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James Montanus Photography |
| Photos by James Montanus, Rochester NY - Contact me |
I've always been interested in the history Love Canal - especially since it was so close to Rochester. So I set out to visit the site to see what was left. It didn't hurt that it's a beautiful ride along Lake Ontario to get there.
To see the GPS maps of the ride, click here >>>>>
The trip starts out by taking a sweet
ride along Lake Ontario between Rochester and Niagara Falls. This old
Honda Chopper is suspended in front of a restaurant just outside Wilson,
NY.
The historic Ontario House is located in Youngstown, which is a
quaint little town on the Niagara River.
More Ontario House...
This is Lewiston New York which is a little farther down the river
from Youngstown.
Finally made it to the Falls. This is taken from the US side.
Another Falls shot.
Tourists hiking through the mist.
And after the falls, I finally arrive at Love Canal.
Very few
structures remain, but it still had an eerie ghost town feeling.
The place was wide open and you could still drive around on the
streets where a middle-class neighborhood once thrived. Here,
the sidewalks are barely visible through overgrown grass.
The main containment area of the old dumpsite is fenced off. All
water runoff is collected and sent to an on-site water treatment plant.
It was impossible to remove all the chemicals. The strategy is to
contain them within the dumpsite
I hiked around the old neighborhood looking for signs of the
eco-disaster that occurred here 30 years earlier. This was once filled
with houses.
A street with the containment area visible to the right.
I found someone's old fenced in yard. Kind of a strange eerie
feeling imagining the children who once played here.
There were evidently three households that refused to move out when
the government offered to buy out the entire neighborhood. This house -
obviously still occupied - was one of three I saw.
An old intersection. It was hard not to try to imagine this
neighborhood lined with houses and bustling with activity.
One of the other three residences still occupied.
Other eco-disaster tourists had come from Syracuse to experience
Love Canal.
Inside the containment area.
These sewers once had highly toxic and noxious chemicals lurking
below. The whole neighborhood was permeated with noxious fumes for
years.
An old intersection.
To see the GPS maps of the ride, click here >>>>>
Ride to
the 