This stinks

By Frank Mariani

Memory triggers

“Smells have a stronger link to memory and emotion than any of the other senses, and neuroscience may know the reason why.”

Source: Discovery.com

In our everyday eating habits, nothing says “DANGER” like the smell of milk gone bad. Even when it’s just teetering on the edge of drinkability, your reflexive response is usually to dump it down the drain.

Imagine what utility workers on Cayuga Island—a residential neighborhood on the eastern end of Niagara Falls, NY— thought when they smelled foul odors coming from holes they’d dug in 2025 while working to install a new water main.

The western end of Cayuga Island was extended years ago with industrial waste and fill from the same companies whose barrels lie at the infamous Love Canal site nearby.

To be continued?

I hope this chapter in the buried waste story of the Niagara region has a happy ending, but you can’t blame people like me of a certain age and residents of that neighborhood for fearing the worst.