In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 1 Power฀to฀the฀Public฀hearing t h e฀i m p o rta n c e฀o f฀c i t i z e n s h i p฀ ฀ t o฀t h e฀e n v i r o n m e n ta l฀m o v e m e n t “What’s the difference between a professional citizen and a citizen?” —Maurice K. Goddard, Secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources “A professional citizen is one who works at it full time and studies how to be one.” —Joan Hays, self-declared professional citizen, January 17, 1972 It was supposed to be a quiet meeting, but it turned into the political equivalent of an ambush. The topic of the day wasn’t anything new, and there was no pressing deadline; after all, it was just another advisory board meeting to discuss a proposed plan to clean the perpetually dirty air in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more than a hundred years Pittsburgh had been known as the “Smoky City,” and for the latter half of that century the city’s residents had engaged in repeated attempts to clean the air, with varying degrees of seriousness and success. During that time, most decisions about controlling smoke and air pollution had been made behind closed doors. Compromises had been negotiated this way—in private, between local government and industrial leaders—for decades, through half-hearted attempts to voluntarily limit smoke in the first quarter of the century, throughout a visibly successful campaign to control smoke immediately after World War II, and in a number of policy revisions at the state and county level since. But the meeting of September 24, 1969, turned out to be very different. The Allegheny County Board of Health had originally planned to discuss changing local air pollution control laws for, perhaps, a few hours. Instead, the meeting stretched over three days, and was filled with acrimony, tears, and public denunciations. An event that might normally attract less than a dozen public comments swelled to include hundreds of citizens, civic organizers, public health officials, housewives, steelworkers, and journalists from both print and electronic media. County officials 2฀•฀c i t i z e n฀e n v i r o n m e n ta l i s t s scrambled to find an auditorium large enough for the five hundred Pittsburghers who wanted to sit in the audience on the first day. That first session was delayed “when about 150 latecomers could not gain admittance to the already packed hearing and set up an angry clamor in the hall outside.” The several hundred who made it into the room arrived with prepared statements to inform the committee members that their proposed air pollution plan was not only poorly thought-out and impractical but also represented the “legalized murder” of steelworkers. For three days a “steady stream of angry Allegheny County residents” rose to speak at a single microphone, facing the eleven members of the committee from the meeting hall floor. Former steelworkers stood up to read typewritten paragraphs describing their emphysema. A mother presented her four-and-a-half month old daughter and said that because of air pollution, the wailing baby’s “lungs were sore and her eyes ran red.”Citizensappearedwearingbuttonsemblazonedwiththeskullandcrossbones, the words “Cough, cough!” or “Remember Donora!” in reference to a deadly air pollution disaster. Law students wore surgical masks. The county’s chief forensic pathologist reported his observations linking air quality and increased mortality rates. A county commissioner called for the “banishment” of industrial representatives from all future hearings “in all but a second class status,” and later accused automakers of “criminal negligence.” Speakers called for jail terms for the “boards of directors of guilty polluting firms.” “Citizens Turn Air Blue” said one headline, “Citizens Flay Anti-Pollution Plans” another. Local papers summarized the meetings by reporting that “the roof fell in” on the committee members, that the proposed criteria “took a beating,” and that the public had “ripped them to shreds.”1 This was not a spontaneous expression of anger. The citizens of Pittsburgh had spent months preparing for this one meeting, in a loosely organized attempt to transform not only local air pollution control rules but also the methods by which those rules were created. At planning meetings for months in advance, area residents were coached by leaders of the League of Women Voters, the Federation of American Scientists, a local group known as the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy...

Share