From Love Canal to Lasting Change
Families, community activists, and UB advocates confront toxic contamination in Niagara County
Love Canal helped give rise to the federal Superfund law. Nearly fifty years later, families in Niagara County continue to confront the effects of toxic contamination, while working hard to prevent future harm.
At this panel presentation, three generations of families affected by Love Canal will share their experiences alongside community advocates, UB School of Law faculty, including Christen Civiletto, the author of Thundering Waters: The Toxic Legacy of Niagara Falls, a book examining the area’s environmental devastation and its impact across several decades. The conversation will also highlight more than 14 years of work by UB’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic, directed by Professor Kim Diana Connolly, to stop a proposed toxic waste site near Chemical Waste Management’s former Residuals Management Unit.
These stories show what is at stake for local families and how community organizations and UB can work together to fight contamination in Niagara County and inform environmental protection far beyond it.
Monday, Nov. 2, 2026
5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
25 O’Brian Hall
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Free to attend, though registration is required.
Christen Civiletto is an environmental attorney, author and adjunct faculty member at the University at Buffalo School of Law, where she teaches Alternative Dispute Resolution and environmental courses. A native of Niagara Falls, she has spent more than 17 years litigating environmental cases and over 23 years researching the region’s history of industrial pollution, including interviewing thousands of residents, workers and others affected by its toxic legacy. Her 2026 book, Thundering Waters: The Toxic Legacy of Niagara Falls, draws on that research, as well as her own family’s experiences, to examine the environmental devastation of Niagara Falls and its continuing impact on generations of residents.
Kim Diana Connolly is a professor of law and the vice dean for innovation, interdisciplinarity and community impact at the University at Buffalo School of Law, where her teaching and scholarship focus on environmental law and policy and advancing a more sustainable future. An experienced and dedicated advocate, she has worked on environmental and social justice issues before courts, legislative bodies, and federal, state, local and international agencies, and currently teaches the law school’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic. Her work has informed policymakers and scholars, and her commitment to sustainability earned her the University at Buffalo’s 2023 Sustainability Leadership, Innovation and Collaborative Engagement (SLICE) Award.
Moderated by:
Dr. Joshua Wallace ’19
Senior Research Scientist, The RENEW Institute
Remarks by:
Carter Strickland
SUNY’s Chief Sustainability Officer
and Executive Director of Climate Action