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Control and Suppression in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley during the 1960s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2020

OWEN TEMBY
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Abstract

During the 1960s, Sarnia was the wealthiest city in Ontario and the one with the dirtiest air. Its economy was dominated by Chemical Valley, the city’s petrochemical industry. Chemical Valley firms and executives were civically active, donating to public causes, dominating the local chamber of commerce, and working closely with provincial and municipal officials to ensure a friendly business environment. They also maintained a monopoly on information about local air pollution levels and were not required by government to adhere to clean air regulations. However, like the rest of the chemical industry at the time, Chemical Valley was exposed to an onslaught of negative publicity, raising the threat of regulation and loss of their control over emissions data and production processes. This article illustrates how economic elites in Sarnia prevented the problematization and regulation of air pollution. In doing so, it describes the actors in the policy system and examines its recourse to suppress dissent when activists sought to raise the air pollution issue.

Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 380 - 412
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Sarnia Observer

Star Weekly Magazine (Toronto)

Toronto Daily Star

Windsor Star (known as Windsor Daily Star, 1935-1959)

City of Sarnia Correspondence. Sarnia City Hall.

Conservation and Pollution, Lambton County Archives.

Docket 85, International Joint Commission, Ottawa.

Sarnia City Council Chamber Minutes, Sarnia City Hall.

Sarnia Chamber of Commerce minutes, Lambton County Archives.

Sarnia Observer Negative Collection, Lambton County Archives.

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Colton, Craig E., and Skinner, Peter N.. The Road to Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste Before EPA. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Crenson, Matthew A. The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Finigan, C. M. “The St. Clair River Research Committee: A Co-Operative Approach to Pollution Abatement.” In 11th Ontario Industrial Waste Conference, Proceedings, vol. 11. Presented at the Ontario Industrial Waste Conference. Lake of Bays, Ontario: Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 1964.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, George. The Politics of Air Pollution: Urban Growth, Ecological Modernization, and Symbolic Inclusion. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2005.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Douglas. Business and Environmental Politics in Canada. Toronto: Broadview, 2007.Google Scholar
Markowitz, Gerald, and Rosner, David. Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Moore, Ted. “Democratizing the Air: The Salt Lake Women's Chamber of Commerce and Air Pollution, 1936–1945.” Environmental History 12, no. 1 (2007): 80–106.10.1093/envhis/12.1.80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munton, Don, and Temby, . “Smelter fumes, local interests, and political contestation in Sudbury, Ontario, during the 1910s.” Urban History Review 44, nos. 1–2 (2015/2016): 24–36.10.7202/1037234arCrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, Ryan. The First Green Wave: Pollution Probe and the Origins of Environmental Activism in Ontario. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner. “Businessmen Against Pollution in Late Nineteenth Century Chicago.” Business History Review 69, no. 3 (1995): 351–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner. “Business Leadership in the Movement to Regulate Industrial Air Pollution in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century America.” In Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, edited by Berghoff, Hartmut and Rome, Adam, 53–72. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Ross, Benjamin, and Amter, Steven. The Polluters: The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Stradling, David. Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881–1951. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Stradling, David, ed. The Environmental Moment: 1968–1972. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Temby, Owen. “Trouble in Smogville: The Politics of Toronto’s Air Pollution during the 1950s.” Journal of Urban History 39, no. 4 (2013): 669–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temby, Owen. “Policy Symbolism and Air Pollution in Toronto and Ontario, 1963–1967.” Planning Perspectives 30, no. 2 (2015): 271–284.10.1080/02665433.2014.956782CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Joe. Pandora’s Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.Google Scholar