The 21 beneficiaries, including Hooker Chemical, Bethlehem Steel and Olin Industries, have pressed for a renewal until 2006.

Eventually, faced with the property being condemned and/or expropriated, Hooker Chemical agreed to sell on the condition that the board buy the entire property for one dollar.

In 1947, Hooker Chemicals became the owner and the sole user of the land.

Occidental entered the chemical business with the acquisition of Hooker Chemicals in 1968, 26 years after the contamination at Love Canal.

In 1942, Hooker Chemical and Plastics began disposing chemical waste in the Love Canal region.

In 1968, Hooker Chemical was purchased by Occidental Petroleum.

This began her organization's two-year effort to demonstrate that the waste buried by Hooker Chemical was responsible for the health problems of local residents.

Throughout the ordeal, homeowners' concerns were ignored not only by Hooker Chemical (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum), but also by members of government.

Two years later, the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Company reached an agreement in federal court to clean up the Love Canal site.

Hooker Chemical was bought by Occidental in 1968 and Mr. Willers became president of the parent company.