From Love Canal to Environmental Justice

Tracing the history of environmental policy and politics from the seminal moments of 1978 at Love Canal to current environmental justice disputes, this in-depth study offers a cross-border analysis of the modern environmental movement that should be of interest to students and practitioners, academics and activists. Though no explicit environmental justice movement has developed in Canada, questions of fairness and equity in issues like the recent Toronto garbage crisis are central to many of the country's environmental conflicts. The location of Love Canal and other hazardous waste facilities on the New York-Ontario border allows for striking national comparisons without sacrificing attention to local and regional detail. Just as the issues surrounding Love Canal have shaped environmental management many years after the event, so too the environmental justice movement is making its mark on contemporary policy and politics in ways that we are likely to recognize many years from now.

Tracing the history of environmental policy and politics from the seminal moments of 1978 at Love Canal to current disputes, this in-depth study offers a cross-border analysis of the modern environmental movement.

• Imprint: University of Toronto Press
• Published: May 2003
• Pages: 240

• pdf: 9781442602250
• paperback: 9781551114347

Thomas H. Fletcher is Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Geography at Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Quebec and an adjunct professor at l'Universite de Sherbrooke.

Thomas Fletcher's work exposes the powerful influence of Love Canal on subsequent hazardous waste deliberations. He skillfully employs political and geographical theories to examine how the shock waves emanating from this one infamous site have reverberated through public opinion and policy that shape environmental justice on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border.

Craig E. Colten, Louisiana State University

Fletcher's work is a good read for anyone interested in hazardous waste problems! His sophisticated and rigorous study examines the famous Love Canal and similar Canadian cases. It argues that in spite of problems, the ‘environmental justice’ approach is important--particularly if combined with an ‘industrial ecology’ framework for industrial production. Fletcher finds similarities and differences in U.S. and Canadian toxic waste policy-making, and, for me, the book reinforced the notion that environmental issues are inherently embedded in social relations.

Charles L. Harper, Creighton University

Fletcher [offers] a first-rate study of the continuing complexities of hazardous waste management and facility siting. He very successfully uses comparative case study techniques involving subnational governments across a national boundary to show the universality of common problems. In turn, he outlines the beginning of a meaningful agenda to guide the next generation of thinking on this issue.

Barry Rabe, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor