Word: canallers
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...were many of the Kotts' neighbors. Over 700 families in all, they live around Love Canal, the notorious, stinking chemical sewer that has become a symbol of the country's growing toxic waste problem. For the past two years, one report after another has told harrowing tales of noxious odors leaking into homes, of sinister-colored sludge seeping into basements, of children playing in potholes of pollutants and, worst of all, of abnormally high rates of miscarriages and birth defects, of nerve, respiratory, liver and kidney disorders and of assorted cancers among people of Love Canal...
...many homeowners who were left behind in the surrounding streets remained convinced that the malignancy of Love Canal had spread beyond what the state called this "first circle" of contamination. And they have been clamoring ever since for help - from the local government, the state, Washington, anyone...
...people of Love Canal got vivid proof that their devil was manmade. Heavy rains turned the former canal into a quagmire of mud, puddled here and there by iridescent pools that fumed and bubbled. The landfill's topsoil began to wash away, revealing Hooker's metal casks, some of them badly corroded and leaking their caustic contents. Says one state environmental official: "It was like a Hieronymus Bosch painting; it really looked like hell...
True enough, but the circumstantial case seems to be getting stronger. Last December Mrs. Gibbs, in her own informal survey, found that only two of the eight women in the Love Canal area who gave birth in 1978 and 1979 had delivered normal babies. In March, Cancer Researcher Beverly Paigen of the Roswell Park Memorial Institute in nearby Buffalo told congressional investigators that the miscarriage rate among women in the contaminated sector was a startling 25.2% compared with 8.5% before they moved into the neighborhood. But what triggered the latest crisis was a study showing an unusually high incidence...
...finding of chromosome abnormalities in residents of the Love Canal area was hardly surprising. It has long been known that the 46 pairs of rodlike structures that carry the genetic message in the nuclei of human cells can be damaged by environmental factors, including certain chemicals. When that happens, the message may become jumbled, possibly increasing the risk of cancer. Some scientists say chromosome damage may also be linked with birth defects and spontaneous abortion. But were the tests conducted by Houston's Biogenics Corp. for the EPA a true index of genetic mayhem from Love Canal...