The Nation : Trailer Park Tainted by Toxic Chemicals

Federal officials offered to move residents from a trailer park in Niagara Falls, N.Y., where toxic chemicals have been found in an action reminiscent of mass evacuations from nearby Love Canal 10 years ago. “The condition within the trailer park presents a significant risk to the health of residents,” the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded in a preliminary health assessment. The move, which officials described as voluntary, affects about 150 people in the Forest Glen trailer park. The government is offering to pay for temporarily relocating the residents. But an Environmental Protection Agency spokesman said he believes the contamination is so pervasive that the residents will have to leave the 11-acre site permanently. EPA official Joseph Rotola said aerial photos and the accounts of longtime residents indicate the land was previously used as a chemical waste dump.