The Mistakes Of Niagara Falls, NY

According to the Wikipedia article on Niagara Falls, NY, the population of the Canadian side of Niagara Falls has multiplied by about 3 since 1960 while the population of the American side of Niagara Falls has declined by more than half. Niagara Falls is consistently rated worse than nearby areas in terms of negatives like crime and poverty.

What happened to this city with the world-famous name that should be a wonder of the world? I see it as a series of mistakes associated with what we could call the "Paradox of Plenty" or the "Resource Curse". Niagara Falls is where power can be generated by falling water, simply because the upper river above the falls is much higher in elevation than the lower river.

THE SCHOELLKOPF GENERATING PLANT

A hydraulic canal was dug across downtown Niagara Falls. All kinds of mills and industries along the gorge of the lower river used the kinetic energy of the falling water to turn wheels and turbines. But the company that operated the canal eventually went bankrupt and the canal was sold at auction.

This shows the route of the former Hydraulic Canal across downtown Niagara Falls. Image from Google Earth.

It was bought by a Buffalo industrialist named Jacob Schoellkopf. A generating plant was built down in the gorge, similar to one on the Canadian side. It used the kinetic energy of water falling from the hydraulic canal to turn turbines which generated electricity. It was electricity from this plant that really got major industry going in Niagara Falls.

But the many wheel pits that had been excavated into the wall of the gorge before the generating plant had been constructed had weakened the side of the gorge. One day the inevitable happened and most of the Schoellkopf Generating Plant collapsed into the lower river.

While this plant would be replaced by the Robert Moses Plant, which would be in operation within five years, this collapse in 1956 is part of what started the city on it's downward spiral. Shouldn't it have been known that the gorge wall was greatly weakened, and that this was going to happen, before the plant was built?

THE LOVE CANAL

The first federally-declared disaster in the United States that was man-made, not a natural disaster, was at Niagara Falls. It is known as the Love Canal. If only it lived up to it's name.

Niagara Falls attracted people with all kinds of ideas. Late in the Nineteenth Century there was one William Love. He started to dig a canal northward from the Upper Niagara River. This was not near the falls. He wanted to use the water to generate power as it fell over the Niagara Escarpment. A community called Model City was founded at that point below the escarpment. The water would then be used to irrigate a vast tract of farmland.

But the operation ran out of money before the digging of the canal had progressed very far. What had been dug of the canal was abandoned.

The chemical industries in Niagara Falls that relied on the electricity produced a lot of waste. In 1927 the village of LaSalle, where the abandoned canal was located, merged with the city of Niagara Falls. The idea arose to use the abandoned canal to bury chemical wastes in.

A clay barrier was placed above the area of buried chemicals. The city was instructed that, while it was safe to put a park or parking lot above the buried chemicals in no way should any building be done there that involved digging into the ground.

The chemicals had been buried in the 1940s. By the mid-1950s the Baby Boom was underway and a lot of people had been attracted to Niagara Falls to work in it's industries, as well as it's tourist attractions now that a lot of people had cars.

There was always demand for more housing and there would be a lot of money to be made if houses could be built on that area where chemicals had been buried. It was made clear that absolutely no building should be done that involved digging into the ground. But in Niagara Falls if you know the right people, and have the right connections, you can do pretty much whatever you want. One of the nicest neighborhoods in the city was built over the buried chemicals. During construction the clay protective barrier was breached many times.

The result was disastrous. The area had a very high rate of health issues and birth defects. Just do a search for "Love Canal birth defects". It's horrible, I don't even want to write about it here. It isn't over yet because children born to people who grew up in the area also have an elevated rate of birth defects.

Source- Screenshot of Google Search for "Love Canal birth defects" Nov 10 2022.

In early 1977 there was very heavy snow in the fabled "Blizzard of '77". When the snow melted it caused the chemicals to emerge from the ground much faster than before. A highway had been built between the contaminated area and the river to the south, which hindered the water runoff.

In 1978 the Federal Government declared the Love Canal as a disaster area, meaning that it was eligible for federal funds. Residents of the area were evacuated. All of the houses, two elementary schools, and a housing project would have to be demolished.

This disaster was by far the worst thing to ever happen to Niagara Falls, NY and it has never recovered from it. A lot of blame has been put on the company that produced the waste but it was made very clear how dangerous it was and it is the city that should never have allowed this to happen.

THE POWER LINES

The era of large industries inevitably declined. Those industries have mostly been replaced by modern industrial parks of many smaller industries, but with jobs usually requiring a higher skill level. An example is the Audobon Industrial Park in nearby Amherst.

It would seem that Niagara Falls is an ideal place for such an industrial park, to build on it's industrial heritage, except that it has nowhere to put it.

After the collapse of the Schoellkopf Plant, in 1956, a new generating plant was built to the north of Niagara Falls, the Robert Moses Generating Plant. But this meant that the electrical transmission lines had to go across the city of Niagara Falls. Combined with the lines that were already there, this takes up a tremendous amount of space.

There is nowhere within city limits to put the modern industrial park that would be such a great benefit for Niagara Falls, NY. A major hole in the city is the area that was abandoned in the Love Canal. Then there are the areas with low-level contamination from being taken up by the old "smokestack" industries, finally there are the vast areas of space taken up by the power lines that have to cross the city from the Robert Moses Generating Plant, to the north, and also the underground tunnel that brings water from the upper river to the power plant.

This leaves Niagara Falls with nowhere to put a modern industrial park that would provide so much in jobs and tax revenue to the city. Much of the electrical transmission infrastructure went into what was the gap between Niagara Falls and the former village of LaSalle. If these electrical transmission towers provided jobs and paid taxes that would be wonderful, but they don't.

Images from Google Earth

THE LANDFILL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY

To further take up what might have been valuable revenue-generating commercial space, where a modern industrial park might have been located, Niagara Falls, NY has somehow ended up with a landfill virtually in the middle of the city. Maybe this could be a tourist attraction because I have never heard of a city with a landfill right in the city.

Image from Google Earth

URBAN RENEWAL DOWNTOWN

Finally there is probably the most discussed issue of all, that of Urban Renewal in Niagara Falls. The following two images are from the Wikipedia article on "Urban Renewal". This does not necessarily mean that I completely agree with the harshness of the assessment. How many cities have undergone an urban renewal program that is considered as a complete success?

There is more to the direction that Niagara Falls, NY has taken in recent decades. I see the building of the Interstate 190 across the city as a major factor in changing the economic dynamics of the city, cutting off the downtown. Not only does the I-190 cutting across the city change it's economic dynamics but, as with the electrical transmission lines, it takes up a lot of the city's space. The highway cuts across Buffalo too but that route is mostly over the former course of the Erie Canal.

We saw the effects of building the I-190 across Niagara Falls in Part Two of the posting on the world and economics blog, www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com "The Controversy Surrounding Urban Renewal". Part One was about the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo.

On the same blog there is also "The Big Project Syndrome", about how construction of the vast power generation plant has adversely affected the psychology of the city.