In 1978, Lois Gibbs voiced her concerns about how her neighborhood, Love Canal, was causing her children and her neighbors children to become sick. Little did she know, lethal amounts of toxic waste was polluting her neighborhood and endangering the lives of her family and friends. Amidst the backlash, Gibbs refused to remain silent, raising awareness of the toxicity plaguing her home and ultimately saving the lives of her family and neighbors.
Due to the unregulated release of chemical waste, children and families were experiencing a mysterious phenomena. From their children, who were born healthy, having severe health concerns out of the blue to children being born with deformities, Gibbs started to notice an unusual pattern. Gibbs started to ask her neighbors if the problems that their family were experiencing were similar to the ones she and her family were experiencing. To her surprise, almost all of them had the same health problems and issues.
Gibbs immediately took action on this problem and created a petition to install change in the Love Canal. With no experience in activism, Gibbs’ fight for justice drove her and her neighbors to get national attention for their activism.
The main lesson to be learned from the Love Canal crisis is that in order to protect public health from chemical contamination, there needs to be a massive outcry 一 a choir of voices 一 by the American people demanding change.
After years of fighting, justice was finally served and all 800 families living in Love Canal were evacuated from their homes. Gibbs found out that she and her neighbors had been living and housing on top of 21,000 tons of chemical waste.
Due to her contributions, Gibbs organized and led a cleanup of the Love Canal and raised awareness about the dangers of chemical waste. Her fight and activism not only saved lives but also created the Superfund Act, an act that locates and targets areas that have been contaminated with toxic waste. The Superfund Act insures that toxic waste will be removed and cleaned up for the well-being of all citizens.
Gibbs continues to be an activist for the cleanup and fixture of the Love Canal and other areas of the United States that have been negatively impacted by chemical waste. Gibbs founded the Center for Health and the Environment and Justice, which both fight to decrease the amount of pollution in America and to ensure another situation that occurred at Love Canal will never happen again.
saniah • Mar 12, 2024 at 10:29 am
i love the fact that you all did a story on someone who most people don’t know and not doing women we already know very well.