Citation:

Kiessling, B., K. Maxwell, AND J. Buckley. The sedimented social histories of environmental cleanups: An ethnography of social and institutional dynamics. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 278(2):111530, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111530

Impact/Purpose:

Cleanup of contaminated hazardous waste sites or after environmental emergencies helps reduce environmental health risks and revitalize communities. For cleanups to achieve these goals, both technical expertise and attention to stakeholder social dynamics are necessary. This research uses interviews with EPA staff to understand the social factors that affect cleanup processes and outcomes. It contributes to social science theory about society and the environment by deepening our understanding of how and why particular social dynamics arise during cleanups.ps identify strategies for successful stakeholder engagement and public participation. It may be of interest to OLEM, OEJ, and Regional staff (e.g. OSCs, RPMs, brownfields program managers, CICs).

Description:

The scrutiny of environmental cleanups within the United States has been a growing area of interest for social scientists. Scholars have used case studies and modeling to analyze struggles for environmental justice and the economics of stigma associated with Superfund sites. This research has primarily analyzed community perspectives on remediation, such as local strategies for participating in cleanup decisions. There has been less work on analyzing organizational perspectives on the social and institutional dynamics at play during cleanups. Our study addresses this gap by analyzing insights gained through interviewing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff who do cleanup work in brownfields, Superfund, and emergency response. This ethnographic research excavates the sedimented layers of social histories of contaminated sites: local and regional contexts, institutional power and authority, and stakeholder relationships and networks. It interrogates how these sedimented social histories affect cleanup decisions, including the temporal and spatial boundaries of sites themselves. We find that the making of relationships is as important to cleanup strategies and outcomes as the scientific and technical aspects of remediation are. This finding highlights the importance of tools and resources to excavate these social histories during environmental remediation, removal, and decontamination work.

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