1
10
3
-
http://digital.buffalolib.org/files/original/6aeab44ccacbb0a77403e468bdf54400.mp4
4da38c0ae37be94a17be62737b965829
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Description
An account of the resource
This collection of long-form reports by retired WIVB-TV Senior Correspondent Rich Newberg covers a wide range of social issues, Buffalo history and the arts. Mr. Newberg retired from the Buffalo CBS network affiliate at the end of 2015, after serving the station for thirty-seven years in various roles including main anchor, reporter and documentarian. <br /><br />His New York Emmy Award winning pieces explore the abortion debate, care of the mentally ill, the African American struggle for civil rights, and the lessons of the Holocaust, among many topics. His video memoir, “One Reporter’s Journey, “ reflects on his forty-six year career, beginning as an advocate for those without a voice. <br /><br />"My hope," says Newberg, “is that this collection will provide a lasting chronicle of life and issues in Buffalo during the latter part of the 20th century and into the new millennium."
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Hi my name is Lois Murray Gibbs. It's February 15 2021. And I'm at home in Falls Church, Virginia.
Lois, let's start from the beginning. That's always a good place to start. How did you get wind of the fact that you were living in a toxic neighborhood? And what was your reaction and the impact when you first found out?
It was really scary. I did not know when I moved in, but I was living in a toxic area. I found out through a series of articles that were in the neighborhoods because that that were written by Michael Brown. And he was talking about the toxic site he's talking about. Now you're talking about 99th Street 97th Street in the United States Elementary School, and it's like, well, when he started talking about 99 Straight elementary school, is when it clicked for me, because my son was perfectly healthy as one years old when we moved into our home since the time we moved there, kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And by when he went to kindergarten at 993 school, he got really sick and he developed epilepsy and, and these weird things that are not in either one of our family's history, and that's when it's like, I know what's wrong with Michael my pediatrician couldn't tell me but I knew when I read Michael's article, Michael Browns article and it said, school 20,000 tons of chemicals, chemicals that cause these diseases. It click and it was terrifying. As a mother it was terrifying.
What then so you're terrified? Where do you go from there?
Yeah, I didn't you know, I'm a high school graduate. And, you know, science was not my strength. And so I was trying to figure out where to go and I went to talk to my brother in law who taught biology at the University of Buffalo and said, This is the problem. What do I do about this? He said, This is a problem. And and so I went where most people do like in the whole world, every issue people do this. You go to your government officials because they tell you if you play by the rules, and you you know, work hard and data, and there's a problem, but your elected officials and they will fix it for you. And so I went to the 99th Street School Board superintendent, Dr. Long, I went to City Hall Michael Laughlin was the mayor. I went to my state senators, my state representatives, I went to everybody in anybody I could think of you know, you get this little voter guide things in the library. And I called everyone who said we have this problem. Can you help me and every single one of them said, No.
What did Michael Laughlin say?
Michael Laughlin said, I should go home and take care of my child like I was a dumb little girl who had no clue what she was doing. And it just sort of passively pushed me away like no, this is just crazy. I don't know what you're talking about go away. Michael Brown was a troublemaker
In footage that I've looked at, there's confrontational footage outside of Michael Laughlin's office. And there's a very telling interview that Fran Luca did where micro Laughlin Mayor of Auckland said you know, the city could be sued for a lot of money. We have to be careful about what we say we can be held liable. And you know, I have all this responsibility. Is that what you were getting? Or were you getting any answers?
I wasn't getting any answers. I later figured that out. On my own or with the help of others. It's like every single person felt that way. You know, this, this school board said, Well, we're not going to move. You know Michael Gibbs, because he's sick and because of one irate, hysterical housewife because if we do that for you, we have to do for all 407 children who attend the school. So it's like, oh, wow, there's all this liability where these children are gonna go they have to open another school. You know, Michael Lachlan was worried that just about Occidental Petroleum. He was worried about Goodyear, he's worried about Asheville trollee and Ellen street the City of Niagara Falls was owned and operated by the chemical industries. There was like 40 Some industries in downtown Niagara Falls that controlled everything happened in the city.
You go to the legislators as well, asking to help you at least relocate, right? What happened there.
Legislators, the legislators come on saying prove to us that you were harmed as a result of these chemicals. It's like it's not our job to prove to you that we are harmed. Are you our legislators, you have a whole health department. You have David Axelrod, the health commissioner or Whelan you know, and they all come and say, well, we'll show us demonstrate to us. And it's even true today and in the world I work in now, which is it's always a victim who has to prove that they are a victim, as opposed to the health department coming forward and saying, Well, let's, let's check this out. Let's see what's happening. Let's let's test your hypotheses and see if it's true.
So you go through some blood tests, right? Blood tests are given. What was the feeling at this point? Among the homeowners? Well, let me ask you this first. You wanted to organize, you felt the need to organize the homeowners. At that point, there was no organization Am I right? It was kind of every neighbor learning something but how did you how did you how did you attack that?
Yeah, there was no organization in the community. I mean, that your normal PTAs and stuff like that there was no kind of organization to deal with this issue. And so we went out to organize around the school so a lot of people think we organized around getting evacuation from the get go, that was not so we began to organize to close the 99th Street School, seeing the City of Niagara Falls and and the school board refused to close it. We actually did a petition and took it to Albany, New York, actually, on August 2 1978, the day in which they made the emergency declaration, but we had no clue about that. We got this petition, went door to door had people sign it and you know what's really interesting is that people often talk about those who work in the industry and how it's, it's the environmentalists versus the workers and it's, you know, this versus that. Do you know that only one door of the 853 doors that we we collectively knocked on was slammed in our face? That the people who worked in the industry knew the dangers that were in a backyard, they understood and one worker said one family said the chemical in my backyard is a chemical I get paid extra to work within the plant. So we knew it was dangerous, but we didn't we didn't really realize our homes were dangerous at the time. So we organized the parents movement to close the 99th Street School.
And there was another school as well.
There was a 93rd Street School but we didn't think at that time that the 93rd Street School was at risk as I didn't think my home which is three blocks from the center of the canal was at risk. I believe that the people in the first two rings of homes as they were later called 99 Straight 97 were at risk. You could talk to them. You could see their children or were sick there was rashes everywhere people were just you know, it was just horrible to do they would tell you stories about miscarriages and birth defects and children and cancers and, and deaths in their family crib deaths every year just all these horrible things in this tiny little two blocks of homes. So we all understood it was probably the school and later we came to understand there's probably the first two rings of homes. What we weren't there thinking it was my home on a 101st street or 100 and second, or 100 and third. At the beginning we really just thought it was a school in those first homes.
And initially, the evacuation was just for the people closest to the Epi Center, right? Close the first two rings and that meeting where people got quite emotional about your children who were over the age of two, because it was two and under. I might correct.
Right you had if you were pregnant or had a child under the age of two, you could be evacuated. It was like oh my gosh, it's like the canaries in the mine. What he told me and what what happened? What happened to the child who's two years and six months? Were more importantly, what happened to my pregnancy because I'm eight months pregnant. Now you're telling me it's dangerous if I'm pregnant there. I'm eight months pregnant. I lived there for eight months carrying my baby What is wrong with my baby? There was panic everywhere and justifiable because not only not only did they make that announcement, but there was nobody there to talk to the families about what that means my job. Most of us are high school graduates working in the chemical industry and listening to chemical propaganda everyday for work and the newsletter. And suddenly this happens in like, what is this mean? What does it mean for me? What does it mean for my unborn child? Was it mean for my child who's now three and a half years old and live there for that? What does it mean and there was nothing I think one of the things that Love Canal that was just demonstrated the wrongdoing by government was the fact that they would never bring people there to explain why these decisions. Why this and what happened to the others. The blood tests you mentioned, all these children are coming for blood tests. What are we looking for? No one would tell us are we looking for cancer? Are we looking for chemicals? Are we looking for disease? What are we looking for? We're we're checking the blood. What are we looking for? No one would tell us it was a huge mystery. They had a plan. They knew what they were looking for. They knew look they're doing but they chose not to inform us to keep us in the dark.
And then Family Start moving into motels. This must have been disconcerting for these families. What was that like to suddenly have to move into a motel and not know the future?
Yeah, it was it was again another sort of terrifying thing because I one hand it was a relief so you're out of your home. You're in a hotel your children are breathing safe air. Oh, so you believe and and you're in a safer environment. But the flip side to that is, oh my gosh, we got moved out. We're in a hotel. It's so dangerous, right? That we cannot live in the house. And then by the way, we had to move back to the community. Not everybody went to the hotel and stayed out of the neighborhood. So it was a catch 22 On one hand, it was sort of validation that what we were saying is right, that there was danger there. And on the other hand, you know, it was like, it was sort of scary and awful. Most of our families, by the way, work swing shifts. So for my husband work, three to 1111 to seven in the morning, seven in the morning to three in the afternoon. And so when you're in a hotel and you do swing sets, you can't sleep you have one room for all of you. You can't eat you can't pack a lunch, right? If you're if your shift is three to 11 step to bed but a loving the seven. You know how do you do that? How do you get food? How do you have milk around for the babies? And so you know, it was it was on one hand it was really fun the other hand it was just horrible.
Where did your husband work? Lois? I never asked him.
My husband worked a good year. He was a chemical operator at the plant on 56th Street. That was one of the plants by the way that came out with a high level of vinyl chloride and liver damage in both workers and the surrounding community.
Well I don't know if you want to get into the marriage thing but I know that you you divorced Right. Was it love canal that that caused it and when when you became immersed in this movement? It kind of took over your life.
It definitely took over my life. And and yeah, and to a certain extent it was. But But what what it was was that Harry my husband Harry was the same. You know he was just the same the same day and I'm the one who changed so you know after looking at all during look Cannella have been saying well don't you know as soon as is over and and tobacco be full time mom I'm gonna do all the things we need to do. You don't have to help with laundry anymore shopping or childcare or whatever. And then after the finale, I was like, you know, I can't go back to to being a full time mom. I really feel like I have this this new knowledge and understanding that I need to share with other moms across the country. Because everywhere you were looking then in the media, you were hearing about new love canals here and there and across the country. And so I felt like you know, I really needed to do that so essentially outgrew each other and ended up getting divorced as a result of that.
I want to get into your move to Washington a little bit later but let's let's jump ahead to dioxin. Dioxin from what I understand is probably the most lethal chemical created by humankind used to defoliate the jungles in Vietnam It's that powerful and then it's detected in Love Canal. This change pretty much changed the way people began nationally looking at Love Canal
No, it was interesting. So it it did change to the point where we knew it was dangerous. We heard it was dangerous. We read it was dangerous. We have Google and all that stuff we have today right? So we actually had a library and pick up a book and read it. But when the national media and national scientists and national groups like the Vietnam vets started saying oh my gosh, you guys you really should be worried about this. There was panic. I mean, especially in people like Debbie Cirillo. She looked at 97th Street, and she had the highest level of dioxin in her backyard right next to her swimming pool, aboveground swimming pool. And so yeah, it was frightening because you know a lot. A lot of people our age served in Vietnam, they understood what Agent Orange did, again, sort of like in our community. We had workers who worked in the plant with the same chemicals that their children are breathing this this whole dioxin thing in Agent Orange it was just frightening as all hat and and we really thought that you know it was traveling throughout the community and one of the discoveries they made it Love Canal about dioxin, by the way is that it does travels through the dirt. Originally, they said it doesn't it adheres to dirt and sticks there and so you don't have to worry. And we said no, no, no, you're finding it here, here, here and here. And there's a pathway there. So why don't you test that and so what they found is that dioxin actually does travel when it's mixed with a solvent like an oily chemical or substance. And so it was throughout the community and it was frightening. It was very frightening.
And then comes the chromosome announcement that there's chromosome damage. This was another element that added to national interest and began really attracting national attention. How important was that announcement from the EPA?
Oh, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. That at Love Canal by that time, which was May of 1980 when we began organizing in the spring of 1978. By that time, we were told that we would not go with our best we would not go in our yard. If you're pregnant or have a child under the age of two, you need to leave and of course you can return when your pregnancy terminates. Or your child reaches the age of two. We were told not to eat vegetables out of our gardens. We were told not to go in our basements we were told all this stuff. And then we were told it was perfectly fine to live in luck. That was no problem with living in Love Canal as long as you obeyed all these rules and then it was all of a sudden we have this chromosome damage and like what does that mean? And we found out that what it meant is like, not only do we have a high number of these particular breaks, but it means we're going to have more miscarriages and more stillborn babies and more birth defects of children. But the most important thing the straw that broke the camel's back, is when they said that genetic damage created by Love Canal chemicals that broke these chromosomes in this particular way would be passed down to our children, meaning my daughter and my son may have chromosome damage. And if they have children, their children could be born deformed or stillborn or whatever, because of Love Canal and that was it was just terrified. It's like how can you how can you say that and walk away? How can you say this and that you're not going to do anything and it really was it was about holding your child in your arm looking in that child's eyes and saying you might have been damaged and every child you have if its genetic will be passed on to that child and then next child and the next child that we just that was the straw that broke the camel's back and that's when people really lost it in ways that were frightening to me, personally
and then you have to a EPA representatives coming in, who suddenly find themselves held hostage because the people outside the homeowners headquarters pretty aggravated. That was a moment that really was a moment. What do you remember about that?
That was a moment that that was? So it goes back to when we were talking earlier that the health department makes these announcements and then they never send anybody to talk to the people. And this was yet another example these two EPA officials were hiding out in a motel. There was no public meeting to tell people what this chromosome breakage means. They were only meeting one on one with people who had their blood tested on an individual basis. And so I'm like you come down here and talk to these people. You come and tell people tell them they're going to be perfectly okay if that's what you think. And we call them down and then it literally was not a planned event. It happened spontaneously. People in the front lawn saw them come in circled them to come into the house. And that's where they stayed until we released them. And the truth was, by the way, Marie rice I told this to her 1000 times is that we were really detaining them for their own safety. We weren't holding them against their will but we so we held these guys for five hours and it was frightening. It was frightening at a number of levels. On a personal level. Am I going to jail? Am I ever going to see my children again, this is a federal offense. On a personal level across the street, on the roof, from our homeowners office, on sharpshooters with guns we could see that they were pointed out to us and and frankness Paul, who was one of the hostages he was a public relations guy. He he said Let's see this. You know they can shoot you and kill you dead and never split a hair on my head. And I'm like Oh, no. What am I doing? And then and then we got what do you do? Your whole house like what do you do? There's no manual for this, right? There's no you can't google What do you do? And trying to figure out how, you know how do we manage this? How do we do this in a way that that really makes sense and and everybody's safe in the front yard. There were all of these people who were coming out. People I didn't know people I didn't recognize picking beer. It was getting dark it was that was sort of another level of being scared because I didn't know who those people were what they will do. It was a new story. People were there live on the same all day long reporting out and so strangers were coming to see the action just like you know, Rubberneckers everywhere and yeah, so so it was it was very frightening at many different levels.
And and, and then you added that if the White House isn't looking now, the better look because this could be a Sesame Street picnic compared to what could follow.
Yeah, we did. You know, I had we had to let them go. Who and the reason we have learned go with the crowd is just getting just too loud and too it looked like it was going to explode and good reason. By the way. These are not evil people. These are not disruptive people either. These are mine apple pie kind of folk. But they've had all they can make. And so I had to go out and somehow get the crowd. Free to let go. And so that is what we did is I went out there and talked about how our congressmen were false was meeting with the President and that he would talk to them about this issue. And we wouldn't give them so this was Saturday. We would give them Wednesday, noon, to evacuate us and if we didn't get an evacuation then it would look like a Sesame Street picnic at noon to what we're doing today. So that was sort of a shot across the bow and a way for people to say yes, and then to get the hostages out before anybody got hurt, including the hostages,
And helping the cause your cause was actually an actress Jane Fonda and her husband, Tom ate there on the scene. How important was that and anticipate anything like that happened?
You know, it was very important. I did not anticipate it that they were coming with Ralph Nader to to Buffalo for an event and they swung by Love Canal and agreed to come and help us. And here's what was really important about and first of all, Jane and I are still friends today. We got we got arrested together on Friday. In December of last year. We that was her prior fire drill Fridays here in DC. But like, what was important about Jane is she brought the national media with her and the national media because right now we had to put pressure on the President of the United States who was running for office again for his second term and it was very iffy. And so we needed to get his attention. We need his people to say oh my gosh, these homemakers in Love Canal are making you look really bad and so we have to go and appease them. And so Jane Fonda coming brought that media attention in which we should say, President card you got to do the right thing. I mean, even even with the hospitality. We said President Carter, you have Wednesday till noon. We we we always put in and that was one of the important things about the media. Is that we always put the person's name out there that we needed to pressure who could make the decision to change the outcome, whether it was governor Hugh Carey, whether it was Cuomo later whether it was Carter, you know, that that was the only way we could get enough people to say, Oh, well, why is he doing that or why? When they're all he's actually did
You recall President Carter's earlier visit at the airport when the signs were being held up and Governor Kerry said, Okay, lower the signs, he sees the signs. And then and then President Jimmy Carter admitted that, that the governor was was taking more of an initiative than the White House and kind of admitted that he wasn't quite, you know, maybe not doing enough.
Yeah, well, that was the that was true. And what I discovered later, was that the state did not want the federal government involved, did not want EPA involved, did not want Health and Human Services, the ones who helped with the chromosome study was part of the EPA did not want anybody at the federal level involved. They wanted to hold the thing themselves. And in fact, at one point, I went to David Axelrod's office. He was the commissioner of health and I asked him in Albany, I asked him in his office, why is David roll for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, not here, and it's a federal as a federal health agency that we've been wanting. And he said, I don't know I invited him and he just hasn't come. And I'm like, Well, I talked to him. He told me he never received an invitation. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to pick up your phone right here on this desk. And we're going to call David, and we're going to personally invite them both you and me to come to Love Canal. And he's Oh, that won't be necessary. I forced them to call David. And all of a sudden, then we had EPA involved. That's where the chromosome study came from. That put a number of other things happen. The New York State did not share with President Carter, the White House, the EPA anything except for what they had to. They wanted to keep it all in house. And the reason for that is a chemical industry. I mean, New York and if you look at Rochester, I mean it's not just Niagara Falls, in which the chemical industry controls an awful lot. Of New York, New York's economy outside of New York City. And so they were beholding to the chemical industry and Love Canal was gonna set all of those nasty precedents. That is going to change the way they do business. Change the way lawsuits happen, change the way people look at health and environment. It was going to change things and they wanted to change as little as possible.
You know, you mentioned when we rise earlier, before we get to the President's big visit where we covered so many aspects of love. Library in mind, which you know, Where we rice earlier, before we get to the President's big visit where we covered so many aspects of Love Canal and there's one story that sticks in my mind which actually reminded me that about a week ago is that house that was moved out of there. And Marie was standing right in front as the as the House passed by her. And why would somebody want to move their house when the house might have been infected?
Yeah, well, you know, that's what America is really good at letting people just be stupid if that's what they want to do. That's what democracy is about. I don't know why he moved his house. He was convinced that it wasn't in this house that the chemicals had not seeped through the woods and then the furniture and stuff like that. And so he hadn't picked up and literally moved in. And by the way, sadly to say he moved it by another dump that he didn't know was a dump went out there and bought the land, but actually would wind up to another, but you know, people I mean, that's the thing that we have to embrace as a society you know, I wouldn't ever do that. In fact, I didn't even think my furniture and I was like, I don't want anything. You know, I went to Goodwill and bought my first sofa after I moved. But, you know, people are different and they think differently and they don't feel the same urgency or the same level of risk. And, and that's what makes us work so much harder. It's like, you know, it's like people believe that a tiny little bit of chemicals that you maybe can smell but certainly can't say can no way harm you like dioxin, for example. It really can't create those kinds. of problems. And it's a real hard, hard, hard thing to try to educate people about.
To watch so I can go up from the podium and stay on top. More than 12,000 communities we've helped folks out tell you, what's in your community, what's in the air, what's in the water was buried, what's being transported through to manage all of this information that people can now use and organize around like they did in Philadelphia to stop the trains from coming through. There were, you know, bomb trains, I literally bombed trains that if they crash, they were going to blow up and half the building was going to go with it. So you know, I've just watched people, you know, just do some amazing things and it's just been extraordinarily rewarding over the years.
And a lot of that right to know legislation started in Western New York, I owe in chemical from steel job, Assemblyman Joe Pelletier at the time was leading that fight. And you mentioned the strong union movement in western New York was responsible for bringing this to the public light that teeth were being loosened in the chemical plants and there was lead dust I believe in the government steel. The right to know really, this is all hitting at the same time Love Canal, the right to know legislation and, and West Valley, West Valley which you know, today is also still a very big issue. But I also wanted to ask you your what do you think? What are your concerns now? We have a new administration. President Biden, what are your hopes climate control he's made as a really major, major issue. Are you concerned that perhaps the, the toxic communities may take a second seat to to the issue of global warming and climate change?
Well, they often do. I will say one thing that President Biden before he was President, and I shared a podium in Delaware together, in which I didn't have a watch and he lent me his watch. So I could go up to the podium and say on time, and he really does understand toxics environment. He he gets it. He's dealt with it in Delaware. The question the question is always the same though, and he's made a promise that he is that these things are connected climate and environmental justice and toxics in the community. However, nine out of 10 times what happens is in this happens in all government, so it's not just white is that they look at the bigger picture. How can we save the most people or protect the most people and that's when climate always Trump's a community, like West Valley or a community, like the one in Delaware or or Baton Rouge or you know, somewhere else, that those are contained problems and that's what we've been struggling with for an awful long time. And I'm hoping the Biden camp will will address this, that that, you know, in Port Arthur, Texas, they're making the fossil fuels that are creating the climate change problem. And underneath those fossil fuel plants are low income brown and black families who cannot believe because of the chemicals and was a pandemic this year. They're much more susceptible and they're dying at a huge rate because it's a respiratory irritant. The chemicals and the pandemic of COVID 19 is a respiratory attacker and and it's just an they have to shelter in place. It's just insane. So I am hoping that he's he says he's connecting climate, fossil fuels and environmental justice brown and black people living in these toxic communities together. I'm hoping he does that. But historically, it's always been since since 1990, it has always been how do we protect the most people? And that is like a climate change issue. And it's true and it's not the takeaway from that. I think fettucine incredibly important. We need to do and, and we are working on it. But we we also know the smaller numbers of people who are dying in these communities because they're, they're really 53 million people. So it's a smaller number in reference to the population with a world population that's impacted by climate. But 53 million people it's a lot of people that need protection today, so I'm hoping you will
You know, most so many years after Love Canal, we went back together. I know you paid us a visit. And there was another problem people would move back into the Love Canal neighborhood. And I just remember you couldn't you were just beside yourself. I mean, how we you know, the warning signs were out there and everything was out there. This This was the first super fun, you know, this was the first and yet people move back now. How did how could that have happened? And there were lawsuits now.
Yeah, I mean, I think it was twofold. One it was the it was the lies and the rhetoric we know what lies do when especially when they're repeated over and over again by people in power and authority. The lies who say that the northern end of look and I was perfectly okay to live in. That was a lie. And but it was, you know, the City of Niagara Falls revitalization committee, the state of New York that the you know, Niagara County Health Department, you know, all of them. They all repeated this line over and over and over again, and people believed it. And part of the reason they believe that is because they got a $250,000 house for $70,000
The City of Niagara Falls revitalization committee, the state of New York, you know, Niagara County Health Department, you know, all of them. They all repeated this line over and over and over again. And people believed it. And part of the reason they believed it is because they got a $250,000 house for $70,000.
It was it's a good deal right? And many of them thought they would just live there. It was homesteaded. So they had to live there for five years as their primary residence, but they were going to live there for the five years, sell the home and go buy a home somewhere else where it was cleaner and safer and at least there was less questions. But what happened was people move in they started getting sick, and they couldn't move out. And you know, when they were discovering the chemicals in the backyards in their basements, just as it was before, then nobody's gonna buy their home, right? Like it's no longer $270,000 home or a $300,000 home. It's now worthless, just the same as ours were and so people got caught in this trap and that was unfortunate. And I think the other thing is that it was affordable housing. That was the other it was really cheap housing. And they were lovely homes and and so people were sort of this one woman I spoke to had two little girls and she said she could buy the house there and and she you know, she was asking me not to pass judgment, but she said how dangerous dangerous is it really miss Gibbs because we're living now it's drugs and crime and other things. And you know, I could get that house in love for now. And you know, removed my two daughters from all of this other dangers. And so it's waiting, you know, in the richest country of the world. We shouldn't have our people moms moms have two little girls single mom, two little girls had to make a decision between living where there's crime and drugs and raising their daughter verses where there's toxic poison, but the rest of it's okay. That's that's the society we live in today. It's really kind of sad. So, in closing, Lois, how How are your kids doing?
How are your children? My kids are doing fabulous.
My son in just ran a 50k marathon yesterday in the snow in the ice and rain and he's healthy as a horse and doing really well. And my daughter is in Austin, Texas. Who got three inches of snow yesterday.
And she has she has three beautiful grandchildren that are all perfectly healthy. So I've been truly blessed. Wonderful. Well, we're expecting maybe nine to nine inches to a foot coming our way again in the live in Texas. That's you know, that's just a dusting here in Western New York. You know that.
Thank you so much Lois, for taking time with us. Tom, did I leave anything out?
I'm gonna unmute myself. But can I ask one question, would you mind?
Am I unmuted?
I can hear you. Okay, good. First off, fascinating. Thank you so much. I just love sitting here listening to this.
I teach a class in journalism. And I showed them I showed a lot of the kids the Love Canal stuff, file footage, and they were fascinated and here's my concern and I want to ask you this question if you could pass along some advice to these kids, because I think a lot of them as freshmen reporters, make the same mistake that the mayor made with you thinking just a mom, what does she know? What did these people know? The government says it's safe, it's fine, and they blow off the story. If you're a freshman reporter and you come across the lowest gifts of 1978 in the NL situation, Mo What do you tell them? What's your advice to them?
I have two pieces of advice. One you could you could be a hero like Mike Brown. If you were to look at closer at some of these situations, and you could you too could break open this whole new arena of reporting. I mean, he did laying waste and he did all that he was the dude right for a long time. And that's because he talked to Karen Schroeder and you believe Karen Schroeder and he took it step 234 And five, everybody else blue Karen showed her up she was a mom was sickly kids and whining about it and her pool popped out of the ground. I mean, what kind of weird woman is this? So So really to look look beyond? Don't Don't assume what you see and what you think is real, I think is really, really, really important. And I think the other thing is that if you look at what has changed and when we're looking at social justice, so whether it's a civil rights or the women's rights or the peace movement, whatever, or environmental, almost all of them came from nobody's raising a flag about something. You know, a whistleblower, a woman who started organizing a newbie campus because she wasn't getting paid the same amount of money for the same work as a man. Right and and these are these are, these are the opportunities the Rosa Parks of the of the world, right, that these are the opportunities to really tell a story in society that is so important for people to hear, understand, and hopefully take some steps to change down the road. But it almost never comes from the governor or the mayor. It almost never comes from corporate executives. It generally comes from you know, a teacher at the University of homemaker who smell something weird. A worker who blows a whistle in a way we're seeing this in a pandemic with the vaccines and what's going on with that right. So so those are the people who are more likely to make your career then choosing to ignore them and go interview the governor was just going to give you whatever talking points is a communications person gave me this morning.
Great if I thank you so much. You're welcome. Let me just say, let me just say on camera, just to close out the interview, Lois, thank you Lois, thank you so much. For sharing so much of your life with us and the influence you've had on Western New Yorkers and the country and what you're continuing to do with your life in such an amazing way, bringing about all these changes.
It's just really an amazing story. Thanks for everything.
Thank you. Talk to you later.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
An Interview with Lois Gibbs [Her battle and victory on behalf of Love Canal homeowners]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Newberg, Rich (Interviewer)
Description
An account of the resource
Lois Gibbs, a stay-at-home mom who whose family moved into the Love Canal neighborhood when her son was one year old, was never told she would be living on top of a dumpsite where 20 thousand tons of toxic chemicals had been buried.
She says that her son, who had been “perfectly healthy,” suddenly got “sicker and sicker and sicker.” He developed epilepsy. Lois began reading articles by Michael Brown in the Niagara Gazette, questioning whether a disproportionate number of health issues in the community could be attributed to toxic chemical exposure.
Mrs. Gibbs, who said it was “terrifying,” began her search for answers by going to the Niagara Falls school board, City Hall, and the offices of state senators and other representatives. She says no one offered to help. She says Mayor Michael O’Laughlin told her Michael Brown was a “troublemaker,” and that she should “go home and take care of my child.”
In her interview with Rich Newberg, Lois Gibbs reflects on the strategies employed to finally get the president of the United States to come to Niagara Falls and sign legislation benefitting Love Canal families wishing to move out of the neighborhood. It also created a Superfund to assist other communities across the country dealing with the hazards of toxic chemical exposure.
Portions of the Lois Gibbs interview appear in the 2021 documentary, “The Buffalo Story: History Happens Here.” It is part of the Rich Newberg Reports Collection. The Love Canal segment entitled “A Toxic Nightmare: The Awakening,” won a New York Emmy award in 2022 in the category of Science/Environment.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gibbs, Lois (Interviewee)
Vetter, Tom (Producer)
Terranova, Michael (Editor)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-02-15
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (publisher of digital)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright held by Moments In Time Video, Inc. & TVRE Productions, Inc. Access to this digital version provided by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Videos or images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.
Relation
A related resource
<div class="element-text"><span><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/items/show/2175">A Toxic Nightmare: The Awakening [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 1]</a> </span></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2176"><span>Love Canal: Neighborhood of Fear [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 2]</span></a></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2177">Turning Anger Into Action [The Story of Love Canal Pt.3]</a><br /><span></span></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2178">What Have We Learned? [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 4]</a></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2347">An Interview with Michael Brown</a></div>
<div class="element-text"></div>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Video/mp4
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving image
Subject
The topic of the resource
Chemical plants -- Waste disposal -- Environmental aspects -- New York (State) -- Niagara Falls
Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill (Niagara Falls, N.Y.)
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
http://digital.buffalolib.org/files/original/a24515c332ef28395d779a7b85d9212d.mp4
3a0685720bb241b5a355fc739c441712
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Description
An account of the resource
This collection of long-form reports by retired WIVB-TV Senior Correspondent Rich Newberg covers a wide range of social issues, Buffalo history and the arts. Mr. Newberg retired from the Buffalo CBS network affiliate at the end of 2015, after serving the station for thirty-seven years in various roles including main anchor, reporter and documentarian. <br /><br />His New York Emmy Award winning pieces explore the abortion debate, care of the mentally ill, the African American struggle for civil rights, and the lessons of the Holocaust, among many topics. His video memoir, “One Reporter’s Journey, “ reflects on his forty-six year career, beginning as an advocate for those without a voice. <br /><br />"My hope," says Newberg, “is that this collection will provide a lasting chronicle of life and issues in Buffalo during the latter part of the 20th century and into the new millennium."
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Okay, so let's just Mike Michael, why don't you start just by giving me your name and the date? It's the 23rd. Right November. And let's start from there. And then I'll ask you,
Michael Brown, it's November 23 2020.
Michael. It's been well recorded that you were the first journalist to become aware of problems in the Love Canal neighborhood. Can you bring us back to that moment? What is your discovery what who contacted you? What was your discovery and what were the what were your first thoughts?
Okay, well, first of all, I like to make clear that a couple of years before two other reporters at the Gazette had written a story on on the fact that there was a sump pump problem and it had an odor and there was some chemicals in there, they did testing. Then it was kind of, you know, set set aside. I that was 7619 76. I came aboard in 1977. And, and there were two. There were two reasons I went after the story. It was not in the news, and it had been a couple articles. More than a year before. And then it was a question it was very quiet and I I had been, I started to cover Chem droll, a company that was dumping highly toxic chemicals and Louis to New York. And I really got on to the toxic waste issue in Niagara County. And when I did that, in one meeting, it started up a lot of activism in the area. It started up controversy the articles did. Toxic Waste became an issue in Niagara County in a big way. I was writing about it every day. And at one of the meetings I on control, a public meeting in which people were complaining about the dump site there. There was a young girl who got up to speak and she started weeping. She was crying that you know, this place Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, this old dump was was leaking all over the place and harming, possibly harming her family and neighbors and so forth. And that certainly caught my attention.
How all what was she crying about? Michael? What what? It's a child or birth defects or? No, she was
she was very young. She was she was 21 or younger. And she was just scared because of the odors, the the odors that were coming off in the Love Canal. And, you know, at this point, no one knew that it was a danger to human health. whatsoever. I mean, no one's concerned about the environmental aspect from the sump pumps and so forth that I mentioned. And there were studies that the city had initiated an assessment of it, and I attended one of the meetings. And when I was coming down an elevator for the meeting. I spoke to an engineer they were talking about the dump and covering it up with some clay and I asked him I said is this really a serious situation? He said, If we don't do something about this, our children or our children's children are going to suffer. And that also got my attention from that time. On that was in 77. I started to watch the situation very closely. I kept monitoring it. I kept calling the County Health Department. There was no news for the longest time. And one day in in 19 I was trying to keep it I was trying to make it an item in the news. And I was the city hall reporter Niagara Falls I was in charge of the city. i One day I was sitting at my desk at the Niagara does that and something prompted me I guess you'd call it intuition to go out there. And to you know, take a look around. Ask neighbors how they were doing when and when I did. I was shocked at what I found. I the first person I visited was a family called the Schroeder's Timothy and Karen Schroeder. They had a young daughter who was suffering more than a dozen birth defects and some severe ones. And I started they were all other illnesses in the family including with Tim and and another child. I began to canvass the neighborhood and I went door to door up there st 99 Straight what they later called the first ring of Love Canal. And in case after case door after door house after house. I people were telling me litany of different problems, whether it's was miscarriages or, or, or cancers that they thought were peculiar. And so this, you know, this became a journalistic obsession of mine. And I began to follow up closely and write anything I could on it. I ended up writing, oh 100 news stories and news items about it. And possibly, most importantly, other dumps in the area that could have posed even more of a threat but that when I call the state health department, and I mentioned I remember was a Friday I mentioned that. It seemed like there were illnesses out there. You could tell there was nearly an electrical reaction to that and shortly after that the state announced rather quickly that they were going to hold the health survey there and take blood samplings and a found miscarriages and indications of liver abnormalities and and this and they took some that was from some blood tests the the liver abnormalities and this ended up eventually leading to the declaration of an emergency. Not on August 2 1978.
Michael, what kind of resistance did you need? As you were covering this story? And what let's start with the head but also what was government's reaction and big business reaction when you first when when this issue surfaced at Philip Knapp?
Well, you gotta remember and I'm sure you know that the hooker Chemical Company was the biggest employer in Niagara Falls foul with some people. It's also one of the larger chemical companies in the world owned by Occidental Petroleum, a large entity based in Los Angeles. And so it was extremely important economically the city government the mayor, I knew the mayor very well. I used to talk to him every morning is City Hall reporter that was Michael Lachlan. And this the city manager Don O'Hara they were they were nice guys. We got along fine until this point because they really did not want much publicity on the situation. And I was being assured that it was no big deal that we're going to just cover it with some clay and maybe drain the periphery and that would be that and this is before the declaration of an emergency. I also because I was writing about it at any opportunity. I received a phone call from a state senator who, who told me he asked me says when you're going to go back to being a reporter, instead of an activist this there's no issue here. And when he tried to basically tell me to stop writing about it, and I remember even like it was Senator Lloyd patters. God bless God rest his soul and also there was a health commissioner Niagara County. I don't like I really don't like to cast aspersions on people, especially ones who have passed on as most of these have, but just being a reporter here with the facts. I'm not necessarily blaming them for anything. There was also a health commissioner County Health Commissioner who became very angry at me for questioning whether or not this could be a health hazard. And he was a medical doctor and he said to me, you know, are you a medical doctor and when you're going to be, again, kind of when are you going to go back to being a reporter and I was being a reporter. It's just that I wasn't taking answers that at face value. I knew that there was a problem there. I knew that there were possible health ramifications big time. And in fact, when a state started to sample, not just some pumps, which they had done in a couple of cases, but the air of the homes the basements along 99 Street and South 97th street. They found chlorine they found volatile organic chemicals in the air of those homes including benzene and MS caused a special alarm with me because I happen to know I happen to have read recently that benzene was the the only totally proven human carcinogen from synthetic industrial chemicals back that and as well and there were a host of dozens of other chemicals volatize and evaporating into the atmosphere of their homes. So I knew that this was a big story. I told one I told the councilmen I said this is gonna end up being the biggest story in Niagara Falls history and they simply they simply don't believe that later on. One of the councilmen told me he said, You know, I wish I had listened that was kind of a prophecy if you will, and you know, it was wasn't a prophecy, which is based on what you saw when you went out there.
When did you meet Lois Gibbs and what was your first impression?
Well, again, I had been writing a lot about this and dealing with Karen Schroeder, who would organize the citizens she was for a petition to try to get out of there. This is don't forget at this point. It was it was a problem only they thought for a few homes and only at the southern end in what they call the first ring of homes where Karen Schroeder lived and her mother lived in some other people. So she was organizing Karen was people to sign a petition about the getting out of there. I think there were like 30 homes involved. And so I was writing about that and I was out there a lot and one day and I don't know exactly what the date would have been and I got a phone call from a woman who didn't live as close as Karen she lived a few blocks farther away. And her name was Lois Gibbs and she asked if she could come and see me and talk about the Love Canal. And I said sure. And she came to the office and I gave her a technical report from engineers on what we're going to try to remediate the southern end was some clay and I basically I think I gave her more news clip she had been reading my stories, but I think I gave her more news clips and I just talked to her about the circumstance there. And that was about about the extent of it. I didn't see or hear from her again until August 2, the day it was declared a an emergency by the State Health Commissioner,
And what year are we talking about?
1978.
So did you sense that this woman who described herself as a housewife and a mother and was trying to do the best for her family? Did you have any idea that she would grow into what you know, grow this movement into one of the most incredible grass movements this country has ever seen as far as the environment goes, leading to the super fun
Well I knew that the circumstance that Love Canal was going to lead to that because it was huge news. I mean, it was massive news. It was on Walter Cronkite, it was all over the place. It was the front page of The New York Times just before August 2, a New York Times reporter named Donald McNeil came to Niagara Falls and he called me and he came to my house and had dinner at my house and and I told him about Love Canal and and he was very young reporter and so it's I have the time and I just gave him a box of my of the stuff I had accumulated and I sit here. I didn't care about journalistic competition. At this point. I wanted to see those people get out of there, and he took the material. And then on August 2 He he followed up on the same day of the emergency with a front page article in The New York Times that that that created a firestorm across America, and in an end it was a continual one. And along with the so that was the, you know, that was there was a lot of there was international publicity. There was a deluge it was it was astonishing, and it continued. Up to there. Lois had a tremendous involvement in the second evacuation in 1982 years later, later. But I know by this time I was in New York City I had left Niagara Falls to write a book about Love Canal and other toxic dumps. around America. And and she was they had evacuated the first two rings that Love Canal, but not Lois Gibbs area which, like I said, was farther out and was not as contaminated as a man a matter of fact they the state argued it wasn't contaminated at all. It was a lot of controversy over that. But anyway, she soaked up a lot of grassroots movement for for that to be likewise evacuated. And in 1980 there was they found out there was possibility of some genetic DNA abnormalities with people who did live a little farther away than then that first ring and a second ring that were evacuated. And, and this led to that, along with their grassroots effort keeping it in the news every day. Lois did with her group, gray smoke cloth and another woman, Marie Pozniak. They they constantly kept it in the nose, and especially in in front of the buffalo TV cameras and so this, these forces were to create that second evacuation which also call caused a national Firestorm.
So how important was the visual element here when you mentioned television, which is my medium and Tommy's medium? How important was television coverage? In bringing this in and up close and personal way to the eyes of the public?
Well, back then it possible it was important locally especially, it was important nationally to I mean, this was something that starting in August of 78 was like I said on network news back then, and three major networks dominated there was no cable news, and it was on all three of those major networks as well as PBS, the public stations. So it was important. Back then, newspapers were far more important than the air today, and it was probably more of a newspaper story across the country than a TV story. And also the same was was true of other circumstances. So it was certainly a big TV story and and it was important to have the television stations there for certain like I said there was somewhat of a different environment as far as media back then. And of course no internet and how just today to have his archives, where we can actually see events unfold as they did in that era.
Well, I think it's important especially if we apply it to what's going on today. I mean, after Love Canal, like I said I wrote a book about it called laying waste the poisoning of America that generated a lot of attention around the country. I did hundreds of radio and TV shows about it, including the Today Show Nightline and so forth, traveled twice on national publicity tours. And and I went on a college lecture circuit to speak about Love Canal in about 100 universities and colleges around America during the ensuing years and the reason for that the reason I'm saying all this is because I thought Love Canal would spur this country would spur this country to take a look at the chemicals it was producing and use it and realize that you should not be allowed to use or manufacture at compound unless you can disassemble it in its natural components, not in toxic form. I thought that Love Canal would have a tremendous impact on the production of plastic and we certainly know it hasn't. So I mean, that was the I think that that was the real calling of Love Canal and I I'd love this to materialize that sometime in the future because you know, I'm looking at the problem. We're we're creating more plastic than ever before and toxic chemicals are very much with us.
You recall when dioxin surfaced and people actually said they had seen the military dumping that that I guess that's probably the most toxic, isn't it? I call the most toxic substance created by humans.
It was the finding of dioxin in the conformation of it in December of 1978 that probably caused the biggest single reaction of any single day was Love Canal. I remember very distinctly the health commissioner quietly he called me up and he said I'm gonna have some big news for you and he was gonna you know, and and then he actually at the time he was laboratory director, he later on became Health Commissioner David Axelrod, an excellent human being an unsung hero of Love Canal behind the scenes in Albany, and he tipped me off to the dioxin and I confirm that there was something called trike for if at all in the canal, which always carries dioxin as an unwanted byproduct. And at the time, it may still hold true today. I don't know, dioxin or what they call TCDD was the most toxic synthetic compounds ever tested by by by humans. So this like I said, this created a fantastic uproar and a lot more national publicity
In human terms, did you see the children who had birth defects Did you see the results the human misery that these chemicals created in Love Canal? And what? What was your reaction to fellow human being when you actually saw the results of this?
Well, you take care of Schroeder's daughter Sherry I just wanted them out of there. And I didn't care if I did become an activist. I wanted these people out of there, and I, you know, I was a journalist through it, but yes, the motive was to get these people out because I did see these results. I did see the suffering. I did see the pools of chemicals in the backyard the chemicals that would come and push a fool out of the out of the ground. There was a case across the canal to 90 Southern street in a janiece family was the name and you had black sludge that came up through the drain in their spinner in ground swimming pool and I remember Mrs. janiece telling me that she had gone she didn't know what it was she went down and cleaned up this black gunk this this slurry or sludge and afterwards became very sick first of all, with a tremendous skin rash. And then a litany of panoply of other ailments. At well her ailments you can never prove these things. Her ailments perfectly matched those that are caused by contact with dioxin. I even called up her doctor dermatologist because he had diagnosed her as having lupus and I said to a doctor, and I explained that she was probably in contact with dioxins and and again I heard from him What are you a doctor? You know, why don't you just be a reporter and you know, I was very concerned for her health she ended up dying it at a at a young age. I can't prove it was from chemicals. You can you never can. But it certainly was suspect so I saw that suffering and I certainly other cases up and down 99/97 Street, and soon I found out that the Love Canal was three times the size that the government thought it was and then I started to I was doing some testing of sump pumps with a chemical laboratory and found that the spread of chemicals was farther than the government thought including into neighborhoods that were approaching, for instance, Lois Gibbs neighborhood and others in that area. And again, these type of findings would did not offer comfort to the people there and certainly energize the circumstance and Lois Gibson and grace and Murray. You know, they really kept edit to to try to get those other people out of there and they eventually succeeded.
I call you ever threatened by any special interest groups and that that stood to lose a lot of money and you ever actually threatened?
When I when I was riding, laying waste, and I would return to Niagara Falls, I'd be tailed. There were my one and I'm not blaming anyone in particular, any company in particular but when I went and paperback version of my book laying waste came out the publisher which was Pocket Books was concerned because somehow the My Schedule had had had gotten out. I would go to a city let's say Chicago, and I'd be doing the big morning show their TV show. And there would be a representative of a chemical company in the lobby. Demanding loudly that that he or they be allowed in and and then just basically just disrupting things. Well, they couldn't figure out how the industry had gotten my schedule, my precise schedule and and I even I remember even going down to the basement of the apartment buildings I lived on an East 76th Street in Manhattan and checking to see if there were any devices on on the phone panel down in the basement. You know, for the for the apartments in that in that building. Never proved that that was the case. legal threats, Luis nizer, who at the time was the most famous, the most prominent litigant as far as is suing newspapers for for whatever slander and so forth, threatened my publisher of the heart cover laneways which was a pantheon they're owned by Random House threatened to sue them out of basically out of existence if they published my book. So there was a legal threat. And, and during this time, I don't know I mean, that again, I'm not including a a particular company or politician or whomever but there was a rather suspect, circumstance in which I returned to Niagara Falls to attend a wedding and was briefly arrested. And all charges dropped just so that they can get a little bit of a headline and, and a lawyer that came, you know, it was outraged by what they did. To me. came and made them not just dropped charges, but destroy the fact that the arrest even ever occurred.
What were the charges on that? They were trying to claim I assaulted two police officers who I had been coming out of a place to Niagara Falls and they grabbed me and and holding me off for no reason and and then claiming that I was resisting them assaulting them and so forth. One of them I again, I don't like to be too specific because I can't prove it again. But one of them was a close relative of a politician who was very disturbed at my reporting on Love Canal and in fact, who when one of the councilmen proposed having a Michael Brown day for Love Canal, his response publicly was over my dead body so I don't know why that happened. It didn't deter me. And but you know, it may get back I remember doing a radio show with a guy named Shavon Otto I think you remember him relationship. And during our show, the phones went blank. And when he called me back after it came on, he said to me off year he said, Michael, are you okay? Are you safe? And I said why? And he said I've never heard a phone act. like that before. I've never had that happen before. Be careful. He was he was concerned. But other than that, no, no, I was I can't say somebody called me up and said, We're going to kill you. I got threat threats elsewhere and other situations to toxic ways, including kind of a mob associate in New Jersey, but that was not a good chemical that was not Love Canal and had nothing to do with Niagara Falls or any competency.
We got to wrap up pretty soon. Let me ask you this. What would you like your legacy to be number one. Number two, what, as a society have we learned as a result of your work and the work of those who covered that nightmare?
I guess I'm disappointed with the results so far. I mean, actually Love Canal there was a superfund which I'm sure you're familiar with that caused a lot of the most acute circumstances with these dumps to be remediated as far as putting clay covers on him and draining, draining the lead shape but we were still dumping this stuff for incinerating it in a way that could be hazardous to people. We still have a lot of chemical companies belching stuff out in poor neighborhoods very possibly causing the same type of things that happen Love Canal I don't think Love Canal was the most dangerous situation I saw in America. There was just the one that that was the first one and got a lot of publicity of thanks to being the first one thanks to the activism of people there and so forth. But you know, at least dozens of dumps around America were stopped from from major leakage of seepage I should say and, and, you know, it made the industry look at better means of disposal no question about that. But we but matters have been reversed in recent years the EPA has been got it really and and toxic and so now, once more being allowed into the air and water in a way that that is of major concern. So there's a lot of work to be done, and lessons still to be learned from Love Canal and the many other dumps around America.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Moving Image
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
33:51
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
An Interview with Michael Brown
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Newberg, Rich (Interviewer)
Description
An account of the resource
As a young journalist at the Niagara Gazette in 1977, Michael Brown took a special interest in stories by two fellow reporters at the paper involving sump pump issues in the Love Canal neighborhood. Reported problems included odors and chemicals surfacing in homes. Those articles, published in 1976, did not get much traction at the time.
Mr. Brown had begun covering toxic waste dumpsites in Niagara County. That became his journalistic focus. He managed to stir up a lot of controversy in the process.
While covering a public hearing, a woman in her early 20s from the Love Canal neighborhood broke down in tears when describing her concerns about potential health issues associated with chemicals believed to be leaking into her and her neighbors’ homes.
The city of Niagara Falls had initiated an assessment of the issue and considered covering the old dumpsite with clay. In 1977, Mr. Brown talked with a city engineer who felt the situation was very serious and could effect future generations if not properly addressed.
A period of silence by the city followed. Brown decided to follow up but said he got no answers from the County Health Department. He had become the Niagara Falls City Hall reporter for the Gazette. His journalistic intuition prompted him to go door-to-door, talking with Love Canal families. His goal was to determine whether the presence of toxic chemicals may have been having an effect on their health.
Rich Newberg’s interview with Michael Brown takes us back to that initial period of discovery and what followed next. At the time of the interview, more than four decades had passed since the Love Canal disaster became a “journalistic obsession” for Mr. Brown.
Viewers will learn of the obstacles he faced and how his reporting for the Niagara Gazette led to the rise of Lois Gibbs, leader of the Love Canal Homeowners Association, whose tireless efforts not only ended in victory for her neighbors, but served as the beginning of the environmental justice movement for people exposed to toxic chemicals in their communities.
Portions of the Brown and Gibbs interviews appear in the 2021 documentary, “The Buffalo Story: History Happens Here.” The segment entitled “A Toxic Nightmare: The Awakening,” won a New York Emmy award in 2022 in the category of Science/Environment.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Brown, Michael (Interviewee)
Vetter, Tom (Producer)
Terranova, Michael (Editor)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-11-23
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (publisher of digital)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright held by Moments In Time Video, Inc. & TVRE Productions, Inc. Access to this digital version provided by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Videos or images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Video/mp4
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Subject
The topic of the resource
Chemical plants -- Waste disposal -- Environmental aspects -- New York (State) -- Niagara Falls
Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill (Niagara Falls, N.Y.)
Relation
A related resource
<div class="element-text"><span><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/items/show/2175">A Toxic Nightmare: The Awakening [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 1]</a> </span></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2176"><span>Love Canal: Neighborhood of Fear [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 2]</span></a></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2177">Turning Anger Into Action [The Story of Love Canal Pt.3]</a><br /><span></span></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2178">What Have We Learned? [The Story of Love Canal Pt. 4]</a></div>
<div class="element-text"><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/admin/items/show/2350">An Interview with Lois Gibbs [Her Battle and Victory on Behalf of Love Canal Homeowners]</a></div>
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
http://digital.buffalolib.org/files/original/a1836142201dcb6ecc6ee5d17c848297.mp4
f7ad649f2bed475024f3893f0f0e5754
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Description
An account of the resource
This collection of long-form reports by retired WIVB-TV Senior Correspondent Rich Newberg covers a wide range of social issues, Buffalo history and the arts. Mr. Newberg retired from the Buffalo CBS network affiliate at the end of 2015, after serving the station for thirty-seven years in various roles including main anchor, reporter and documentarian. <br /><br />His New York Emmy Award winning pieces explore the abortion debate, care of the mentally ill, the African American struggle for civil rights, and the lessons of the Holocaust, among many topics. His video memoir, “One Reporter’s Journey, “ reflects on his forty-six year career, beginning as an advocate for those without a voice. <br /><br />"My hope," says Newberg, “is that this collection will provide a lasting chronicle of life and issues in Buffalo during the latter part of the 20th century and into the new millennium."
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The .22 Caliber Killer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
<p><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newberg%2C+Rich+%28Writer%2C+Reporter%29">Newberg, Rich (Writer, Reporter)</a></p>
Description
An account of the resource
Joseph Christopher, a white Buffalo native who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, began his killing spree on September 22, 1980. Within a 36 hour period, using a sawed-off .22 caliber rifle, Christopher murdered four African American men. Two weeks earlier he had sought to be admitted to the Buffalo Psychiatric Center but was deemed not to be a danger to himself or others. Psychiatric counseling was recommended.
Catherine Pelonero, author of the book “Absolute Madness,” makes the case that “Christopher’s crimes might have been prevented if he had received the psychiatric help he was seeking.” Ms. Pelonero provides the on-camera introduction and conclusion to this compilation of WIVB-TV reports.
An intensive search for “The .22 Caliber Killer” ensued after the first four homicides.
Two more African American men were murdered on October 8th and 9th. They were taxi cab drivers who had their hearts cut out. Christopher would later confess to these two killings, although evidence pointed away from Christopher as the perpetrator. Both cases remain open and unsolved.
In November 1980, Christopher enlisted in the U.S. Army. While on Christmas furlough, he journeyed to Manhattan and, on December 22nd, allegedly stabbed four people to death. He then became known as “The Midtown Slasher.”
A week later, on December 29th, after returning to Buffalo, another black man was stabbed to death. The following day, on December 30th, an African American male in Rochester was slashed and died from his injuries.
In January, Christopher reported back to his Army base at Fort Benning, Georgia and attacked a black soldier with a knife. The soldier lived and Christopher was confined to the stockade, where he attempted to take his own life with a razor.
In a session with a psychiatrist at the base, it has been reported that Christopher said he “had to” kill Blacks. At that point, Christopher’s home was searched by the police. They found evidence linking him to three murders. In April 1981, Joseph Christopher was indicted based on this evidence.
At his trial in 1982, Christopher rejected attempts by his mother to provide him with lawyers. He represented himself before a trial judge and was found guilty. However, the ruling was overturned because the judge had not allowed psychiatric testimony about Christopher’s mental ability to stand trial.
In 1985, after being found competent to stand trial, he was again found guilty and sent to Attica Correctional Facility. At the prison he was quoted to have claimed credit for thirteen killings. Author Pelonero says Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during “a savage four month reign of terror…”
Christopher died in prison on March 1, 1993. Although it was reported at the time that he died of a rare form of male breast cancer, Ms. Pelonero’s research determined that the cause of death was testicular cancer. He was 37 years old.
This compilation of WIVB-TV news reports includes the manhunt for Christopher and a massive Buffalo rally against racism. Reporter Rich Newberg traveled with photographer Mike Mombrea, Jr. to Fort Benning, Georgia for first hand accounts from soldiers in Joseph Christopher’s barracks. This retrospective also includes special WIVB-TV coverage of an appearance by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, during Christopher’s reign of terror.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
<p><a href="http://digital.buffalolib.org/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Murphy%2C+Kurt+%28Graphic+Artist%29">Murphy, Kurt (Graphic Artist)</a></p>
Vetter, Tom (editor)
Terranova, Michael (editor)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1980, 1981
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christopher, Joseph G.
Serial murders -- New York (State) -- Buffalo
Racism -- New York (State) -- Buffalo.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Rich Newberg Reports Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
WIVB (Television Station: Buffalo, N.Y.)
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (publisher of digital)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright held by WIVB-TV. Access to this digital version provided by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Videos or images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes without the expressed written permission of WIVB-TV and the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.