Jonas and sarie abney the love canal tragedy

Jonas and Sarie Abney: The Love Canal Tragedy Jonas and Sarie Abney are New Yorkers active in business, and in raising their only child. Sarie Abney is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and attended the University of Colorado in Boulder. Jonas Sarie hails from Philadelphia, and went to Columbia University and Baruch College, where he received his MBA from the Zicklin School of Business.

In between Columbia and Baruch, Jonas Abney worked for the legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, producing concerts for some of the biggest names in popular music. But after Graham's sudden death in a helicopter crash, Jonas Abney switched gears. "I took a job working for Robert Abrams, former Attorney General for New York State, doing research for the Love Canal superfund prosecution team."

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, that was devastated by some 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried there by Hooker Chemical. The landfill was covered with soil in the early 1950s, and an elementary school and private homes were built in the area. As Jonas Abney recounts, by the late 1970s there was major chemical leakage and other signs of contamination. Between 1978 and 1980, a six block area around the canal had to be evacuated. A special report to the Governor and Legislature of New York stated, "The profound and devastating effects of the Love Canal tragedy, in terms of human health and suffering and environmental damage, cannot and probably will never be fully measured."

As Jonas Abney recalls, Hooker Chemical, by then operating under the name Occidental Chemical, was held liable for cleanup of the waste, despite the fact that it had followed all Federal regulations when originally disposing of the toxic waste. A Federal judge ruled the company had been negligent but not reckless in disposing of the waste and selling the land to the Niagara Falls School Board.

Occidental was sued by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1995, and agreed to pay $129 million in restitution.

After his experience with the Love Canal case, Jonas Abney returned to concert promoting, and later enrolled in Baruch College and completed the work for his MBA in Marketing and Management, which he received with honors in 2003. He went on to work for IndustryBrains, Google, Nielsen Business Media, and Zumobi, where he was Director of Publisher Development and Publisher Operations.

Jonas and Sarie Abney, in the meantime, continue to live in New York, where they continue to enjoy life in the city they believe to be the greatest in the world.