American Experience

It was just such a nice neighborhood, we had fun there.

A lot of times we would just be near the school playing baseball but we always ended up near what we called the black lagoon.

To a child, it was like a wonderland.

We had these rocks that we called pop rocks.

We would just slide them across and they would actually have a flame.

And I remember my mother always yelled about our shoes.

This one time I came home and she said, It looks like your sneakers are burnt.

What are you doing?

I'm just playing at the school.

The mighty waters of Niagara Falls, serve the needs of industry and the welfare of mankind.

Niagara Falls in the 1970s is synonymous with chemicals.

It was called chemical row because there were so many manufacturers along there.

Chemical companies in Niagara Falls and across the United States were burying their toxic waste.

But that was their backyard.

The residents kids played in the canal.

That's where they went.

People had no idea that they were living on top of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals.

Today in Albany, the New York St Health Department declared a health emergency.

Chemical waste is coming out of the ground.

Birth defects and miscarriages.

Severe migraine headaches, respiratory disease.

Already, 8 cases of cancer in a 15 house street.

It was hard to believe this could happen in the United States of America.

Each and every one of you in this room are murderers.

It was doomed to be a screaming match right from the beginning.

Can you tell me when I'm not going to lose any more children because one is already dead.

It was like watching an accident in slow motion.

There is no evidence to indicate an immediate health hazard to residents of the area.

Residents at Love Canal really thought the government were going to rescue them.

It really hit home for us that we have to make this happen They're not going to do it for us.

So that spurred me to want to do something.

We've got to do something.

I mean, the fight came to us.

We didnt look for it.

We protested literally every day The women told us that the state office had dismissed their study as useless housewife data They thought we were useless housewives.

But we were stronger than that.

Those women kept that story out and they would come up with all different ways to get the cameras there.

We want out!

I wasnt thinking about building a movement or anything like that.

I was thinking about survival.

This incredible group of women become the faces of environmental reform.