Record Display for the EPA National Library Catalog

RECORD NUMBER: 40 OF 53

Main Title Refining expertise : how responsible engineers subvert environmental justice challenges /
Author Ottinger, Gwen,
Publisher New York University Press,
Year Published 2013
OCLC Number 794040390
ISBN 9780814762370; 0814762379; 9780814762387; 0814762387
Subjects Petroleum refineries--Environmental aspects--Louisiana--New Sarpy ; Environmental responsibility--United States ; Social responsibility of business--United States ; Petroleum industry and trade--United States
Holdings
Library Call Number Additional Info Location Last
Modified
Checkout
Status
ESAM  TD195.P4O88 2013 Region 10 Library/Seattle,WA 08/12/2013
Collation xi, 223 pages ; 24 cm
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-217) and index.
Contents Notes
The battlefront -- Dangerous stories -- Noisome neighbors -- From deliberation to dialogue -- Responsible refiners -- Passive revolution and resistance. Residents of a small Louisiana town were sure that the oil refinery next door was making them sick. As part of a campaign demanding relocation away from the refinery, they collected scientific data to prove it. Their campaign ended with a settlement agreement that addressed many of their grievances--but not concerns about their health. Yet, instead of continuing to collect data, residents began to let refinery scientists' assertions that their operations did not harm them stand without challenge. What makes a community move so suddenly from actively challenging to apparently accepting experts' authority? Refining Expertise argues that the answer rests in the way that refinery scientists and engineers defined themselves as experts. Rather than claiming to be infallible, they began to portray themselves as responsible . This work drives home the need for both activists and politically engaged scholars to reconfigure their own activities in response, in order to advance community health and robust scientific knowledge about it.