Love Canal is still there
Niagara Falls, New York. One buried canal, five aerial photos, and what the same ground looks like now.
Sources and how this was made
Photos. The 1938, 1945, about-1960 and mid-1960s aerials and the 1978 swale map are from the Love Canal Images collection, University Archives, University at Buffalo (items Spectrum 33 and neighbors). The 1938 and mid-1960s frames carry U.S. Department of Agriculture flight codes for Niagara County. Dates are the archive's. The print called "about 1960" here is cataloged as April 26, 1962, the date of a water-level note written on it; the trees are in full leaf, so the flight was earlier.
Placement. None of the prints has coordinates. Each was fitted to today's street grid (OpenStreetMap) and to its neighbors in time. Expect them to be within about 10 meters near the canal and worse toward the edges.
Outlines. The fence and the 102nd Street landfill are the U.S. EPA's Superfund site boundaries. The 1980 evacuation area was traced from the "Final Love Canal Emergency Declaration Area" map of August 31, 2003 (traced area: acres; the published figure is about 350). The canal is drawn at its documented 3,000 feet, centered on the water in the 1938 photo. Today's imagery is Esri World Imagery.
2011 to 2026. The lawsuits: Buffalo News reporting, 2013 and 2023. The 99th Street lot and the 1993 report: Investigative Post, July 31, 2026. The petition and the state's replies: BTPM, October 2, 2026 and the Niagara Gazette, October 3. The radiation survey: the state's assessment page, the EPA's list of cleanups, and WIVB's count of September 18. The 99th Street marker is a block, not a house.
Numbers. Tons of waste, acres, families, sewer and creek cleanup, and Superfund dates are from the EPA site profile. The August 1978 orders are from the New York State Department of Health report Love Canal: Public Health Time Bomb (September 1978). The habitability decision is the Department of Health's of September 27, 1988.