Containing the Michigan PBB Crisis, 1973–1992: Testing the Environmental Policy Process

Abstract

At the start of the 1970's, Michigan officials believed the state was among the nation's leaders in the control of industrial pollution. Since the Stream Control Act of 1929, two generations of state policy makers had refined law and administration to regulate and prevent environmental degradation. When assuming office in 1969, Governor William Milliken, even more than his predecessors, emphasized environmental protection. At about the same time, new federal legislation, such as the Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972, reinforced state pollution control efforts. Yet, one year later came one of the most dramatic environmental problems in American history: the PBB (polybrominated biphenyls) crisis. In the midst of that crisis, the state seemed unprepared. After it, state and federal governments initiated major changes in the policies which had seemed to be models but a few years earlier. The PBB disaster began when Michigan Chemical Company of St. Louis, Michigan, accidentally shipped a fire retardant (composed of polybrominated biphenyls PBBs) to a Michigan Farm Bureau feed supply yard in place of a cattle feed supplement. The subsequent