Paradise Falls

October 1, 2021

Journalist and New York Times best-selling author O'Brien (Fly Girls) revisits Love Canal, the neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY, that suffered environmental disaster in 1977 after toxic waste dumped illegally by Hooker Chemical began to surface with the spring rains. Children of the neighborhood's 800 families began to fall seriously ill, and three women--Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and Barbara Quimby--spearheaded efforts to make both the corporation and local city officials accountable. As a result, Love Canal became America's first Superfund site (a term referencing the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980), launching a concerted national response to toxic waste. Look for the forthcoming Showtime production based on the book.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2022
A deeply researched history of a significant 1977 environmental disaster. In this work of investigative reporting, O'Brien narrates a tale of corporate malfeasance and inaction, governmental response (or lack thereof), and, above all, inspiring citizen activism in the face of harrowing circumstances. Underneath the LaSalle neighborhood in suburban Niagara Falls, a company called Hooker Chemical had long filled a forgotten waterway, known as the Love Canal by locals, with chemical waste. By the late 1970s, residents noticed the stench of chemicals, clouds of fumes, gas leaks, spontaneous ignitions, and terrible health repercussions. O'Brien, a longtime NPR contributor, describes the personalities of a large cast of characters, including town officials, company executives, EPA administrators, Al Gore, Gov. Hugh Carey, Jane Fonda, even President Jimmy Carter. Thankfully, the author maintains the focus on the grassroots leaders and blue-collar workers who stood up to Hooker and its negligent corporate overseer, Occidental Petroleum. One government report noted "that a wide range of chemical compounds dumped in this industrial landfill might pose a substantial health hazard" to local residents. Other studies pointed out an "unusually high incidence" of miscarriages, birth defects, and malignancies, as in the tragic death of 6-year-old Jon Allen, a heartbreaking story fully recounted here. Evacuation of homes, relocation of residents, and toxic remediation work all proved daunting, as O'Brien's patient chronology of the crisis bears out. Part of the solution turned out to be national and sweeping: federal financing to address thousands of poisoned landfills across the country. At the end of the Carter administration, Congress passed the Superfund Act, $1.6 billion funded "almost exclusively" by polluting companies. Unfortunately, in 1995, the Republican-led Congress let the corporate tax component lapse. Citizen activist Lois Gibbs, whose evolution as an organizer and spokesperson runs throughout the narrative, receives the honorary title of "Mother of the Superfund." Readers who have followed Gibbs through years know that she has earned the laurels. A thorough retelling of an environmental tragedy and a renewed call for corporate accountability.

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February 14, 2022
Journalist O’Brien (Fly Girls) delivers an immersive portrait of the citizen-activists who brought the Love Canal environmental disaster to light. In the 1940s and early ’50s, Hooker Chemical secretly dumped massive amounts of toxic chemical byproducts into a trench left over from an abandoned canal project in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Over the next 20 years, residents of the LaSalle neighborhood endured persistent chemical smells and seepage in their homes and suffered from unusual cancers, high rates of miscarriage, and other health problems. O’Brien pays particular attention to the many women who raised awareness about the issue, including congressional staffer Bonnie Casper, who pushed her boss to visit the area, and cancer researcher Beverly Paigen, who conducted soil sample tests and medical surveys. Eventually, the state and federal government helped relocate hundreds of families, and outrage over the case contributed to the passage of the 1980 Superfund Act requiring polluters to pay to ameliorate the damage they caused. O’Brien’s fluid retelling includes many startling anecdotes, including the time a local activist held two EPA officials hostage, and offers insight into how Love Canal transformed from a local disaster into national news. Readers will gain newfound appreciation for the regular people whose crusade for justice helped catalyze the modern environmental movement.

Starred review from March 1, 2022

O'Brien's (Fly Girls) meticulously researched and gripping history of the massive environmental disaster at Love Canal draws readers into the unrest, anxiety, and bewilderment of everyday people discovering their beloved neighborhood is poisoned and deadly. In 1977, residents of a modest blue-collar neighborhood near Niagara Falls, NY, discovered that they were living atop a canal filled with toxic waste (dumped by Hooker Chemical Company 30 years earlier), which was now leaching to the surface and making them sick. O'Brien spotlights two of the residents whose determination and endurance proved extraordinary--Lois Gibbs, a young mother and housewife-turned-ardent environmental activist and organizer; and Luella Kenny, spurred into activism by the grief of losing her young son, who she believed was sickened by Love Canal. They endured years of corporate muscle flexing and of state and federal governmental delays, denials and stonewalling, until President Carter finally issued an emergency order aiding Love Canal's neighbors to relocate; in 1980, Congress established the Superfund Act. O'Brien describes the Love Canal crisis as citizen activism meeting politics and power and eventually prevailing, thanks to heroes like the beleaguered but undeterred scientist and civil servant Beverly Paigen, whose investigation of Hooker Chemical was steadily opposed by the New York State health commissioner. VERDICT This Love Canal story exposes the nation's utter unpreparedness to respond to that public health crisis and is very timely during the COVID pandemic. This authoritative book deserves a wide audience and should provoke reflection on just how much we have progressed in the 45 years since the Love Canal disaster.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2022
Even now, more than 40 years after its story dominated national news, Love Canal remains a point of reckoning in U.S. environmental history. A symbol of corporate malfeasance and government inaction, the dumping of toxic chemicals in a sprawling neighborhood near Niagara Falls was a devastating example of how casually a company could divest itself of dangerous substances while local officials looked the other way. Later, they even built a school on the landfill. Journalist O'Brien (Fly Girls, 2018) contacted many of those who battled to get residents moved out of the affected areas and reimbursed for their suddenly worthless homes, gaining access to a trove of previously unseen documents. With profiles of furious housewives driven to knock on doors and organize community meetings, shocked scientists, a determined local reporter, and dedicated politicians and staff, Paradise Falls is a narrative resplendent with ordinary people who stood up against overwhelming odds. The text blisters with details of the hard work and outrage that fueled what became a key instigator of Superfund legislation. O'Brien has accomplished an outstanding work of investigative journalism and created a riveting title that should be on the shelf with The Poisoned City (2018) and Exposure (2019). Book clubs will spend hours discussing this one.

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