| |
Backyard Protest: Emergence,
Expansion, and Persistence of a
Local Hazardous Waste Controversy
by James R. Simmons and Nancy Stark
from Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1993 (470-491)
The toxic waste dispute that is the subject of this article
points out one of the troubling ironies of the modern environmental movement.
Many groups and individual activists who promoted a national response to
the discovery of thousands of toxic waste sites over a decade ago are now
leading the struggle to prevent govenment-sponsored cleanups. This case
study examines the evolution and dynamics of one community's pollution
controversy, and the attempts to explain the way in which marginalized
environmentalists were able to redefine the toxics debate. Finally, it
shows how local resistence to waste cleanups may shape the next round of
environmental policymaking.
The basic question of where issues of public policy originate has become
a central concern for political scientists only in the last two decades
(Cobb & Elder, 1983). Although there is extensive literature that attempts
to explain the enactment and implementation of legislation, we still know
much less about how political issues become paramount in the decisionmaking
agenda in the first place (Kingdon, 1984). Why do some issues produce intense,
active citizen involvement in a community while others generate little interest
and quickly fade from the political scene? How is it that certain policy
questions are so compelling that they attract extensive media attention,
polarize public opinion, and lead to the formation of dissenting groups
despite elaborate efforts by institutional elites to resolve the problem?
The emergence of environmental issues in the early 1970s is an important
case in point. When issues such as pollution and the quality of our physical
landscape first captured the public's attention over two decades ago, there
was much discussion over how central these issues would become and how long
they would survive in the political arena. At the time, much of the expert
opinion suggested that the environmental scare would take its place among
other emotionally charged issues with a fairly predictable lifecycle (Downs,
1972). After the initial stage of alarmed discovery had triggered support
for remedial action, policymakers would seize the issue. Business and government
would quickly react in ways that would either satisfy, frustrate, or divert
public opinion (Post, 1978). Once elites had begun to manage the agenda,
the environment would typically decline in importance to be replaced by
a rapid succession of other emerging issues that would come to dominate
the limelight and the energy of public authorities.
Despite this conventional wisdom, environmental issues have shown surprising
resilience. An enourmous number of regulations and laws were indeed passed
over the last 20 years, but, rather than the predicted decline in public
interest, the disappointing impact or outright failure of so much of this
legislation has produced renewed demands for action. Public frustration
has been especially intense in disputes arising from government efforts
to clean up existing contamination and dispose of the nation's growing volume
of municipal and hazardous waste. Indeed, much of the conflict over recent
efforts by authorities to resolve these issues have proven to be far more
contentious than the furor generated by the "discovery" of these
problems during the "environmental decade" (Mazmanian & Morell,
1992). In fact, instead of desensitizing the public, most attempts at waste-management
have tended to generate controversy and social protest in each of the communities
where remedial government action has been attempted (Portney, 1991).
This article primarily seeks to set forth the way in which a single issue
came to dominate the politics of one community faced with resolving a toxic
waste dilemma. The evolution of the PCB disposal controversy in Bloomington,
Indiana, should provide some insight into the process through which decisions
by institutional elites both influence and are affected by mass attention
to a toxics issue. In this case study, we examine the way in which authoritative
efforts to resolve the contamination problem in a medium-size, Hoosier city
produced the kind of emotionally charged dispute that has become all too
common in similar communities during the time frame under investigation.
This analysis should also tell us something about the social motivation
and mechanisms that generate these emerging environmental disputes, as well
as the nature of the new, localized social movements that now contest both
government and corporate waste policy.
PCB Contamination Controversy Emerges
The environmental issue that would ultimately dominate this Indiana community's
political life had a relatively unheralded beginning. In 1957, Westinghouse
Electric Corporation opened its new Bloomington plant and, over a 20-year
period, manufactured electrical capacitors that used polycholorinated biphenal
insulation fluids produced by Monsanto. Internal company memos describe
severe health hazards of prolonged employee exposure to PCBs in this and
other plants (Tescione, 1984). It wasn't until 1966 that Swedish scientists
identified PCBs as a likely toxic pollutant. Sentiment worldwide turned
against the chemical in 1968 as a likely health hazard, when 1,300 residents
of Kyush, Japan, became ill after using rice oil containing high levels
of the chemical. Media attention was extensive, as the Japanese suffered
skin lesions, eye ailments, nausea, joint problems, and later, birth defects
among their offspring.
Westinghouse began an internal study, and in 1972 found PCB contamination
near its Bloomington plant, but city officials did not learn of the results.
During the early 1970s, the recently created federal Environmental Protection
Agency began studies on this and other potential pollutants. As the same
time, Monsanto required PCB customers such as Westinghouse to sign a waiver
relieving it from legal liability for improper uses of the chemical. Westinghouse
responded with few changes in its manufacturing process, but, in order to
avoid future liability, the firm did begin to use small, third-party trucking
firms to dispose of the fluid in the used campacitors that the company had
always dumped locally.
Newspaper Sources:
Local: Bloomington Herald-Telephone, Indiana Daily Student.
Regional: Chicago Tribune, IndianapolisNews, Indianapolis Star, Louisville
Courier Journal, New York Times, Martinsville Reporter, USA Today.
Alternative: Blooming Peace, Bright Lights, Common Ground, Confidential,
City, Examiner, Fun City, Primo Times, Real Times, Ryder, Streets, Veridian,
Women's Source.
Article Type by Story Source:
Government: press conferences, news releases, government reports, interviews
with public officials, publicly sponsored events, incumbant reelection stories,
guest editorials by public officials, government activities.
Corporate: firm press conferences, news releases, management and spokesman
interviews, guest editorials by corporate officials, business analysis,
firm activities.
Interest Group: press conferences, news releases, group member interviews,
dimonstrations, electoral, protest and lobbying effort stories, staged events,
guest editorials by group representatives.
Media: news analysis, editorials, surveys, issue analysis, self-reporting,
wire-service.
Other: human interest stories, related wire service stories, unrelated
personal interviews.
Note: * articles from Bloomington Herald-Telephone and Indiana Daily
Student only.
A local journalist, Don Jordan, uncovered the story at the end of 1975,
and wrote a number of controversial exposes that focused local public attention
on the issue. At the same time, Bloomington officials learned of PCB dangers
at an EPA conference in Chicago. The extent of contamination was to prove
far worse than the EPA, city, county, and public realized. It was soon discovered
that the corporation had contaminated the city sewer system and dumped PCB-laden
wastes under the commercial label "inerteen" at several area landfills.
At the end of the year, the EPA identified Westinghouse as one of 37 major
sources of PCBs in the U.S. Subsequently, Westinghouse advised the city
of "minimal" PCB discharges from its plant. The impact of these
revelations would quickly spawn massive media coverage of the flurry of
political activity by interested parties (see Figure 1).
Investigative reporting by the local newspaper and a government survey
would soon show that pollution had been spread still further by the salvaging
of capacitors for copper, the free distribution of municipal sewer sludge
for use as fertilizer, and random dumping on the part of independent haulers.
The Monroe County prosecutor and Board of Health requested state hearings
to determine scope and liability for the contamination. Local public officials
promoted the formation of Citizens Concerned About PCBs as an umbrella group
for local chapters of environmental groups, to support public actions against
the company. Westinghouse mobilized its own workers, worried about losing
their jobs, for the public hearings that followed. At the same time, 14
local property owners filed a class-action suit against the corporation.
At the onset of the controversy, politicians promised rapid issue resolution.
While the state Environmental Management Board (EMB) hearings were called
to resolve the issue, they were initiated by the county prosecutor and the
Board of Health, rather than the city. Furthermore, no immediate remedial
policies were formulated to control or clean up the contamination. Nevertheless,
public interest in and media attention to these dramatic events was very
high. Crowds of citizens attended the public hearings, and there was massive
growth in membership in the newly-formed CCAP protest group. The local papers
provided daily coverage of the rapidly evolving scandal, and the national
wire services soon picked up the story. Indeed, Bloomington's contamination
problem gained so much coverage in the national media during 1976 that the
community was on the verge of becoming as notorious for toxic pollutants
as Times Beach and Love Canal were later to become.
Westinghouse completed a year-long phaseout of PCB use in its compacitor
manufacturing, but local retirement of existing capacitors continued. City
officials learned that PCB contamination was more extensive than was initially
assumed. Both the sewer system and the waste treatment plant were seriously
polluted. A large but unknown number of PCB-contaminated sites were known
to exist through company dumping and the city's own unwitting distribution
of sewer sludge to county residents for agricultural, gardening, and commercial
uses. This political crisis was exacerbated by the Westinghouse threat to
relocate its Bloomington plant if public officials attempted to penalize
the firm, and the company's claim that the city was itself liable for the
contamination through its own regulatory negligence.
Clearly, the environmental activists, as well as the prosecutor and county
Board of Health wanted the hearings to continue, in order to determine the
extent of and liability for contamination. CCAP, for example, had intended
to present the Westinghouse Papers--150 corporate documents attesting to
negligent and illegal disposal practices--at the EMB hearings. But this
was not to be. Both the company and city officials were appalled at the
potential expense of a quick and public resolution. In fact, such an outcome
would most likely have meant that either the state Department of Natural
Resources of the federal Environmental Protection Agency would deman that
both the municipality and the firm pay for the potentially immense cleanup
costs. Under these circumstances, both parties decided upon private negotiations
to resolve their mutual claims and interests.
Westinghouse repeatedly denied responsibility and, at its insistence,
the EMB hearings were indefinitely postponed. Local officials began to downplay
the seriousness of the problem, and the public-private party negotiations
provided little in the way of material for news coverage. Although city
leaders had originally encouraged and even participated in the formation
of the locla umbrella PCB pressure group, they now argued that this form
of activism was no longer needed. Indeed, Mayor McClosky publicly stated
that any further environmental protest might undermine the negotiation process
and cost the city several thousand jobs. With few legitimate outlets to
express its grievances, CCAP became inactive. Furthermore, in the absence
of continuous media coverage, the issue became less salient and the public
lost interest.
The issue was extremely subdued during this period, but this was largely
due to the absence of salient PCB-related events rather than public indifference.
During this stage, Bloomington was designated as the nation's twelfth highest
city in the PCB concentrations in the blood and tissue samples of residents
tested. The EPA allowed electric utility companies to retain PCB-insulated
equipment for their operational lifetimes, under industry pressure regarding
replacement costs. For its part, Westinghouse continued to retire used PCB
capacitors from other parts of the country to sites within the county through
third-party haulers. And, the city flushed PCBs from its sewer line--the
cheapest available option. However, local officials attempted to downplay
these events so that private negotiations could continue unhindered by public
scrutiny.
There was a limited surge of media covereage in the early 1980s--a period
marked by the establishment of the Superfund national hazardous waste site
cleanup law, the judicial granting of another one-year delay in hearings
upon Westinghouse's request, and the city's subsequent hiring of Joe Karaganis,
a nationally recognized environmental attorney. Moreover, the controversy
became an election issue for the first time when the incumbent mayor promised
a final solution by summer that would include citizen participation in the
resolution process and an assessment of alternatives before final action
was taken. Media attention was further constrained by the conservative editor
of the Herald-Telephone, who removed the muckraking journalist responsible
for many of the contamination exposes. Bill Schrader editorialized that
the danger of PCBs was both unproven and overblown, and that criticism of
Westinghouse threatened area growth.
Subsequently, a vicious cycle developed: the corporation continualy refused
to identify contaminated sites to the EPA, the EPA increasingly designated
area landfills as Superfund sites, and the city repeatedly escalated the
damages requests in its pending lawsuit. Throughout, Westinghouse refused
responsibility and denied any legal violations, claiming it had followed
all proper procedures and had received no indication that these sites posed
environmental or public health risks. The state hearings were finally rescheduled,
but, due to cost considerations and a suit by Westinghouse, previously-collected
evidence, including corporate documents confirming negligent disposal practices,
would not be permitted. Ultimately, the corporation refused to participate
in the hearings, prompting the state attorney general to seek federal Justice
Department intervention. At this point, the city and Westinghouse entered
out-of-court negotiations under the threat of a unilateral EPA cleanup that
would have been billed to both parties at three times the actual cost. This
period was followed by another steady decline in the issue's visibility,
conditioned by the perception, advanced by the negotiators, that a solution
was pending.
Throughout this early period, corporate and local government officials
were preoccupied with cost considerations and efforts to determine legal
liability for the cleanup of the contamination. The EPA and the state consolidated
their suits, sued the company, and forced it to perform surface cleanups
at two sites. Another site was discovered at a local scrap salvage yard,
and the EPA unilaterally did remedial cleanups at this and at a location
near a landfill. Westinghouse admitted its use of PCBs, but denied responsibility,
claiming that Monsanto and the small trucking firms were responsible, and
charged that PCBs were a "political pollutant" created by public
attention, rather than by scientific evidence. A former independent hauler
now sued the corporation for damages, and the local plan union-affiliate
demanded remedies for the health problems of former company employees.
While the EMB hearings that were created to resolve the problem never
resumed, the settlement process proceeded. The federal, state, and local
governments resisted pursuing Superfund enforcement actions against Westinghouse.
Instead of taking the defiant corporation to court, the governmental intities
were willing to bargain down many environmental standards and cost-reimbursement
provisions in order to formulate a pact that all parties would submit to.
At this stage, all the major parties with a formal part in the negotiations
seemed to be slowly working out a solution acceptable to vested interests.
On the other hand, environmental groups played no part in these proceedings
and the general public was largely unaware that any major resolution to
the PCB issue was in the works.
As the negotiations dragged on, officials attempted to mollify impatient
critics with the promise that the ultimate remedy to the pollution problem
would involve research and development of an innovative and highly profitable
technology that would insure a safe cleanup "at no cost to the taxpayers."
With the announcement that a final settlement was near, PCBs came to be
a key issue in the 1983 municipal campaign. Just two months before local
voting was to take place, the newly-appointed major, Democrat Tomy Allison,
announced that the city and Westinghouse had reached a conceptual agreement
"in principle," which called for the company to design, construct,
and operate a technologically "proven," high-temperature incinerator,
wherein municipal-solid-waste-derived fuel would burn PCB-contaminated wastes
to produce steam-generated electricity for county residents and local industries.
Subsequently, the mayor was reelected by a landslide the same month that
Westinghouse purchased O'Conner Combustor, a California incinerator firm,
and entered the toxic-abatement and municipal waste-to-energy market.
With the announcement of a PCB cleanup settlement in late 1983, the public
should have been relatively satisfied that the problem had been resolved.
Indeed, most local observers expected that public interest in the issue
would die out from this point on. Such an outcome seemed highly likely at
the time, since most public officials and the local media generally praised
the agreement. The major city paper, for example, heralded the proposal's
incineration remedy as the "ideal solution" for both of the area's
long-term problems of contamination reduction and municipal garbage disposal.
In fact, only the local "green" candidates, of the minor Citizens
Party, took issue with the proposed settlement at this stage. Furthermore,
this complex proposed settlement not only seemed to resolve most of the
contentions of the official actors involved in the secret negotiations,
but it also promised the community-at-large positive gains in the form of
new economic development and a creative way to resolve the county's landfill
capacity and leachate problem.
Issue Resolution Efforts and Dissent
In contradiction to the expectations of public authorities, there was
a dramatic resurgence of interest and controversy once the proposed resolution
to the issue in the form of the consent decree was released. From the initial
announcement in October 1983 until its official release in December 1984,
the political rhetoric regarding the Consent Decree and the method for PCB
cleanup involved reassuring the concerned citizenry of the following: the
agreement did not "specify" incineration, but would involve only
"proven" technology that would create "no air pollution."
Yet the various parties to the agreement stated that it also required an
innovative apparatus that would make the city the first to remedy two problems
at once--burning municipal solid waste to fuel a hazardous waste disposal
facility. Thus, the area would not only resolve its garbage problems but
also save Westinghouse jobs and stimulate economic growth. Furthermore,
the agreement was to be a "solution in place" that would eventually
include "any other, as yet, undiscovered sites."
Moreover, the city's mayor, council, and attorneys insisted there would
be plenty of opportunity for the public to assess and modify the document
during the ratification hearings. This was interpreted by attentive citizens
to mean extensive involvement in the substance of the decisions that would
affect their community. These terms and promises were not lost on some of
the local environmental organizations of a number of activists who had been
mobilized during the earliest stages of the controversy. After seven years
of inactivity, CCAP reformed and joined with the Indiana Public Interest
Research Group and a new anti-Decree Westside Alliance to challenge the
pending agreement. This newly emergent coalition pointed out that the two
technologies had never been combined, and that waste-burning incinerators
are notorious for transforming toxic chemicals into hazardous ash and air
emissions containing lethal pollutants like dioxins, furans, and heavy metals.
Environmental statutes provide for citizen participation in the cecisionmaking
process before an agreement is reached, but the public had been shut out
of the PCB resolution negotiations for eight years. Furthermore, once the
legal document was released, only symbolic participation--in the form of
controlled hearings and technical information sessions--was officially provided
for. The proposed agreement was characteristic of the trend toward nonadversarial
public-private policy arrangements that became so prevalent during the Reagan
era. The company would be allowed to profit in the arrangement despite its
past behavior, and the regulatory mechanism in the cleanup process would
involve joint oversight by the firm itself and the three levels of government.
The respective parties did not anticipate the firestorm of protest that
this kind of "cooperative partnership" would soon generate. Representatives
of the dissenting groups who felt that they had been effectively precluded
from legitimate influence over the process became determined to insist on
drastic alterations in the decree or, failing that, prevent it altogether.
Public perceptions of the PCB crises did reflect existing social straings
awaiting activation. Serious concerns, ranging from fears over public health
and threats against nature to potential loss in property values, came to
dominate public opinion rather than the legal, financial, and developmental
issues that were the primary considerations for authorities. Residents of
working-class neighborhoods near dump sites and people with health problems
were particularly responsive to the blandishments of the challenging groups.
Nevertheless, the local media initially tended not to cover such issues
despite this public reaction. The city's newspapers and electronic media
overwhelmingly supported the official position and usually portrayed decree
critics as both irrational and extremist. As a consequence, the newly-formed
oppostion reacted to these mediated political realities with actions ranging
from staged events and civil disobedience to mainstream electoral and lobbying
activity, in an effort to sway public opinion and influence the issue's
outcome.
Former Westinghouse employees began filing suit against the corporation,
claiming adverse health effects due to corporate negligence. Activists protested
the closed-door meetings held by the negotiators and questioned whether
public comment would have any effect on what appeared a "take-it-or-leave-it"
agreement. The city's attorney reassured the public that incineration was
not specifically mentioned and that there would be ample time to discuss
alternatives. Within a few weeks, he accused opponents of "environmental
extremism." The city chemist, Dave Schalk, was fired immediately after
violating a mayoral order not to reveal that the city's water intake tower
was contaminated with PCBs. Activists held silent vigils at the mayors house
and the Municipal Building, demanding the chemist's reinstatement. A Bloomington
family with highly contaminated property and "mysterious" health
problems filed suit against the corporation. Members of a local commune
created a widely publicized incident by assembling a display of broken PCB
transformers at the county library that the DNR claimed was a hazard to
patrons and removed.
The Toxic Waste Information Network (TWIN) opened as the headquarters
for a disparate coalition. Office workers began documenting hundreds of
previously unidentified PCB sites. TWIN members and Veridian magazine docemented
and critically analyzed the consent decree's contents, assessed the officially
chosen as well as alternative technologies, and disseminated the technical
evidence critical of the incineration they gathered through contacts with
national environmental groups. This network endorsed candidates for the
county election and attempted to intervene in the EPA suits against Monsanto.
Coalition delegates met with local officials and tried to formulate provisions
for broad citizen participation. However, when the city formed consent decree
oversight and PCB site search committees, they were exclusively comprised
of mayoral appointees with leverage over all final decisions. Opposition
leaders could act only as informal liaisons providing information at meetings.
In order to better air their concerns and gain input from local residents,
activists began holding their own public forums, distributing literature,
and lobbying state and federal government agencies. Finally, strong links
were forged with the emerging national network of antiwaste-incineration
groups like Greenpeace and the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste
that promote community-based cleanups.
These events caused a rift within Bloominton's environmental movement.
The Sierra Club, the Sassafras Audubon Society, and the League of Women
Voters formally disassociated themselves from CCAP. Hence, in the early
stages of the approval process, these local chapters of the national environmental
groups were perceived as legitimate, supportive of the process, and thus
on the "correct" (i.e., status quo) side of the issue. However,
the newer network of local environmental groups (CCAP, the Indiana Public
Interest Research Group (INPIRG), and the West Side Group) were protrayed
as confontational, radical, and unreasonable. The mayor claimed that she
welcomed citizen input in the decisionmaking and praised the three environmental
affiliates that suported the conceptual agreement, but labeled opposition
leaders "instant experts" who neither understood nor cared to
understand the terms of the settlement. This effort to stigmatize the dissenters
should have been more effective than it eventually turned out to be, since
the pressure tactics and much of the following of these groups were in fact
outside the political mainstream. However, the constant entrance, exit,
and restructuring of the new "public-interest" groups made them
moving targets. Furthermore, their efforts produced enough doubt about the
decree, as the controversy evolved, that the movement was able to generate
new groups with recruits who were more difficult to caricature or discredit.
The splintering of these environmental groups supports the theory that
the movement, at least temporarily, will suffer "political ambivalence"
between the "core environmentalists" and the "appropriate
technology" advocates (Morrison, 1980). In this view, core environmentalists
(composed primarily of white, professional, and affluent groups) value the
respect, influence, and institutionalized power they have achieved through
the conventional political process. The soft technology movement, on the
other hand, has a "distinctive, counter-culture, anti-establishment,
and mildly left-leaning flavor which ... favors direct-action tactics in
an attempt to transform society toward the 'small is beautiful' ethic."
Indeed, a range of "soft" technologies, such as pyrolysis, biodegradation,
and vaulting, were promoted by opponents as more ecologically sound and
less capital-intensive methods of PCB destruction. Typically, these outsiders
advocated direct-participatory controls, systematic waste recycling, and
localized remedies for pollution victims. In terms of the nature of their
values, internal dynamics, and passionate advocacy, these emergent groups
had all the characteristics of the highly volatile, solidaristic, "Class-D"
organizaitons that have failed to have much sustained impact on national
policy but have had some dramatic successes llocally (Nagel, 1987).
This initial phase of the recycle and expansion of the issue can be characterized
as the stage during which identification groups and the attentive public
became involved. During this period it became clear to activists that the
eventual outcome of the negotiation process and the proposed agreement (i.e.,
the choice of technologies, the limited number of cleanup sites included,
the closed nature of the ratificaiton process, and the lack of any community
impact assessment) were far worse than the activist-outsiders realized during
the out-of-court bargaining process. As portentous to these environmentalists
as the agreement's particular specifications was the exhortation by officials
that they be patient and not make any disruptive "noise." Once
again, like the cusp of the initial stage in the controversy, which spanned
the state hearings, the city's alternative press resumed in-depth coverage
of the issue. This time, however, the stories were heavily weighted toward
the views of the opposition an antagonistic to the decree.
Beyond these similarities, the first stage of the controversy and the
second represents a very different form of political conflict. Unlike the
initial PCB hostilities, the issue's reemergence produced a dramatic surge
of public interest and media coverage that had staying power. Furthermore,
during the mid-1970s, government activities had dominated the news. With
the breakup of the loose alliance between public officials and PCB activists,
following the release of the consent decree, the tone and content of the
coverage began to change. The number of media stories about official actions
remained quite high, but the attention given to the activities of the interest
groups rose significantly, due in large part to the increasingly sophisticated
use of the media by environmental activists. Thus, the oppostion began to
have significant impact on the unfolding coverage of the issue, with its
grievances, activities, and evocative symbols increasingly framing events.
Once the consent decree was announced, it became increasingly apparent
to environmentalists in particular and the public in general that the agreement
could not be altered significantly by outside parties. The subsequent hearing
process was a rushed effort--over a span of just four months--to give the
appearance of a public comment period. For all intents and purposes, what
transpired were actually controlled, public relations, and information sessoins
designed to impose the pre-ordained settlement on the community. While the
corporation and the federal EPA grappled with explaining the virtues of
the technology, the city and its attorneys focused on the merits of local
control over the process and requested that environmentalists give the agreement
a "vote of confidence."
However, among the attentive public trust in the consent decree and incineration
technology was clearly minimal from the outset. This was primarily attributable
to several factors. To begin with, there were not and never has been either
an Environmental Impact Statement or the Remedial Investigaion-Feasibility
Study requred by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Superfund
Remedial Acts, respectively. Furthermore, the public hearing process and
information sessions focused primarily on the merits of the consent decree
and incineration technology, to the virtual exclusion of any discussion
of alternative technologies and cleanup solutions. Citizens could participate
only within the guideline and under the rules established by the contending
parties. Outside interests and their experts could not present alternatives.
The critics countered that the technology, combining hazardous and municipal
solid waste incineration in a new "state of the art" combustor,
was not a "proven" method, as had been promised. Furthermore,
they insisted that the resulting emissions and fly ash disposal would create
additional area degradation. They circulated an eight-point petition, signed
by thousands of voters, promoting the idea that the community would have
local control only if several key provisions were added to the agreement.
Among these were planks calling for the cleanup of 200 additional dump sites,
a local health study, compensatory damage payments, alternatives to thermal
waste disposal, and ratification of the decree through a binding referendum
by all voting-age Monroe County residents. Within minutes of reciving the
petition, the city council overwhelminly approved the consent decree despite
a "takeover" of the council chambers by militant protesters. The
county council approved it a few weeks later by a much closer vote after
only slightly less contentious public hearings.
Conflict Expansion and Transformation
During the summer of 1985, the EPA granted a 60-day extension of the
public hearing process, the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University
conducted a survey, the Monroe County Election Board also sponsored a write-in
ballot poll, and INPIRG filed two intervention suits. The Indiana University
poll of Monroe County residents showed that support for the consent decree
was shallow at best (see Table 1). Although the small minority who knew
of the agreement favored it almost two to one, most respondents expressed
no opinion due to lack of information. Even those favorable, however, said
they had strong reservations over provisions for the health and sefety of
county residents and frustration with the idea that this agreement was the
best deal the community could get. On the other hand, the 14% who expressed
opposition to the decree were the most highly informed, followed events
closely, and were more likely to have been active in the approval process.
One-third were concerned with incinerator safety, and questioned whether
it would cause more pollution than it would alleviate. Another 17% felt
the decree was not comprehensive enough in that it did not include all of
the contaminated sites. In order to broaden their appeal and combine the
heterogeneous opposition in a more effective organizational vehicle, local
activists coalesced as the Monroe County Environmental Coalition (MCEC).
The "respectability" of this new group was enhanced by its moderately
successful efforts to attract members drawn from the legal and medical professions,
advertising, business, white-collar occupations, and local social clubs
and fraternal organizations. With the resources brought in by this more
affluent following, MCEC was now able to publicize and disseminate its concerns
with the settlement and the incineration technology in the regional media.
One of the more salient of this group's efforts was the publication of mail-in
ballots in the local newspapers that allowed citizens to vote for or against
the agreement. The results received by the U.S. District Court indicated
that only 19 of 851 respondents favored the consent decree.
INPIRG filed two lawsuits. The first was an "open-door" lawsuit,
asking that the city and county approvals of the agreement be voided and
that both entities be required to go through a new, more open deliberative
process. This litigation claimed that elected officials had violated the
state's Public Records Act by meeting privately with their corporate adversaries
during their executive negotiation sessions. In another suit, INPIRG filed
to become a party in the city's case against Westinghouse and renewed its
motion to intervene in the consolidated EPA, city and state lawsuit against
the corporation. The group's director, Mick Harrison, asserted that the
agreement was not representative of its concerns or the public interest
and that citizens had the right to participate in the decisionmaking process
under the guidelines of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
This last petition was ultimately rejected by Judge S. Hugh Dillin, as "untimely."
The same day that both INPIRG requests were rejected, the district judge
made the Consent Decree court enforceable. Dillin also ruled the former
case as "an impermissible collateral attack on a federal court decree."
Furthermore, there was no violation of law on any of these counts, even
if the deliberation process was flawed, because in his view any harm that
may have been done was remedied by the two city council meetings and one
county council meeting approving the agreement. Although the latter case
was denied on basis of "timeliness," with the judge ruling that
INPIRG shouls have intervened earlier, it in fact could not have done so
during the restricted negotiations process. INPIRG appealed thse findings,
but the Indiana Supreme Court refused to hear the case. These two court
decisions are important because of their potential for setting precedents
in favor of insulated corporate-governmental, out-of-court agreements and
against citizen participation or public-interest group intervention in environmental
mediations.
During this period, citizens were deluged with an almost continuous and
dramatic series of events that focused mass attention on the issue. However,
the content of the resulting media stories was a product of two-way manipulation
by both the proponents and opponents of the agreement. Although the decree's
advocates expressed optimism that the technology would quickly and efficiently
solve the problem, surveys showed that most of the public was unsure about
the agreement. Even those who favored it, did so out of resignation and
with concern over safety issues. Moreover, dissenting opinion was articulate,
knowledgeable, highly vocal, and visible. While local politicians did promise
a rapid resolution of all the grievances raised by active citizens and actually
created some public forums to allow limited public access, these overtures
were mostly symbolic and, in any case, largely subverted in the effort to
force the settlement onto the community quickly.
During the out-of-court negotiation process, environmental interests
had only minimal, filtered information about the proceedings. With the release
of the consent decree, however, the opposition attempted to alter the technical
rules in the contest. Environmentalists, citizens, and scholars with alternative
expertise were pitted against government experts and corporate officials
in the highly publicized debates that followed. Each side became active
in the effort to channel media coverage, control the official hearings,
and shape the public's risk perception. Accordingly, the environmental activists
began to use a wide array of ecotactics effectively to redefine the public's
orientation toward the issue. The relative success of these efforts can
be seen in the change in tone and content of the local media's treatment
of the issue. Although government activities and official perspectives remained
central in most issue accounts, by the late-1980s attention to the grievances
and efforts of the opposition became a regular feature of media coverage.
Westinghouse began filing for incinerator permits, and the city hired
a team of consultants to review them. While these two entities argued over
remedial cleanup timetables, procedures, and other technical issues, the
opposition turned its attention to Monroe County's sharply contested 8th
District congressional election. MCEC realized that the 1986 "MacRace"
could be reoriented locally to turn on the PCB issue. They persuaded the
Republican candidate, Rick MacIntyre, to oppose incineration altogether.
This prompted the incumbent, former Mayor McCloskey, to request that the
congressional Office of Technology Assessment "conduct a comprehensive
study of the proposed incinerator, including a comparison with alternative
methods." The subsequent OTA memorandum stated that the concept of
burning municipal solid waste and hazardous waste was "novel, but unproven,"
and emphasized that alternatives apparently had not been thoroughly assessed.
MCEC also endorsed a referendum calling for the abolition of the city's
Utilities Service Board because of its alleged "sweetheart relationship"
with Westinghouse and its inability to address citizen concerns over public
health and cleanup safety issues.
Throughout the congressional campaign, controversies raged over Environmental
Impact Assessments and Remedial Investigaoins/Feasibility studies, as well
as the legitimacy of the Westinghouse Risk Assessment. The Sierra Club,
the Sassafras Audobon Society, the Indiana University Student Association,
the League of Women Voters, MCEC, and INPIRG all called for a moratorium
on the PCB cleanup project until an Environmental Impact Statement was issued.
Until this point, the Audubon Society had been the only remaining environmental
group still favoring the Decree. The Justice League Voter Registration Drive,
comprised of activists drawn from a broad coalition of opposition groups,
registered more voters than did either major party. Radio announcements
sponsored by rock-star musician John Cougar Mellencamp, and endorsements
by the League and MCEC, further urged citizens to register their protest
on election day.
An 8th District election poll of area residents executed by a private
firm working for Congressman McCLosky revealed the high salience of PCBs
as an election issue (see Table 1). Respondents were asked to choose which
of three PCB-disposal options they preferred: incinerating now, waiting
for further testing, or storing permanently. The percentage favoring incineration
had remained relatively constant since 1985, dropping a mere three percentage
points. However, three out of five respondents now wanted to wait for further
testing. Among this group, opposition to incineration was strongest among
liberals and Democrats who had a least some college. Another, more diverse,
14% wanted to store the contaminants permanently. Regardless of educational
level, political ideology, or party affiliation, the majority of those polled
opposed immediate incineration. More importantly, this opinion survey is
significant because it indicates growing levels of public distrust with
the PCB-disposal method required by the agreement nearly two years after
the decree had been ratified.
At this point in the Bloomington controversy, public attention seems
to have become focused on the diagnosis and anxieties of critics rather
than the priorities of the constituted authorities. The opposition issued
highly popular demands for long-term cleanup controls, preventive health
measures, and holding the polluter accountable for damages. These same environmentalists
lobbied both U.S. senators to get a congressional study of the experimental
technology and campaigned to put a referendum abolishing the USB on the
ballot. By this time, even the established environmental groups, the League
of Women Voters, and the Indiana University Student Association had joined
the movement in calling for a moratorium on the cleanup project until the
EIS and RI/FS were performed. Indeed, the voter registration drive was an
effort to take the issue to the polls and send the message that a thorough
reworking of the decisionmaking process was necessary. The majority of those
polled were unwilling to proceed with incineration, as required by the agreement.
The facts that these studies still have not been done and that the process
had not bee reopened has tended to lend credibility to the conspiracy claims
spread by critics.
The years 1986 and 1987 were marked by the ongoing permitting processes,
remedial surface cleanups at Superfund sites, mayoral and city council elections,
and more lawsuits. Westinghouse released its risk assessment, which was
determined deficient by analysts on all sides of the iisue--including Environ,
the city-hired consulting firm. The reservations of the city's consultants
largely echoed those that opponents had stated for years. Officials were
further disheartened by Judge Dillin's refusal to hear the city's damage
suit against Monsanto, with his assertion that the consent decree had resolved
the issue. While these events were taking place, Westinghouse sued all of
its insurers for defense against pending claims at 74 hazardous waste sites
in 23 states. At the same time, the firm became a major player in the waste-abatement
industry, promoting its "resource recovery" technology in communities
like Bloomington, including many that the company had itself polluted.
The corporation refused to agree to city requests to test the Lemon Lane
site for toxins other than PCBs before excavating and transporting them
to its temporary storage facility. The EPA finally threatened to do an emergency
cleanup--and to charge the city, rather than the corporation, for it. Judge
Dillin prevented the county prosecutor from pursuing criminal actions against
Westinghouse for its intention to transport and temporarily store hazardous
waste without filing for proper permits. He argued that under the terms
of the consent decree the official parties had agreed that they did not
need to follow these requirements. Moreover, once the Lemon Lane cleanup
had begun, neither the city, state, nor EPA had inspectors on site until
local activists compained to the press and to county health officials about
the way the contractor Westinghouse had hired was violating the decree's
porvisions. The city also rejected calls for the evacuation of nearby residents,
despite dust-laden winds five to eight times federal guidelines.
Despite extensive efforts to distance themselves from the agreement they
had ratified, public officials suffered a number of setbacks. An anti-incinerator
slate of candidates polled over 40% of the vote in the 1987 Democratic primary
and unseated two councilmanic incumbents who had voted for the decree. The
very necessity of the decree was undermined by the long-delayed report of
a study done by the national Center for Disease Control, which concluded
that most people living in the Bloomington area were "not generally
at risk of PCB exposure." To forestall or co-opt further criticism,
Mayor Allison became more aggressive with Westinghouse, appointed members
of the opposition to the city's Environmental Commission, and made incineration
safety the primary theme in her re-election campaign. Despite these conciliatory
efforts, she barely survived, with a tiny plurality in a four-way race against
a Republican rival and two third-party candidates, all of whom had promised
drastic alternatives to the agreement.
Several surveys taken between the primary and the general election indicated
the increasing significance of the environmental issue among the mass public
(see Table 1). According to the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) Media Influence
Poll, the number of those favoring the consent decree again dropped only
slightly, while those opposing the agreement rose significantly, to 53%,
up from only 15% a year earlier. As before, those most informed were most
likely to be opposed. Indeed, by this time, nearly half the respondents
were following the issue closely on television and in the newspapers. This
negative opinion content was developing at the same time that the media's
coverage became more pervasive. Local cable television Channel 30, for example,
devoted over 135 programs and 295 hours of air-time to the controversy form
1986 to 1987. At this stage, issue awareness had apparently expanded to
include large segments of the general public that had previously been inattentive.
Anticipating a close election, the Democratic party conducted a pre-election
poll (see Table 2). This survey indicated that support for the agreement
and the officials who ratified it had seriously eroded. Only slightly more
than a third of the respondents said that they trusted the mayor to ensure
that a safe incinerator was built. Nearly half of those polled said that
the PCB controversy was the central issue in the campaign, and, of those
most concerned, opponents to the decree outnumbered supporters by over two
to one. Once again, demographic analysis shows an interesting pattern. The
pattern of concern showed that the greatest fears were among young and middle-aged
repondents, but significantly less among the elderly. In terms of occupation,
civil swervants, students, professionals, and university cohorts considered
the PCB cleanup agreement a fundamental issue, while retirees, the unemployed,
housewives, blue-collar workers, and business executives were significantly
less concerned. Although issue concern cut across party lines, the major
loser over the issue was the incumbent mayor, since opposition was greatest
amon Democratic party identifiers, with nearly 40% against. The controversy's
primary gainers, however, appear to have been the anti-incinerator Independent
and Grass Roots Party candidates, rather than the Republican challenger.
Public opinion polls indicated that PCBs had become the central question
in local politics. A 1987 IDS poll (see Table 1) indicated that only 27
% of the public thought that the city had done a good job in exploring alternatives
to incineration or oversight. Surveys by the local daily newspaper show
that public concern over the issue during mayoral campaigns had risen from
4% in 1979, to 25% in 1983, and to a high of 76% in 1987, before tapering
off slightly in 1991. These attitudes also were altering political landscape.
In the 1987 general election, for example, the mayor won by only 261 votes,
down from over 2,200 in 1983, when she had crushed her Republican challenger
by a 60% to 40% margin. Allison received only 44% of the vote that year,
with a majority of the voters opting for either the Republican (42%) or
the Grass Roots Party and Independent Democratic candidates (14% combined).
The latter two candidates campaigned extensively against the city's handling
of the PCB issue, and advocated "Green" political platforms. These
results indicate that perceptions of the Democratic party's ability to resolve
environmental issues had declined. Worse yet, the local majority party was
losing a large segment of its stongest adherents--those were highly educated,
politically active, and environmentally conscious.
Some analysts had expected a gradual decline in public interest and media
coverage by this stage. In fact, quite the contrary occurred. Support for
the agreement never materialized, but public interest soared as opposition
to the agreement mounted from 1985 on. Indeed, Westinghouse managers had
encouraged these developments during the initial stages of the cleanup by
modifying standards as they saw fit, ignoring safety guidelines, refusal
or inability to adhere to even minimal regulations, and providing spurious
evidence in their risk analyses. These events, combined with the city's
contued pattern of neglect of its oversight and standards enforcement functions
during the firm's preliminary decree implementation efforts, have all tended
to legitimize the opposition. The nationwide proliferation of similar toxic
substances disuptes in communities with Westinghouse capacitor plants prompted
the company to attempt to sell off its profitable electrical utility machinery
division. In 1989, the contaminated properties, including the Bloomington
plant site, would become British multinational Asea Brown Boveri's headache.
Shortly after th 1987 election, there was another gradual drop in media
coverage, but interest picked up once again during the flawed efforts by
Westinghouse to trasport contaminated soil and the large damage awards resulting
from successful lawsuits filed by former employees. The onset of the 1991
municipal elections was equally newsworthy, with the city's chemist, Ron
Smith, quitting to run as an anti-decree mayoral candidate. At this stage,
there appears to be no end in sight to the controversy. Attempt to implement
the local-controlled provisions of the decree have been only minimally effective.
Westinghouse seemed increasingly unable to guarantee its proposed technology.
The EPA inspector general was called in by Representative Lee Hamilton to
investigate the legitimacy of the procedures, processes, and negotiations
that had led to approval of the agreement. The county Board of Health indicated
that it would not approve the Westinghouse permit to incinerate solid waste,
and the county council withdrew from its role as a formal partner in the
decree.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, opposition to the consent decree had
become almost conventional. The local newspaper was regularly editorializing
against the incinerator, while state and federal officials were promoting
to legislation to hinder the agreement's implementation, or, at least, rigorously
regulate the facility upon its completion. An orthodox coalition (COPA)
had emerged, in opposition to the proposed incinerator ash-disposal landfill
that threatened their affluent neighborhoods. Two other new militant groups,
PATI and "I'll Be There," organized to step up the politics of
direct anti-decree agitation. The local state Representative, Mark Kruzan,
pushed a bill through the legislature mandating strict new state standards
for the siting and operation of incinerators. Even the mayor seems to have
turned against the agreement, although she still argued during her last,
successful re-election bid that the decree was the biggest protection that
the community had against an unsafe and expensive outcome to the conflict.
Only Westinghouse and the EPA have pushed ahead with the steps needed for
fulfilling the original agreement, thus ensuring that the controversy would,
in all likelihood, continue unabated.
The political life of the community has been changed by the dispute in
many other ways. Although the mayor has survived during the past two elections,
only one other elected official voting for the agreement remains in office.
One militant anti-incinerator candidate holds a seat on the city council,
and is a nonvoting member on the Utilities Service Board, while another
activist was given a voting position on the city Environmental Commission.
The city has tried to placate concerned citizens by finally implementing
a trial curbside recycling program, by issuing statements critical of the
company's compliance with the specific terms of the decree, and by firing
the environmental attorney who lost its lawsuit against Monsanto. Furthermore,
during recent elections, the Democrats have attempted to gain votes and
counteract community environmental anxieties through their candidate recruitment
and campaign statements. Each of these respective efforts has tended to
place the local government and the city's major party into roles compatable
to their earlier adversarial relationships with Westinghouse and local developers.
It is difficult to project how the issue will evolve from here. However,
it seems more than likely that interest in the controversly will remain
high. The consent decree seems set in stone, and requires a 20-year implementation
program once construction begins. Moreover, there is every indication that
opposition remains both active and potent. For example, in 1989 the anti-incinerator
city councilwoman and 13 others were arrested during a large demonstration
protesting lax EPA-Westinghouse cleanup measures at the highly toxic site
not included in the agreement--an incident which received national media
coverage. More recently, the 1991 Republican and Independent candidates
for mayor made alterantives to the agreement their central campaign issue.
Company efforts to place the waste combustor in a site near an affluent
neighborhood by South High School, and its purchase of rich farmland in
Washington Township for an ash landfill have further dissipated any residual
community support. Perhaps the best indication of the strength of public
opposition is the growing number of the decree's former ardent supporters
who now call or its modification or abandonment.
The onset of the issue's recycle represented a turning point during which
the challenging groups began to engage in a variety of ecotactics in order
to undermine the rules of the game, disrupt implementation, manipulate the
media, and turn around public opinion (Mitchell & Stallings, 1970).
Although the national media never regained interest in Bloomington's problem,
with the exception of the modest two-year surge after the consent decree
was announced, regional media coverage since 1984 in every way surpasses
the original stage of the drama when the extent of the PCB contamination
was first discovered. In fact, the controversy has been the number-one local
story in every year since the official attempt to resolve the issue. Pending
former Westinghouse employee lawsuits, conflict over the cleanups at the
ABB and Fell iron sites, recent state legislative and regulatory efforts,
and renewd threats of civil disobedience if incinerator constuction begins
all indicate that the issue will retain its potency for many years into
the future. Indeed, the issue may even achieve its highest level of intensity
if, as seems likely, the firm supported by its federal court mandate insists
on forging ahead with its plans.
Summary and Conclusion
Clearly, established authorities lost control of the agenda in Bloomington.
After initially encouraging the formation of new PCB-action groups, officials
attempted to replace this form of mass confrontational participation with
private negotiations by a few representatives of the major local institutional
stakeholders. When their agreement ultimately was announced, these same
authorities were unable to prevent the reemergence of the controversy or
the resulting conflict that has essentially stymied efforts to implement
this settlement. Despite extensive official efforts to discredit and divert
critics, opposition to the consent decree soon expanded well beyond the
university-affiliated activists, remnants of the counterculture, and poor
westside residents who originally organized against the plan. Mass opinion,
most "mainstream" groups, and the local media have all turned
against the settlement, while a growing number of public officials now object
to its major provisions. Only the federal district court, EPA, and Westinghouse
continue to press implementation.
The ability of a loosely organized grassroots movement to produce the
current stalemate may seem surprising. However, the relative success of
this organized resistance to the PCB solution favored by experts can be
explained partially by the particular potency of the toxins issue. Unlike
many local policy disputes, controversies over issues like public health,
jobs, and quality of life seem to have direct and explosive arousal potential
(Kasperson, 1986). Such anxieties were effectively mobilized by an opposition
that redefined the issue in terms of the loss in property values, hazardous
pollution, and negative changes in the character of community life that
they predicted an experimental hazardous waste incinerator would bring in
its wake. Evidently, these projected fears proved to be more effective in
influencing public attitudes than did the advantages of site cleanup, economic
development, and local remedial control promised by authorities and their
experts. The case for the consent decree also was weakened by the high level
of popular distrust of most local institutions. None of the advocates of
the proposal could claim much credibility, given that dumping by Westinghouse
had created the contamination crisis, while the incompetence of the municipal
government had allowed the situation to develop.
The nature of the political process itself must be seen as part of the
explanation for the current policy gridlock favored by anti-incinerator
groups. Despite their exclusion from the initial negotiations that produced
the decree, opponents dominated and prolonged both the ratification and
permitting processes. These activities, along with staged events outside
the formal hearings, allowed critics to publicize their reservations and
call attention to the manipulative character of the official proceedings.
The complexity of intergovernmental relations also tended to work against
the agreement, as the disputants played off the various levels of government
through their lobbying, litigation, and legislative efforts. Regular elections
also damaged the policy's legitimacy, since local officials were compelled
to face contests in which PCBs came to dominate all other isssues. Although
only a few of the militants were elected, the negative publicity generated
by these campaigns force most conventional candidates to express severe
reservations about the planned cleanup or, at least, promise aggressive
vigilance should the facility ever be built.
Under the circumstances just described, virulent and lasting opposition
can be mobilized effectively by excluded groups with few resources, even
if position and established procedures favor local elites. Indeed, efforts
to resolve such environmental controversies may well produce frustration
and dissent that surpasses the alarmed discovery initial phase of the crisis.
Established actors ultimately might be able to impose their preferences,
despite community resisitance and the emergence of new contending social
forces, but not without expensive delays and a substantial loss in credibility.
Even though the public's perception of an "unholy alliance" between
government and industry will tend to reduce general confidence in all officials
who make local policy, the biggest loser in these "garbage wars"
may well be traditional structures of decisionmaking. During the conflict,
average citizens are confronted with competing sources of information and
new avenues for popular participation. Such possibilities will, of course,
depend on the relative accessibility of the local mass media, as well as
the value-based beliefs and commitment of activists who seem essential in
the mobilization of this kind of collective action.
The Authors
James R. Simmons is an assistant professor
of political science and public administration at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
Jim is Director of the university's Public Policy and Administration program.
He is also currently president and program-chair of the Wisconsin State
Political Science Association. His research interests include policy analyses;
public opinion and electoral behavior; regulation, and political economy.
He has written numerous published articles in each of these research areas.
Nancy Stark is in the political science doctoral
program at the University of Washington. Her research interests include
public policy (environmental, women's reproductive); political parties,
interest groups, and social movements; public law (feminist legal theory),
and political communications. She has several publications that focus on
the issues of environmental policy, the media, public opinion, and political
participation.
References
Alpach, M.C., & Sabean, I. (1987). Politics of PCB:
A Viewpoint. International Journal of Environmental Studies, 30 (1), 13-27.
Annour, A. (ed). (1984). The NIMBY complex: Some psychological
considerations. Not-In-My-Backyard. Charlottesville, VA: Institute for Environmental
Negotiation.
Bosso, C.J. (1989). Setting the agenda. In M. Margolis
& G.A. Mauser (Eds.), Manipulating Public Opinion (pp. 153-174). Belmont,
CA: Brooks/Cole.
Bosso, C.J. (1991). Adaption and change in the environmental
movement. In A. Cigler & B. Loomis (Eds.), Interest group politics.
(3rd ed.)(pp.151-176). Washington DC: CQ Press.
Cobb, R., & Elder, C. (1972). Participation in American
politics. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Consent Decree. (1984). Civil Action No. IP-83-9-C &
Civil Action No. IP-448-C. U.S. District Court, Indianapolis, IN.
Costain, W.D. (1992). Interest groups and the evolution
of the environmental policy agenda, 1890-1990. Presented at the Western
Political Science Association Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Democratic mayoral re-election poll. (1987, October 3).
Bloomington, IN.
Downs, A. (1972). Up and down with ecology--The issue-attention
cycle. The Public Interest, 28, 38-50.
Dunlap, R. (1989). Public opinion and environmental policy.
In J. Lester (Ed.), Environmental politics and policy. (pp. 87-134) Durham:
Duke University Press.
Fainstein, N., & Fainstein, S. (1974). Urban political
movements. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gamson, W. (1990). The startegy of social protest. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth.
Hinnefeld, S., & Higgs, S. (1987, April 5). PCBs: A
special report. Herald-Times, pp. 1-8.
Kasperson, R. (1986). Six propositions on public participation
and their relevance for risk communication. Risk Alanlysis, 6 (3), 275-281.
Kingdon, J. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies.
Boston: Little, Brown.
Lindblom, C. (1968). The policy-making process. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lipsky, M. (1970). Protest in city politics. Chicago: Rand-McNally.
Mansbridge, J. (1980). Beyond adversarial democracy. New
York: Basic Books.
Matheny, A., & Williams, B. (1985). Knowledge vs. NIMBY.
Policy Studies Journal, 14 (1), 70-8-.
Mazmanian, D., & Morell, D. (1992). Beyond superfailure.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Milbrath, L.W. (1984). Environmentalists. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Milbrath, I., & Goel, M.L. (1977). Political participation.
Chicago: Rand McNally.
Mitchell, J., & Stallings, C. (1970). Ecotactics. New
York: Pocket Books.
Mohai, P. (1985). Public concern and elite involvement
in environmental-conservation issues. Social Science Quarterly, 66 (4),
820-838.
Morrison, D.E. (1980). The soft, cutting edge of environmentalism.
Natural Resources Jouranal, 20, 345-358.
Nagel, J. (1987). Participation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
PCB consent decree survey: Poll. (July 27-August 1, 1985).
Center for Survey Research, Bloomington: Indiana University.
Peck, D. (Ed.) (1989). Psychosocial effects of hazardous
toxic waste disposal on communities. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas.
Portney, K. (1991). Siting hazardous waste treatment facilities.
New York: Auburn House.
Post, J. (1978). Corporate behavior and social change.
Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Company.
Preston-Whyte, R. (1987). A case study of public and press
reaction to an environmental decision. International Journal of Environmental
Studies, 30 (1), 23-27.
Review of the consent decree for cleanup of PCBs in Indiana.
(1986). Staff memorandum prepared for OTA Industry, Technology, and Employment
Program.
Rimmer, T. (1986, November). 8th district election poll--Description
of sample, Octover 29 November 3. Unpublished paper, Indiana University
School of Journalism.
Ryan, C. (1991). Prime time activism. Boston: South End
Press.
Schattschneider, E.E. (1960). The semisovereign people.
New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Simmons, J.R. (!989). The burning question. The Environmental
Professional, 10 (3), 223-233.
Slovic, P., et.al. (1980). Fact versus fears. In R. Schwing,
& W.A. Alperts, (Eds.), Societal risk assessment. (pp. 181-216) New
York: Plenum Press.
Smelser, N. (1962). Theory of collective behavior. New
York: Free Press of Glencoe.
Starling, G. (1988). Strategies for policy making. Chicago:
Dorsey Press.
Stark, N., & Simmons, J.R. (1989). 'Local' control
as a model or myth. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 9 (1), 9-32.
Tescione, P. (1984). The Westinghouse papers. Veridian,
4 (3), 5-22.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (1979). Siting of
hazardous waste management facilities and public opposition. Washington,
DC: Author
U.S. House of Representatives. (1987) Subcommitee hearings
on municipal solid waste incineration. Washington DC. |
|
