In 1978, I discovered my child was attending an elementary school built on top of a 20,000 ton, toxic-chemical dump in Niagara Falls, New York.  As a mom, I was outraged!  That shocking discovery spurred me and my neighbors to lead a three-year struggle to protect our children and families from the hazardous waste buried in our backyards.

When we bought our homes, none of us knew that Hooker Chemical Corporation, a division of Occidental Petroleum, had dumped 200 tons of a toxic, dioxin-laden chemical and 21,600 tons of various other chemicals into Love Canal.  We just knew we were getting sick.  We knew there were too many miscarriages, too many birth defects, too many central nervous systems problems, too many urinary tract disorders, and too much asthma and other respiratory problems among us.

Hooker and Occidental knew the chemicals they had buried in the canal could damage the health of the people who lived in the surrounding neighborhood.  When the company sold the land to the town school board for only $1.00, the deal contained a stipulation that if anyone was harmed by the buried waste, Hooker and Occidental would not be responsible.

After we organized and won evacuation from Love Canal in 1980, I moved to Virginia to give my children a home safe from dioxin and other toxic contamination, and to start an organization that would help people fighting toxics in their neighborhoods.

Soon after, I realized that Love Canal was not the only dioxin problem. There were sites all across the country contaminated with Dioxin.  Dioxin poses a serious health risk to both children and adults. In response, more than 100 countries have signed a treaty that calls for a global phase out of dioxin. Dioxin is a powerful cancer causing agent and human carcinogen.

You don’t have to live next to Love Canal in New York or Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, to suffer the effects of dioxin.  The average boy, girl, woman, or man in the U.S. has enough or almost enough dioxin in their bodies to damage their health.

The only way we can save our families from further exposure is to eliminate the sources of dioxin in everyone’s backyard.

We now have an opportunity to do that.

The EPA is soliciting comments on their proposed cleanup guidelines for dioxin.

Take action here.