Episode 125: The Love Canal

Well There's Your Problem | Episode 125: The Love Canal .ass file - download the video off of YouTube and play with your media player of choice .ytt file - feed the subtitle file to your YouTube(!) in this convoluted manner Corrections (please!) to haitch dubya ei zed you you dubya at the google mail service JUSTIN: ...Okay. I think everyone's going. LIAM: Alright, here's the fucking thing. LIAM: Here's the fucking thing, right. Here's the thing. I... you may be asking, wow, this still isn't the Norfolk Southern derailment episode. Which I say, shut the hell up. [laughs] LIAM: We recorded one, but everything we recorded at the time was already out of date, so we're not releasing that. Stop fucking asking us, we're waiting for the NTSB report. NOVA: The problem is that, like, in particular, Justin knows too much about this, and is cursed by knowing. JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: If you ever see The Man Who Knew Too Much, you gotta see the Rocz Cut. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: It's just Rocz superimposed on the entire movie. JUSTIN: Yes, we did record an episode on East Palestine, but by the time it was finished, everything we said was out of date or wrong. I mean, y'know, so... we scrapped that one, that's why we didn't record, we didn't release very much in February, I apologize for that. We shouldn't have even tried it, but we did. And then we... LIAM: And we were cursed for our hubris, yeah. JUSTIN: Yeah, we were cursed for our hubris. NOVA: It ended up being sort of like, free therapy for you, though? Like, I hope you kind of got some of the, like, feelings out of your system at that moment. LIAM: I will say– JUSTIN: What gave me therapy was when legislators stopped talking about electromagnetic pneumatic brakes, or electronic pneumatic brakes. 'Cause I was like, I had visions in my head, of repeating the Positive Train Control mandate, and just, like, you know, it'd be uneconomical– LIAM: ...Watching fucking... NJT borrow toasters from SEPTA to meet requirements. JUSTIN: Or like, watching, like, most hazmat becoming uneconomical to ship by rail, and there's like, 17 trucks full of vinyl chloride piling up on I-80. LIAM: And outside of I-80... JUSTIN: Yeah. So that's a different story, I will say that. I... LIAM: I have a fun aside, which is that... ...So, I am now in therapy once a week. It turns out it does work. Sorry. NOVA: It's so annoying that it works, too. LIAM: I think that a lot of my previous experience was because I wasn't putting in a good faith effort. But I was also 17 and addicted to drugs, so shut up. ...I have mentioned Rocz a couple times to my therapist. He's like, so what do you do for work? And I'm like, alright, listen, this is podcast, right? He's also my best friend and also kind of my boss. And he's like, that sounds complex. And he's like, fascinated by Rocz. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: So Dr. Paul, if you're listening, there he is. NOVA: Like, professionally. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: ...This is a co-op system, I'm not your boss. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: Yeah, you're kind of my boss. JUSTIN: We all have an equal share in this. LIAM: Well, I control the, uh... the way the PayPal is distributed, so I guess... JUSTIN: I was about to say, so yeah... you have the power of the purse here. LIAM: Ah, yes. Grand... what do they call it in the, uh... "Exchequer"? Who is it? NOVA: Yeah, you're an exchequer. You're a chancellor of the exchequer. You sit on a big woolsack. LIAM: ...Don't use that word. NOVA: Yeah, well, it's a very stupid word. JUSTIN: We all need to keep this in check by having a secret way we could fuck each other over. LIAM: Well, we have, uh, release the (?) full episodes! NOVA: ...I'm not sure what mine is! What's the card I can play here? I guess I could, like, accuse you of being transphobic and get you cancelled. Like... LIAM: ...What you could do to me a Rocz? Yeah... there's a ton of stuff that's probably cancellable, it's just not public. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, shitloads. NOVA: I'm not even sure that's true! I don't think that's true, I would have to make it up! And like, y'know, I don't think I'm vicious enough to do that, so I'm not sure that I am– LIAM: ...There's a lot of bad stuff we've done in our personal lives, nothing criminal, but certainly stupid and bad. NOVA: I'm not–I'm making a policy– LIAM: Some of it probably borders on criminal, but they are, they are harmless crimes. NOVA: I make it a policy not to ask you what the number in the speedometer was in any story you tell me about driving anywhere. JUSTIN: [laughs] NOVA: And that's... yeah. LIAM: Many. LIAM: Set a new speed record in the United States, by the way. Not gonna say that number on air. NOVA: [laughs] I think we need to go back to the Liam's van thing, and we need to, like, get you another van, but we paint it up like one of Alex Roy's fucking cars with, like, police interceptor on the side. JUSTIN: It's like the A-Team van. NOVA: Aaah. JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: So I... have been looking, in sort of the long-term three to four years plan, to sell the GTI, and finally go back to full-size van life. Much to–Crin's like, oh, you should sell the car, and we can get, like, a Toyota RAV4 Prime to get– And I'm like, nah... I gotta do something stupid. Like, I can't own a car that's reliable or safe. NOVA: Yeah. You gotta get a full-sized van. NOVA: No. It has to be a nugget, and the nugget has to be a van. Also, this is a problem with me. I started watching this Australian guy who does– LIAM: Dankpods, right? NOVA: Yeah! Yeah, yeah. LIAM: I highly recommend his channel, all of his channels. NOVA: Yeah. And so, you watch enough of that, you start calling things "nuggets". It's... reprehensible of me. JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: Oh, I say "big stinky audio" now. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: In just casual conversation, I'm like, yeah, big stinky bass. And Crin's like, I don't understand why you have six pairs of headphones, and it's just like, shut the fuck up. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: I need them for different applications. NOVA: You don't understand the textures as much as I do. LIAM: Yeah. It's Bluetooth audio, don't worry, it all sounds like it comes through... through a can attached to a string. NOVA: What are we here for again? LIAM: I want that shit in black. JUSTIN: Speaking of, Australia! LIAM: Love Canal! We're here in Love Canal! JUSTIN: Speaking of Australia, there is a podcast called Boonta Vista, of which some bonus episodes are called The Theo Philes, where they talk about random stuff. And one day I was listening to it, and they were talking about the Love Canal. And I was like, that's our territory. You can't talk about that. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: That's our thing. NOVA: This is... LIAM: Oh, what are you gonna do, LIAM: you gonna take another person's boat? NOVA: Boonta Vista Social Club, you are hereby issued with a cease and desist order. JUSTIN: Yes. NOVA: ...We don't come to your house. [laughter] LIAM: [Nova], did you say "Boonta Vista Social Club"? The Cuban band? NOVA: Yeah, that's what it's a reference to. That's the full name–I'm calling it by its full name, like I'm calling the podcast indoors. LIAM: Ah, ah, ah, yes. JUSTIN: It's actually the only podcast other than ours I own merchandise for. LIAM: You own Trillbillies merch, you fucking liar. JUSTIN: Do we? Oh yeah, I do, we have a Trillbillies t-shirt. Yeah. LIAM: I don't... I have a Lions Led by Donkeys sticker. NOVA: I have, like, all of the TF and KJB shit, I have all of that. LIAM: I don't even have all of our own merch. NOVA: You know what I don't have? What I don't have is a Well There's Your Problem shirt, from the fucking live show, because you have not mailed it to me. LIAM: Oh, see, the problem is... the problem is that I wiped my ass with it. JUSTIN: Alright. NOVA: Wash it, and mail it to me. LIAM: I will not be washing it. I will be labeling it as hazmat and sending it on its way. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Speaking of hazmat, what you see in front of you... LIAM: It's bad. JUSTIN: ...is an open field, and some nasty water. Today we're gonna talk about– LIAM: This is what Boston hot dogs are served in, folks. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Today we're gonna talk about one of America's most famous chemical disasters, the Love Canal. But first we have to do The God Damn News. [♪news jingle♪] NOVA: Oh, folks, this one's bad, huh? JUSTIN: Yeah, so there was a... a big train crash in Greece, an Olive Field Meet(?), if you will, because two trains just wrecked right into each other. At high speed. Just head on. NOVA: Yeah, like... NOVA: on the same track, apparently, and, just, uh, it has killed like, what, like two, three dozen people? JUSTIN: We're up to 57, I believe. NOVA: Jesus, man, it's fuckin'... those numbers going up never makes me feel good, y'know? LIAM: No. JUSTIN: So my understanding here is that this double track line was single tracked for track maintenance. And there was sort of this, uh... the signaling system in Greece does not work very well, so there's this culture of, y'know, the station master saying, ah, yeah, that signal is red because it's broken. Just go ahead. And they went ahead, and it turned out the signal was not broken, there was a freight train approaching in the opposite direction. So these trains crashed head on at very high speed. Not a great situation. It was all full of kids as well. Or not kids, like 18, 19 year olds. So y'know, this is a... pretty ugly situation overall. LIAM: Yeah, I... LIAM: I was reading about this–It just... not a great... few weeks to be a train guy. Yeah, obviously, this just sucks. Norfolk Southern put another one on the ground. Sort of waiting for another Sunset Limited, or Keystone... was it the Keystone or Northeast that derailed in... Kensington and just fucked up a bunch of people? JUSTIN: That was a Northeast Regional. LIAM: Yeah. I dunno, just... shit feels very grim, right? JUSTIN: Yeah, it's... a lot of, like, just deferred maintenance causing very preventable problems. LIAM: Right. NOVA: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the... like, carriage on the left there, that's on fire, which it shouldn't be. Apparently that was, like, that was the first carriage that, like, hit this freight train. LIAM: That's an absolutely horrific picture. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, it's, uh, they are having to identify bodies from dental records, which, y'know, that's... just cause everyone just got incinerated. NOVA: Does remind me of a... a tweet, because now the news is tweet review, and whenever I see anything now I just think of a funny tweet that I read like five years ago, which is, My dentist can do it all, from a simple cleaning to identifying my charred remains. JUSTIN: [laughs] Ugh. NOVA: Because the real thing, the real thing here is that we can do a sort of transit broken window theory here, and say that, you know, the real cause of this calamity began when they... when they started letting people, like, graffiti on the side of the trains. And that sort of spiralled out of control until we got here, and it killed like three dozen people. LIAM: Ah, I see you're on some of the Facebook railfan communities, yeah. NOVA: [laughs] That's right, yeah. JUSTIN: The interesting thing is, the Greek railways were taken over by the Italian state railways, who, y'know, also allow a lot of graffiti on their trains, but they don't have high-speed head-on collisions. NOVA: One of the sort of classic modes of rail ownership is sort of owned by someone else's nationalized railway. JUSTIN: Mmhmm. That's called competition. NOVA: Yeah. I don't like it. I think we should... JUSTIN: One of the more bizarre things about how, how railways have been privatized in Europe is that they just get taken over by the state operators of other countries, which have not privatized their railways! [laughs] NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Even in the United States, a lot of the operations of commuter railroads are run by a company called Keolis, which is just... SNCF from France. So it's, uh... We will ultimately all be controlled by French or Italians. NOVA: Who will, it seems, kill all of us. JUSTIN: Apparently. Except in Italy, yeah. Well... NOVA: This is a punishment for not being French or Italian, is to surely be killed. JUSTIN: Gotta look after your own first. JUSTIN and NOVA: [laugh] JUSTIN: Um. Yeah, so this is, this is a very ugly wreck, which, y'know, again, was caused by something very preventable. Uh, speaking of which, in other news... [♪news jingle♪] LIAM: Ah, they did it again. NOVA: This is happening again. JUSTIN: They put another train on the ground in Springfield, Ohio. This one was not hazmat. It was not as hazardous material as it was in East Palestine, but it was very... it was caught on video, just the derailment occurring, and it's embarrassing. Um, but I think maybe the worst aspect of this, um, there were four tank cars involved in this derailment. Two of them were carrying... well, they were all empty. Two of them had residual chemicals, which are, uh... precursor to polyethylene. The other two had diesel exhaust fluid. Um, and diesel exhaust fluid is a fluid you add to certain, you know, high efficiency, high performance diesel engines to reduce the amount of CO2 they produce. And what it is, is a 35% solution of urea. NOVA: Piss. LIAM: It's pee. Yes. NOVA: It's piss. LIAM: It's what Mercedes uses in the Bluetech engines as well. JUSTIN: Yes. So Norfolk Southern just dumped, among other things, two cars of dried piss onto the ground. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: And I... I am... you know, I know it's not hazmat, it's not dangerous, but it's insulting. NOVA: Yeah. Norfolk Southern is here assuming the role of Calvin, pissing on the United States. JUSTIN: The state of Ohio in particular. Uh-huh. Yeah. JUSTIN: Blew it up, then we pissed on it. NOVA: [laughs] Yeah. Hey, at least this one's not as much on the ground, like, visually, as the previous one was. JUSTIN: Ah, you know, I could've gotten a better picture of this, cause there were quite a lot of cars on the ground. NOVA: Wow. LIAM: Norfolk Southern! JUSTIN: This is just, uh, I... one of these steel coil cars caused the derailment. NOVA: Do we know anything about, like, how or why, LIAM: Norfolk Southern! NOVA: or are we just attributing it to, like, haunts? JUSTIN: I don't know what caused the derailment, I don't think that information is out yet. It was not clear to me from the video what caused it. NOVA: Okay. JUSTIN: You know, so I... I have no idea, to be honest. This could've been a lot of things. If it was... If it was another hotbox, I wouldn't be surprised, but... LIAM: Oh, sure. JUSTIN: You know, who knows. LIAM: Who's to say? NOVA: Beautiful. JUSTIN: So. Yeah. Norfolk Southern. Taking the piss. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: All over Ohio. Ugh. NOVA: All they have to do is get bought out by SNCF, or, like, the Italians. You know? And everything will be fine. JUSTIN: Yes, exactly. We put SNCF in charge, and then we get those stylish electric locomotives, and then probably some exotic other series of failures. Nah, it'll be DB Schenker. [laughter] NOVA: Why not (?)? JUSTIN: I think they have a stake in, like, Tennessee and Wyoming now. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. In other news. [♪news jingle♪] NOVA: Oh, it's bad, folks. JUSTIN: We've uh, We've unfortunately, we've had to cancel our much-anticipated appearance at the Grand Ole Opry. LIAM: Tennessee is back on their bullshit, yes. JUSTIN: Yeah, it's illegal to be trans in Tennessee. NOVA: It's not just illegal to be trans, it's illegal to, like, cross-dress in a theatrical production. You can't stage a couple of Tennessee Williams plays legally in Tennessee at the moment. JUSTIN: Incredible. LIAM: Fuckin' morons. I know the people of the South are good people, by and large, but your legislators are not, they should be taken out and beaten with sticks. NOVA: Yeah, for sure, I mean, they're embarrassments, right, to, like, normal people in the South. This is one of about 500, that's not even an exaggeration, about 500 different anti-trans or anti-drag bills, a few of which have the potential to pass, a lot of which don't. This is, like, unambiguously the bad thing happening, irrespective of what legal challenges follow, or however it's supposed to be implemented, or whatever. But equally, I think you should be a bit judicious about, especially if you are trans, who you read about this, I think you should be careful not to, sort of like, absorb all of the shit from accounts that just track all of these, every single one, the ones that have no chance of passing too, and feel like this is, sort of like, a... a ubiquitous thing, and, like, you know, the fucking state cops or whatever are gonna kick your door in the next day. Because probably not, at least not necessarily. It is alarming, it's concerning, it's very bad, there's a lot of other bad shit happening. I feel comfortable calling it an attempt at genocide, but equally, it's not ubiquitous, and there is resistance to this in places that, like, matter and will affect it. And, yeah. JUSTIN: You know, the other thing is, state legislators are all insane people. So, you know, these bills could get randomly passed anywhere, but they could also, you know, someone might just shoot someone to avoid getting the thing passed, because again, state legislators, all insane people. There's no sane state legislator out there. You know, some of them are on our side, though. [laughter] NOVA: Yeah. It's cool that, like, this is, um, you know, what the Republicans are choosing to do, like a full-court press on, like nationwide, is, uh, like, transphobia. LIAM: ...Dehumanization, yeah. NOVA: Yeah, exactly. And, like, I dunno, I think that's the kind of thing that loses them elections nationally, if not at a state level also, but that's sort of cold comfort. JUSTIN: Right, you gotta do anything to distract people from the fact that they aren't doing anything. LIAM: Right. And again, as we've said, don't bleep this one, Dev, these people have names and addresses, good luck to ya. NOVA: Sure. Yeah, you can write to them. You can write them a nice letter. LIAM: And you can include something in that letter to make them have a nice time. JUSTIN: Yeah, you could, uh... NOVA: ...deeply worded thoughts and feelings. JUSTIN: You could send them... a nice present for Friends Day. LIAM: Yes. JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: Gotta make sure your local legislators have a nice time. JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: You wouldn't want them to have a bad time, would you? NOVA: I guess I don't really know what to say to trans people, because like, every trans person I know, not just in the US, is like, extremely, has a high level of baseline anxiety about this, and for good reason. So, me scolding you about not following fucking Alejandra Caraballo, or like, fucking Erin Reed about this, is only one part of it. The greater part of it is me talking to cis people, and this is like, yeah, you don't have to fucking check in, because that can be exhausting on its own, but just be aware of the fact that this is, like, some heavy shit, and like, y'know, any sort of like, resistance, allyship, comradeship, along these lines is like, closely appreciated. LIAM: That's what we're here for, buddy. JUSTIN: Yeah, I mean, y'know, perfectly rational to have anxiety about it. Y'know, I'm waiting for some, I don't know, Wyoming or somewhere to pass a bill that labels us sex offenders for having a YouTube show. Um. NOVA: [laughs] NOVA: Well, I mean, listen, we've gotten to one out of fifty states where it's illegal to do a live show. And I look forward to that number going up. Y'know, I think– JUSTIN: ...But the one out of the fifty is probably one of the places where it'd be most fun to do it, is the issue. NOVA: Ah, it's true. Yeah. JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: Imagine our Nashville show. NOVA: Every single one of us covered in rhinestones. LIAM and JUSTIN: Yeah. NOVA: The thing is, though, Nashville's, Nashville's getting too gentrified now, and that's part of the reason why it's swinging further right, is that, like, I read a long article on, like, eater.com about this in part, but like, yeah, all of the stuff that made Nashville famous, like country music, or like, meat and threes and shit like that, is now being pushed out by, like, fun Nashville activities, from people who, like, y'know, work in tech and moved from Williamsburg or moved from, like, the Bay Area, or whatever. LIAM: Fun Nashville activities are getting absolutely fucking smoked on Broadway. JUSTIN: Just another... another axe throwing bar. LIAM: No. No. NOVA: [laughs] Fun Nashville activities, like having a hot chicken sandwich that isn't hot. JUSTIN: Oh my god. LIAM: Getting wasted at the Vanderbilt Arboretum. Yes. [laughs] NOVA: So, yeah, Nashville sort of, uh, I fear, is becoming like a theme park version of itself. I mean, it's always headed that way, I guess, and like... JUSTIN: We always do a... well, we can't do a Gatlinburg show. That's the other thing. We can't even do the tacky one. NOVA: [laughs] LIAM: Sort it out, Tennessee. NOVA: Branson, Missouri, while we still can, y'know? JUSTIN: I was about to say, yeah. LIAM: Yeah, we could go see... Yakov Smirnoff. Yeah. NOVA: Yeah, we're in between Yakov and, like, Gallagher. Come out, smash a bunch of watermelons with a sledgehammer. LIAM: ...Gallagher dead now? NOVA: Um, that's a great question, I don't know. JUSTIN: Our message to the people of Tennessee, legalize our show. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Correct this injustice. [laughter] JUSTIN: We will come to Gatlinburg. NOVA: Yeah, absolutely. We are willing to, like, demonstrate anything that the people of Tennessee, the good people of Tennessee need from us, up to and including– LIAM: We lay siege to Dollywood, yes! NOVA: Including laying siege–I don't think we need to lay siege to Dollywood, I think Dollywood is firmly in our camp, I think Dollywood's the fuckin' headquarters of this shit, and we expand out from there, y'know? LIAM: And then we rob Taylor Swift's house, got it. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Oh my God. NOVA: Speaking of Nashville becoming an aesthetic, remember when she used to be a country musician? LIAM: Remember when she is from fucking Reading, Pennsylvania? NOVA: Mm. JUSTIN: Remember when you met her in a Walmart? LIAM: Walmart? Yeah. NOVA: You keep meeting people in Walmart. Didn't you meet John Fetterman in a Walmart, too? LIAM: No, I met John Fetterman at the HipCityVeg. NOVA: Oh, okay. JUSTIN: Well. LIAM: I met Claude Giroux at a, y'know, like a– NOVA: Man, maybe we should've put some news in about John Fetterman, that's, cause that's fuckin' sad too. Like... LIAM: Yeah, I'm proud of... I'm proud of our large boy for getting the help he needs. NOVA: Oh yeah. 100%. LIAM: And if you think that that means he shouldn't be serving, eat the shit out of my ass. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: But y'know, the other thing is, he's a fuckin' senator. He has five years to live this down. No one's gonna remember this in like, I don't know, 2050 or whatever that is. LIAM: ...The other thing about, just real quick, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco is headquartered in Nashville, so if y'all could fuckin' get it together, that'd be great. I'd like to make the pilgrimage. NOVA and JUSTIN: [laugh] JUSTIN: Alright. I think that was The God Damn News. NOVA: Missed you guys. [♪news jingle♪] JUSTIN: Okay. So before we talk about the Love Canal, we have to ask, what is Niagara Falls? LIAM: I got this one. Alright. So, let me do this, [Nova]. NOVA: Please. LIAM: You're 19 years old. You're with your parents and your friend on a trip home from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Because you were visiting the University of Toron... You're 18, whatever the fuck. You were visiting York University and U of T. Two schools you do not even bother applying to because you will not get into either. Your dad really wants to take you to Niagara Falls, a place you've been a million times because your dad is obsessed with hydropower. JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: You then go to Niagara Falls, and your dad drives the wrong way down the one-way bus lane, nearly killing you and the entire party in your car. He is then blocked by a bus, throws his 2000 Jeep Cherokee into reverse, nearly kills an elderly woman and her grandchildren, and then says, I don't understand what the big deal is about. And then you get out of the car and look at the water, and then maybe you go on Maid of the Mist and go to the terrible casino they have there, and then maybe you buy a five-pound Hershey bar because you're a little stressed, and maybe you eat the whole thing in the back seat of your dad's 2000 Jeep on the way home. That's Niagara Falls. JUSTIN: Wow. NOVA: Really painted a picture for me, thank you. Beautiful. JUSTIN: Crash Anderson strikes again. LIAM: Oh, yeah, yeah. [laughter] LIAM: One day I'll tell that story on the podcast, but, uh. NOVA: Stencil that on the side of the fuckin'... van, you know, it belongs on an F-35 cockpit. But like, my answer was gonna be, Niagara Falls is the most romantic vacation destination in an America where international travel is not yet commonplace. You watch movies from the 50s or 60s, and they have like newlyweds and shit in them, they are going on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls. That's like, the horniest place boomers could imagine. And I don't know why. JUSTIN: It's just gushing– LIAM: We hadn't discovered the West yet. NOVA: Yeah. Yeah. But you can fly anywhere, really, so you just, like– LIAM: Keep going, I'll be right back, someone's at my door. Sorry. NOVA: It's fine. LIAM: Stop ringing my fucking doorbell. JUSTIN: I think Niagara Falls is nice. I enjoy going there. NOVA: I've never been, I'd like to. JUSTIN: Oh, well, you know, when we... when we go to visit the racecar team. You know? [laughter] NOVA: Yeah. Just so long as, like... I guess even if Michigan decides to, like, pass an anti-trans law, we can look at it from the Canadian side. Like the less impressive side. JUSTIN: ...It's New York. NOVA: Oh, it's New York? Okay, cool. I mean, New York's like, swinging rightwards thanks to the sort of crystal magic of Eric Adams having a sort of counterproductive effect. JUSTIN: ...Swinging rightwards, but I don't think it'll swing rightwards in that way. I think you got enough... you got enough, uh, you know, just sort of, uh... how do I describe this? Like... a lead weight of progressivism to counterbalance everything else. There's people trying to bring it right, but I don't think they're gonna do anything. NOVA: Yeah. I mean, like, New York Republicans are weird, though, too, cause like, I mean, Trump, for one thing, and a bunch of guys like him, but then also, like, weird upstate guys, and, yeah, no, it's strange. It's a strange state. But, love to visit one day. But yeah, so, Niagara Falls, um, horny boomer destination. JUSTIN: Yes. It's gotta... NOVA: It's got, um... JUSTIN: Yeah, I guess we just proceed with the podcast here. It's got... NOVA: Yeah, I think so. JUSTIN: 167 feet of elevation change between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Which is a good thing, and a bad thing. NOVA: Huge, sort of watershed that just dumps straight over cliffs, and has been eroding those cliffs back for the past however many thousands of years. JUSTIN: Yeah, you got the two falls, you got the Canadian and American Falls. NOVA: Which one is... do we know which one's which? I think the Canadian one's the one on the left that looks like dogshit, and the American one's the cool one on the right? JUSTIN: No, the Canadian Falls are the Horseshoe Falls. NOVA: Ah, okay, fuck. Okay. Wow. You know what, I apologize to the nation of Canada for impugning their forms. JUSTIN: I gotta check the border here. NOVA: The US-Canadian border is fuckin' weird as hell, too. JUSTIN: Oh yeah. Yes, the American Falls are actually in America. Okay. Cause I was... I was confused when I was looking at it earlier, and I was like, wait, the American Falls are in Canada? No, they're in America. [laughter] NOVA: What else about Niagara Falls? Oh yeah, you could, like, die going over these in a barrel, if you wanted. For a long time. JUSTIN: Or sometimes you live. NOVA: Yeah. Very occasionally. A guy tightrope walked over them, at one point, also. LIAM: It was a delivery for the wrong fucking house. NOVA: Beautiful. So, yeah, we were talking about how Niagara Falls is a repository to a large amount of, like, American bullshit. LIAM: Yeah. Tightrope walkers, guys in barrels. NOVA: Yeah, see. JUSTIN: The suspension bridge. Which no longer exists. LIAM: There's a really cool- the rock that fell in, although I think that was on the Canadian side. LIAM: There's a sick whirlpool, Niagara on the Lake is a really cute little tourist trap that I've loved since I was a kid. NOVA: It's got like a... I hear that it's got a microclimate that makes it very good for wines. LIAM: Yes. JUSTIN: Wow. LIAM: Some absolutely, uh, incredible ice wine country up here, too. JUSTIN: I heard that from a Canadian guy. Um. [laughs] He does podcasts. [laughs] NOVA: Shoutout to the friend of the pod, Riley, and my boss, at Trashfuture. JUSTIN: Yes. [laughs] Um. So, this is a good and bad thing, having this big elevation drop. We'll start with why it's a bad thing. Which is, it's bad for shipping. Right? LIAM: Yeah, it turns out taking a 168 foot freefall is bad for cargo. JUSTIN: Yeah, it's not good for boats. NOVA: You can't put, like, a grand carrier over this, y'know? LIAM and JUSTIN: Yeah. JUSTIN: No, especially if you wanna go up. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: That's even harder. NOVA: We've got, like, a 400 mile long system of locks, y'know? JUSTIN: Yeah. So, y'know, it's really easy to ship a whole bunch of stuff on the Great Lakes, because they're... y'know, these big freshwater lakes, and that means you can build a ship and it lasts forever. NOVA: That's how... [crosstalk] ...Fitzgerald. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: Wow. LIAM: Poor one out. JUSTIN: I mean, it's still there. [laughter] LIAM: Rocz! NOVA: It's like... like the thing about plane crashes, y'know? No one's ever left one up there yet. JUSTIN: Yeah, exactly. Freshwater shipping is interesting, because a boat'll last like a hundred years easily. So y'know, your solution here is, y'know, if you want to go between two different lakes that are at different elevations, you need some canals, right? And there's several canals in the region by the late 1800s, right? The big one was the Erie Canal that went from Buffalo to New York City. It's still in operation in the late 1800s. It's actually still in operation today, there's a very small amount of commercial shipping on it. But a lot of that traffic was being taken by railroads. But your interlake shipping was being facilitated by the Welland Canal, in our case the Third Welland Canal. And that had 26 locks, which were 45 feet wide and 270 feet long, and that allowed ships of a fairly respectable size for the day to pass through, and those were much larger than any ocean-going ships that could potentially come up the St. Lawrence River. So... interlake shipping was very much a thing in the late 1800s, which is sort of the period we're going to be talking about. NOVA: For sure. Is this it, here? The Welland Canal? JUSTIN: This is the Fourth Welland Canal. NOVA: Ah, okay. JUSTIN: Which was built in 1930s, and that one is still in operation today. NOVA: Cool, I like it. JUSTIN: Oh yeah. You got a bunch of big locks, put your big ships on there, y'know. But this elevation change is also a good thing, because you can extract energy from water flowing downhill. LIAM: "Oooo, hydropower!" NOVA: What the fuck kind of, like, NOVA: Mount Patmos(?)-monastery-built-into-the-side-of-a-mountain shit is this? It's incredible. LIAM: Hey, how (?) stop... LIAM: Oh, okay, nevermind. NOVA: No, I'm a huge fan. LIAM: It's magnificent. Yeah. JUSTIN: It's a bunch of industry that was built out of the side... LIAM: (?) the water... [laughs] JUSTIN: ...built out of the side of the Niagara Escarpment, and they diverted water from the falls, used it to power water wheels and turbines and stuff, then discharged it back in the river, right? So... Niagara Falls– NOVA: Every factory, his own hydroelectric power station. LIAM: Yes. JUSTIN: Yes. So Niagara Falls was this huge source of, like, free energy for industry in, y'know, the late 19th century. Lots of people located their factories there, because it was cheap, and it was very efficient. And, uh, y'know. So this is how Niagara Falls becomes this early center of industry, as much as it was a tourist destination. LIAM: I have kind of a stupid question, wouldn't know the answer. Is proximity to both the United States and Canada advantageous at this time? I mean, I have to assume it is. Is that, like, a reason for its development, or it's just like, ooh, big fall, go boom. JUSTIN: Well, Toronto's right there. LIAM: Yeah. Buffalo too. JUSTIN: So, y'know, you've gotta... Y'know, that's a big city. But I think the free energy is really the, uh... LIAM: The kinda kickstarter. JUSTIN: The big kickstarter here, yeah. NOVA: I just really love this, like, this photo, I wanna make a sort of beautiful little diorama of it, y'know? JUSTIN: Oh yeah, it'd be nice to have a model railroad or something, y'know. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: Yeah. NOVA: No one does, like, model canals. Which is a shame, I think. JUSTIN: You do sort of a rain gutter regatta. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: [laughs] So. There was this guy named William T. Love, right? LIAM: Uh-oh. JUSTIN: And he is... some guy who made a lot of money off of railroad investment. One of the problems with this guy is we don't actually know a lot about him. He's sort of a– NOVA: We have sort of a deflational problem here, a deflationary problem, in that, like, back in the 1890s or whatever, there were, like, a million, like, guys, and now there's only like two or three guys. JUSTIN: Yeah, that is true. Back in the 1800s, it was like, y'know, you could become a millionaire by, like... with like $50. You can't do that anymore. [laughs] NOVA: No. And everybody was running schemes and angles and shit, whereas now only a fraction of people are doing that. JUSTIN: Yeah, I'm doing a scheme, or I'm doing a... what's another? NOVA: Bunkum, hokum, things of this nature. JUSTIN: Hokum, yes, exactly. NOVA: Snake oil. JUSTIN: So, he's sort of this music man type character, right? LIAM: Oh boy. JUSTIN: Yeah. He comes in, he talks a big talk, and then he leaves. This is about 1890. He wants to build, just north of the city of Niagara Falls, which is a cross-border city. He wants to build what he's gonna call Model City New York. Right? LIAM: Wow. NOVA: Hey, a new town. LIAM: What a catchy title. NOVA: Cool. JUSTIN: A new town, yes. So this is gonna be your ideal city, built north of the town. I already circled this, I don't know why I circled it again. NOVA: Emphasis. JUSTIN: You know. This is gonna be... LIAM: Emphasis on the wrong syllable. Sorry. JUSTIN: It's gonna be built for two million people. It's gonna have parks. LIAM: You fuck–what? [laughs] JUSTIN: Yeah. It's gonna have parks. It's gonna have high quality housing, it's gonna have a rational street grid, it's gonna have good sanitation, it's gonna have high tech factories. He's trying to build... he's trying to build Neom. Right? NOVA: [laughs] No, fuck! LIAM: This is The Line. JUSTIN: This is the American Neom. NOVA: [laughs] NOVA: Trump said he's gonna do American Neom, so he's bringing it back. JUSTIN: He's bringing it back, yeah. NOVA: Mmhm, yeah. JUSTIN: And in order to power it all, he's going to build a canal– Oh, this is also gonna be a dry town, by the way. NOVA: Of course, it's a model city. You know, why wouldn't it be a model of temperance? JUSTIN: It's Neom. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: In order to power it... NOVA: As opposed to Ransomville up here, which is a model town dedicated to the idea of kidnapping. JUSTIN: Yes. JUSTIN and LIAM: [laugh] JUSTIN: So in order to power it, right, because he wants it to be a fully electric city, he needs a nearby source of energy, right? And there's, you know, two lakes, a substantial change in elevation between them, so the obvious solution was to build a canal and a clean, efficient hydroelectric plant right in the center of Model City, right? And this canal would go 14 miles from East Niagara Falls down here to Lake Ontario, but in the reverse direction of what I just mentioned. LIAM: I like the nipple diagram you've drawn here. JUSTIN: Yes. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: So, now, by 1892, his ambitions had broadened. The canal would not only be supplying power, it would be for maritime shipping between the lakes, for much larger ships than the nearby Welland Canal over here could do. Also, it'd be an American canal as opposed to a Canadian canal. NOVA: Making canals is, like, miserable work. It's worse than making railroads. Like, that's why Stalin had to have, like, political prisoners do it, and shit, y'know? JUSTIN: Yes. JUSTIN: Yeah, it's hard work, you gotta dig a lot of stuff. You know, that's why they don't do them so much. NOVA: Especially in, like, 1890s, like, you got, what, like, steam hammers and shit? But like, you don't... JUSTIN: I guess you got, you got steam shovels, and Mike Mulligans... NOVA: ...Fuck is a Mike Mulligan? JUSTIN: It's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, it's a children's book. NOVA: We don't have that here. LIAM: (?) great book! Yeah yeah yeah yeah! JUSTIN: Yeah, exactly! LIAM: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah! JUSTIN: The steam shovel digs itself into a hole, and then can't get out. LIAM: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah! Virginia Lee Burton! Yeah yeah yeah! JUSTIN: Yes. So this was gonna be one of the, the great wonders of the world, right? So construction begins in earnest in East Niagara Falls in 1895. Or 1894, excuse me. But in the meantime, events are occurring. We have to talk about some guys. NOVA: Oh, okay. JUSTIN: So we have here, George Westinghouse. LIAM: Oh, fuck no! No, no no no no no no no no no! [laughs] NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Thomas Edison. Nikola Tesla. LIAM: Oh, 0 for 3. [laughter] LIAM: I... I just don't respect a man without a mustache. JUSTIN: [laughs] NOVA: Reasonable. Someone out there is keeping a big list of, like, stuff that you don't respect, and it's got... LIAM: It's a lot. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: I... Thomas Edison is definitely the... the least of these three. Anyway. So, Thomas Edison's electric lighting system gets sort of fully into gear... LIAM: ...Viciously murders a bunch of elephants. JUSTIN: Oh my god. This gets into gear in the late 1870s, right? He's supplying electricity, it's this sort of low-voltage direct current system. First it's for powering streetlights, then later, lighting people's houses and businesses directly. You know, they have actual lights inside the buildings, right? But your direct current had a problem. It could not be transmitted very far, because of its low voltage. NOVA: Yeah, the electrons aren't wiggling enough to have enough energy to get... JUSTIN: No, the electrons are... the electrons are just going y'know, straight, they're going... around the whole circuit, as opposed to wiggling back and forth. So this requires lots of small power stations, which are in the middle of populated areas, and resulted in a whole bunch of competing electric lighting companies, all of which had technology just different enough to get around Edison's patents, right? LIAM: [laughs] JUSTIN: And this is how, in several places, but mostly New York City, the air above the streets becomes this horrible mess of electric wires. Because there's all these– NOVA: Maybe I'm just in a weird cast of mind, that I just, everything you show me, I'm like, wow, that's beautiful, because I'm really fuckin' tired. But I'm like, no, this is nice, I like this, this is like modernity happening, it's cool. LIAM: Is this not a guy about to be... brutally executed here? NOVA: Oh, that is a guy about to be executed very much, yeah. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, that's down there, that's the leader in the slide. LIAM: Yeah, I don't understand why, they should probably at least... you know, execution is cruel and inhumane except when I'm doing it, but even so, like, back up a little bit, fellas. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Alright, so all these streets, particularly in New York City, become this big mess because there's all these competing power companies, then there's telegraph wires, telephone wires, there's burglar alarm wires, there's fire alarm wires, because back then the burglar alarm or the fire alarm was just a wire that went straight to the police or the fire department... LIAM: [laughs] NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: And you know, worse still, if you needed a voltage other than 110 volts, you needed to have an entirely separate line run from a separate power station to your business, right? ...So this whole thing is a huge mess with early DC electrical power. So this other guy, George Westinghouse, who invented our nation's Civil War-era braking systems on railroads... [laughter] JUSTIN: [groans] LIAM: [laughs] JUSTIN: he wants in on the electric light business, right? JUSTIN: And he read about these new developments in alternating current technology in Europe. NOVA: I just noticed something. George Westinghouse also looks uncannily like Pete Buttigieg wearing a bad disguise. JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: Yeah. NOVA: He put like a stage mustache on him, and like, sort of... LIAM: ...I was wondering what Pete Buttigieg would look like if he were a bear, but, y'know. NOVA: Yeah, and that's the answer. Pete Beartigieg. JUSTIN: So here's about new developments in alternating current. Alternating current at this time in the United States was used for these huge things called Moonlight Towers, which is essentially, y'know, you have a giant street light that's like 110 feet tall, and there's just like two giant lightbulbs on it, LIAM: Big ass light (?) JUSTIN: (?) that way. NOVA: ...Fuck. Bring those back! LIAM: Oh, like– LIAM: Batman Arkham City sort of deals, yeah. NOVA: Yeah! JUSTIN: They still have them in Austin, Texas. NOVA: I'm gonna look this up right the fuck now. JUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] JUSTIN: But this– NOVA: What–that rules! JUSTIN: Yeah. This alternating current was considered, because it ran at high voltages, was considered too dangerous for indoor use, right? LIAM: Oh, boo. JUSTIN: So, some Hungarian guys, we have... Oh boy. It's gonna be tough. NOVA: Oh god. JUSTIN: We have Károly Zipernowsky. LIAM: Ah, (?). JUSTIN: We have Ottó Bláthy. We have Miksa Déri, right here. They develop a new technology called the transformer, right? ♪Robots in disguise♪ NOVA: It's not allowed in Tennessee anymore. JUSTIN: In 1884, right? Now because of science, transformers only work with alternating current. I don't know why, I tried to look it up, and I didn't understand it. NOVA: Electrical engineering is magic. JUSTIN: Yes. [laughs] NOVA: Witchcraft. NOVA: Um. LIAM: Yes. NOVA: Only they can talk to the fucking little electrons, y'know? JUSTIN: What this means is, you can step up or step down voltage arbitrarily, and higher voltage means you can transmit the electricity farther distances without losing any, any power in there, right? NOVA: Yeah, you can see an implementation of this idea in the video game Workers and Resources, Soviet Republic. JUSTIN: Yes. So here's the idea, right? Instead of having many power plants supplying small areas, why not have one big power plant generating high voltage and transmit it an arbitrary distance, and then step down the voltage at or near the customer, right? So Westinghouse jumps on this idea, he buys the patents in the United States, right? Alternating current was practical for lighting, but it wasn't really until 1888, Nikola Tesla comes through, he invents an alternating current motor, right? Now you have a complete electricity system which is suitable for home use, industrial use, so on and so forth, right? They set up a demonstration system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which worked perfectly, no transmission loss over 4,000 feet, which was just under the range of the DC systems, but with much higher performance. Edison gets really worried at this point because the AC system is so vastly superior to his dumb ass DC system, right? LIAM and NOVA: [laugh] JUSTIN: You need fewer wires, the wires are smaller, it benefits from economies of scale. He starts this PR campaign to demonstrate that AC was dangerous, which initially it was, because your wire insulation was really bad, people kept getting randomly electrocuted by shorted wires, and that's just from the fact that there's so many wires and so many electric companies, and electric companies are... being founded and then going bust so frequently that you'd have 4 million wires and 4,000 of them were from defunct companies, so they just short each other out occasionally. JUSTIN: ...You would, be, like, You would... touch your telegraph in your office and get a 4,000 volt shock. [laughter] JUSTIN: So people are constantly getting randomly electrocuted by this stuff. Now, this is also, it's a very New York City-centric problem because most other cities made you bury the wires, but New York City did not do that, but this does receive outsized press because it's New York City, right. But this is not a... an inherent problem of the AC system, it's just a result of high voltages. Another guy, Harold Pitney Brown, he takes up the cause. He writes to New York Post, he says these electrical companies are recklessly endangering the public with cheap AC electricity, he says that the AC systems must be limited to 300 volts, eventually comes before the New York Board of Electrical Control, and a bunch of... electrical engineers just mock him because he doesn't know what he's talking about. NOVA: [laughs] So he tries– NOVA: You can get a recreation of this experience in the comments. JUSTIN: Yes. So he tries another idea, um, well, if the Board of Electrical Control isn't gonna listen to me, maybe the public will, I'll do this through a stunt, which is to torture and kill stray dogs. LIAM: Yeah. NOVA: Again, one of the sort of bangers of the 1890s, you know, you could do anything by killing stray dogs, just around it. JUSTIN: Yes. JUSTIN: People loved doing that shit back then. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: Bad times to be a stray dog. NOVA: Yeah, or really any animal, like, you could just sort of... anytime you're at a sort of crossroads in your life, you could go, what if I did some animal cruelty about this, and it would be a pretty safe bet that it would work. JUSTIN: Yes. He did several public demonstrations showing the relative safety of direct current versus alternating current by shocking dogs with direct current at increasing voltages, and then doing one shock at alternating current, which invariably killed the dog. Sometimes he'd do this multiple times a day. LIAM: What the fuck, guy? JUSTIN: [laughs] LIAM: Get help, or be executed. I don't mind when people who are cruel to animals are gruesomely executed. JUSTIN: Well, that's a good segue here. This catches the eye of the state of New York's justice system, who want a new way to kill people. Right? LIAM: Oh, well... JUSTIN: So, Harold is appointed to the board to determine what kind and how much electricity to use for the new electric chair. LIAM: Great. LIAM: Fucking great, man. JUSTIN: Now, to demonstrate... JUSTIN: to demonstrate to the board and the press that alternating current was what was needed, he uses it to kill several cows and a horse. NOVA: How'd they get him in the chair? LIAM: South Carolina uses the electric chair in the 50s on a 14 year old black boy, look it up. JUSTIN: Oh boy. NOVA: Incidentally, the... execution official for this is euphemistically called the State Electrician, which is, in my head, is one of those, like, all-time examples of bureaucratic euphemism. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: That's, uh. Yeah. Um. So, y'know, this is another thing designed to smear the reputation of alternating current. The first use of the electric chair was on August 6th, 1890, with Westinghouse generators and equipment. And the technicians in charge botched it, and the victim writhed in pain on the chair for several minutes while they tried to shock him to death. NOVA: Yeah, Westinghouse said they could have done better with an axe. JUSTIN: Yes. [laughs] And then the New York Sun reported two weeks later that, uh, Harold was on the payroll of Edison Electric. Uh, but nevertheless, this PR campaign went on, y'know, they kept electrocuting animals and people, right, until Thomas Edison left his electrical company in 1890 to pursue other projects, and then the company instantly switched to producing alternating current systems because direct current was so stupid. LIAM: Hmm. LIAM: Hmm. Interesting how that works. JUSTIN: And thus... thus ended the War of the Currents, one of the dumbest slap fights in history. LIAM: Yeah. Standard fights are great fun. Uh, you guys remember Blu-ray and HD DVD, and then there was the third one that I can never remember that, uh, Techmoan did? NOVA: Oh, god. JUSTIN: Gotta do, uh, gotta do Laserdiscs. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: Bringin' back Laserdiscs. LIAM: Love that, love that, under Thomas Edi– War of the Currents, there's, uh, categories. "Cruelty to animals". JUSTIN: [laughs] NOVA: An essential feature. Also, Techmoan, great channel. Uh, we're just recommending... recommending stuff here now. JUSTIN: But what relevance does this have JUSTIN: with the Model City? NOVA: ...What does this have to do NOVA: with, fuckin' shit... NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: The practical implication of this is that William T. Love's Model City was designed around the central concept. You needed a big, centralized hydroelectric power plant serving the entire city with 110 volt DC power. NOVA: Oh, just pushing, like, big, dumb, slow electrons through fuckin', like, weak-ass wires. Okay. JUSTIN: And by 1894 it was clear that DC was on its way out and AC was the new thing. Industries didn't need to locate next to power plants or along rivers anymore. Power plants could be very large, they could be distant from population centers. The impetus behind the canal was gone, you know, power generation, but the work continued for a while. William Love laid out a street grid at Model City, there were a few streets and houses built and shops and so on, but the canal was doomed. You know, the nearby Welland Canal was widened into the third Welland Canal, which meant Love's shipping canal would be redundant, right? And then the panic of 1893 caused most investors to pull out of the project. There was still work continuing at a very slow pace for a long time, but the thing that really put the kibosh on the project was a law meant to preserve Niagara Falls in 1906, which prevented diversion of more water out of the Niagara River, because so many people had been diverting it for factories and bullshit. NOVA: Oh, they're just like, uh, it looks like shit, y'know? LIAM: [laughs] JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: William T. Love moved on to other projects. Model City remained a hamlet, as it is to this day. NOVA: Do we know anything about what he went on to do? JUSTIN: No. LIAM: Oooh, ho ho hookay! JUSTIN: He disappeared. JUSTIN: Completely disappeared... [laughs] NOVA: –Went over the falls. Went over the falls. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: Is that his real name? I don't know. NOVA: I don't know. JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: Ironically, despite its environmentally friendly conception, Model City is now home to an enormous landfill owned by Waste Management. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, they have like a nuclear waste dump there now. [laughs] So, the canal, uh, what was excavated of the canal was about a mile in East Niagara Falls, New York, and it just sort of sat there for several decades. No one knew what to do with it. Um. NOVA: Check out our famous hole. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: It's a big hole. LIAM: Come to the hole. JUSTIN: Until 1920, when the city of Niagara Falls started dumping garbage into it. NOVA: Hey, free landfill! JUSTIN: Oh yeah, it's just a big hole. Throw some garbage in the hole. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: Hold on, I'm gonna try and change the slide, but I have a cat in my face. LIAM: Aww. Which one? JUSTIN: Milkshake. NOVA: Hi Milkshake. LIAM: Hi Milkshake. JUSTIN: Hi Milkshake. JUSTIN: So now we have to talk about... LIAM: Rocz. Rocz. LIAM: Michelob has(?) now come in 12 packs, Roz. JUSTIN: Oh my god. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: Now we have to talk about the Hooker Electrochemical Company. LIAM: Oh. Don't call him that. [laughter] NOVA: "Put a business man on the job." JUSTIN: Yes. [laughs] Goddammit Milkshake, I can't see the notes. NOVA: Well, first of all, you got a guy called Elon, which is never good. JUSTIN: Yeah, he's a guy... Yes, so. LIAM: Oh, boy. Elon Huntington Hooker founded... LIAM: Jesus. [laughter] JUSTIN: ...the Hooker Electrochemical Company in 1903 to produce chlorine and caustic soda. LIAM: Uh, this dude killed 400,000 people. NOVA: Oh yeah. JUSTIN: It was sited in Niagara Falls because of the cheap electricity needed to make the process of electrolyzing salt profitable. These products were its core business, but the company diversified into more products like dyes, perfumes, solvents, so on and so forth. All of this created a whole lot of nasty chemical waste that had to be dealt with. NOVA: But a really cool tank car livery. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, the bright orange tank cars. I wonder who made this. This is for some video game. Very well modeled. You know, you've got all the... actually very low poly, considering the amount of detail. Some handsome person did that, I'm sure. Um... [laughs] NOVA: Throw the little rivets on there. Amazing. JUSTIN: Oh yeah. LIAM: Beautiful. Yeah. [♪"Local Forecast - Elevator" by Kevin MacLeod♪] JUSTIN: Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these, so let me get to the point. We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is, you give us two bucks a month, and we give you an extra episode once a month. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent, but you know, it's two bucks, you get what you pay for. It also gets you our full back catalog of bonus episodes, so you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks, or pickup trucks with guns on them. The money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com/wtyppod. Do it if you want, or don't. It's your decision, and we respect that. Back to the show. So in 1942 they received permission from the city of Niagara Falls to start dumping waste into the Love Canal. So the canal was drained, they put a very thick clay lining on the bottom, and they just started rolling barrels of all kinds of nasty things into the big ditch, right? LIAM: Oh, good. NOVA: ...clay on there, it's fine. JUSTIN: Yeah, it's fine. JUSTIN: ...impervious barrier. LIAM: You gotta stop worrying about that. JUSTIN: They just threw any old stuff in there, they threw about 22,000 tons of it in there. LIAM: Great. JUSTIN: 10 years later, in 1952, the company begins to notice, you know, there's a lot of residential development around this canal. LIAM: Hmm. Well, we were here first, keep dumping, boys! JUSTIN: Maybe we should avoid future liability, find a new dumping site. LIAM: Don't give up the ship, c'mon, fucking pussies. NOVA: [laughs] Yeah, have the courage of your convictions, keep burying stuff in there. JUSTIN: So the Niagara Falls City School Board comes to the rescue. Um, so, this is the 1950s, Niagara Falls is not sort of the post-industrial wasteland it currently is. LIAM: [laughs] NOVA: Yeah, I notice, I note the different color of the grass. LIAM: Yeaaah! NOVA: Like Cities Skylines. You got a fuckin' pollution overlay in real life. JUSTIN: [laughs] The city is growing, it needed a new school, right in the growing neighborhood of Love Canal, right. This is the sort of up-and-coming, middle-class neighborhood that had lots of kids and lots of young couples, right? NOVA: Sure. LIAM: Yeah. And I can assume only good things are gonna happen from here on out, right? NOVA: Well, like, this is America, like, those are the people bad stuff isn't supposed to happen to. LIAM: Well, have I got news for you! JUSTIN: [laughs] So the school board begins the process of condemning nearby properties, which they negotiated directly with Hooker Chemical Company, right? And Hooker sold this property to the school board for a nominal fee of one dollar, LIAM: Oh, what a stand-up guy–oh boy. JUSTIN: with the stipulation, with the stipulation that Hooker Chemical could not be sued for any future contamination, injury, illness, or death resulting from the chemical dump on the property. LIAM: Genius. NOVA: Surely you gotta ask some questions, if you're at the school board, about that. LIAM: Oh no, it's fine... LIAM: Well, they're not gonna, so... [laughs] JUSTIN: They put an impermeable clay barrier. LIAM: Yeah. NOVA: That's in, like, all the contracts, probably, so why even worry about it. LIAM: Yeah, this is why you read the terms and conditions, folks. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: The school board was like, yeah, sure, whatever. LIAM: Oh, they're definitely not gonna eat shit just in a minute here. JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: So the caretaker of these 22,000 tons of hazardous chemicals was no longer a chemical company that had experience with hazardous waste. It was the school board. NOVA: Well, I know that– LIAM: Yes! Yes! [laughs] NOVA: ...some attention that you... as a nation, elect only the most qualified people to your school board. LIAM: Yeees! LIAM: The dumbest possible outcome! JUSTIN: I was about to say, we're talking about state legislators being insane; school board guys... oh my God. [laughs] LIAM: Oh yeah, koo koo bananas! JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: Oh yeah, buddy. JUSTIN: So Hooker Chemical, before, before they handed over control of the property, they installed an impermeable clay surface LIAM: [laughs] JUSTIN: atop the pile of drums, right? [laughs] JUSTIN: And then they built right around here, I believe, the 99th Street Elementary school. NOVA: Cool. LIAM: Or, as you may know it, Xavier Academy. NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: If you look at the actual boundary of the site, it's something like this. So in the process of construction, workers came across several barrels of chemical waste, and the project architect recommended moving the school to a location that wasn't on a hazardous waste dump. Instead, the school board said, alright, move it 85 feet north, where there aren't any barrels. LIAM: Oh, okay. NOVA: But that... so you just move that whole square up a bit? JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: Yep. NOVA: You just do a little sidestep? LIAM: Fuck them kids! NOVA: Yeah! [laughter] JUSTIN: Later, some of the adjacent land to the canal was sold to developers, who built houses on them and sold them on to happy new owners. It was largely– NOVA: They had to have, like, been fuckin' digging up barrels and shit, like, they had to have known, right? LIAM: Don't dig in your yard. Call 811 before you dig. NOVA: Yeah, but I mean the developers, right? LIAM: Oh yeah, they knew, don't worry about that. JUSTIN: Yeah, 'cause there's several streets that were built, and while they were building the streets and digging the sewers, they breached the clay lining and were constantly digging up barrels of chemical waste. LIAM: Yeah. NOVA: Cool. JUSTIN: But these, uh, these developers were under no obligation to inform the new owners that there was a giant chemical waste dump in their backyard. Because no houses were built directly on top of the site, they were built immediately adjacent to it, and then the giant, the canal itself was your backyard. NOVA: Cool. Okay. LIAM: I love America. JUSTIN: But it was sort of advertised as like, ah, this is this nice wide open recreational field, y'know? LIAM: Don't let your kids eat the dirt. JUSTIN: Pretty early on, though, things started to seem off, right? Because there were all these weird lumps appearing in the field. There'd be like holes, there'd be like, y'know, all kinds of stuff. Kids would get rashes if they were playing in the field barefoot. As I mentioned, workers who were installing sewers in new streets, they noticed foul odors that seared their throat. They kept running into barrels, barrels with some kind of surface on their own. This impermeable clay lining was punctured by construction numerous times, including at least one occasion where it was excavated deliberately and used as fill on another part of the site. NOVA: Hey, reduce, reuse, recycle. LIAM: Yeah, sure. JUSTIN: Exactly. JUSTIN: But, y'know, minor problems. Development just continued, right? Now, simultaneous to this, we get this thing called the Environmental Protection Agency. LIAM: Thank you, Richard Nixon. JUSTIN: Yes. NOVA: Got bullied into it, and, y'know, now it gets to be a sort of fun... piece of trivia, like, oh, Richard Nixon was more progressive than any Republican president since. LIAM: Yeah, also Legal Services, where my parents used to work. JUSTIN: So, this has to be viewed in the context of America in the 1950s through the 1980s. LIAM: Bad. Bad, bad. JUSTIN: Pollution was crazy. There was litter everywhere, y'know, half the landscape is abandoned cars because you bought a new one each year. Rivers caught fire, not just in Cleveland. LIAM: Oh. [laughter] LIAM: That episode is coming, don't worry, shut up. JUSTIN: There were city buildings, they were all covered in soot and diesel emissions. LIAM: The whole thing smelled like Quebec. JUSTIN: Everything looked terrible. There was hazardous waste that was disposed of haphazardly, basically everywhere, or maybe they burned it, right, frequently near residential neighborhoods. NOVA: This is the point at which, y'know, popular science or popular mechanics or whatever will tell you how to change your oil, and when you go, what do I do with the used oil, they go, y'know, dig a hole, put it in the ground. LIAM: I was, the first time Crin was in York, I was driving her around, and she said, why is everyone burning their trash, and I had to explain that you simply don't worry about it. NOVA: Yeah. I mean, this is why, like, a whole generation of American politicians are also, like, climate change deniers, is because they had fixed in their heads this idea that, like, the environment is when there's a big fuckin', like, y'know, smokestack coming off and, like, depositing acid rain directly onto your shit, right? It's why, like, whenever Trump talked about climate change or whatever, he was so inconsistent about it, because, like, you talk to him about the environment and he'd go like, yeah, we're gonna have the most beautiful, cleanest water, clean air and shit, because that was relatively uncontroversial, because people don't like smog, and are able to get their heads around that, as opposed to shit like climate change, which they aren't. JUSTIN: Yeah, this is back in the day when the accepted way to dispose of used car batteries was to just burn them in giant burn pits. LIAM: Was that not what we should have been doing? JUSTIN: Now we throw them in the ocean, obviously, but... NOVA: It's a safe and legal thrill. NOVA and JUSTIN: [laugh] JUSTIN: So, uh, sort of, Nixon's EPA was, as much as anything, sort of a reorganization of existing federal programs to clean up pollution, right? But Congress moved pretty quickly to give it a lot more powers under the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972. You know, the EPA's power and influence continually increased under the Nixon administration, which is probably not what Nixon wanted. But, y'know, Congress passed those bills, I mean. NOVA: He was kinda busy with the, like, bureaucracies that he was trying to suborn, y'know? JUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah, he was like, I dunno, y'know, I got this whole new agency, it seems nice, I could do a lot of stuff with it; anyway. Um. And you have these really effective campaigns against, y'know, visible pollution, right, like smog, like trash, stuff like that. CO2 was not regulated, and it still isn't. That's a different story. But the EPA was very, very effective. NOVA: Yeah, and they hired an Italian man to pretend to be Native American, and tell you that when you litter, you make him cry. JUSTIN: Well, this is actually... an ad campaign from a private company, Keep America Beautiful Incorporated, but it's sort of associated with that era. It was the crying Indian advertisement, which was actually a crying Italian. NOVA: Iron Eyes Cody. JUSTIN: So anyway, we get this new Environmental Protection Agency. What do they do? Y'know, we start getting serious signs of trouble in the Love Canal neighborhood, right? NOVA: Yeah, for one thing, it turned that kid into a box. JUSTIN: It did turn the kid into a box, yes. Can't even afford clothing, he has to have a box, which is the modern version of a barrel. LIAM: Now you can go over the falls! JUSTIN: I don't think you can go over the falls in a box. LIAM: I don't think that's survivable. Sorry, kiddo. NOVA: I love how they phrased this like a cocktail recipe. Y'know, you go to a bar, you're like, give me a Love Canal. JUSTIN: Give me 82 chemicals, and 25 years. [laughter] NOVA: It takes forever to make, it's worse than fucking Guinness, or like a Ramos Gin Fizz. JUSTIN: So there had been this... situation for a long time that folks had noticed, y'know, they would get random chemical puddles after it rained in their backyard, but no one really thought much about it. A few particularly hard winters hit Niagara Falls, most notably in 1975 and 1976. All the snowmelt caused the water table to rise, LIAM: Uh oh. JUSTIN: and all of a sudden, this impermeable clay barrier, which now had lots of holes in it, y'know, the water table rose above that, all the leaking chemicals came to the surface. And this meant that folks in the Love Canal neighborhood found they had nasty, sticky black residue in their basements, their sump pump stopped working, and the plants were dying in their backyards. There was chemical odors everywhere. NOVA: What's interesting... NOVA: What's interesting to me, really, about this, is the extent to which people, sort of, who were interviewed by the local journalists who were first looking into this story, viewed it as, like, a nuisance at first, like, oh, there's gross puddles or whatever, it's unpleasant, like, you have to drain it and shit, but it's not, like, a health threat, and like, some of that's... genuine, like, uh, sort of... attitude, and some of it's also the fact that the Hooker Chemical Company is still, like, 3,000 jobs in Niagara Falls. JUSTIN: Yes. Some of it's also like, aw, gee, I don't want to move. Please don't make me have to move. LIAM: Understandable. NOVA: Especially if, like, you don't have any savings, you're still paying off the mortgage, and like, when shit gets bad later, or worse later, it's like, you can't sell the house, no one will buy it from you. LIAM: Right. JUSTIN: Yes. You get these sort of abnormally high rates of birth defects, you get lots of miscarriages, you get lots of kids with intellectual disabilities, right, and very high rates of unexplained illness in people. And the Niagara Gazette starts this sort of extensive and long-running investigation starting in 1976, but it took years for anyone to start to try and address the problem, right? NOVA: Yeah. They have this reporter, Michael H. Brown, who, like... does door-to-door surveys and stuff, and, like, really, like, bothers people in power about this, but, it's... to no avail for, like, years. JUSTIN: Yeah, there's like a long, drawn-out process where people slowly become– start to realize, huh, this might actually be an issue. This may be a problem. There's a really bad blizzard in 1977, 45 inches of snowfall on Niagara Falls, the water table is high enough at this point that, you know, there's just chemicals killing the grass in the fields, nothing grows there, everything turns black and nasty. You know, the whole neighborhood looks like shit, because it's, you know, a chemical wasteland. And this woman named Lois Gibbs starts to put all these problems together in 1978. Lois's son had epilepsy and asthma, and a whole bunch of other stuff. She managed to find out that, huh, her five-year-old son's elementary school was built on top of a toxic waste dump. LIAM: Hmm. JUSTIN: Who could have foreseen this? NOVA: Perhaps the school board? Maybe. Just as a thought. JUSTIN: Yeah. JUSTIN: So she and a few other people start this door-to-door effort to get enough support to create something called the Love Canal Homeowners Association. This is not the bad kind of homeowners association, where they regulate where you can put your trash can. This is like... NOVA: Well, cause the thing is, they can't regulate your lawn because nothing grows on it. LIAM: Yeah. You're having a bad time, and congratulations. You have three kinds of cancer no one's ever heard of. JUSTIN: You have sort of eldritch horrors growing on your lawn. That's the only thing you can reliably grow. NOVA: I mean, listen, homeowners associations may be fascist tyranny, but you have to have faith that they are the sort of, like the thin blue line between you and eldritch chemical horrors. You know? JUSTIN: This is true, yeah. JUSTIN: Um, a few other organizations show up, there's, uh, Renters' Association, which is mostly African-American in the neighborhood, who plays a role, um, y'know, folks are mad, they want someone to take action, but there really isn't anyone who can take action. There's no procedure for dealing with a problem like this. There's no government agency who's in charge of this. Nominally, the EPA is, but they can't really do anything. Maybe you should try– NOVA: It's interesting. NOVA: I had a look at, like, local politicians and stuff, and I found the, like, local health commissioner, like, I think it was a county official, said that, y'know, they did some testing and stuff, and he said that... exposure to, like, such and such a chemical is, like, it's only as dangerous as smoking a couple of cigarettes, [laughs] which, y'know, a famously healthy activity, y'know. LIAM: Inspiring confidence, yes. NOVA: Yeah, yeah. JUSTIN: Yeah, and then the... the mayor was just like, eh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. LIAM: Great. JUSTIN: Yeah. No one wants to, like, address any of these problems, even though they're, at this point, so obvious, right? It's not until 1978 that the relatively new EPA gets involved, and after just a little bit of testing, they realize how bad the problem is, right? NOVA: Yeah, it's so bad that there's one detail on an article I found where the guy goes to interview some people and he goes outside and there's like one tree left in the whole neighborhood on their lawn, and the leaves are like, oily to the touch. Um... JUSTIN: There's all kinds of nasty chemicals down there, there's mostly, um, you know, there's sort of these... precursor chemicals to chlorine and stuff like that, but, y'know, there's so much crap down there that no one, I don't think it's ever been, like, established what was down there. I know there's a whole bunch of dioxin, which is one of the nastier ones. NOVA: Oh yeah. By far the nastiest. And... again, to keep citing Michael Brown, the thing that I really like is that he draws an explicit sort of colonial violence metropole fucking comparison, and goes, oh yeah, dioxin, you mean the shit that is in Agent Orange, and is the reason why they had to stop using Agent Orange? That chemical? Yeah. But yeah, so the EPA found, like, sort of fairly huge concentrations of dioxin in people's sump pumps and stuff. LIAM: Right. JUSTIN: Yeah. Real nasty. And of course, if it's in the sump pump, I'm sure that stuff's being aerosolized in your basement. LIAM: Yep. NOVA: Mhm. NOVA: Yeah, I think they worked out at one point that for one of the basements, they measured the sort of, like, safe exposure time was, like, 2.4 minutes, or something like that? LIAM: Jesus, what? JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: So, you know, 1978, the EPA gets involved, the New York State Health Commissioners granted emergency powers, and they decide, okay, we're... until we can fix this problem, we're going to evacuate children and pregnant women from the area. NOVA: Yeah, the evacuation's sort of weirdly inconsistent, too. Like, they evacuate one part that they think is most seriously affected, but another part that is increasingly, like, obviously also affected, they just leave for a while. But also, they are sort of, like, forced to concede one thing, which is that, like, the residents are so concerned that the shit leaking out of the ground will explode, that they make the state stage, like, 75 buses, at just a parking lot nearby, in case, like, it catches fire or explodes or something like that, and they have to, like, evacuate everyone immediately. So these buses are just sat there parked for years, for years, while this goes on, while this rumbles on through the system. JUSTIN: ...drivers there, just sitting there, like, uh... LIAM: Smoking a (?). LIAM: "It's not as bad!" NOVA: Yeah. I think they just, like, showed up, parked the buses there, and, like, left. But... JUSTIN: Yeah, like the, uh... I'm imagining sort of like the old B-52 program, where the, the jets could be in the air in like two minutes. NOVA: Yeah. JUSTIN: [laughs] NOVA: You scramble to your evacuation bus, yeah. JUSTIN: Yeah, they closed the 99th Street School, the one that's built directly on the chemical waste dump. And you know, you have these nasty chemicals showing up, which are very stable in the environment; these are... dioxins are really bad, because they're really stable. They don't degrade with time in the way that a lot of other chemicals do. But, the big issue here is, there's not really money to actually clean the place up. Because Hooker Chemical was immune to litigation, the school board can't really pay for it, even if they wanted to. NOVA: Yeah, I mean, Hooker wrote in that clause in the contract, it's like, no, you can't sue us. JUSTIN: Can't sue us, yeah. NOVA: I'm like, purely on the sort of contract law of the time, I'm sure that's fine. Like I'm sure there is no remedy in contract law against them. LIAM: Right. JUSTIN: There's another problem, that since it was a general landfill before it was a landfill for Hooker Chemical, residents couldn't really conclusively prove that the toxic chemicals showing up in their backyards and basements were the same toxic chemicals Hooker Chemical had disposed of on the site. You know? Who knows? There might be other toxic chemicals there, too, that the city had disposed of. Who knows whose chemicals these are? I don't know. [laughs] LIAM: And you don't either. Shut the hell up. JUSTIN: This problem got so obviously bad, someone had to do something. This is not like a unique problem to the Love Canal, right? All of America at this point was covered in improperly disposed of toxic waste. The Love Canal just happened to be one of the worst instances of it that was closest to a population center. Save for maybe Times Beach, Missouri. You can see here in the picture, this is the Valley of the Drums, which is near Louisville; this was another nasty hazmat site at the time, right. But a lot of the times you couldn't find the responsible party to pay for remediation of these toxic waste sites. Sometimes the responsible party no longer existed or was sufficiently legally shielded to be off the hook. You'd need some kind of solution here, to get the sites remediated. NOVA: It's time for the unelected, jackbooted federal thugs to create, or begin to create a class of strict liability law, which is now the reason why the ATF can kill your dog for any reason they want. [laughter] NOVA: And not just strict liability, but, like, retrospective liability, as well. JUSTIN: Yes. And the solution is this thing called Superfund. Or the... LIAM: Superfund. JUSTIN: Superfund, yeah. NOVA: Superfund. JUSTIN: Sounds really great, I wanna go to the Superfund. NOVA: Going to the Superfund site at Love Canal. JUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] NOVA: It's like "waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay", sounds great if you don't know what those things are. JUSTIN: Going to the Superfund site at Love Canal. Gonna take a bunch of ecstasy. [laughter] JUSTIN: "This isn't a rave? What?" [laughter] LIAM: "Oh, I fucked up badly." [laughter] JUSTIN: So the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, the Superfund Act, maybe one of the only progressive and useful pieces of legislation passed by the Carter administration. The idea was you'd take an excise tax on petroleum and chemical manufacturers, and that would pay for a perpetual trust fund for the sake of remediating environmental disaster zones like the Love Canal, or the Valley of the Drums in Kentucky, or places like that. NOVA: Hell yeah. JUSTIN: And so this is what lets removal and proper disposal start in the Love Canal site. Residents were sort of initially housed in motels while this happened. A lot of people speculated they'd be allowed to return to their homes. That didn't happen. They all got demolished. Folks got shuffled around a bunch; sometimes you'd get let back into your home, then told to evacuate again, then let back in. You couldn't really remediate the site properly, it was too much contamination. NOVA: Yeah, I think most of the EPA ever wanted to do with it at that point was try and maybe like, turn it into a park in a hundred years' time. JUSTIN: Yeah. Uh, 950 families were bought out at fair market value, had their houses demolished, and then, y'know, the neighborhood of Love Canal was no more. NOVA: And if you were renting, you just ate shit, I guess. JUSTIN: Yeah, I didn't read what happened to renters, but I assume, yes. [laughs] NOVA: [laughs] JUSTIN: It was very expensive, it was very disruptive, there were actually a lot of folks who were opposed to the remediation, because they just didn't want to move, y'know? So uh, yeah. They solved the problem by kicking everyone out. LIAM: That will do it. NOVA: Yeah, you kick everyone out, you put a cordon around it, and you just chalk it up to experience. JUSTIN: Yes. Um, y'know, in the end, they were still doing remediation work until the mid-90s, I think 1994. In 2004, the cleanup was declared to be complete, though this site has not been redeveloped, of course. LIAM: Right. NOVA: But Bush, with the sort of Mission Accomplished banner, sort of getting some extra use out of it. Like, we've declared victory over the chemicals. JUSTIN: Yes. We have, uh, we have de-chemicaled the site. So this neighborhood is still abandoned, essentially, but as much as anything this is due to the decline of the upstate New York economy. NOVA: Grim. JUSTIN: Hooker Chemical Company, which is now a division of Occidental Petroleum, was found negligent in 1994. They were ordered to pay $129 million to the Environmental Protection Agency. Total cost of cleanup and eminent domain of properties was $400 million. NOVA: Cool, so like, very little, comparatively. JUSTIN: Yeah, it paid for just over a quarter of the total cost. LIAM: Wow. JUSTIN: There were lots of lawsuits from residents. These were largely settled out of court. NOVA: Of course. JUSTIN: Yeah. LIAM: Yeah. JUSTIN: But ultimately, we had this sort of positive legacy here, y'know, the Love Canal saga was, y'know, it created a positive legacy of the Superfund, right? Which is, this progressive system– LIAM: "Positive" is a strong(?) word for it. JUSTIN: ...requires the companies most likely to cause long-term environmental damage to pay into a fund to remediate that damage, right? Anyway, in 1995, Congress did not renew the excise tax. So now... the Superfund money comes from the General Fund, and it was extremely underfunded until 2021, when Joe Biden's big dumb infrastructure bill reinstated the excise tax. So. LIAM: Thanks, Joe Biden! NOVA: Yeah, it's still (?) thing! And a lot of not-good things. It's a land of contrasts. JUSTIN: Yes. NOVA: I keep saying this, I think he's probably, like, the most progressive Democratic president now, like, acceptable to the Democratic Party establishment, which is fucking depressing. JUSTIN: The most progressive current Democratic president. NOVA and JUSTIN: [laugh] LIAM: Woo. JUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] NOVA: We greet this with the enthusiasm it deserves, and we wish him another four years of some essence. JUSTIN: Yes. NOVA: Hey, maybe he'll die and we can get, like, President Kamala. JUSTIN: Maybe he'll switch vice presidents to someone weird next time around. NOVA: Buttigieg. Buttigieg-ieg. JUSTIN: Butthead head. NOVA: [laughs] NOVA: Well, listen, I mean, like, as much as I don't like Joe Biden, as much as I believe that he's, amongst other things, a rapist, I do think he is the man who is about one heartbeat away from Hillary 2020-whatever-America's-chance-to-apologize-to-her. JUSTIN: Oh. Oh, if we had a Hillary presidency, it'd just, y'know, the TERF, the Democratic TERFs would be unleashed. LIAM: I'm leaving the country, goodbye. NOVA: [groans] JUSTIN: [laughs] JUSTIN: Anyway. Did we learn anything? NOVA: What have we learned? Yeah. Um, I mean, do not trust corporations... American school boards have a weirdly large amount of power, including eminent domain shit, which they, like, at this time certainly did not exercise responsibly, but maybe is too much for the kind of person who runs for a school board anyway. JUSTIN: Oh yeah, the Lower Merion School Board has been wildin' out recently. They still have all those powers. [laughs] And they use them for evil. LIAM: And violating children's right to privacy. JUSTIN: Oh yeah. LIAM: Love doin' it. NOVA: Just because pollution isn't of... of immediately, or sort of medium-term visibility to you, doesn't mean it isn't happening, isn't bad, uh, please, please, a crumb of science in response to, like, any environmental policy, ever, instead of just doing like, oh, we're gonna clean it up and make it look nice, because, yeah, it exposes the limits of that about as well as anything I can think of does. JUSTIN: ...Before you buy a house, there's this website called historicaerials.com. What you should do, is go check what they were doing there in 1930. [laughs] NOVA: Yeah. And have a look and see what color the grass is. JUSTIN: Why are these strange oil slicks here? Why are all the animals dead? NOVA: Use your best judgement. Um. JUSTIN: This could happen to you. LIAM: Could happen to you. NOVA: Well, not exactly, because you won't be able to afford to buy a house, ever. NOVA: Or renting a house... JUSTIN: Ah, that's a good point. JUSTIN: Yeah, you could... experience this whole kerfuffle as a renter and get no compensation whatsoever, yeah. I'm sure the landlords got compensated, though. NOVA: Oh yeah, certainly. Well, they're homeowners, so. JUSTIN: We have a segment on this podcast called Safety Third. [♪Shake hands with danger♪] NOVA: Hmm. Oh–I–mmm. JUSTIN: Yep. JUSTIN: "Hey, Rocz– "Hi, Rocz, [Nova], Liam, yay Liam, and guest." LIAM: Thank you. JUSTIN: No guests today. NOVA: We completely forgot to open the podcast, as well. We didn't even do pronouns. LIAM: Hi, I'm Liam Anderson. My pronouns are "he"/"him"... NOVA: No, no. It's too late now. JUSTIN: Too late now. NOVA: It's past the time. LIAM: –THAT'S [NOVEMBER KELLY]. And her pronouns are "she"/"her". NOVA: [groans] LIAM: And that's–shut up. And that's Justin Roczniak, and his pronouns are "he"/"him". Alright, go. JUSTIN: Okay. And also Devon. LIAM: They use "they"/"them". JUSTIN: "I apologize in advance for this being an abnormal Safety Third, "especially with it being, spoilers, fatal. NOVA: Did you write this from beyond the grave...? JUSTIN: "Happening almost a century ago"– [laughs] JUSTIN: "Happening almost a century ago, "and being a third or fourth-hand account, "but I thought it was worth sharing with the class regardless. "This Safety Third is a tragic tale from my family's past, "in the days just before workplace protections were really a thing, "and concerns a distant cousin, "who I'm not sure of my exact relation to. "All I know is he's a relative of my great-grandmother, "whose maiden name was Toolis. "The following is largely a summary of the only complete account "of the incident I could find, written by John Stark Bellamy II in his book, "The Killer in the Attic. "Our story takes place in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1928. LIAM: Oh, sorry. Actually, I like Cleveland, but, once again, burn Rocky River to the ashes. JUSTIN: [laughs] "Patrick Toolis, my distant cousin, "and Patrick Cleary, his co-worker, "were digging shafts for the support pillars "that would support West Prospect Avenue, behind the then-under-construction Terminal Tower, "which, upon its completion a year later, "was the second tallest building in the world. NOVA: Man, remember when Cleveland used to be a big city? JUSTIN: Cleveland had the tallest building in the United States outside of New York City and Chicago until the Comcast Center was built in Philadelphia. NOVA: Wow. JUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] NOVA: And look at them now. JUSTIN: Yeah, now they have the third tallest building outside of New York City and Chicago. NOVA and JUSTIN: [laugh] JUSTIN: Actually, no, I think there might be a couple bigger buildings in Los Angeles, but, uh, that is always like, well, Cleveland's got some big buildings. [laughs] So, "not half a year before the incident involving my cousin, "around noon on June 9th, 1928, "several men working on a concrete well "192 feet deep "had returned to the surface at Ontario Avenue "on the eastern end of the construction site, "when the surrounding area was hit by an explosion, "which was determined to have been caused by one of the workers lighting a cigarette "in the vicinity of a methane seam. NOVA: Cool. Classic. JUSTIN: "Eight were injured, but no fatalities occurred during that incident. "But October 16th, 1928, "around 7.30pm, "at about where the intersection of West Prospect and West Superior is today, "the Patricks, Toolis and Cleary "had just finished digging "a tapered shaft 103 feet deep, "and the adjacent shaft "that they had dug before was being filled with liquid concrete. "Even with the shafts having linings for reinforcement, "two feet of clay-rich soil "that had not been described as being"– "that had been described as being like quicksand "is obviously not the best buffer "between one and a torrent of concrete, "and predictably, "the wall of the adjacent shaft gave way, "burying both Patricks alive under 150 tons of concrete." LIAM: Fuck no. NOVA: Fuck that. NOVA: No thank you. JUSTIN: I used to have nightmares about this sort of shit. JUSTIN: "Only one startled cry was heard from the bottom "by a man on a scaffold higher up the same shaft, "and then silence. "The rescue efforts began at once, "lasting through the night and into the next day, "with workers shoveling out wet concrete with buckets, "then turning the chisels and pneumatic drills "after the concrete began to harden, "it has very obviously became a recovery mission. "The two men almost certainly suffocated "within 15 minutes of being buried under 40 feet of concrete. NOVA: I (?) less. JUSTIN: "After 15 hours of digging, "the body of Patrick Toolis was found "against the side of the shaft, "pinned there by a surge of concrete. "An hour later, Patrick Cleary was uncovered, "standing upright, "his hand merely inches away "from having grabbed onto a hoist that would have saved him. "The report on the incident cleared the two of any negligence "and found the shaft collapse to be due to poor judgment "and construction on the part of the project engineer "hired by Spencer, White & Prentis, the firm in charge of the project. "Spencer, White & Prentis' own investigation claimed the tragedy was "a mysterious act of God's love "and maybe a teensy bit of sand in the clay-rich soil, "because of course it was. "Not..." "Not a problem that could have easily been prevented "by pouring the concrete and letting it dry "before sending expendable Irish workers down to dig another shaft. "The Toolis and Cleary families were awarded $6,500 each "after lawsuits, "equivalent to $111,500 or about 370 Xboxes in today's money. NOVA: It's not bad. JUSTIN: "Let this be a reminder to you all, "do not go in the hole, LIAM: Don't go in the hole. JUSTIN: "especially if you"– JUSTIN: "especially if you are an Irish immigrant laborer in the 1920s. "Keep on being great, "and Rocz, please give Milkshake and Pizza Boy extra pets for me. NOVA and LIAM: Aw. NOVA: Incredibly depressing. JUSTIN: Yeah. Uh, caissons. Fucked up. You know what? They still send people down to inspect caissons before they fill them with concrete. NOVA: Yeah. They still put people in the hole, and you shouldn't go in the hole. JUSTIN: Yeah, they still put people in the hole. Not a job I would like. NOVA: No. No thank you. Anything with digging, and there's a lot of digging in this episode, um, call 811 before you dig, and whatever they tell you, then just don't dig. Just don't do it. JUSTIN: Or if you dig, don't go in the hole. NOVA: Yeah, 100%. ...very shallow trench, like an inch, y'know? JUSTIN: I think you can still, um... I think now you can put a camera in the hole, but a lot of times they just put a person in the hole. NOVA: Hmm. NOVA: Well, because it lends that sort of, like, thrill of danger, right? JUSTIN: Yeah, exactly. There's probably some guy who's like, yeah, I wanna go in the fuckin' hole. JUSTIN and NOVA: [laugh] JUSTIN: ...this sort of death wish. Sort of attraction to the hole. NOVA: Being beguiled by the hole. JUSTIN: Yes. Uh, yeah. This could happen to you if you go in the hole. Don't do it. NOVA: Uh, a girl like me could never be beguiled. JUSTIN: Alright, well, that was Safety Third. [♪Shake hands with danger♪] LIAM: ♪...hands with danger♪ NOVA: Shake hands with danger. JUSTIN: Our next episode will be on Chernobyl. Does anyone have any commercials before we go? NOVA: Um, we're about to have a P.O. Box again. Details forthcoming. LIAM: Yaaay Liam. JUSTIN: I was about to say, the P.O. Box we've been putting in the description for a long time has been inoperable. We're about to have a new one. LIAM: Yaay Liam. [laughs] JUSTIN: [laughs] NOVA: It's about to be operable. JUSTIN: ...but it will be a different P.O. Box from the one that I've been putting in the description. NOVA: ...go back and change all of the descriptions... LIAM: Love youuuu. JUSTIN: I... I don't know, I just... LIAM: I'm sorry. LIAM: You're very handsome. You're very handsome. JUSTIN: We gotta put out enough episodes JUSTIN: that all those old episodes are far back enough in the scroll back that no one looks at them. And they only get the accurate information. NOVA: The hard part is to put out a lot more episodes. I'm really tired, can I go to bed? LIAM: Goodnight everybody. JUSTIN: Yeah, goodnight everyone. NOVA: Bye. JUSTIN: Auf Wiedersehen.