LOVE CANAL, THE FINAL CHAPTER
A 20-year battle over toxic waste at Love Canal reached an anticlimax as New York State settled a $630 million lawsuit against Occidental Chemical Corp. for a bargain $98 million. Occidental's corporate predecessor, Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp., buried 22,000 tons of toxic waste near the Niagara Falls neighborhood from 1942 to 1953. Most of the town was evacuated in the mid-1970s when the contamination was widely reported. Despite the settlement today, Occidental's problems are far from over: many individual suits, as well as a federal action, brought against the company over Love Canal continue to percolate.
Most Popular »
- How Cash Keeps Poor People Poor
- E.T. Turns 30: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Our Favorite Extraterrestrial
- 15-Year-Old Creates Test for Pancreatic Cancer
- Fourth Flesh-Eating-Bacteria Case Confirmed in Georgia, Possible Fifth
- Nevada Ghosts: Rare Photos From an A-Bomb Test
- Euro Crisis: Why A Greek Exit Could Be Much Worse Than Expected
- A New First Amendment Right: Videotaping The Police
- 10 Dangerous Products You Might Have in Your Home
- Could a Fertility Gene Discovery Lead to New Male Contraception?
- Star Wars Turns 35: How TIME Covered the Film Phenomenon
- Researchers Probe the Potential Health Benefits of Palm Oil
- A Visit with Turkey's Controversial Religious Movement
- Feeding the Planet Without Destroying It
- Bubble on the Potomac
- Falcon's Liftoff: How a Private Firm Could Change Space Exploration
- The Fatal Flight of the Superjet 100: Why Did It Slam Into a Mountain?
- Learning That Works
- The Man Who Remade Motherhood
- Bibi's Choice
- Seoul: 10 Things to Do
More News from Our Partners
Top Stories on TIME.com
Quotes of the Day »
RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
