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Strange Country


Sometimes you need to have a glass of wine, cuppa whatever and listen to a good old weird story. Musical score Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands.

Apr 25, 2019

What if your home sat on 22,000 tons of buried chemical waste? That was the reality of the roughly 1,000 residents of the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly use their chemaginations to take us back to the 1970s, the idyllic time when polluters could just dump whatever wherever.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands.

Cite your sources:

“Background Information.” University at Buffalo Libraries Love Canal Collections, library.buffalo.edu/archives/lovecanal/about/.

Brown, Michael H. “Love Canal and the Poisoning of America.” The Atlantic, Dec. 1979, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/12/love-canal-and-the-poisoning-of-america/376297/.

“Delisting Love Canal.” The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2004, www.nytimes.com/2004/03/22/opinion/delisting-love-canal.html.

Gibbs, Lois. Love Canal : Start of a Movement, www.bu.edu/lovecanal/canal/.

Greene, Ronnie. “From Homemaker to Hell-Raiser in Love Canal – Center for Public Integrity.” Center for Public Integrity, 15 Apr. 2013, publicintegrity.org/environment/from-homemaker-to-hell-raiser-in-love-canal/.

Herbeck, Dan. “Exclusive: Are Love Canal Chemicals Still Making People Sick? .” The Buffalo News, 1 June 2018, buffalonews.com/2018/06/01/new-lawsuit-claims-love-canal-chemicals-still-causing-health-problems/.

Herbeck, Dan. “More Than 550 Notices of Claim Have Been Filed in Love Canal Lawsuit.” The Buffalo News, 27 Feb. 2013, buffalonews.com/2013/02/27/more-than-550-notices-of-claim-have-been-filed-in-love-canal-lawsuit/.

Kleiman, Dr. Jordan. “Love Canal: A Brief History.” SUNY Geneseo, www.geneseo.edu/history/love_canal_history.

Liu, Qina. “You Asked, We Answered: Why Do People Still Live at Love Canal?” The Buffalo News, 7 Aug. 2018, buffalonews.com/2018/08/07/you-asked-we-answered-why-do-people-still-live-at-love-canal/.

“Love Canal.” Center for Health, Environment and Justice, 2016, chej.org/about-us/story/love-canal/.

Moran, Jay, and Mike Desmond. “Reporter's Notebook: Love Canal Sparked a Change in Environmental Coverage.” WBFO, news.wbfo.org/post/reporters-notebook-love-canal-sparked-change-environmental-coverage.

Newman, Richard S. Love Canal: a Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Prohaska, Thomas. “Love Canal Today: 'We Know What's In Our Backyard'.” The Buffalo News, 4 Aug. 2018, buffalonews.com/2018/08/04/love-canal-today-monitoring-and-reminders-for-those-living-nearby/.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Love Canal and Its Mixed Legacy.” The New York Times, 25 Nov. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/booming/love-canal-and-its-mixed-legacy.html.

Thompson, Megan, et al. “Residents Say Love Canal Chemicals Continue to Make Them Sick.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 5 Aug. 2018, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/residents-say-love-canal-chemicals-continue-to-make-them-sick.

Waldman, Scott. “State Official Jumps in Lake, Ripples Continue.” Politico PRO, 31 July 2015, www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2015/07/state-official-jumps-in-lake-ripples-continue-024123.