Overview

In the Guadalupe Dunes, 170 miles north of Los Angeles and 250 miles south of San Francisco, an oil spill persisted unattended for 38 years. Over the period 1990-1996, the national press devoted 504 stories to the Exxon Valdez accident and a mere nine to the Guadalupe spill-even though the latter is most likely the nation's largest recorded oil spill. Although it was known to oil workers in the field where it originated, to visiting regulators, and to locals who frequented the beach, the Guadalupe spill became troubling only when those involved could no longer view the sight and smell of petroleum as normal. This book recounts how this change in perception finally took place after nearly four decades and what form the response took. Taking a sociological perspective, Thomas Beamish examines the organizational culture of the Unocal Corporation (whose oil fields produced the leakage), the interorganizational response of regulatory agencies, and local interpretations of the event. He applies notions of social organization, social stability, and social inertia to the kind of environmental degradation represented by the Guadalupe spill. More important, he uses the Guadalupe Dunes case as the basis for a broader study of environmental ""blind spots."" He argues that many of our most pressing pollution problems go unacknowledged because they do not cause large-scale social disruption or dramatic visible destruction of the sort that triggers responses. Finally, he develops a model of social accommodation that helps explain why human systems seem inclined to do nothing as trouble mounts.

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9780262025126

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Reviews

Breaks new ground in exploring the ways in which meaning and power mask the accumulation of environmental hazards. --Loren Lutzenhiser, Professor, Department of Sociology, Washington State University In this fascinating work we see giant oil's corporate configuration, and the regulatory bureaucratic blinders, merge in a ponderous, slow and silent disaster, an organizational dance that is a harbinger of a 'new species of trouble.' --Charles Perrow, Professor of Sociology, Yale University Beamish has managed to learn far more from an accident than have most researchers in recent decades. In this insightful work, he shows us that, in the aptly named 'Silent Spill,' truth about power leaked out along with the diluent. Thanks to his insights, this book has a great deal to tell us--not only about what sociology can bring to the study of accidents, but also about what the study of accidents can bring to sociology. --William R. Freudenburg, Professor of Rural Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin--MadisonPlease note: Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote. This is one of the most thoughtful and best-written works ever produced on environmental justice and injustice. --William R. Freudenburg, Professor of Rural Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin--Madison

Thomas Beamish has done social science and the environmental movement a great service by showing how organizational interests shape what is considered good and bad, possible and impossible, even what the term 'environment' means. Superb work. I wish more sociology was like this. --Lee Clarke, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University

Author Information

Thomas D. Beamish is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis.

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