Citizen Environmentalists

Contents

Contents Preface: The Citizen Environmentalists ix List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xxiii 1. POWER TO THE PUBLIC HEARING 1 The Importance of Citizenship to the Environmental Movement Choosing Citizenship 3 Citizen Standing 7 The Language of Participatory Democracy 9 Public Hearings and Dialectical Relationships 12 The League of Women Voters and Public Hearings 22 2. THE SMOKY CITY 30 Public Involvement in Controlling Air Pollution in Pittsburgh Making the City Smoky 31 Responding to Smoke and Pollution before 1969 33 Regulatory Success without the Public 39 Getting in the Door: gasp and Air Pollution Control after 1969 44 Citizen Standing, gasp, and the Variance Board in 1970 49 3. “I BELONG HERE!” 57 Citizen Environmentalism in Pittsburgh and the United States The People and Organization of gasp 59 Representative Membership and Social Capital 67 Increases in Citizen Environmentalism across the Nation 72 In Defense of nimby: On the Subject of Names 77 4. MOTHERS OF URBAN SKIES 85 Environmental Education and the Rhetoric of Women’s Activism Pittsburgh and the Women of gasp 87 Flour Power and gasp’s Educational Mission 93 The Language of Maternalism 101 viii฀•฀c o n t e n t s 5. “WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD” 112 Implementation and the Rhetoric of Scientific Expertise at the Variance Board, 1970–1975 The Devil in the Details 113 Actors on Stage 122 The Gendered Language of Expertise and Professionalism 130 Reaching the Limits of Local Control 137 6. CITIZENS AND THE COURTS 140 United States Steel, Jones & Laughlin, and the Limits of Local Control Pittsburgh’s Industrial Landscape 141 The Clairton Saga 145 The Language of Job Loss, U.S. Steel, and Jones & Laughlin 162 CONCLUSION 171 The Significance of the Citizen Environmentalists for the Modern Environmental Movement, in Pittsburgh’s Experiment, and in gasp Notes 181 Bibliography 215 Index 227 Illustrations follow page 111. ...