Nearly 50 years after the Love Canal environmental disaster, families in Niagara Falls are again raising alarms about safety in and around their homes. They are calling on New York State for truth and justice.
Residents and community advocates met at Frontier Firehall on Tuesday evening. Some of those living in the area say there is radioactivity on their properties, while others point to toxic chemicals seeping out of the ground.
Lexi Hawk, co-founder of Save Our Backyards of Western New York, said the moment calls for neighbors to unite. "Community involvement is the most important because people power is bigger than anything. It's bigger than test results," Hawk said, adding that residents who sense something is wrong should not have to wait for scientific data before moving to safety.
Hawk said many residents are frustrated by a lack of updates from the state. "They have really went pretty silent on us," Hawk said. According to Hawk, the only official residents are allowed to speak with is a community involvement coordinator, who tells them the state will try to find an answer but does not follow up.
Residents are still waiting on soil sample results. Hawk said they have been told the results will not come until after Election Day, and expects to hear back in the first week of November. Hawk also shared a new finding: the foundation of a friend's home on Chester Avenue, belonging to Jackie Linkowski, is made with monazite sand, which Hawk described as "literally radioactive sand."
The keynote speaker was Jackie Young Medcalf, who leads the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an organization founded by Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs. Medcalf urged the community to rally together and not stay silent. "This isn't going to be a quick process, and the community has a role in this process," Medcalf said, encouraging residents to use their voices and organize around a central goal.
Medcalf said the situation is personal. Growing up in Texas, Medcalf did not know their home sat between four Superfund sites. "I was just furious that nobody told us, nobody sent a letter to our house or knocked on our door," Medcalf said. Medcalf described severe health effects from that time, including weighing about 90 pounds, losing the use of both hands, suffering roughly seven seizures a week and losing hair. Medcalf is now a national environmental advocate.
Medcalf called what is happening to many Niagara Falls residents infuriating. In Medcalf's words, they had no way of knowing the contamination was there, and government was studying their property without telling them. Now, Medcalf said, state and federal investigators are digging and disturbing yards while families are expected to keep living there.
The community has set out three urgent demands: relocate and protect the McKiernan family, investigate the surrounding neighborhoods, and determine whether Love Canal is leaking.
