Love Canal "clean-up"?While the Bush administration considers the recent completion of toxic waste toxic waste is waste material, often in chemical form, that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It usually is the product of industry or commerce, but comes also from residential use, agriculture, the military, medical facilities, radioactive sources, and clean-up efforts in Niagara, New York's Love Canal Love Canal, section of Niagara Falls, N.Y., that formerly contained a canal that was used as chemical disposal site. In the 1940s and 50s the empty canal was used by a chemical and plastics company to dump nearly 20,000 tons (c. neighborhood to be an environmental success story, Lois Gibbs (see "Be Safe! Lois Gibbs' New Campaign Urges Caution on Toxic Chemicals," Currents, July/August 2003) begs to differ. Gibbs, the mom-turned-activist who unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia. Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. the pollution at Love Canal back in 1980, contends that the decision to remove the site from Superfund is motivated more by politics than facts. "This is a way for them to talk about Love Canal as a turning point in the ongoing cleanup, when in fact there's no money to clean up these sites," says Gibbs, executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice in Virginia. The revelation that Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise pollution, and radiation and to ensure the safe handling and (EPA EPA eicosapentaenoic acid. EPA abbr. eicosapentaenoic acid EPA, n.pr See acid, eicosapentaenoic. EPA, n. ) staffers have been routinely pressured by Bush administration officials to ease off pollution enforcement efforts lends credence to Gibbs' point of view. CONTACT: Center for Health, Environment and Justice, (703)237-2249, www.chej.org. |
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