Remembering the Past – Love Canal Tragedy
- August 24, 2016
- 0 comments
- health
- Posted in ChemicalsEnvironmentalHealthIndustry News
Details of many historical environmental incidents and associated impacts they once had on societies, organizations and future generations, unfortunately, gets lost in time. However, it is essential for us to revisit them, to educate ourselves again and to raise awareness among our peers to assess and recalibrate current practices in light of historical incidents.
One such incident is the “Love Canal” disaster. In case you are not acquainted with the details of the incident, I would recommend watching the 5 min video (by History Channel) on YouTube here , or read the article on — — USEPA webpage here.
As you will find, when you go over the details of the incident and its impacts, there are a lot of take aways from this incident in current context.
I would suggest reader to especially relate and think about the following apects:
- How do organizations/ individuals respond in circumstances/ locations where there are gaps in local environmental regulations or even complete absence of a specific regulatory requirements? What, in your opinion, decision makers at the chemical company involved in this case must be thinking. Do organizations really ever get away with behaving irresponsibily towards environment, even in absence of regulations?
- Importance of embedding End-to-End thinking in any decision making. Whether -the regulators, chemical company, city administrators in this case – would have acted differently if they had end in mind?
- Inappropriate or lack of communication by the polluters on the environmental impacts to the societies. I always get goosebumps when I imagine how a school ended up on the top of a contaminated site. Why were societies, especially parents of the kids not clearly informed ?
Please share your comments. Would love to hear what you think.