Wundry Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American scandal early and ad free right now.

Join Wundry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wonder. It's January 1980.

Luella Kenny sits on a pew in a Methodist church in the Love Canal neighborhood.

She's listening to a nun go over a script for calling the governor's office to demand more action on the Love Canal Toxic Waste Crisis.

This nun is part of a group of activist clergy who are trying to help residents get evacuated from the area.

Kenny's family recently moved out of Love Canal into a motel several miles away,

but she still shows up to these resident meetings and not just out of a sense of activism.

But Kenny family still has to pay the mortgage on the house they left behind.

And like all the houses in Love Canal, it's unsellable.

But Kenny is still hoping the government will buy it so her family can afford to move

into a new home.

She's also here to honor the memory of her seven-year-old son, John Allen, who died from kidney

failure just over a year ago.

Kenny believes his death was a result of the chemicals in Love Canal,

and she feels morally obligated to help all the residents get out,

so no one else has to suffer the loss of a child.

When the nun is finished speaking, a minister wraps up the meeting, recapping the

latest efforts to pressure the state to pay for the evacuation of all

residents. They've been protesting, making calls and interviewing residents the same

tactics they've been using over the last 18 months. Kenny is trying not to lose hope, but she's not sure that more of the same will change anything.

She had hoped that President Jimmy Carter's Superfund bill would pass,

and Love Canal residents would get aid

...