Hooker Chemical Corporation's full-page newspaper ad on Love Canal: 'Try telling Bruce Davis that Hooker doesn't care about Niagara Falls'

Penelope D. Ploughman Love Canal Collection

Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp.

Advertising, Newspaper

Mass media and propaganda

A full-page printed advertisement by Hooker Chemical. At the top in large bold letters, the headline reads: “TRY TELLING BRUCE DAVIS THAT HOOKER DOESN’T CARE ABOUT NIAGARA FALLS.” Below is a black-and-white photograph of a man in a suit and glasses, seated at a desk, identified as Bruce Davis. The ad contains columns of text defending Hooker Chemical’s environmental practices and contributions to the Niagara Falls community. The ad closes with the slogan “HOOKER CHEMICAL – Listen to the people who know.”

Ploughman, Penelope, 1955-

State University of New York at Buffalo

University Archives

1979-06-08

image/jpeg

Image

Still Image

MS100.498

LIB-UA003

1/28/2009

Slides

Try telling Bruce Davis that Hooker doesn't care about Niagara Falls.

He's the man in charge of Hooker's Industrial Chemicals Group at Niagara Falls. And he's just one of several thousand Hooker employees who work fro Hooker in WEstern New York. Like the rest of the people at Hooker, Bruce Davis is darn proud to be part of the community.

He is also concerned. Very concerned about all he's read and heard lately in the media about Hooker Chemicals and the environmental problems in the Niagara Falls area.

But Bruce knows that while words (especially negative ones) can help attract T.V. viewers and sell newspapers, it takes more than words to solve problems. it takes action, Action and sometimes a great deal of money.

And Bruce also knows that Hooker's action is speaking a lot louder than words on the subject of chemical waste.

Action to the tune of millions of dollars: In 1977 Hooker spent more than $12 million in the Niagara Frontier for pollution control equipment to meet (and in many cases surpass) environmental regulations. Right now, Hooker is planning to spend many additional millions of dollars on new, environmentally-related control programs, expected to be in place between 1983 and 1985.

Action to the tune of thousands of man hours: Hooker's Niagara Plant alone has forty full-time specialists working on its environmental program. Specialists who are advising and assisting city and county officials on remedial work at the Love Canal, as well as current Hooker landfills in the Niagara Falls area. The remedial work being done by Hooker at its landfill sites, as well as the restoration of the clay cap and other work at the Love Canal by the City are expected to ensure or restore the security and safety of these various sites.

And landfills are just one area of the company's involvement. For instance, Hooker helped the City of Niagara FAlls in the design of its new wastewater treatment plant, and treats its own process water before it gets to the city plant (at a cost of one million dollars a year).

In addition, Hooker is also building a new $70 million Energy-From-Waste plant that will use solid waste from a two-county area to produce steam for our Niagara plant. This new facility will not only help eliminate solid waste problems but also help improve our air quality by reducing sulfur emissions from fuel oil.

You see, Bruce knows that Hooker Chemicals has been part of this community for almost 75 years. And he knows that Hooker is an extremely important and committed part of the Falls. How important? Well, in the last three years alone, Hooker has invested more than 200 million dollars in Niagara Falls.

200 million dollars. That's a pretty solid investment. And Hooker plans on continuing it vital financial commitment to the entire Niagara Frontier, where the company employs 3,100 people at plants and facilities in Niagara Falls, Grand Island and North Tonawanda. When you get right down to it, you'd be hard pressed to find any group of people who care as much about the environmental and economic well-being of Niagara Falls as the people at Hooker.