In depth with Luella Kenny

Luella Kenny lived the nightmare of Love Canal, losing a son at age 7. She is 89 now, still filled with vim and vigor, ready for every fight when a family like the McKiernan’s need an advocate.

The Express sat with her Friday, at the end of her first week home following a two month visit with her son and daughter-in-law on Long Island. She still lives on Grand Island.

“I can't imagine my daughter would love her mother in law enough to let her stay for two months. She didn't want me to go home. And they waited on me hand and foot.”

What about the mess cropping up in LaSalle?

“I'm devastated because you realize that family was on 99th Street.

“You know that my house was at 96th. And right off Black Creek. It's three blocks down, right on the creek, the same thing. And I talked to the people because I mean, I'm just devastated.

“My backyard at the time had 32 parts billion of dioxin there, and they said that they they removed sediment. Well, you know, they traveled. They didn't go through the whole creek or anything.”

“They took that sediment out and they parked it behind the house. It was on that 93rd Street playground there. They parked it there for two weeks until they decided where to send it.

"I said to them, ‘All those chemicals are seeping back into the ground.’ They said ‘We have a tarp on it.’I don't understand what's wrong with the mentality.”

Kenny said she was crushed by the McKiernan family’s plight because it was her nightmare all over over again, only 3 blocks from where her family was relocated.

What she does today

These days, Kenny spends her time answering calls and writing letters like a wild woman. No politician is safe, from Gov. Kathy Hochul to Rep Tim Kennedy and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and Niagara Falls Mayor Robery Restaino.

There’s a certain reckless abandon that comes with age.

“I’m 89 years old,” she explained. “Do they want to throw me in jail? I mean, I'm going to tell it the way it is.”

Kenny is predictable in her ways. For example, she hasn’t started reading “Thundering Waters” by Christen Civiletto yet because she didn’t want to order it while away. She preferred to get it from Jeff Morrow at the Book Corner.

She also buys copies of Keith O’Brien’s “Paradise Falls” from Morrow to sell when she speaks publicly. She doesn’t charge for appearances, instead sharing her story and message for the greater good. Kenny was front and center in O’Brien’s book, telling the story of a songbird that keeled over in front of an investigator after sipping from Black Creek.

O'Brien surprised her

She didn’t fully understand what O’Brien was doing through multiple calls and visits.

“I mean, so there's a lot of books, you know, one sentence, one paragraph talking about me. Sure. And that's what I thought” she explained. “And he kept calling me. Well, he kept calling me and saying he wanted to know when I took John to Melody Fair.”

John is Luella’s late son who succumbed to dioxin that poisoned him from that doomed creek. O’Brien was asking about an event from 40 years ago.

Kenny had brought John to see Debbie Boone sing “You Light Up My Life,” his favorite song.

It took some digging but eventually she found the date.

“I mean, he just loved it,” she said, “and he was excited about going, and that night he was so sick. He just was so sick, I had to carry him to the car, and he didn't enjoy it. He didn't enjoy it at all.”

He lived a bit longer.

The state lies

Luella was a research scientist at Roswell Park. Her husband was a scientist. The state promised to investigate John’s death but never really did.

“It's the worst thing to possibly think that you put your own child in that danger” she said.

“And so I am reading the book (O’Brien’s), and John had an autoimmune disease, and I think of him.

Decades ago, Kenny attended Niagara University. She was a rarity, a girl studying science. A professor told her to go back to the kitchen but her Italian pride was stronger than that. She still speaks Italian and has an indomitable sense of right and wrong. She does not suffer fools.

How do you feel about the revelations coming out about the Manhattan Project waste now?

“I've known for years. Because down in Lewiston, they had that TNT plant, and they had all of that radium, whatever, stored in a silo,” she explained.

Meanwhile, across the street from that radioactive waste and the hazardous waste landfill is a KOA campground where the guests have no clue what’s across the street.

Another troublesome concern is the high incidence of students from Lewiston Porter High School that have have died, you know, due to brain cancer. The toxic legacy is all over the place and unforgiving.

What about the nightmares in the Town of Niagara?

“I was talking to Carolyn (Johnson) and her husband the other day because Carolyn's grandmother lived two doors down from me on 96th Street. It's terrible. They're a lovely couple.”

What do you think about Grand Island being hesitant to allow testing for radioactive waste at its soccer center?

Kenny said she attended a meeting with the state departments of health and environmental conservation as well as the federal EPA in which she has no trust.

She considers the McKiernan’s and the variety of illnesses being suffered and is crushed by how consistent the diseases, and symptoms are to exposure to chemicals. It is deja vu all over again as she thinks about the State saying they would investigate John’s death and then never doing so.

She never stopped pressing DOH Commissioner David Axelrod because he never offered an appropriate answer. She confronted him at a meeting.

“I said, you know, my son had passed away, and I read in the newspaper that you were doing your research on his death.

And he said, ‘Oh, we've researched it thoroughly, but we feel it's a private matter, so please call my office.’

“So I called several times a day from February until June.

"Finally, on June 6th, it's my wedding anniversary to start with I had an appointment, and I'm waiting in the room, and he walked into the room, and he said, ‘stop flagellating yourself. Go on with your life.

“There's nothing wrong with the children at Love Canal. They play football and they rupture their kidneys.

“Okay, my son's disease had the word nephrosis in it because protein passed through certain. But he had an immune response disease.”

Kenny said that day was the first time she realized Axelrod had not even reviewed the autopsy.

Tough to read

Paradise Falls was a hard read for her because it was about her, and the losses suffered by so many in Niagara Falls. She read it one chapter at a time.

“I've geared myself up because I feel it's important, and my motto is that no other child will die because of corporate or government irresponsibility,” she explained.

She still sees things that make her sad, like developers investing in houses and offering them to rent and a young man renting one of those houses,

“He was all excited about being in this house,” she said. “He said he was going to put a garden in it, and then he said ‘there's all black on there.’”

The home in question is at 101st and Frontier where a big pile of toxic radioactive slag and ash is still being used for fill.

The fact that you're 89 and have this level of memories, this level of passion, it's wonderful.

“I don't know. To me, I thank the good Lord, I mean, I don't know the good Lord has allowed me to maintain my mentality.

“And because I think he approves of what I'm doing, I mean, I really feel that most of my contemporaries are in nursing homes or have passed away.

“For me to be able to keep going, you know, at this age, it's just unbelievable.

“I help kids with their history projects from all over the country, they call me.”

Those calls come from Montana, California and everywhere else and as time and the day provides, she takes them all.

An example was a professor contacting Kenny to ask about being a guest speaker and apologizing because there was no honorarium available.

“I said, ‘I don't charge anything.’” Her mission is her son John’s legacy, and what keeps her answering calls, speaking to audiences and making a difference.

Do you still talk to Lois Gibbs?

“Oh yes. In fact, I was talking to Steve yesterday, (Lois’s husband) But I see, you know, we have the Love Canal Medical Fund. The Love Canal Medical Fund has been existing now for 40 years. We pay out-of-pocket expenses for anything related to to Love Canal pollution, chemicals and welfare, and we have a doctor, we have an attorney, we have a toxicologist on the board.”

The board, set up by New York State Supreme Court has 50% survivors like Luella and 50% technically qualified experts. Kenny is both. Kenny chaired that committee for many years but has stepped aside to let a younger person assume the helm.

Reliving the nightmare

The McKiernan’s experience terrifies her.

“I'm just beside myself” she said. I don't understand why they're (state and federal officials) acting like this and they they have to lie.”

Kenny said in writing to Gov. Hochul she expresses extreme disappointment.

“I said, I followed you since you were in Congress.

I mean, I admired you.

“Now I said, I'm extremely disappointed. What, what are you doing?”