It's hard to keep a good town down: local recovery efforts in the aftermath of toxic contamination

Abstract

Our paper reports a toxic disaster in St Louis, Michigan and surrounding non- metropolitan Gratiot County that was linked to the contamination of Michi gan's human food chain with the fire retardant polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) in the 1970s. This case produced a resilient local response as area officials and residents worked to obtain outside resources for contamination problems with out destroying the fabric of community life. The Gratiot County case cautions against overgeneralizing about the inevitability of community conflict follow ing toxic disasters. Nevertheless, area strategies based on recognition of limi tations on the County's place in the larger political system defined an inher ently reactive response with long-term costs for area recovery.