In this Channel 17 Report, Producer/Reporter Fran Lucca looks at one of the final chapters of the Love Canal tragedy - Burial on 99th Street. It marks the beginning of the end for 227 abandoned homes. The federal government purchased the contaminated homes in 1978 after President Carter declared the area a national disaster due to contaminated land in and around the canal. The land is believed to have been contaminated back in the 1940s by the Hooker Chemical Company.
As the 227 homes were being demolished, Lucca examined what it meant for the 600 homes that remained just outside the fenced-off area. Residents had been awaiting a long-delayed report from the Environmental Protection Agency, which first launched a study in 1980.