During the late 1800s, William T. Love started digging a canal near Niagara Falls, New York, but never finished it due to an economic depression. In the early 1940s, Hooker Chemical Company bought the property encompassing the 3,000-foot trench and began to use it as a chemical waste dump. Meanwhile, the city of Niagara Falls was expanding rapidly and the city began exerting enormous pressure on Hooker Chemical Company to sell the Love Canal for development. Hooker Chemical resisted until 1953, when the city threatened to condemn the property to force the sale. At that point, Hooker published reports in the local newspaper outlining the potential dangers of the site due to the hazardous wastes buried in the canal and emphasized that no excavating should be done on the site. Hooker then sold the land to the city for $1.The city went forward...