Lois Gibbs knew something was not right when her 5-year-old son began having seizures. She soon discovered the local school and playground in Niagara Falls, New York, was built on a toxic waste dump known as Love Canal. It was 1977. Gibbs soon transformed from a suburban housewife into a crusading activist who changed the face of the national environmental movement and whose work led to the creation of the federal superfund program. 

Love Canal has become synonymous with corporate greed and toxic pollution. Hooker Chemical, the largest employer in Niagara Falls, had been dumping highly toxic waste in the working-class community since the 1940s. The company covered the polluted landfill with dirt and sold it to the city’s board of education for $1, and a school was soon built on the site. Hundreds of community members and schoolchildren were poisoned, and some died. 

Echoes of the Love Canal saga can be felt today in communities including Bennington, where local residents just reached a $34 million settlement with Saint-Gobain, a multinational plastics company which, along with previous owner ChemFab, operated a plant that was responsible for contaminating the soil and water. On April 21, Gov. Phil Scott signed a law giving people who have been exposed to toxic chemicals the right to sue responsible companies for the cost of monitoring their health. 

The Love Canal story is told in a new book, “Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe,” by New York Times bestselling author Keith O’Brien, a former reporter for the Boston Globe.