Envisioning the political ecology of mitigation in a microelectronic disaster setting

Peter Little

doi:10.2458/v20i1.21765

Abstract

This article draws on ethnographic data to explore lived experiences and narratives of mitigation unfolding in a toxic waste site in Endicott, New York, the birthplace of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and the location of a contentious U.S. EPA Superfund Site. It introduces the political ecology of mitigation concept and showcases how this critical approach to toxics repair can inform contemporary environmental social science discussions of environmental contamination and risk society. Envisioning the political ecology of mitigation, it is argued, calls for an ethnographic approach cognizant of politics of knowledge and expertise that invoke competing visions of mitigation in general and the efficacy of mitigation technologies and science in particular. Mitigation decisions are political and not simply scientific decisions. The political ecology of mitigation explored here pays close attention to the practices and processes through which toxics mitigation is wielded and negotiated. It shows how such practices and processes may inform contemporary perspectives on toxic neoliberal environments and ecologies.Key words: political ecology, toxics mitigation, IBM, neoliberalism, ethnography

Highlights

The mitigation of environmental contamination and toxic disasters is complex and open to critical discussion on many fronts.2 Most certainly, like all socio-natural disasters, toxic industrial spills expose broad linkages between economy and ecology and often reconfigure local and national discourses on, among other things, corporate responsibility and negligence, contamination and mitigation
The subject of mitigation—how to make sense of the social dimensions of toxics mitigation, how mitigation decisions are made, how mitigation is experienced by the mitigated, how mitigation fails to restore trust, and how relations between science and the public remain contentious despite mitigation efforts—has not been adequately grounded by ethnographic description couched in political ecology theory and practice
What follows is the perspective of one DEC scientist and vapor intrusion expert working on the IBMEndicott site from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC)

Summary

Introduction

The mitigation of environmental contamination and toxic disasters is complex and open to critical discussion on many fronts. Most certainly, like all socio-natural disasters, toxic industrial spills expose broad linkages between economy and ecology and often reconfigure local and national discourses on, among other things, corporate responsibility and negligence, contamination and mitigation. What follows is the perspective of one DEC scientist and vapor intrusion expert working on the IBMEndicott site from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) He believes the mitigation decision has "kept people from being exposed" despite a clear technical challenge of fully remediating the TCE plume His detailed knowledge of the history and particularities of the IBM-Endicott site mitigation decision are informative; The two key things as far as the IBM issues is that we fairly quickly identified the structures that were potentially impacted and put mitigation systems on. What do residents living in mitigated homes have to say about mitigation? How is mitigation experienced and grounded by real people living in an environment of mitigation? There is another world outside the vapor intrusion science and data supporting the argument that these systems are efficacious, and that they control intruding TCE vapors

Some ethnographic findings

Findings

Conclusions