In 1988, New York State Department of Health Commissioner David Axelrod called the Love Canal incident a "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations".[2] The Love Canal incident was especially significant as a situation where the inhabitants "overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around".[3] The University at Buffalo Archives house a number of primary documents, photographs, and news clippings pertaining to the Love Canal environmental disaster; many items have been digitized and are viewable online.[4]