Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
INTRODUCTION
The State Department of Environmental Protection was holding a public hearing in Lancaster, a small town in central Massachusetts, concerning the siting of a municipal waste incinerator (Renn and Webler, 1992, p. 84f., similar accounts in Freudenburg, 1983; Elliot, 1984; Davis, 1986; Brion, 1988; Rosa, 1988; positive examples in Lynn, 1987). The town hall was still nearly filled at 10:20 p.m., almost an hour after the scheduled closing time. For two hours residents listened peacefully while regulatory officials explained why the plant was needed, how much trash it would burn, and how much pollution it could legally emit. Expert scientists supported the officials by supplying evidence and arguments about the “acceptability” of the level of risk posed by an incinerator. The regulators thought they were being sensitive to the citizens when they kept to the agenda and, at 9:00 p.m., opened the floor for half an hour of questions. Now it was late, but the citizens were in an uproar, and they showed no sign of letting up.
“What about our gardens?” one woman asked, “Will we be able to eat the vegetables we grow? I have an organic garden and I don't want it contaminated with dioxin.” Another gentleman was interested in the contract. “Are you telling us that we have to sign a contract to supply 2,000 tons of trash every year? What if we want to start a recycling program?”
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.