Harper's "Map" feature: Love Canal

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

see the last page (p.150) in the new, Nov '99 issue (researched by Sarah
Smith, map by Barbara Glauber/Heavy Meta Studio).  It overlays the dump's
location/rough contents, structures/ownership, un-inhabitable zones and the
citizen's '79 study by Bev Paigen of illness clusters, with the new
development/reopenenings being allowed.

Too bad it doesn't show groundwater movement--does anyone know its
direction and elevation, relative to the dump's content?  Marshy
depressions (swales) are drawn, but they lace throughout the area.  Since
the un-inhabitable zone is directly East, can I assume gw flow is East?  Or
is it S-SE--drawn towards the Little Niagara juncture w/ the Niagara, 1,500
feet to the S or the S-SE (off-map)?  (I see the swales all point S-SE).
In any case, the North habitable zone just across the street from where
industrial drums were landfilled (but upstream from gw?) showed almost as
heavy a concentration of health effects as the E, uninhabitable area (in
Dr. Paigen's study).  Also on the map are (unquantified) elevated dioxin
and other unnamed chemicals soil level locations--all compass points
apparantly have significant soil contamination (except that to the W there
are less dots indicating dioxin soil contamination)...  All-in-all, this
particular set of data makes it look like the N area's illness' & soil
contamination are somewhat unexplained, but I see there's a substantial
creek on it's N perimiter that could have drawn gw and its contamination...

Tony Tweedale

Causality is a concept not subject to empirical demonstration. -David Hume
(1711-'76)

Temperate but endangered planet.  Enjoys weather, northern lights,
continental drift.  Seeks caring relationship with intelligent life form.
      -Friends of the Earth