Superfund: The Ascendance of Enabling Myths

摘要

Industrial manufacturing, particularly in petroleum and chemical industries, has a history associated with hazardous waste disposal practices leading to highly contaminated sites. The evolution of the U.S. Superfund policy addressing the cleanup of these sites is an opportunity to examine principles upon which Superfund was founded and subsequent myths that emerged in response to the influence of powerful interests. Specifically, we analyze the processes undergirding espoused principles, comparing the correspondence between the principle and processes. We argue that originating principles of Superfund―"polluter pays" and the primacy of public health―were supported by processes but that as power structures changed, new processes were instituted that undermined these principles. As these destructive processes have been enacted, rhetorical calls continue to be made to Superfund's founding principles. These principles represented the democratic ideals of each citizen being equal (polluter pays) and deserving of the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness (primacy of human health). As these principles have shifted from actively shaping processes to symbolic references rationalizing (but not reflecting) new processes, they have transformed into what William Dugger has called enabling myths (1980, 1995). Enabling myths are tools of social control functioning to rationalize the social hierarchy (Dugger 1989; Peach and Adkisson 1997). In this case, the status quo is the interests of the industrial manufacturers who gain by pushing the costs of cleanup to the wider citizenry.