A Hazardous Inquiry : The <i>Rashomon</i> Effect at Love Canal
Editorial Reviews
Review
Dorothy Nelkin, New York University : Risk disputes are difficult to reconcile because of the diverse and often inconsistent perspectives of the parties involved. Science, looked upon as an arbiter of truth, is often less than helpful. In this excellent book, Allan Mazur presents six accounts of the Love Canal dispute to demonstrate the complex interplay of scientific evidence, political biases, economic interests, and personal anxieties involved. He has contributed significantly to the understanding of policy controversies.
Charles Perrow, Yale University, author of Normal Accidents : Mazur's story is interesting and well told. While he does not tilt in the same direction as I do, we get a quite balanced account of this very significant event, and the review of the issues involved is illuminating.
John D. Graham, Harvard University, coeditor of Risk vs. Risk: Tradeoffs in Protecting Health and the Environment : A revealing and disturbing account of how the Love Canal episode was bungled, with ordinary homeowners getting the short end of the stick! Beautifully written and meticulously documented.
Book Description
Love Canal. We hear these words and quickly recoil, remembering a community poisoned by toxic waste. Twenty years after the incident, Allan Mazur reexamines the circumstances that made this upstate New York neighborhood synonymous with ecological catastrophe and triggered federal "Superfund" legislation to clean up the nation's thousands of hazardous waste sites.
But is there only one true story of Love Canal? Borrowing the multi-viewpoint technique of the classic Japanese film Rashomon, Mazur's book reveals that there are many--often conflicting versions of what occurred at Love Canal. Hooker Chemical Company, which deposited the toxic wastes, explains why it subsequently donated the dump as the site for a new school. Lois Gibbs, whose son attended the school, tells of organizing the community to fight both the chemical threat and the uncaring state bureaucracy. Then there is the story of David Axelrod, New York's embattled commissioner of health, at odds with the homeowners over their assessment of the hazards and the proper extent of the state's response. We also hear from Michael Brown, the young reporter who developed the story in the Niagara Gazette and eventually brought the problem of toxic waste to national attention.
If A Hazardous Inquiry succeeded only in making us understand why one version of the events at Love Canal gained precedence over all others, it would be invaluable to policy makers, journalists, scientists, environmentalists, lawyers, and to citizens caught up in technical controversies that get played out (for better or worse) in the public arena. But the book moves beyond that to evaluate and reconcile the conflicting accounts of Love Canal, giving us a fuller, if more complex, picture than ever before. Through gripping personal tales, A Hazardous Inquiry tells how politics and journalism and epidemiology sometimes mesh, but often clash, when confronting a potential community disaster.
A Hazardous Inquiry: The <i>Rashomon</i> Effect at Love Canal,Allan Mazur,Harvard University Press,0674748336,Chemical Engineering Safety,Chemical plants,Ecology,Environmental Engineering & Technology,Environmental aspects,Hazardous Waste Disposal And Treatment,Hazardous waste sites,Hazardous wastes,Health aspects,History - General History,History - U.S.,New York (State),Niagara Falls,Public Policy - General,Science/Mathematics,Technology,United States - 20th Century (1945 to 2000),Waste disposal,Central government policies,Chemical industries,Environmental impact of industrial disasters,Local government,USA
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