Smelter Smoke in North America: The Politics of Transborder Pollution

(Excerpt from longer published review)

In Smelter Smoke in North America John D. Wirth uses two case studies to explore transborder pollution and regulation in North America. Through an exploration of the Trail smelter case of 1927-1941 and the Gray Triangle litigation of the 1980s, Wirth argues that the smelting industry has thought in continental terms at least since the 1920s, and that it was the development of a federal regulatory framework in the 1970s which later permitted environmental policy to operate under similar principles.

Wirth draws on a wealth of archival data, including Canadian sources and the unpublished papers of USDA scientists, to challenge existing interpretations about the significance of the Trail arbitration (usually reduced to the principle of "the polluter pays"). A sub-argument considers how legal pressures and political wrangling impeded the efforts of the USDA scientific team. In the second half of the book Wirth makes extensive use of interviews with activists, industry officials, and political figures to narrate the later U.S.-Mexican negotiations over the Douglas Reduction Works in Arizona, and to argue that, a generation after Trail, the political context has significantly shifted. Now grassroots activism plays a critical role in environmental regulation, and nations are learning to cooperate across borders on continental environmental issues. The importance of Wirth's findings is considerable, but the book overall suffers from problems with presentation. ( )