Lois Gibbs

Lois Gibbs led the struggle to have 800 families from her Niagara Falls community evacuated and relocated after discovering that tons of chemical waste material was buried in nearby Love Canal.

Lois Gibbs, founder and executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), has been at the forefront of the environmental movement in the United States for several decades. In 1978 Gibbs, a housewife with two young children, became concerned about reports of chemical waste in her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. She wondered if her children’s unusual health problems and those of her neighbors were connected to their exposure to leaking chemical waste. Gibbs later discovered that her neighborhood sat on top of 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste, the now infamous Love Canal.

With no prior experience in community activism, Gibbs organized her neighbors and formed the Love Canal Homeowners Association. She led her community in a battle against the local, state, and federal governments. After years of struggle, more than 800 families were eventually evacuated, and cleanup of Love Canal began. National press coverage made Lois Gibbs a household name. Her efforts also led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s “Superfund,” which is used to locate and clean up toxic sites throughout the US.