Paradise falls : a deadly secret, a cover-up, and the women who forged the modern environmental movement / Keith O'Brien.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Brien, Keith, 1973- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chemical plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--New York (State)--Niagara Falls.

Chemical plants.

Hazardous waste sites--New York (State)--Niagara Falls.

Hazardous waste sites.

Pollution--Physiological effect--New York (State)--Niagara Falls.

Pollution.

Hazardous waste site remediation--New York (State)--Niagara Falls--Citizen participation.

Hazardous waste site remediation.

Chemical plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects.

Hazardous waste site remediation--Citizen participation.

Pollution--Physiological effect.

Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill (Niagara Falls, N.Y.)--History.

Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill (Niagara Falls, N.Y.).

New York (State)--Niagara Falls.

New York (State)--Niagara Falls--Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

xi, 455 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Vintage Books edition.

Other Title:

Deadly secret, a cover-up, and the women who forged the modern environmental movement

Place of Publication:

New York : Vintage Books, [2023]

Summary:

From the New York Times best-selling journalist, the hidden story of an unlikely band of mothers who discovered the deadly secret of Love Canal, and exposed one of America's most devastating environmental disasters. Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and other mothers loved their neighborhood on the east side of Niagara Falls. It had an elementary school, a playground, and rows of affordable homes. But in the spring of 1977, pungent odors began to seep into these little houses, and it didn’t take long for worried mothers to identify the curious scent. It was the sickly sweet smell of chemicals. Then, one by one, the children of the more than 800 families that made Love Canal their home started getting very sick. In this propulsive work of narrative reportage, Keith O'Brien uncovers how Lois, Luella, Barbara and other local mothers uncovered the poisonous secret of Love Canal: that they were living on the site where industrial employer Hooker Chemical had been dumping toxic waste for years, and covering it up. O'Brien braids together the previously unknown stories of Hooker Chemical's deception, the local newspapermen and scientists who tried to help, the city officials who didn't, and the heroic women who stood up to corporate and governmental indifference, and-ultimately-triumphed. O'Brien brings to life a defining story from our past, laying bare the dauntless efforts of a few women who—years before Erin Brockovich took up the mantle— fought to rescue their community and their lives from the effects of corporate pollution and laid foundation for the modern environmental movement as we know it today. -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Maps

Author's note

Introduction : May 14, 1972

Part I : December 1976-December 1977

Part II : January-October 1978

Part III : October 1978-December 1979

Part IV : January-May 1980

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-423) and index

ISBN:

0593312090

9780593312094

OCLC:

1340646656

Publisher Number:

90102906530