Join us for an in-person-only screening of the documentary film, Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy of Love Canal (2024), followed by a Q&A session with filmmaker Jamila Ephron.
Poisoned Ground is a two-hour film about the Love Canal disaster, one of the largest, most notorious, and most impactful public health and environmental crises in American history. The film is a piercing look back at the event and the women who spoke up and fought for accountability.
The story unfolds like a mystery. Beginning in 1977 residents in a neighborhood on the east side of Niagara Falls began noticing pungent chemical odors in their homes. Soon, dozens of families began to suffer abnormally high rates of cancer, asthma, kidney disease, miscarriage, birth defects, migraines, and more. Though their research was initially dismissed as “useless housewife data,” homemaker-turned-advocate Lois Gibbs and biologist and cancer researcher Dr. Beverly Paigen and others led the battle for environmental justice. Their work created the basis for the landmark Federal Superfund program that today oversees the remediation of more than 1,300 dangerous hazardous waste sites across the country.
Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) credit is available to educators who attend this program.
