Milestone in the Love Canal Case : Huge settlement underlines the problems in nationwide toxic waste cleanup

Twenty years after residents of Love Canal, N.Y., first became aware there were hazardous chemicals in their yards and homes--contamination that they linked to a number of physical ailments--Occidental Chemical Corp. has announced that it will pay the State of New York $98 million to settle one of the major civil lawsuits resulting from Love Canal’s pollution.

In doing so, Occidental has taken a big step toward closing the remaining suits and countersuits in a case that has raised national consciousness about the dangers of chemical waste. However, even this partial resolution underscores the dilemmas in cleaning up toxic dump sites. Among the more than 1,200 sites on the national Superfund list are such Southern California problems as the McColl dump in Fullerton, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and an abandoned DDT factory in Torrance.

Love Canal’s problems began in the 1940s when Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corp. dumped 22,000 tons of chemical waste in the area, near Niagara Falls. By 1978, concern that the toxic substances were linked to birth defects and illnesses had caused nearly 500 families in the neighborhood to flee their homes.

Over the years there were many lawsuits, and in 1988 a federal court held Occidental, which acquired Hooker Chemicals in 1968, liable for costs under the Superfund Act, the federal program to clean up the nation’s most polluted places.

Cleanup of Superfund sites like Love Canal has been too slow and far too costly. That’s why the Clinton Administration earlier this year proposed an overhaul of the 14-year-old Superfund program. But reaching consensus on just how to restructure Superfund has not been easy.

One key issue is how clean is “clean.” The Administration argues that different standards of cleanliness should apply depending on the next likely use of the property. The idea has much to recommend it: Arguably, a waste site destined to become an airport, for example, need not be as clean as one reserved for new homes and schools.

But Love Canal indicates how troublesome these standards may be in practice. In 1894 excavation for a hydropower canal began at the site; 50 years later Hooker dumped chemicals, and 10 years after that homes and schools were built. Existing Superfund sites may also change hands and be put to uses not envisioned in current cleanup plans. For example, local residents may one day wish to establish a residential tract at the site of a commercial airfield that earlier was converted from a military facility.

Standards that permit a lesser standard of cleanliness for one use as opposed to another will constrain the public’s choices and perhaps impose higher public costs. Until that dilemma can be resolved, the Love Canal settlement can only stand as an example of how costly the process could be.