American Scandal - Love Canal | Unlikely Heroes | 5

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Drawing on more than 100 hours of interviews and boxes of unreleased documents, journalist Keith O’Brien unraveled the mystery behind the Love Canal disaster in his book, Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe. Today, O’Brien takes Lindsay through what he discovered about an unlikely group of women who stood up against injustice to save their families. O’Brien’s reporting reveals new details about the Love Canal site and Hooker Chemical, and explores how the tragedy impacted modern day environmental policy.Listen to American Scandal on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season. Unlock exclusive early access by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today by visiting https://wondery.com/links/american-scandal/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, this is Lindsey Graham, host of American Scandal. Our back catalog has moved behind a paywall. Recent episodes remain free, but older ones will require a Wondery Plus subscription. With Wondery Plus, you get access to the full American Scandal archive, ad-free, plus early access to new seasons and more. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal. In the late 1970s, ordinary residents of a suburban community in Niagara Falls, New York, began smelling chemical odors in their homes and experiencing strange ailments. It turned out that their neighborhood was built on top of land previously used as a dumping ground

for toxic chemicals. The site, known as Love Canal, became a source of contentious debate over how to solve the area's problems. It wasn't until a group of determined women from the community joined together to speak out that the disaster at Love Canal was exposed. Many of these women were forced to become activists overnight in order to protect their children and keep their families safe. Their fight against big corporations and political power sparked some of the modern-day environmental legislation we have today. My guest today is Keith O'Brien, author of Paradise Falls, the true story of an environmental catastrophe. Through original reporting and in-depth interviews, O'Brien brings to life the human stories at the heart of this environmental disaster. Our conversation is next.

In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of scandals and deadly crashes that have dented its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 MAX. The latest season of Business Wars explores how Boeing allowed things to turn deadly and what, if anything, can save the company's reputation. Make sure to listen to Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. Keith O'Brien, welcome to American Scandal. Thanks so much for having me.

Now, the story of Love Canal is not a well-known one. How did you first become interested in telling this story? I'm a historian. I am a journalist. I'm an author. And like every storyteller, I'm always looking for stories. And the book I did before this one was about female pilots in the 1920s and 30s fighting for the right to fly and race planes. And one of the things that I sort of mourned while I was writing that book, Lindsay, was that all the protagonists were gone. They had all died long ago.

And most troubling was that they had died in obscurity. No one had gone searching for them to tell their story near the end of their lives. And so when I came out of that project, I was looking around at the landscape and I was thinking about that a lot. You know, who are the people around us right now who had maybe once done something meaningful but had now been forgotten?

And with that, I started looking at the 1970s and I was born in the 70s. I have some snapshot memories of the 1970s. I remember the blizzard of 1977. I remember the gas lines. I remember the hostage crisis and President Carter struggling with that. And I did remember this place called Love Canal, but I didn't remember much about it. And really, that's where this all began for me. Well, I was born in the 1970s as well, and that was a decade of quite a bit of tumult. How did you pick Love Canal? What was most compelling about that story in particular?

For me, it's the human story. This, to me, was always the story of a neighborhood, the story of families living in that neighborhood. I think all too often, when people have written about Love Canal, it's been told as a chemical story. And to be clear, there's a lot of wrestling with that problem in my book, in my narrative. But to me, this was a human story. And early on, I connected with a couple of those people. I did early phone interviews with a woman named Luella Kenny and a second woman named Lois Gibbs. And these were, at the time in the 1970s, moms, you know, who just lived in the neighborhood and were raising their children in this neighborhood. And it was through the early interviews with them that I began to sketch the gauzy outlines of this narrative and really identified early on,

you know, what this story was about. To me, this was about a neighborhood that had been built on top of and around a former chemical landfill. And this two-year fight, essentially, to escape that neighborhood once the truth became known. And when you think about it in that way, in the human way, in the way that one might think about it if it was one's own neighborhood, I think that's just an incredibly compelling story. And that's why I wanted to dig into it. I'm glad you center the word neighborhood, because who was living there? What did it look like? Well, you know, most of us have this one impression of Niagara Falls, and it's the waterfalls.

Many of us have probably ridden on the Maid of the Mist. But, you know, Niagara Falls is a real place. And in the early and mid-20th century, it was one of the fastest growing cities in America. And it was growing not really because of the waterfalls at all. It was growing because of corporate investments, and specifically, the investments of chemical companies. Just a couple of miles upriver from those famous waterfalls that people can envision is a row of chemical companies that dots the landscape there. People moved to Niagara Falls primarily for jobs in those chemical plants. And in the early 20th century, as Niagara Falls begins to boom, the population pushes east to this stretch of farmland that was called LaSalle.

And what pops up there, Lindsay, is really sort of an ideal American neighborhood. A school is built in the heart of the neighborhood called the 99th Street School, and a neighborhood grows around it. And these are working class families, people who came to Niagara Falls for those chemical plant jobs and were scraping and clawing their way to the middle class on the backs of those jobs. And these homes in this neighborhood, which was then again called LaSalle, were single family ranches. Not a single two-story home was built in that neighborhood, which was then again called LaSalle, were single family ranches. Not a single two-story home was built in that neighborhood. They were all ranches, all working class families. And one of the key things I wanted to do with my book was paint this picture of paradise,

because that is really what it was. It was suburban paradise, the kind of thing that lots of families want. Good schools, nice yards, affordable housing. That's what LaSalle offered to families in the 1950s and 60s when folks started to move out there in droves. Now, the 1970s, as we mentioned, is a curious decade, one of a lot of political strife, social strife, and environmental disasters. The EPA itself didn't exist until 1970. So why did you pick this disaster, this environmental catastrophe to focus on? Well, you're right. I mean, there are many environmental crises in the 1960s and into the early 1970s. The thing is, the environmental movement, while something that was happening in America in the 1970s,

really is a marginal movement. It is one that the average American believes is just for progressives. It's one that the average American believes is something that is only important on the East Coast or the West Coast and in the progressive cities along those coasts. And that, I think, is why the Love Canal story is so important. as I said, a working class neighborhood. People who live in this neighborhood, like Lois Gibbs, like Luella Kenney, begin to learn the secrets that are buried in the ground and begin to rally against those secrets and rally for their own escape. They are doing something that they never imagined themselves doing. They are becoming activists. And in doing so, themselves doing. They're becoming activists. And in doing so, they are showing average Americans across the country that they too need to be concerned about what's in their water, in their soil, in their neighborhoods. Really, the Love Canal story brings environmentalism to the

mainstream. Regarding these secrets buried in the ground, I guess it's important to ask how they got there in the first place and what were the early signs that they might be getting out? Oh my gosh, it's such an interesting story, a story of so many dominoes. As I said, this neighborhood wasn't called Love Canal. It was called LaSalle. A full 80 years before the problems begin to emerge in the neighborhood, a man comes to Niagara Falls with a dream.

And that man's name was William T. Love. And in previous books that have been written about this subject, people have often said, well, we don't know where William T. Love came from. We don't know how he got there. I did a ton of work on that, actually, and I can tell you exactly who William T. Love was. He was a businessman who had invested and built small railroads in the Dakota territories in the 1800s. And then it moved around a bit and was a bit of a drifter and a bit of a grifter. He was the kind of guy who could roll into a town in the 1800s

and declare that he was going to do big things like build a railroad or open a coal mine or, in this case, build a canal. And William T. Love's idea wasn't actually new. When he arrives in Niagara Falls in the 1890s, he latches on to an idea that's been floating around the Niagara region for a couple of decades. Many people had debated building essentially a cut-through canal that would skirt the waterfalls, which were obviously unnavigable by boat or by ship. The problem is, it was very difficult to build an 11-mile canal, especially at the time when William T. Love begins. He quickly loses investors as the economy sours in the 1890s. And while he has started to build this canal, it never gets completed. In fact, it never makes it more than even a mile. And so when William T. Love disappears from the landscape in Niagara Falls

in a way he's disappeared from towns before, he leaves essentially this ditch in the ground that's just sitting there. And this ditch, this old abandoned canal does sit there for many years, unused, until companies in Niagara Falls begin to use it as a dumping ground. And specifically, one company sets its sights on this old canal, the Love Canal, and that company's name is Hooker Chemical. So then Hooker Chemical begins using the canal as a dumping ground for their industrial waste. When did they begin to realize that this land might be harmful, might pose risks to residents? I assume that they were watching all along as the city bought the land from them and then planned a community over it. Well, they were. So, you know, Hooker Chemical is one of the biggest

companies in town, one of the largest employers in town. It is at times in the 20th century, the largest industrial taxpayer in town. It's a very profitable and successful chemical company. They use the canal as a dumping ground, especially in the post-war years in the 1940s. In the 1950s, they sell it, Hooker Chemical does, to the city of Niagara Falls and the school board for a dollar, and up goes that school and around it goes that neighborhood. And the question you've asked, Lindsay, is one of the most contentious questions of all. You know, what did they know and when did they know it? And it will lead to, you know, years and frankly, decades of lawsuits between residents of the city and Hooker Chemical. But the gist of it is this.

According to internal documents, even in the 1950s, there was concern among hooker executives about selling this land to the city and to the Board of Education because it was clear what the Board of Education intended to do. They were going to build that school. And, you know, over the years, the problems there at the school were apparent, if not to residents, then at least to people in power in Niagara Falls. Fires broke out on that land for reasons that no one understood. On at least one occasion, a buried chemical drum exploded on a quiet weekend morning, scattering its contents on nearby homes. And children spoke of something that seemed absurd, preposterous. They said that they could find rocks on this land, on this playground, in and around this school, that would burst into flames. And I want to be

clear, you know, rocks don't burst into flames. What essentially these children were finding was clumps of congealed chemical residue, which would spark apparently when thrown at the ground or when skipped upon water. So all all these problems are bubbling beneath the surface. They are well known, again, to people in power in Niagara Falls. It is only in 1977, 1978, that the problems now become more widespread and better known to all. Chemicals and their wastes and residues are now seeping into people's backyards, into people's basements. There is an odor in the neighborhood,

especially right around the old canal, the old dumping ground that is notable to all. And this begins, ultimately, the fight in the middle of it all, the fight of these families to understand what is happening and to escape their own homes. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of

Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up.

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You put a lot of effort into researching your book, about 130 hours of interviews. And there are interviews with people we are now familiar with, Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenney, Beverly Pagan. How did you, though, first identify who was at the center of the story? Well, Lois Gibbs was at the center of the protagonists in this story, including Lois, still lives in Western New York, just a few miles from her old neighborhood there in the home that she had on 96th Street. And to me, Luella was clearly an important person because of what's at stake for her and what she frankly loses and then what she does as a result of those losses. So Luella Kenny was to me an obviously important character and protagonist. But the others you mentioned were less obvious.

Yeah, and one of those less obvious characters was Bonnie Casper, a woman that we didn't really cover in our series. Tell us about her. Until my book, Bonnie Casper's name, the name of this woman who was a legislative aide for the congressman from Western New York appeared nowhere in newspaper stories. If you were going to use, let's just say, newspaper coverage or television footage as the basis of your work, you would have never found Bonnie Casper. And so I had never heard her name. I only learned of Bonnie's name while doing interviews with the congressman for whom she worked, John LaFalse. And it was in doing interviews with John that he began to mention Bonnie's name and said, you know, that I really needed to try to find her. And ultimately, with John LaFalse's help, I did find her. And, you know, Bonnie long ago left government,

left behind an environmental work. You know, when I found her a few years ago, she was a commercial real estate agent in suburban Maryland. But this moment in Bonnie's life in the 1970s was one of the most formative and most important. I did a lot of interviews with her because, frankly, Bonnie knew what was happening in the neighborhood even before the residents did and was struggling to wrap her mind around it and struggling to get her boss, John LaFalse, and others in Congress to pay attention to it. And, you know, I learned that not just from

interviews with Bonnie, but from documents that Bonnie kept. In one of my first interviews with Bonnie Casper, she mentioned that she had kept boxes of documents. And when I went and visited her in suburban Maryland and interviewed her in person in the commercial real estate office where she worked at the time, she brought these records with her. And I had underestimated, frankly, what she meant when she said that she had kept boxes. Because that day, I had to go and buy a second piece of luggage just so that I could bring her documents home with me to review them. And in those documents was a memo that Bonnie writes to her boss, John LaFalse, in June 1977.

And this is six to eight months before Lois Gibbs will even know what's happening in her neighborhood. And Bonnie writes that she's gone to lunch that day with two worried city officials from Niagara Falls who have come down to Washington in search of help and in search of money because chemical drums were cresting out of the ground on the east side of town in and around a playground that encircled a school, the 99th Street School. And, you know, this letter to me was like journalism gold, historian gold. It's the moment, you know, Bonnie has gone to lunch with these two men, comes back to her office, and begins to write this letter to John LaFalse.

And the story with Beverly Pagan was frankly the same, Lindsay. Beverly Pagan was a scientist, not a resident of the neighborhood. And she helps these women and these mothers and the residents of the neighborhood at large. And she does so at great risk to herself because in the 1970s, Beverly Pagan wasn't just a PhD-level biologist who specialized in the environment. She worked for a state lab in Buffalo. And so, when Beverly Pagan begins to make statements, first privately and then publicly, that go against what her superiors in the state capitol in Albany are saying, she's putting her career at risk, her job at risk, and perhaps even more. Let's go back to Luella Kenny for a second. She has perhaps the most heartbreaking story.

Tell us more about what you learned about her. Luella Kenny lives on 96th Street, and she lives there in the 1970s with her husband, Norman, and her three boys. Again, in a neighborhood that was already sort of this suburban paradise, Luella's was especially so. It was located at sort of an elbow in the road, a modified cul-de-sac that backed up into a confluence of three creeks, had a much bigger backyard than most homes in the neighborhood. And the Kenny boys loved to romp and play in those creeks. But in 1978, right about the time that Lois Gibbs

is beginning to learn about the secrets buried beneath the school, Luella's youngest son, John Allen, begins to get sick with a mysterious set of symptoms that the local doctors cannot decipher. This illness is going to change everything for the Kenny family forever. I interviewed Luella about what happens to John Allen Kenny, But I didn't just have to rely on memories when interviewing Luella Kenney. She kept everything, just like Bonnie Casper. She kept, most importantly, her son's entire medical file. Hundreds of pages of notes, tests, documents

about his struggles in 1978. And so, because of that, I was able to bring John Allen back to life, really, on the pages of the book so that we could see how these secrets and how this scandal could, frankly, destroy a family in real time. How aware do you think Luella was of the toxic chemicals in the area as her son was becoming sick? When did the connection click for her? In Niagara Falls in the 1970s, there was a familiarity with chemicals that, you know, we would probably find shocking today. There were times when clouds of noxious fumes would drift overhead from those plants along the river, like I mentioned. And many families, you know, had at least one spouse who worked in those factories. So there was

sort of a familiarity with chemicals. But with Luella, there was no knowledge of what was buried beneath the school. There was no knowledge that Hooker Chemical had once used this old canal as a dumping ground for its residues and wastes. and you know she told me that even when john allen gets sick in the summer of 1978 when now there are starting to be meetings and and stories in the newspaper about what is buried in the ground luella was too stressed she said to to think much about it. And as a parent myself, you know, I understand that. You know, anyone who's a parent of multiple children, young children, knows that at times, it's just a struggle to get through the day. And then on top of all that, you know, John Allen Kenney is now gravely ill, in and out of the hospital the entire summer of 1978. She simply didn't have the bandwidth to think about how the chemicals in the neighborhood might be connected to what was happening to her son. It was only later.

It was only after his death she began to wrestle with this. And she was uniquely equipped to do that because Luella wasn't just a mother. She was herself a scientist and a researcher. And so in the weeks and months after John Allen's death, Luella begins to do what a researcher does. You know, she begins to go to the library and she begins to live inside medical journals. And as she does that, she begins to connect the dots and realize that the problems that her son was facing in the summer of 1978 were quite likely connected in some way to chemicals. Because again and again in the medical research, people who suffered from the symptoms that he suffered from were chemical workers, not little boys. And finally, of this pantheon of courageous women, there's Lois Gibbs. We

mentioned her at the top. She became the face of the campaign to fight the Love Canal tragedy. What do you think drove her, a person who was admittedly reluctant to get a spotlight to speak in public, what drove her to push for change, to go up against big corporations and government officials. You know, when all this begins, Lois Gibbs just has a simple request. Her oldest son, Michael, has just started attending school at the 99th Street School, and he's now suffering from seizures. And in her earliest request, she simply asks, she says, that he be moved to a different public school the following fall. I've often wondered, you know, how this story might be different had that request been satisfied. But school officials don't. She's told that the school is safe, that her son is in no danger there. And frustrated by that, Lois begins to go door to door, collecting signatures on a petition to shut down the school until they can learn more about what's buried in the ground.

It's fascinating. Lois had pretty low self-esteem in the 1970s she had barely graduated from high school she was a stay-at-home mom or at they said it as they said at the time she was a housewife and she felt self-conscious she told me about even speaking out at teacher conferences or the PTA meetings. But as a woman who was essentially defending the safety of her children, she becomes someone who, frankly, she always was, but didn't know. She becomes a force of nature, frankly. a force of nature, frankly. And there's a reason why Lois Gibbs, you know, gains a measure of fame and notoriety out of what happens at Love Canal. It's that she puts herself in the center of it again and again. And, you know, she speaks in front of television cameras and reporters with the emotion of a mother. That's what connects this story to

people. People in Niagara Falls, of course, always cared about what was happening in this neighborhood. But it's really only because of activists and mothers like Lois Gibbs that people in New York or D.C. or California ever heard of this place called Love Canal. She puts it on the front page of newspapers. She puts it at the top of the network news. And she does so at great personal price. Over the course of this two-year fight to escape her own home. Lois Gibbs will lose friends. People in the neighborhood will turn against her. And it will ultimately cost her too, even her marriage to her husband, because of all the work she's putting in to this fight to escape

her own house. At this point in time, and at this special circumstance, we have these women, mothers, housewives fighting against an apparatus that seems just overwhelming. What were they up against? And how did they prevail? Well, I mean, they were up against everything. For starters, they were facing a culture that at the time in the late 1970s didn't have much respect for women and specifically didn't have much respect for women who were trying to be leaders in a field of science. That was a massive challenge that all of these women faced, and state officials did try to use that against them. When they begin to work together, when they begin to do their own studies, and when they begin to turn to the scientists we mentioned before, Beverly Pagan, for help in those studies. Lois Gibbs and the others come forward with a different set of facts that show they believe that the chemicals have traveled in the

ground far more than state and federal officials are willing to say at that time. The studies that they put together are not just credible, they're compelling, but they don't get that kind of treatment. State officials dismiss their studies as useless housewife data and try to diminish what they have found, essentially by gender blaming them. There's sort of a double-edged sword here too, Lindsay. Because they were women, because they were mothers, they do get a certain amount of press attention that might not have happened

had they been actual scientists. And so their greatest weakness becomes at times their greatest strength. And that's a really compelling historical lesson for all of us today. So now we have these activists, these residents become activists. We've discussed the long journey that's ahead of them. But I'm wondering if you could just quickly go through the stages of the protest and when finally the evidence becomes incontrovertible and action must be taken. It follows, you know, a fairly typical path, I guess you would say. You know, they protest in

the streets. They protest at campaign rallies for the governor of New York. They make sure they get press attention at every turn. But by, you know, early 1980, they're now in a stalemate. And a study is being conducted to see if any residents of the neighborhood have chromosomal abnormalities. It's when this study comes out that things quite literally explode. It's a small study, very small sample size. It's a study that will be debated not just for months, but for years, and is in some ways still under debate today. But when that original study comes out, it is found that many people who live in the neighborhood do suffer from chromosomal abnormalities. And with that, Lois Gibbs and

other mothers in the neighborhood make a stand, and they do so right in the neighborhood, And they do so right in the neighborhood and essentially hold against their will two EPA agents for the course of hours. It's described in the press as a hostage standoff. It really never was. But it also, you know, was the kind of thing that would have gotten someone arrested today. Lois Gibbs and other mothers don't let these two men leave their homeowners association office in the neighborhood, leading to a massive police event and also a massive media event. And it's one that can no longer be ignored all the way to the doorsteps of the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

By the end of that night, President Jimmy Carter is involved. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers. This heart-stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant, Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 MAX, the latest season of Business Wars, explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust. The decisions, denials and devastating consequences bringing the Titan to its. And what, if anything, can save the company's reputation? Now, follow Business Wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge Business Wars, the unraveling of Boeing, early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Looking back at this crisis, we would hope for a much quicker government response and more corporate accountability. That did not happen in this case and it certainly didn't happen quickly. What were some of the issues that may have caused this particular instance to become such a contentious and difficult problem to solve? Well, I mean, sadly, I would say we see these kind of cases still play out today. Despite all of the positive changes that we out in neighborhoods today when there are problems. You see residents who are frustrated about the slow wheels of government bureaucracy turning to address the problem. You see the corporations and businesses who have been implicated in the problem running for legal cover. And you do see, unfortunately, cases where

environmental crises envelop a neighborhood, a town, a place for months, for years. But that said, this crisis at Love Canal does change things, and it does change things forever. There's, for starters, a cultural shift. By the time, you know, this is over, and Lois Gibbs and others are indeed escaping their homes forever. People across the country in neighborhoods that are both middle class and working class, people are looking around and wondering what's in their water, what's in their soil, what's buried beneath their schools. Are their children safe? There's an environmental awakening that happens in America. And there is a fundamental policy shift that will forever reframe how we tackle environmental crises like the one we saw in Niagara Falls. In the midst of

these problems in Western New York, congressmen in Washington begin to debate some kind of large fund of money. It is going to be a pot of money so large that they begin to call it a super fund. By the end of 1980, Congress passes a $1.6 billion piece of legislation that will give the Environmental Protection Agency the money and the wherewithal to go into places like Niagara Falls and conduct a massive cleanup when there are legal battles or orphan sites where there is no one left to blame for the problem. And so, you know, this Superfund Act today has helped begin to remediate as many as 2,000 different sites across America. And so, this apparatus is in place, and it has had a positive effect. And there have been, you know, countless studies that show that, you know, the Superfund Act has helped reduce lead poisoning in children. It has helped reduce birth defects in children. country right now that are wrestling with similar problems as Lois Gibbs and the mothers did in

1978 and 1979 in Niagara Falls. The issue typically these days isn't about an old buried chemical landfill. That is a particularly unique case. But the problems are nevertheless just as difficult to solve. And it still takes for residents who are involved or ensnared in these scandals too long to get out. Do you still keep in touch with any of the people you spoke to when researching this book? I do indeed, yes. Beverly Pagan sadly died before my book came out, which was devastating. sadly died before my book came out, which was devastating. All too often over the years, her contributions to this story and to this fight in Western New York had been overshadowed. And so, it is devastating to me that she didn't get to take that sort of victory lap at the end of her life. But I remain in touch with many of the other principals,

you know, with Lois Gibbs, with Luella Kenny, with Bonnie Casper. I remain in touch with all of them. You know, Luella Kenny in particular, you know, remains this singular voice out there in Western New York. Like I said, she's one of the few who ultimately didn't leave the region entirely. She lives just a few miles from her old house on 96th Street. And even though Luella Kenny is now deep into her 80s, she still gives tours out there in the old neighborhood with people who are interested to see what it looks like or what it was like or what it was like to live there once long ago. It's been about 45 years since this fight began at Love Canal. You mentioned why it was a singular case then and how it's changed our legislation,

how it's changed our view of environmental crises. But what do you think still resonates about this story today? To me, what resonates is the power of organizing, the power of activism, and the power of activists who might not even think they have much power. That's who these women were in 1977, That's who these women were in 1977, 1978. They had no training for this moment and no expectation that they would ever be in a protest, ever be on a picket line. They put themselves there and willed themselves to stay there because they were protecting their families. they were protecting their families. And to me, there's just a bigger lesson in that for all of us as we face our own love canal, you know, which I would argue is the warming of our planet.

We all have a voice. We all have a stake. And were we to organize and fight collectively as the residents of this neighborhood once did, I do believe that we, as everyday, ordinary people, have incredible power to change the course of history. Well, Keith O'Brien, thank you so much for joining us on American Scandal. Thanks so much for having me. That was my conversation with journalist and author Keith O'Brien.

To learn more about this story, we recommend his book Paradise Falls, the true story of an environmental catastrophe. From Wondery, this is Episode 5 of Love Canal from American Scandal. In our next series, in the 1970s and 80s, televangelist Jim Baker sets out to revolutionize Christian media. He and his wife Tammy Faye become national celebrities preaching the Word of God. But as he builds an empire, Baker lets his ambition and greed get the best of it. If you're enjoying American Scandal, you can unlock exclusive seasons on Wondery Plus. Binge new seasons first and listen completely ad-free when you join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a survey

at wondery.com slash survey. American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executed and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. This episode was produced by Paige Heimson. Our senior interview producer is Peter Arcuni. Sound design by Gabriel Gould. Music by Lindsey Graham. Produced by John Reed. Managing producer Olivia Fonte. Senior producer Andy Herman. Executive producers Jenny Lauer Beckman, Stephanie Jens, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.