell it back to you just

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<v Speaker 1>for a dollar.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the City of Niagara Falls, like Hookers is the

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<v Speaker 2>biggest employer there, right, So this seemed like a real,

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<v Speaker 2>like a benefactor type situation, like this company that that

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<v Speaker 2>was like caring for the community by employing all these people,

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<v Speaker 2>was also showing it cared for the community by basically

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<v Speaker 2>donating a decent sized chunk of land for the town

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<v Speaker 2>to build a new elementary school. And that's what the

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<v Speaker 2>town did with it.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it is in.

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<v Speaker 2>A certain ghoulish way, for sure. It's a laugh of irony,

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<v Speaker 2>not right exactly, So that's exactly what they did. The

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<v Speaker 2>City of Niagara Falls paid one dollar to Hooker, a

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<v Speaker 2>chemical company, and it took possession of this the swath

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<v Speaker 2>of land that contained this toxic waste pit, and gave

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<v Speaker 2>it to the Board of Education and said build a school.

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<v Speaker 2>And you might think that that is madness and that's nuts,

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<v Speaker 2>and that probably the Hooker company was trying to keep

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<v Speaker 2>all this underwrap, and apparently that is not the case. Hooker.

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<v Speaker 2>Even in the deed you can read the deed where

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<v Speaker 2>they transferred ownership of land to the city, it says like, hey,

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<v Speaker 2>there's waist down there and you don't want to touch it,

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<v Speaker 2>but you guys are taking possession of this stuff and

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<v Speaker 2>it's now your responsibility. So they weren't like trying to

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<v Speaker 2>pass off something that they knew was like a ticking

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<v Speaker 2>time bomb from everything I can tell. Instead, they were like,

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<v Speaker 2>we can't use this anymore. You guys should use it.

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<v Speaker 2>Just don't build anything with a basement nearby.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean they did say we're not liable for

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<v Speaker 1>anything like that was definitely in the agreement. Yeah, but

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<v Speaker 1>they also like they literally brought members of the school

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<v Speaker 1>board out there and they dug holes, I think like

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<v Speaker 1>eight holes in the ground and said, look, this stuff

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<v Speaker 1>is four feet down. You can see these these barrels,

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<v Speaker 1>no basements, Like, don't do any underground piping, don't subdivide

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<v Speaker 1>it for homes, like you should not do that stuff.

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<v Speaker 1>But apparently the school board was broke they did it anyway,

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<v Speaker 1>So you know, the blood is on the hands of

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<v Speaker 1>the school board as well as the city and the

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<v Speaker 1>Hooker Chemical Company.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is one of those things where like when

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<v Speaker 2>you read the histories of it in retrospect, like there's

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<v Speaker 2>clear heroes, there's clear villains, there is clear you know,

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<v Speaker 2>indifference that's just criminal, and all of that is true.

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<v Speaker 2>It does exist, but it's definitely more nuanced than that.

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<v Speaker 2>It's not nearly as clear cut as you know you

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<v Speaker 2>might read in a single article about Love Canal. And

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<v Speaker 2>that's part of it. Hooker takes a lot of the blame,

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<v Speaker 2>and part of it is definitely fairly, and part of

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<v Speaker 2>it is not at all fairly, for sure. But the

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<v Speaker 2>one group that seems to have really been just basically

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<v Speaker 2>the pits from any angle I can find is the

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<v Speaker 2>city of Niagara Falls. The managers who the mayor, the

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<v Speaker 2>city council. They just were not good. They were not

0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.280
<v Speaker 2>in any kind of position to take on what was

0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.280
<v Speaker 2>about to happen in the neighborhood that was now called

0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.000
<v Speaker 2>Love Canal that had build up around the school.

0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.040
<v Speaker 1>I think that's a good spot for a break, Sure

0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.040
<v Speaker 1>it is. I mean it's kind of early, but I

0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.439
<v Speaker 1>mean that's as good as a Niagara Falls style cliffhangers

0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.800
<v Speaker 1>you can get. Right, people are hanging off of Lewiston Ridge.

0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, their barrels are just dangling from their toes.

0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.160
<v Speaker 1>All right, we'll be right back then and tell you

0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:53.160
<v Speaker 1>what started happening pretty quickly after this. All right, So

0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:58.080
<v Speaker 1>we mentioned elementary school. What better to do on a

0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.520
<v Speaker 1>chemical waste stump there in Springfield than to build the

0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:06.319
<v Speaker 1>ninety ninth Street school. The school, if you look at

0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.600
<v Speaker 1>a map, was built right in the center of where

0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:11.560
<v Speaker 1>this landfill was.

0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, even just taking the toxic waste out of account,

0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:20.360
<v Speaker 2>the stability of the ground, it's like scary just looking

0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.200
<v Speaker 2>at like a hokey map of it.

0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.640
<v Speaker 1>No, totally, I didn't even think about that, like foundationally,

0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.760
<v Speaker 1>it probably wasn't that you know, firm, you know.

0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:28.000
<v Speaker 2>No.

0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.120
<v Speaker 1>So they completed the school in nineteen fifty five. Even

0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.200
<v Speaker 1>though they said, hey, don't subdivide this for homes, They're like,

0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.840
<v Speaker 1>are you kidding me? People want to live near the school.

0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.360
<v Speaker 1>So the neighborhood that was known as Love Canal had

0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.040
<v Speaker 1>about eight hundred houses and about two hundred and forty apartments,

0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.959
<v Speaker 1>and right away I think this was all completed. The

0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.280
<v Speaker 1>school in fifty five. It's starting and like two or

0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.960
<v Speaker 1>three years later problems started happening. People were coming down

0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.199
<v Speaker 1>with physical symptoms that were horror.

0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I think nineteen fifty eight some kids were taken

0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.960
<v Speaker 2>to the hospital for treatment of chemical burns. Yeah, that's

0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.240
<v Speaker 2>just a few years of the school opening. The following year,

0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.959
<v Speaker 2>a family called the Vorhis found that there was black

0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.080
<v Speaker 2>sludge seeping through their basement walls.

0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:20.160
<v Speaker 1>Took a horror movie.

0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I think that's literally part of Amityville

0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.840
<v Speaker 2>Horror at the end, isn't there like black seeping through

0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:27.280
<v Speaker 2>the walls?

0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I think there's more than one movie

0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:30.440
<v Speaker 1>that does the old black sledge trick.

0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.320
<v Speaker 2>Well, this is where they got it was from the

0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.840
<v Speaker 2>families of Love Canal in the late fifties. There's another

0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.040
<v Speaker 2>thing I turned up. There were the kids in the

0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.920
<v Speaker 2>area loved to play with fire rocks that they found.

0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.560
<v Speaker 2>There was a kind of rock they found that if

0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.200
<v Speaker 2>you threw it in another rock or threw it at

0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.960
<v Speaker 2>a hard surface, sometimes they would explode catch fire. One

0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.000
<v Speaker 2>kid puts some of these fire rocks in his pockets

0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.040
<v Speaker 2>and ran home, and the friction caused the fire rocks

0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.200
<v Speaker 2>to catch fire and burn the kid quite badly, And

0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.640
<v Speaker 2>so of course people started to investigating. They're like those

0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.120
<v Speaker 2>chunks of white phosphorus and it should probably stop playing

0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:05.600
<v Speaker 2>with that.

0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:11.200
<v Speaker 1>It was like that, Yeah, yeah, totally. The fire chief sent,

0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.040
<v Speaker 1>I believe, a report to the city manager of what

0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:20.680
<v Speaker 1>he said were obnoxious odors. Of course, we can apply

0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.160
<v Speaker 1>the sick rit scriptum because he meant noxious.

0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.640
<v Speaker 2>Sure, he also said it was irritating to the lungs

0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:28.800
<v Speaker 2>and we should probably do something about this. And that

0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:29.840
<v Speaker 2>was sixty four.

0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and then all of a sudden, babies start being

0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:38.760
<v Speaker 1>born that have disfigurements, that have disabilities, deafness. This one

0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.320
<v Speaker 1>baby in the Schroeder family was born with a second

0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.680
<v Speaker 1>row of teeth, among other things. Really alarming stuff. So

0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.120
<v Speaker 1>flash forward, that's nineteen sixty eight. By the nineteen seventies,

0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.880
<v Speaker 1>people are just living there. It looks like a regular suburban,

0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.120
<v Speaker 1>you know, northeastern suburban neighborhood. Some of the residents may

0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.360
<v Speaker 1>have known about this that were in the know, but

0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.640
<v Speaker 1>probably not many of them. There was a lot of

0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.520
<v Speaker 1>series of winters in a row with like tons of rainfall,

0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.920
<v Speaker 1>tons of snow, tons of lakes freezing, and this all

0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.720
<v Speaker 1>just melts into that groundwater system and carries the stuff

0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.880
<v Speaker 1>even further through the groundwater system, and the canal itself

0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.440
<v Speaker 1>became so saturated that like these some of these barrels

0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.800
<v Speaker 1>started like rising up through the surface of the earth.

0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and all the ones that were already open and

0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.960
<v Speaker 2>had been leaking over the years were now really spilling

0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.960
<v Speaker 2>their contents, and that stuff was being pushed up and

0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:41.440
<v Speaker 2>out of the relative safety of the canal the pit.

0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.920
<v Speaker 2>You know, now it wasn't even being held by the

0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.360
<v Speaker 2>canal any longer. It was like in the ground. This

0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.240
<v Speaker 2>was in people's backyards. There was a there was a

0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.400
<v Speaker 2>ball field nearby that I saw that. It swelled and

0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.520
<v Speaker 2>contracted like a bowl of gelatine whenever, whenever heavy equipment

0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.280
<v Speaker 2>drove a because it was so saturated and just ready

0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.560
<v Speaker 2>to pop. This is a baseball field. A pool popped

0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.840
<v Speaker 2>out of the ground and was floating on toxic chemicals.

0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.600
<v Speaker 2>Like pools of toxic sludge were starting to appear in

0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.960
<v Speaker 2>people's backyards because the ground was so saturated and there

0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.320
<v Speaker 2>was some really toxic stuff in the ground. So you

0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.359
<v Speaker 2>put those things together. All of a sudden, people's backyards

0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.520
<v Speaker 2>are toxic waste sites. And some, like you said, some

0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.600
<v Speaker 2>had no idea that that was there.

0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.800
<v Speaker 1>By the seventies, yeah, absolutely, you know, all men are

0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.359
<v Speaker 1>Wildlife of course is dying. Trees are dying, landscaping is dying.

0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.480
<v Speaker 1>Back people are losing their hair, pets are losing their hair.

0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.320
<v Speaker 1>All of a sudden, there's you know, breathing problems, there's numbing,

0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.720
<v Speaker 1>there's fatigue, there's blood in people's stools, and eventually, in

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.520
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy six, Niagara Gazette publishes the very first article

0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.840
<v Speaker 1>that says, Hey, this nightmare that's happening all around us,

0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.480
<v Speaker 1>by the way, has a reason behind it. And it's

0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.239
<v Speaker 1>because the love canal and Hooker chemical got together and

0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.639
<v Speaker 1>it's a toxic waste dump basically. Yeah, and a lot

0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.640
<v Speaker 1>of these residents are like for the very first time,

0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.600
<v Speaker 1>learning what's going on and probably going, oh, my god,

0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.280
<v Speaker 1>you know, so much of my life makes sense now.

0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, those fifty five gallon drums that were popping out

0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.760
<v Speaker 2>of the creek beds makes sense now. I understand it now.

0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.040
<v Speaker 2>But I mean it was so I think even the

0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.920
<v Speaker 2>people who were used to had grown up throwing fire

0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.080
<v Speaker 2>rocks at one another, and we're like used to the

0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.320
<v Speaker 2>idea that there's some weird stuff around. Maybe even knew

0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.360
<v Speaker 2>there was a dump site nearby. Yeah, this was now

0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.639
<v Speaker 2>in their backyard thanks to the blizzard of seventy seven

0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.199
<v Speaker 2>that dumped so much snow on that eventually trickled in

0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:52.320
<v Speaker 2>and then saturated the ground. It brought it into the sunlight,

0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.320
<v Speaker 2>and now there was just no denying it whatsoever. And

0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.840
<v Speaker 2>then the Niagara Gazette, like you said, brought it further

0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.880
<v Speaker 2>into the sunlight. So it was such an obvious problem

0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.719
<v Speaker 2>out of the gate that the City of Niagara hired

0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.880
<v Speaker 2>the Cowspan Corporation. They do all sorts of like freelance

0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.040
<v Speaker 2>testing and stuff, and they investigated. They went to some

0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.240
<v Speaker 2>of the basements that were emitting black sludge and checked

0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.040
<v Speaker 2>the sump pumps, and they did some air testing, and

0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.800
<v Speaker 2>they checked the sewer lines. And as the data started

0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.080
<v Speaker 2>to roll in while they were doing this testing, there

0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.360
<v Speaker 2>was a really dramatic moment where all of the Cowspan

0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.720
<v Speaker 2>people got in their cars and sped away as fast

0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:32.399
<v Speaker 2>as they could.

0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.479
<v Speaker 1>In the movie, that's exactly what would happen. And then

0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.360
<v Speaker 1>they just like they throw a file out the window

0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.879
<v Speaker 1>and it slides to the feet of the mayor, and

0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.080
<v Speaker 1>in that file is the data which basically says Displace

0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:54.480
<v Speaker 1>is a disaster. The levels of toxic compounds is truly horrifying.

0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:58.880
<v Speaker 1>We're out of here. But nothing happened. They didn't disclose

0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.600
<v Speaker 1>the report, the findings from that report. The City of

0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:06.040
<v Speaker 1>Nagar didn't, so the drumbeat keeps happening from the Nagregazette

0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.160
<v Speaker 1>over the course of seventy seven seventy eight, they're still

0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.200
<v Speaker 1>doing these reports. No one is still doing anything because,

0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.400
<v Speaker 1>like you mentioned at the beginning, Hooker Chemical is still there.

0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.280
<v Speaker 1>There's still a huge employer for that town, and it's

0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.840
<v Speaker 1>a huge expense to clean this stuff up. So they

0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:25.880
<v Speaker 1>weren't eager to bring this like fully into the light

0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:27.800
<v Speaker 1>and say, all right, we got to do something about it.

0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.159
<v Speaker 2>No, So the city had I saw what was described

0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.159
<v Speaker 2>as an incestuous relationship with Hooker Chemical. There was a

0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:41.480
<v Speaker 2>time where Hooker was suspected of leaking waste elsewhere in

0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.679
<v Speaker 2>the city, and so they hired Hooker Chemical to go

0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.000
<v Speaker 2>take samples and analyze it to find out if they

0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:53.040
<v Speaker 2>were that kind of stuff. In addition to not wanting

0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.560
<v Speaker 2>to tick off Hooker, they were also really worried about

0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.720
<v Speaker 2>tourism because, like I said, like this is a time

0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.560
<v Speaker 2>where if you honeymooned, and you you know, were working

0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.720
<v Speaker 2>class or middle class, you would you there's a good

0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.480
<v Speaker 2>chance you would travel to Niagara Falls and honeymoon there.

0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.600
<v Speaker 2>So tourism was a big part of their economy. We

0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.119
<v Speaker 2>didn't want to be like, come to Niagara Falls. We

0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.760
<v Speaker 2>got the falls and a toxic waste dump too. So

0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:21.560
<v Speaker 2>people are like, we need to keep this quiet. That

0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:23.719
<v Speaker 2>was the city's position. We need to keep this quiet,

0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.800
<v Speaker 2>we need to deny, we need to obfuskate. That was

0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.160
<v Speaker 2>the whole thing that they tried to do, and it

0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:35.520
<v Speaker 2>got as word got out, people started kind of castigating

0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.119
<v Speaker 2>the mayor in the city council. I saw that I

0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.800
<v Speaker 2>couldn't find the actual video, but I saw reference to

0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.359
<v Speaker 2>an episode of The Donahue Show, Phil Donahue, and he

0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.959
<v Speaker 2>had the mayor on Michael O'Laughlin and apparently Donahue compared

0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.800
<v Speaker 2>him to the mayor from Jaws only cared about keeping

0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.800
<v Speaker 2>the beaches open, which I thought was kind of apt.

0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:01.000
<v Speaker 1>I can hear and visualize Donahue doing that with his

0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:02.159
<v Speaker 1>righteous indignation.

0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.520
<v Speaker 2>I can imagine Phil Hartman doing Phil Donahue doing.

0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.520
<v Speaker 1>Man, God, what a loss. I think about Phil Hartman

0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:10.360
<v Speaker 1>about once a month.

0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.000
<v Speaker 2>I feel like, well, there you go, there's your monthly reminder.

0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.359
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so sad, we should do a show on him

0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:16.800
<v Speaker 1>at some point.

0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:17.800
<v Speaker 2>It's a good idea.

0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.760
<v Speaker 1>That'd be kind of awesome. So they got a health

0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:24.640
<v Speaker 1>commissioner doctor Francis Clifford, and he came along and he said,

0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:29.000
<v Speaker 1>you're all hypochondriacs. This is just an odoriferous nuisance. Really,

0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:31.800
<v Speaker 1>it's like you're just smoking a few cigarettes or something.

0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.000
<v Speaker 1>It's really no big deal here. If you have a basement,

0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:41.120
<v Speaker 1>you've got sludge and stuff. Here's a window fan on us. Yeah,

0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.119
<v Speaker 1>and that that should take care of it than us later.

0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.600
<v Speaker 1>And all of this is happening and being buried. And

0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:52.760
<v Speaker 1>we mentioned promise of a hero, and in steps a

0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.080
<v Speaker 1>remarkable human being named Lois Gibbs who lived in the area,

0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.480
<v Speaker 1>who had a no for other than a high school education.

0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.840
<v Speaker 1>Was it stay at home mom? But she knew what

0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.360
<v Speaker 1>was The writing was on her wall in black sludge,

0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:09.679
<v Speaker 1>and she knew what was happening and went to the

0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:11.400
<v Speaker 1>school board and was like, I don't want my son

0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:13.640
<v Speaker 1>going to the school. Yeah, I want to pull him

0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.160
<v Speaker 1>out of school. And they said no, no, no, no, no,

0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:19.320
<v Speaker 1>we can't do that because the word will get out,

0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:23.280
<v Speaker 1>everyone will freak and there won't be a school anymore.

0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.960
<v Speaker 1>And she said, well, I am, I'm a mad mom

0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:29.239
<v Speaker 1>and I'm not going to take it. So even though

0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.360
<v Speaker 1>I have no history of activism or organizing or anything.

0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:35.399
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to start. I'm going to get some other

0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.200
<v Speaker 1>parents together. I'm going to start the Love Canal Parents Movement,

0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.960
<v Speaker 1>which would become the Love Canal Homeowners Association, and we're

0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.800
<v Speaker 1>going to wreak havoc on your head through the breast.

0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.240
<v Speaker 2>She said, close the beaches.

0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:50.119
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly.

0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.320
<v Speaker 2>So, yeah, I think Lois kids. I want to say, like,

0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:56.520
<v Speaker 2>she's an example of what a person can do when

0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:01.120
<v Speaker 2>they're left without choices and being ignored by the people

0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:03.439
<v Speaker 2>who are supposed to be helping them. But there's a

0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:05.880
<v Speaker 2>lot of people who would have just probably given up.

0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.720
<v Speaker 2>So she is remarkable in that sense for sure. So

0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.520
<v Speaker 2>she headed the Love Canal Homeowners' Association for a couple

0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.600
<v Speaker 2>of years. This thing went on for so the Blizzard

0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:21.159
<v Speaker 2>of seventy seven happened at the beginning of nineteen seventy seven.

0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:24.600
<v Speaker 2>Things really started to just kind of creep out in

0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:29.679
<v Speaker 2>seventy six. This went on until nineteen eighty and the

0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:33.800
<v Speaker 2>homeowners Association had to fight every day, tooth and nail

0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.479
<v Speaker 2>to get somebody to do something about this. And what

0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:40.840
<v Speaker 2>they had to do first was to show that these

0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:49.280
<v Speaker 2>complaints of congenital disorders of weird cancers, rectal bleeding apparently

0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:54.280
<v Speaker 2>more than one person had rectal bleeding. There, liver problems,

0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:58.360
<v Speaker 2>kidney problems. That this wasn't just like some random assemblage

0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.959
<v Speaker 2>of defective people want them put it like. This was

0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:07.760
<v Speaker 2>they were being poisoned by the toxic materials that were

0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:12.560
<v Speaker 2>flowing into their neighborhood from this overflowing toxic dump and

0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:15.960
<v Speaker 2>the bureaucracy, the city government did everything it could to

0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:19.720
<v Speaker 2>say no, your hypochondriacs, just sit down and shut up.

0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:24.720
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, until they couldn't it. Finally, because of the newspaper,

0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:29.119
<v Speaker 1>because of Lois Gibbs and the homeowners Association raised so

0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:32.160
<v Speaker 1>much hay, they finally said, all right, the state steps in.

0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:36.080
<v Speaker 1>The New York State Health Department launched an investigation in

0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:37.120
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy eight.

0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:39.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they stepped in and they said, City of Niagrit,

0:25:39.240 --> 0:25:40.760
<v Speaker 2>we got this and winked at them.

0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:43.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly. So they did all kinds of testing to

0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:47.160
<v Speaker 1>the soil, to the air, did health histories and blood

0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:50.800
<v Speaker 1>tests and stuff of the residents, and you know, the

0:25:50.840 --> 0:25:53.160
<v Speaker 1>results were what you were kind of talking about, these

0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:58.400
<v Speaker 1>birth defects, the liver problems. I think the thirty five

0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:04.520
<v Speaker 1>percent of women had miscarriages, which is, you know, higher

0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:07.600
<v Speaker 1>than average. They say, you know, ten to twenty percent.

0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:10.359
<v Speaker 1>Some say up to twenty five to thirty percent of

0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:15.040
<v Speaker 1>pregnancies into miscarriages, but nothing goes as high as thirty five.

0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:17.800
<v Speaker 1>So that was a high number. And then finally, in

0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:22.119
<v Speaker 1>August of seventy eight, the state Health Commissioner Robert Whalen.

0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:23.960
<v Speaker 2>Robert Big Bob Whalen.

0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:28.920
<v Speaker 1>Said, a health emergency is being declared. If you are pregnant,

0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:32.760
<v Speaker 1>if you have kids under two, you should leave the area.

0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:39.760
<v Speaker 1>And this wasn't some you know, super upper class affluent area.

0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:42.280
<v Speaker 1>They couldn't just pack up and leave. So they were mad.

0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:43.840
<v Speaker 1>They were like, what do you expect us to do?

0:26:44.119 --> 0:26:44.159
<v Speaker 2>What?

0:26:44.440 --> 0:26:45.040
<v Speaker 1>We live here?

0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:47.439
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, these were people who were tied to this area

0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.800
<v Speaker 2>by their mortgages. I saw the average income was between

0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:53.760
<v Speaker 2>ten and twenty five thousand dollars, which at the time

0:26:53.880 --> 0:26:57.800
<v Speaker 2>is like forty seven to one hundred and eighteen thousand today.

0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:02.600
<v Speaker 2>So it's like pretty squarely middle class, but not the

0:27:02.720 --> 0:27:04.720
<v Speaker 2>kind they can just be like, Okay, I'm walking away

0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:07.240
<v Speaker 2>from my mortgage right, here's my house bank. I'm just

0:27:07.320 --> 0:27:09.640
<v Speaker 2>going to go start life elsewhere. They couldn't do that.

0:27:09.680 --> 0:27:13.199
<v Speaker 2>They were stuck there with these houses that it was

0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:17.480
<v Speaker 2>becoming increasingly clear no one would want, which was a

0:27:17.560 --> 0:27:20.560
<v Speaker 2>huge problem. They were facing a catch twenty two. Nobody

0:27:20.640 --> 0:27:23.560
<v Speaker 2>was going to help them unless they got national attention

0:27:23.720 --> 0:27:26.080
<v Speaker 2>for this. But the more attention they got for it,

0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:29.359
<v Speaker 2>the more it was, the more they were sticking themselves

0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:32.280
<v Speaker 2>in this place until they got the help they needed,

0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:34.120
<v Speaker 2>because no one was going to come along and buy

0:27:34.160 --> 0:27:37.359
<v Speaker 2>your house after a very short time when worried about

0:27:37.359 --> 0:27:38.400
<v Speaker 2>Love Canal got out.

0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:42.760
<v Speaker 1>That's right, But guess who did buy their house, Jimmy Carter.

0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:48.080
<v Speaker 1>It finally does become national news. The national TV networks

0:27:48.080 --> 0:27:51.040
<v Speaker 1>were all over it. They were doing reports from there.

0:27:51.080 --> 0:27:55.000
<v Speaker 1>With all these protests happening, Jimmy Carter steps in. He

0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:59.240
<v Speaker 1>declares a federal state of emergency and said, here's ten

0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:02.719
<v Speaker 1>million dollars we can relocate. We're going to buy up

0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:06.800
<v Speaker 1>your houses if you live within the first like the

0:28:06.840 --> 0:28:09.600
<v Speaker 1>first zone basically like that's closest to the canal.

0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:13.240
<v Speaker 2>Chuck, I'm sorry, and I'm sorry, I'm behalf of everyone listening.

0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:16.520
<v Speaker 2>You're really not gonna do a Jimmy Carter impression offering

0:28:16.560 --> 0:28:17.800
<v Speaker 2>to buy these people's houses.

0:28:18.720 --> 0:28:21.520
<v Speaker 1>Oh boy, I don't know if I've ever done Jimmy Carter,

0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:23.800
<v Speaker 1>I did. I was doing it when I was a kid.

0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:29.200
<v Speaker 2>You have I've heard you have. I.

0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:31.280
<v Speaker 1>Oh. Now I'm on the spot and I'm missing a tooth.

0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:35.119
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, maybe he can come in later.

0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:40.920
<v Speaker 1>This will be the first time. Now it's that good stuff.

0:28:41.720 --> 0:28:44.120
<v Speaker 1>It was the first time that federal emergency funds were

0:28:44.200 --> 0:28:47.000
<v Speaker 1>used in the United States and their history or our

0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:51.560
<v Speaker 1>history for something other than a natural disaster. So it

0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:54.840
<v Speaker 1>was a big, big deal that they stepped in then,

0:28:54.920 --> 0:28:57.680
<v Speaker 1>along with the help of New York State, when Governor

0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:00.760
<v Speaker 1>Carrey said, we're going to buy up two hundred and

0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:02.760
<v Speaker 1>thirty nine of these homes in the first couple of

0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:05.760
<v Speaker 1>rings around this landfill. We're going to close that school.

0:29:06.240 --> 0:29:09.160
<v Speaker 1>And also maybe don't eat those veggies or the herbs

0:29:09.160 --> 0:29:10.320
<v Speaker 1>you've been growing in your backyard.

0:29:10.480 --> 0:29:13.480
<v Speaker 2>That was part of it. And also don't spend unnecessary

0:29:13.520 --> 0:29:16.000
<v Speaker 2>time in your basement. That was the other thing they said.

0:29:16.080 --> 0:29:19.400
<v Speaker 1>So all the teenage boys were just like, oh man, so.

0:29:19.360 --> 0:29:22.800
<v Speaker 2>That's that's pretty cool. First, the first two rings, so

0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:29.120
<v Speaker 2>people whose backyards were on top of essentially the waist

0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:32.840
<v Speaker 2>pit and then the people like maybe across the street

0:29:32.920 --> 0:29:36.880
<v Speaker 2>from them, like all the way around the Love Canal.

0:29:37.320 --> 0:29:39.400
<v Speaker 2>The US governor is like, we're going to buy your houses.

0:29:39.440 --> 0:29:41.000
<v Speaker 2>You can move now, you're fine. We're going to pay

0:29:41.000 --> 0:29:43.280
<v Speaker 2>you fair market value for them. And the two hundred

0:29:43.280 --> 0:29:45.400
<v Speaker 2>and thirty nine people were like yeah, okay, or two

0:29:45.440 --> 0:29:47.000
<v Speaker 2>hundred and thirty nine families.

0:29:46.840 --> 0:29:50.560
<v Speaker 1>But still it was awful. I mean imagine being like, well,

0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:52.520
<v Speaker 1>all I got to leave my home now, Like sure,

0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:55.840
<v Speaker 1>someone's buying my house, but I didn't want to leave. No,

0:29:56.120 --> 0:29:56.720
<v Speaker 1>I work here.

0:29:56.920 --> 0:30:01.200
<v Speaker 2>That's definitely part of it. For sure, there had to

0:30:01.240 --> 0:30:03.280
<v Speaker 2>be like a pretty decent sense of relief though at

0:30:03.360 --> 0:30:05.680
<v Speaker 2>least that was they weren't stuck anymore. But yeah, I'm

0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:08.520
<v Speaker 2>sure they didn't want to leave their community, or at

0:30:08.600 --> 0:30:11.480
<v Speaker 2>least some of them. But the problem was this. You

0:30:11.520 --> 0:30:14.360
<v Speaker 2>said that there was about eight hundred houses and a

0:30:14.400 --> 0:30:18.320
<v Speaker 2>whole apartment building that was in this Love Canal neighborhood,

0:30:18.880 --> 0:30:22.239
<v Speaker 2>and the people who are there were like, Okay, you

0:30:22.320 --> 0:30:25.959
<v Speaker 2>can't forget about us. We need help too. Like in

0:30:26.000 --> 0:30:30.600
<v Speaker 2>addition to like no one wanting to buy our houses

0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:34.480
<v Speaker 2>because we're so close to the Love Canal dump, we're

0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:38.000
<v Speaker 2>still suffering all sorts of health maladies as well, and

0:30:38.040 --> 0:30:41.120
<v Speaker 2>so the city goes back to their playbook and they're like,

0:30:41.200 --> 0:30:44.800
<v Speaker 2>there's no way you guys are actually suffering health maladies.

0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:48.040
<v Speaker 2>You're beyond the second ring of houses. You guys are fine,

0:30:48.440 --> 0:30:52.080
<v Speaker 2>You're just hypochondriacs. And the whole thing started all over again.

0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:54.640
<v Speaker 2>And I think, luckily for all the people who lived

0:30:54.680 --> 0:30:57.560
<v Speaker 2>in Love Canal that were left out of the eight hundred,

0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:02.880
<v Speaker 2>the fact that Lois Gibbs was among them, yeah, definitely

0:31:02.920 --> 0:31:07.200
<v Speaker 2>something mark in their favor for sure, because she was unstoppable.

0:31:07.720 --> 0:31:09.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she lived in that second zone, so she was

0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:10.080
<v Speaker 1>still there.

0:31:10.160 --> 0:31:11.640
<v Speaker 2>So I say we take a break and then we

0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:13.960
<v Speaker 2>come back and talk a little more about what Lois did,

0:31:14.760 --> 0:31:17.440
<v Speaker 2>Lois Gibbs did, and who she got some help from.

0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:19.840
<v Speaker 1>Hint, hint, she didn't quit.

0:31:49.040 --> 0:31:52.000
<v Speaker 2>So chuck. Now we reached the point where Love Canal

0:31:52.160 --> 0:31:57.560
<v Speaker 2>starts to really become national news because the federal government,

0:31:57.640 --> 0:32:00.200
<v Speaker 2>the state government, the local government, they're like, yeah, yeah,

0:32:00.280 --> 0:32:02.480
<v Speaker 2>problem solved. We moved the people who needed to, we

0:32:02.960 --> 0:32:07.920
<v Speaker 2>demolished their homes. It's all good, essentially, and this whole

0:32:07.960 --> 0:32:11.200
<v Speaker 2>group that was left behind that still needed help, we're like, no,

0:32:11.280 --> 0:32:14.720
<v Speaker 2>we're we're going to get louder than ever, essentially, and

0:32:14.800 --> 0:32:19.520
<v Speaker 2>a division grew in the community where in Love Canal

0:32:19.920 --> 0:32:22.360
<v Speaker 2>they were viewed outside of the neighborhood and the rest

0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:26.000
<v Speaker 2>of the city as basically labmounts, rebbel rousers, people who

0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:28.160
<v Speaker 2>were just out for like easy money from the federal

0:32:28.200 --> 0:32:31.840
<v Speaker 2>government and we're making up all these maladies at the

0:32:31.880 --> 0:32:35.280
<v Speaker 2>expense of the tourism industry and ticking off hooker. They

0:32:35.400 --> 0:32:37.680
<v Speaker 2>threatened the well being of the rest of the town

0:32:38.200 --> 0:32:41.680
<v Speaker 2>just by you know, being labmouths. And it was a

0:32:41.760 --> 0:32:44.480
<v Speaker 2>really seems like it would have been a really terrible

0:32:44.520 --> 0:32:46.240
<v Speaker 2>time to live in Niagara Falls.

0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:48.960
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I'm sure. And Lowe S. Gibbs is like, you

0:32:49.040 --> 0:32:53.080
<v Speaker 1>know what, I just bought one hundred bullhorns, that's right,

0:32:53.240 --> 0:32:55.080
<v Speaker 1>And they went no, no, no, no.

0:32:55.840 --> 0:32:57.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And she was like, and I'm saving up for

0:32:57.680 --> 0:32:58.280
<v Speaker 2>the batteries.

0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:06.760
<v Speaker 1>So the LHCA, headed by Lois Gibbs, brought in doctor

0:33:06.760 --> 0:33:10.440
<v Speaker 1>Beverly Pagan, scientists with the Health Department of New York.

0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:15.960
<v Speaker 1>They did their own door to door detailed questionnaire about

0:33:15.960 --> 0:33:20.360
<v Speaker 1>people's health. They analyzed the data, they found a lot

0:33:20.360 --> 0:33:22.400
<v Speaker 1>of the same problems, but what they really zeroed in

0:33:22.440 --> 0:33:24.480
<v Speaker 1>on were the fact that if you lived in what

0:33:24.480 --> 0:33:26.880
<v Speaker 1>they called a wet home, which was if you lived

0:33:26.920 --> 0:33:29.720
<v Speaker 1>near a creek or a swale or something, versus a

0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:32.480
<v Speaker 1>dry home that wasn't near a creek, then you were

0:33:33.160 --> 0:33:36.600
<v Speaker 1>much worse off. Twenty percent of the children born in

0:33:36.640 --> 0:33:39.600
<v Speaker 1>wet homes had birth defects compared to six point eight

0:33:39.640 --> 0:33:42.520
<v Speaker 1>percent in dry homes. The asthma rate was three and

0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:45.600
<v Speaker 1>a half times higher in wet homes. Suicide attempts were

0:33:45.680 --> 0:33:49.880
<v Speaker 1>higher in wet zones. And this is when they were dismissed.

0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:53.240
<v Speaker 1>I believe some of the authorities said it was useless

0:33:53.520 --> 0:33:58.840
<v Speaker 1>housewife data, which is a real bum in the eye

0:33:59.080 --> 0:34:02.360
<v Speaker 1>of Lois Gibb in the LHCA and doctor Pagan.

0:34:02.560 --> 0:34:07.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just two things. So for reference, twenty percent of

0:34:08.000 --> 0:34:10.480
<v Speaker 2>children born in that area and the wet homes that

0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:15.879
<v Speaker 2>had congenital disorders compared to six point eight percent. Both

0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:18.840
<v Speaker 2>of those were way above the national average for nineteen

0:34:18.880 --> 0:34:24.200
<v Speaker 2>seventy eight of two point eight percent, so almost a lot.

0:34:24.400 --> 0:34:26.160
<v Speaker 2>That was a lot more. I was going to do

0:34:26.200 --> 0:34:27.759
<v Speaker 2>some math and I was like, don't do the math,

0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:30.880
<v Speaker 2>so I stopped. But the other the other thing I

0:34:30.880 --> 0:34:35.120
<v Speaker 2>wanted to just call out, was doctor Pagan. She was

0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:38.120
<v Speaker 2>doing this on her own time as a volunteer. She

0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:42.160
<v Speaker 2>was volunteering her expertise as a cancer researcher to come

0:34:42.239 --> 0:34:44.480
<v Speaker 2>up with the survey to figure out like the actual

0:34:44.600 --> 0:34:46.880
<v Speaker 2>data to basically show that you didn't have to be

0:34:46.960 --> 0:34:50.239
<v Speaker 2>living right on top of the dump to still be

0:34:50.280 --> 0:34:54.080
<v Speaker 2>suffering health effects. And she very cleverly figured out that

0:34:54.320 --> 0:34:57.759
<v Speaker 2>when they built the homes for the Love Canal neighborhood,

0:34:58.000 --> 0:35:01.200
<v Speaker 2>they covered up all sorts of old cre beds, old

0:35:01.280 --> 0:35:05.520
<v Speaker 2>swales that were now underground, but with the ground being saturated,

0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:09.440
<v Speaker 2>they were providing their old historic functions of moving water

0:35:09.800 --> 0:35:13.399
<v Speaker 2>through the neighborhood. So a plume of toxicity formed that

0:35:13.840 --> 0:35:17.799
<v Speaker 2>wasn't necessarily at the dump site any longer, it was

0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:20.799
<v Speaker 2>moving out into these areas that came to be known

0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:25.360
<v Speaker 2>as wet homes. And so she showed, now, these people

0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:28.319
<v Speaker 2>are really suffering as many effects as some of the

0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:31.040
<v Speaker 2>people whose houses were on top of the dump, and

0:35:31.080 --> 0:35:34.279
<v Speaker 2>they still need help. And she risked her career doing

0:35:34.320 --> 0:35:36.520
<v Speaker 2>that because she was a New York State Health inspector

0:35:38.000 --> 0:35:42.640
<v Speaker 2>and her organization had already basically closed the book on it.

0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:44.319
<v Speaker 2>And she was saying, we need to open this back

0:35:44.400 --> 0:35:47.320
<v Speaker 2>up because we were wrong, Like it's worse than we thought.

0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:53.000
<v Speaker 1>Right. So after two more years they finally get the

0:35:53.040 --> 0:35:56.279
<v Speaker 1>EPA down there, and this is, you know, two full

0:35:56.360 --> 0:36:01.360
<v Speaker 1>years of continued protesting. EPA comes in, They visit Love Canal,

0:36:01.840 --> 0:36:04.719
<v Speaker 1>they do their own blood test and chromosome test and

0:36:04.760 --> 0:36:07.520
<v Speaker 1>things like that, and it showed that there was you know,

0:36:07.840 --> 0:36:11.120
<v Speaker 1>what everyone else had shown. Basically, it wasn't useless housewife

0:36:11.200 --> 0:36:14.920
<v Speaker 1>data or hypochondria. And they got mad. They got so

0:36:15.040 --> 0:36:19.640
<v Speaker 1>mad that they took a couple of EPA officials hostage.

0:36:19.760 --> 0:36:22.759
<v Speaker 1>They said they're not going to release them until we're relocated.

0:36:23.400 --> 0:36:26.080
<v Speaker 1>Cooler heads prevailed. It only lasted about five hours. They

0:36:26.080 --> 0:36:29.160
<v Speaker 1>didn't arrest anybody, but it was it was a big deal,

0:36:29.320 --> 0:36:33.600
<v Speaker 1>brought a lot more attention to it. And in October

0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:36.399
<v Speaker 1>of nineteen eighty, just a few days after this hostage thing,

0:36:36.760 --> 0:36:40.359
<v Speaker 1>President Carter steps in again. It says, all right, here's

0:36:40.360 --> 0:36:42.960
<v Speaker 1>another twenty million dollars. New York is also going to

0:36:43.000 --> 0:36:46.040
<v Speaker 1>throw in twenty million dollars, and we're going to relocate everybody,

0:36:46.880 --> 0:36:51.920
<v Speaker 1>seven hundred remaining homes, everyone but two families. There's always

0:36:51.920 --> 0:36:56.759
<v Speaker 1>a couple that are like now not leaving. They stayed there,

0:36:56.800 --> 0:37:01.279
<v Speaker 1>but everyone else was relocated. In Congress passed the Comprehensive

0:37:01.400 --> 0:37:09.160
<v Speaker 1>Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act CIRCLA terrible, right, not great? Yeah,

0:37:09.200 --> 0:37:11.880
<v Speaker 1>that was in nineteen eighty They call it the Super

0:37:11.920 --> 0:37:14.560
<v Speaker 1>Fun Law, and that established a trust fund with the

0:37:14.600 --> 0:37:17.600
<v Speaker 1>EPA to clean up waste sites in the future and

0:37:17.760 --> 0:37:21.520
<v Speaker 1>establish a national priorities list, a superfund list in nineteen

0:37:21.520 --> 0:37:23.640
<v Speaker 1>eighty three that Love Canal was put squarely on.

0:37:24.080 --> 0:37:26.799
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then a decade or so later was used

0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:29.680
<v Speaker 2>to clean up David Hans's mom's potting shed.

0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:30.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:37:31.160 --> 0:37:35.040
<v Speaker 2>So that Super Fun Law. It came out days after,

0:37:36.239 --> 0:37:41.160
<v Speaker 2>no months after the hostage standoff, right, And I was like, okay,

0:37:41.280 --> 0:37:44.680
<v Speaker 2>that's pretty quick that, you know, there's surely this thing

0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:46.759
<v Speaker 2>had been kicking around Congress for a while and now

0:37:46.760 --> 0:37:49.120
<v Speaker 2>there was just an opportunity to push it through. Apparently

0:37:49.120 --> 0:37:52.960
<v Speaker 2>that's not true. That law that created the superfund was

0:37:53.160 --> 0:37:56.799
<v Speaker 2>essentially created in response to Love Canal and the protests

0:37:56.840 --> 0:38:00.960
<v Speaker 2>that the Love Canal Homeowners Association were staging. They created

0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:05.560
<v Speaker 2>this super fund. It like people didn't understand that toxic

0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:08.680
<v Speaker 2>waste could pollute the ground before this, and now all

0:38:08.719 --> 0:38:12.080
<v Speaker 2>of a sudden, the federal government has a comprehensive response

0:38:12.239 --> 0:38:16.799
<v Speaker 2>plan designed within months. Essentially that gives the EPA a

0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:20.880
<v Speaker 2>right to basically tax petroleum makers and plastic makers and

0:38:20.920 --> 0:38:24.120
<v Speaker 2>all that and put it into this trust fund to

0:38:24.200 --> 0:38:25.840
<v Speaker 2>help clean up sits in the future.

0:38:26.680 --> 0:38:28.160
<v Speaker 1>Amazing, It is amazing.

0:38:28.200 --> 0:38:32.040
<v Speaker 2>It's you know, federal government at its finest. It's not

0:38:32.160 --> 0:38:35.000
<v Speaker 2>always great. I will be the well, probably not the

0:38:35.000 --> 0:38:37.279
<v Speaker 2>first to say it, but I will say it, but

0:38:37.640 --> 0:38:39.239
<v Speaker 2>this is an example of it doing right.

0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:43.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, totally. So. The remediation took a long time. It

0:38:43.400 --> 0:38:45.719
<v Speaker 1>took a couple of decades, cost about three hundred and

0:38:45.760 --> 0:38:50.000
<v Speaker 1>fifty million bucks. They flattened all those homes, of course,

0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:53.319
<v Speaker 1>they did it. They sealed the landfill of the correct way,

0:38:53.360 --> 0:38:57.160
<v Speaker 1>which is with a three foot cap of clay water,

0:38:57.320 --> 0:39:02.239
<v Speaker 1>impermeable plastic, more top soil. They started diverting the groundwater

0:39:02.400 --> 0:39:07.160
<v Speaker 1>to a facility that treats it. They treat about five

0:39:07.160 --> 0:39:09.319
<v Speaker 1>million gallons of water a year. And they have about

0:39:09.360 --> 0:39:13.000
<v Speaker 1>one hundred monitoring wells all over the site that collect data,

0:39:13.800 --> 0:39:17.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, at all times to detect any chemical leakage

0:39:17.640 --> 0:39:20.480
<v Speaker 1>that might be happening if you're wondering about hook or

0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:23.319
<v Speaker 1>chemical if they were on the hook for any of this. Yes,

0:39:23.440 --> 0:39:26.600
<v Speaker 1>they eventually were. They were sued by the EPA themselves

0:39:26.600 --> 0:39:30.560
<v Speaker 1>in seventy nine. They settled in the nineteen nineties and

0:39:30.719 --> 0:39:34.040
<v Speaker 1>ended up between the federal government and New York State

0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:38.520
<v Speaker 1>repaying them about two hundred and twenty seven million dollars. Yeah,

0:39:38.560 --> 0:39:42.400
<v Speaker 1>which is kind of did not have to admit fault, No.

0:39:41.719 --> 0:39:44.920
<v Speaker 2>No way, And you can make a kind of a

0:39:46.320 --> 0:39:49.520
<v Speaker 2>case that they didn't need to admit fault. You know, well,

0:39:49.560 --> 0:39:50.640
<v Speaker 2>I think enough about it.

0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:53.960
<v Speaker 1>I think that means that insulates them from more lawsuits.

0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:55.839
<v Speaker 2>Sure, no, absolutely, I don't think it was just based

0:39:55.880 --> 0:39:58.640
<v Speaker 2>on principles or anything like that. Yeah, but that's kind

0:39:58.640 --> 0:40:00.920
<v Speaker 2>of par for the course with super fun stuff where

0:40:01.640 --> 0:40:05.000
<v Speaker 2>the government says, Okay, we're going to pay for cleanup,

0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:07.799
<v Speaker 2>and then they go after the people who were responsible

0:40:07.840 --> 0:40:09.760
<v Speaker 2>for the waste in the first place and then sue

0:40:09.760 --> 0:40:11.919
<v Speaker 2>them and then over the course of a decade or two,

0:40:12.080 --> 0:40:14.960
<v Speaker 2>finally get some fraction of the amount of the cleanup costs.

0:40:15.320 --> 0:40:17.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they fret the cost essentially.

0:40:18.080 --> 0:40:22.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So love Canal neighborhoods still around today they call

0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:27.440
<v Speaker 2>it Black Creek. And you said the houses and Rings

0:40:27.520 --> 0:40:31.320
<v Speaker 2>one and two were demolished, they were actually pushed into

0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:36.040
<v Speaker 2>the pit or the waste was and then covered over.

0:40:36.120 --> 0:40:38.120
<v Speaker 2>So the houses are down there, the parts of them,

0:40:39.000 --> 0:40:43.280
<v Speaker 2>and they rehabbed and updated the houses that were left over,

0:40:43.840 --> 0:40:46.680
<v Speaker 2>and after the EPA said Okay, we've cleaned this place

0:40:46.760 --> 0:40:51.239
<v Speaker 2>up enough, you guys can move back in, the neighborhood

0:40:51.320 --> 0:40:54.640
<v Speaker 2>just got life breathed back into it again. And weirdly,

0:40:55.280 --> 0:40:58.279
<v Speaker 2>just like with as new people moved in and the

0:40:58.320 --> 0:41:00.840
<v Speaker 2>Love Canal neighborhood starting in the fifth ties and sixties,

0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:04.439
<v Speaker 2>not all of them were told that they were living

0:41:04.520 --> 0:41:07.799
<v Speaker 2>on a toxic waste stump and that a lot of

0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:10.680
<v Speaker 2>the information was lost for people. The same thing happened

0:41:10.680 --> 0:41:12.880
<v Speaker 2>the second go around. There was a New York Times

0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:15.120
<v Speaker 2>article that found like, there's people living there that have

0:41:15.200 --> 0:41:17.439
<v Speaker 2>no idea the history of this place, and that there's

0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:19.919
<v Speaker 2>still a toxic waste dump down there. Because that's something

0:41:19.960 --> 0:41:22.880
<v Speaker 2>worth pointing out, Chuck. They didn't remove the toxic waste,

0:41:22.920 --> 0:41:25.080
<v Speaker 2>They just covered it up better, oh yeah than it

0:41:25.160 --> 0:41:26.120
<v Speaker 2>was covered up before.

0:41:26.840 --> 0:41:29.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So there have been lawsuits, There have been people

0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:33.279
<v Speaker 1>that still complain that moved back into Black Creek of

0:41:33.520 --> 0:41:35.439
<v Speaker 1>you know, some of the same issues there. I think

0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:40.720
<v Speaker 1>twenty lawsuits with seven hundred plaintiffs kind of in recent years,

0:41:41.200 --> 0:41:43.399
<v Speaker 1>and just last year in twenty twenty three, a state

0:41:43.480 --> 0:41:46.440
<v Speaker 1>judge dismissed a couple of the really big, high profile

0:41:46.520 --> 0:41:50.560
<v Speaker 1>cases for lack of evidence, which you know doesn't bode

0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:55.719
<v Speaker 1>well for lawsuits to follow. Obviously, as far as you know,

0:41:55.840 --> 0:41:58.680
<v Speaker 1>testing goes and whether or not there are really like

0:41:59.239 --> 0:42:02.440
<v Speaker 1>is still a real problem there. It's sort of conflicting

0:42:02.480 --> 0:42:08.560
<v Speaker 1>evidence inconclusive. I guess mortality rate is slightly elevated, but

0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:12.479
<v Speaker 1>within the normal range. Cancer rates are actually lower six

0:42:12.520 --> 0:42:16.879
<v Speaker 1>percent lower, but birth defects are twice as high as

0:42:16.960 --> 0:42:18.440
<v Speaker 1>other communities nearby.

0:42:18.840 --> 0:42:21.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that sounds really weird, Like why would cancer

0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:25.360
<v Speaker 2>rates be lower? Apparently they're like the sample size of

0:42:25.480 --> 0:42:29.200
<v Speaker 2>this study is not huge, so we're not crazy about

0:42:29.200 --> 0:42:33.799
<v Speaker 2>the results essentially. But yeah, I guess it didn't turn

0:42:33.840 --> 0:42:37.479
<v Speaker 2>out quite as bad as people had thought, which is good.

0:42:37.480 --> 0:42:40.200
<v Speaker 2>But I mean tell that to the families who had

0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:45.120
<v Speaker 2>babies born with you know, congenital disorders and or died young.

0:42:45.400 --> 0:42:47.400
<v Speaker 2>You know, I mean, there's there was a lot of

0:42:47.480 --> 0:42:50.600
<v Speaker 2>damage done to people living there unfairly, and that's ultimately

0:42:50.600 --> 0:42:54.160
<v Speaker 2>the saddest legacy of it. There's a triumphant legacy to it.

0:42:54.680 --> 0:42:55.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but there's that.

0:42:56.080 --> 0:42:58.959
<v Speaker 2>Will never, that will never put a clay cap over

0:42:59.040 --> 0:43:01.040
<v Speaker 2>the tragedy that I happened there too.

0:43:01.480 --> 0:43:03.880
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, I hope there's a statue of Lois Gibbs somewhere.

0:43:04.960 --> 0:43:06.960
<v Speaker 2>I don't know that there is. But she went on

0:43:07.040 --> 0:43:11.080
<v Speaker 2>to found the Center for Health, Environment.

0:43:10.680 --> 0:43:12.160
<v Speaker 1>And Justice, which is amazing.

0:43:12.200 --> 0:43:15.800
<v Speaker 2>She got so many letters from her you know, national

0:43:15.920 --> 0:43:18.640
<v Speaker 2>high profile as a result of this, that she went

0:43:18.680 --> 0:43:21.680
<v Speaker 2>and was like, Okay, I'm going to start an organization

0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:24.919
<v Speaker 2>that helps small towns deal with this on their own

0:43:25.440 --> 0:43:27.640
<v Speaker 2>without her help. I'm Lois Gibbs.

0:43:28.040 --> 0:43:29.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, She's like, I can make some real money off

0:43:29.719 --> 0:43:29.840
<v Speaker 1>of this.

0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:35.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, she's so loaded. She wears floor length mink coats

0:43:35.760 --> 0:43:38.879
<v Speaker 2>and shows up in gold plated roles to all these

0:43:39.239 --> 0:43:40.600
<v Speaker 2>these neighborhood meetings.

0:43:41.000 --> 0:43:43.759
<v Speaker 1>No, not my lowest Gibbs. I'm looking at pictures over now,

0:43:43.800 --> 0:43:47.120
<v Speaker 1>out there shouting in front of a building. I love it. Yep.

0:43:48.280 --> 0:43:50.279
<v Speaker 2>If you want to know more about Love Canal or

0:43:50.320 --> 0:43:54.600
<v Speaker 2>Lois Gibbs or Beverly pagan or anything like that. You

0:43:54.640 --> 0:43:56.880
<v Speaker 2>can look all over the internet. There's a bunch of

0:43:57.080 --> 0:44:00.600
<v Speaker 2>great stuff to read. And since I said it's time

0:44:00.640 --> 0:44:01.759
<v Speaker 2>for listener mail.

0:44:04.160 --> 0:44:06.399
<v Speaker 1>I actually got one more thing, so pre listener mail.

0:44:06.440 --> 0:44:11.000
<v Speaker 1>Oh boy, okay, it felt like the perfect episode to

0:44:11.000 --> 0:44:15.319
<v Speaker 1>plug a friends project. One of my oldest friends, Dave Barnhardt,

0:44:15.400 --> 0:44:20.400
<v Speaker 1>is a documentary filmmaker who takes on projects that you

0:44:20.440 --> 0:44:23.919
<v Speaker 1>know need attention, like gun violence and things like that.

0:44:24.000 --> 0:44:27.960
<v Speaker 1>And he did a documentary called Flint, the Poisoning of

0:44:27.960 --> 0:44:31.440
<v Speaker 1>an American city of Flint, Michigan, of course, and you

0:44:31.440 --> 0:44:33.920
<v Speaker 1>should check it out. It's you go to Flint Poisoning

0:44:33.960 --> 0:44:38.080
<v Speaker 1>dot com is the website for the documentary. And David's great.

0:44:38.160 --> 0:44:40.919
<v Speaker 1>He's doing he's doing good work and he's a good guy.

0:44:41.040 --> 0:44:43.960
<v Speaker 1>So check out the trailer and see where you can

0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:44.319
<v Speaker 1>watch it.

0:44:45.440 --> 0:44:48.440
<v Speaker 2>Great shout out man, I'm glad you did that. Yeah,

0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:51.440
<v Speaker 2>I think Flint deserves its own Episodeah for sure.

0:44:51.719 --> 0:44:52.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah we should follow up on that.

0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:56.120
<v Speaker 2>Uh if you already already said that, is it time

0:44:56.160 --> 0:44:56.959
<v Speaker 2>for listener mail?

0:44:57.280 --> 0:44:59.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I just I just thwarted.

0:44:59.280 --> 0:45:00.799
<v Speaker 2>Well, Jerry just put the chime.

0:45:03.960 --> 0:45:06.440
<v Speaker 1>Hey guys, I want to let you know how much

0:45:06.560 --> 0:45:08.760
<v Speaker 1>my family loves stuff. As you know, my boys Evan

0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:11.160
<v Speaker 1>and Alex and my wife Rachel listen to you every

0:45:11.239 --> 0:45:13.440
<v Speaker 1>chance we get. It's the first thing we do in

0:45:13.480 --> 0:45:15.040
<v Speaker 1>the morning on the way to school. The kids want

0:45:15.080 --> 0:45:17.080
<v Speaker 1>to see if there's a new episode, and they think

0:45:17.080 --> 0:45:19.799
<v Speaker 1>you're the smartest people in the world. So imagine how

0:45:19.840 --> 0:45:22.920
<v Speaker 1>they are impressed when I their lowly dad found a mistake.

0:45:24.200 --> 0:45:27.320
<v Speaker 1>In your snake oil podcast, nice, you guys mentioned that

0:45:27.360 --> 0:45:30.000
<v Speaker 1>patent medicines or medicines protected by patents, which gives a

0:45:30.000 --> 0:45:33.640
<v Speaker 1>manufacturer exclusive right without having to disclose what's in it.

0:45:34.320 --> 0:45:37.920
<v Speaker 1>That's actually the opposite. Pattent's grant a limited right to

0:45:38.160 --> 0:45:41.640
<v Speaker 1>exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling

0:45:41.640 --> 0:45:44.920
<v Speaker 1>the invention or importing it. But in exchange, you have

0:45:45.000 --> 0:45:48.720
<v Speaker 1>to disclose the invention in a way that would enable

0:45:49.120 --> 0:45:51.800
<v Speaker 1>one skilled in the art to make or use the invention.

0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:55.160
<v Speaker 1>In other words, if a medicine is patented, you'd have

0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:57.719
<v Speaker 1>to say exactly what's in it and how you made it,

0:45:57.800 --> 0:46:00.279
<v Speaker 1>otherwise you wouldn't get a patent. And you guys know

0:46:00.320 --> 0:46:03.319
<v Speaker 1>this because you actually said that in your how Ip

0:46:03.480 --> 0:46:07.520
<v Speaker 1>Works episode, right, Yeah, And that is from David. And

0:46:07.680 --> 0:46:09.680
<v Speaker 1>you know what, David, I looked into that more and

0:46:09.680 --> 0:46:14.400
<v Speaker 1>you're right. But I also found out that ninety percent

0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:17.200
<v Speaker 1>of these patent medicines didn't even have patents. They were

0:46:17.239 --> 0:46:21.080
<v Speaker 1>just called patent medicines, all right. So that's from David Greenfield.

0:46:22.200 --> 0:46:25.200
<v Speaker 2>Thanks a lot, David, much appreciated. If you want to

0:46:25.200 --> 0:46:27.759
<v Speaker 2>get in terms of this, like David did, you can

0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:34.000
<v Speaker 2>just send an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:38.279
<v Speaker 1>Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

0:46:38.360 --> 0:46:42.520
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:46:42.640 --> 0:46:44.520
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