Statement Of Lois Gibbs

Twenty years ago, residents of Love Canal, NY discovered that our homes had been contaminated, and our children were being made sick, by 20,000 tons of highly toxic chemical waste dumped by the Hooker Chemical Company in the 1940s and 1950s. The plight of citizens at Love Canal outraged the American public and led to the passage in 1980 of the Superfund law to find and clean up the nationâs worst toxic dumps.

Unfortunately, Love Canal is not an isolated incident. In thousands of communities across the nation, millions of pounds of toxic chemicals including lead, arsenic, mercury and dioxin have been dumped in the midst of unsuspecting neighborhoods. They are the legacy of decades of irresponsible use and disposal of toxic chemicals by polluters. These sites poison the land, contaminate drinking water sources, and potentially cause cancer, birth defects, nerve damage and other health effects. The worst of these sites are Superfund sites.

The core principle of the Superfund program is that polluters -- not taxpayers -- should pay to clean up these deadly toxic waste sites. In addition to providing funding for the cleanups (and ensuring that taxpayers donât get stuck footing the bill), the polluter pays principle creates a powerful disincentive against the reckless dumping of toxic wastes.

On the 20th Anniversary of Love Canal, our laws to clean up toxic waste should be strengthened, not weakened. Congress should restore the hazardous waste cleanup tax on polluting industries and reject all efforts to roll back Superfund and other environmental laws.

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Lois Gibbs was the president of the Love Canal Homeowners Association. She is currently Executive Director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice.