Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Living with chronic contamination: a comparative analysis of divergent psychosocial impacts

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Natural Hazards Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Scholarship on contaminated communities has highlighted how residents living with the reality of significant environmental hazards often experience similar negative psychosocial stressors. However, relatively less is known about the mitigating factors that can explain divergence in these impacts such as levels of community efficacy and empowerment. This is critical as insight into these dynamics can provide answers as to why certain communities maintain a sense of efficacy whereas others do not. To address this question, we conduct a comparative analysis of two heavily contaminated communities in Oklahoma and Colorado. Our data come from extensive fieldwork, including in-depth interviews (n = 105) and participant observation. Our findings revealed a set of similar psychosocial outcomes in the two communities, but we argue that specific revitalizing events in one community played a crucial role in sustaining residents’ feelings of empowerment and persistence. Our paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of our research for future work on contaminated communities, technological disasters, and citizen participation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2010) Health assessment for Lincoln Park/Cotter uranium mill. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/LincolnParkCotterUraniumMillPublicCommentPA9092010.pdf. Accessed 1 June 2018

  • Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2018) Public health assessment for Blackwell Zinc Smelter Site. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/BlackwellZinc/Blackwell_Zinc_PHA-508.pdf. Accessed 26 Aug 2019

  • Aldrich D, Meyer M (2014) Social capital and community resilience. Am Behav Sci 59(2):254–279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auyero J, Swistun D (2008) The social production of toxic uncertainty. Am Sociol Rev 73(3):357–379

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bad Water Tough on Families (1978) Rocky Mtn news. Denver, Colorado, p 1

  • Barnes G, Baxter J, Litva A, Staples B (2002) The social and psychological impact of the chemical contamination incident in Weston Village, UK: a qualitative analysis. Soc Sci Med 55:2227–2241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum A, Singer J, Baum C (1981) Stress and the environment. J Soc Issues 37(1):4–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cline R, Orom H, Chung J, Hernandez T (2014) The role of social toxicity in responses to a slowly-evolving environmental disaster: the case of amphibole asbestos exposure in Libby, Montana, USA. Am J Community Psychol 54(1):12–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colocousis C (2012) It was tourism repellent, that’s what we were spraying’: natural amenities, environmental stigma, and redevelopment in a postindustrial mill town. Soc Forum 27(3):756–776

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couch S (1996) Environmental contamination, community transformation and the centralia mine fire. In: Mitchell J (ed) The long road to recovery: community response to industrial disaster. United Nations University Press, Tokyo, pp 60–84

    Google Scholar 

  • Couch S, Coles C (2011) Community stress, psychosocial hazards, and EPA decision-making in communities impacted by chronic technological disasters. Am J Publ Health 101:S140–S148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couch S, Kroll-Smith S (1994) Environmental controversies, interactional resources, and rural communities: siting versus exposure disputes. Rural Sociol 59(1):25–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couch S, Kroll-Smith S, Wilson J (1997) Toxic contamination and alienation: community disorder and the individual. Res Community Soc 7:95–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Crighton E, Elliott S, van der Meer J, Small I, Upshur R (2003) Impacts of an environmental disaster on psychosocial health and well-being in Karakalpakstan. Soc Sci Med 56:551–567

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doug M (1979, May 21) Parents seek answers to suspicious growths. Cañon City Daily Record

  • Downey L, Van Willigen M (2005) Environmental stressors: the mental health impacts of living near industrial activity. J Health Soc Behav 46:289–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edelstein M (2018) Contaminated communities: coping with residential toxic exposure. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frankowski E (2002) Specialist says safety has always been priority at Cotter. Cañon City Daily Rec. http://www.timescall.cotter.cotter28.htm

  • Freudenburg W (1993) Risk and recreancy: weber, the division of labour, and the rationality of risk perceptions. Soc Forces 71(4):909–932

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freudenburg W (2000) The ‘risk society’ reconsidered: recreancy, the division of labour, and risks to the social fabric. In: Cohen M (ed) Risk in the modern age: social theory, science and environmental decision-making. St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp 107–122

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Freudenburg W, Pastor S (1992) Public responses to technological risks: toward a sociological perspective. Sociol Q 33(3):389–412

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gill D, Picou JS (1998) Technological disaster and chronic community stress. Soc Nat Resour 11:795–815

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gill D, Picou JS, Ritchie L (2012) The Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills: a comparison of initial social and psychological impacts. Am Behav Sci 56(1):3–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gill D, Ritchie L, Picou JS, Langhinrichsen-Rohling J, Long M, Shenesey J (2014) The Exxon and BP oil spills: a comparison of psychosocial impacts. Nat Hazards 74:1911–1932

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodson R (1999) Analyzing documentary accounts. Sage, California

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Krippendorff K (2004) Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology. Sage, California

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroll-Smith JS, Couch S (1991) As if exposure to toxins were not enough: the social and cultural system as a secondary stressor. Environ Perspect 95(1):61–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Little P (2012) Another angle on pollution experience: toward an anthropology of the emotional ecology of risk mitigation. Ethos 40(4):431–452

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mellor H, Russell M (2001) Uranium workers win radiation exposure suit: victory in Colorado comes after years of fighting gov’t lies. Militant 65(28). https://www.themilitant.com/2001/6528/652801.html. Accessed 1 June 2018

  • Norris F, Friedman M, Watson P (2002) 60,000 disaster victims speak: part II. Summary and implications of the disaster mental health research. Psychiatry Interpers Bio Process 65(3):240–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (1996) Record of decision. http://blackwelluncovered.com/uploads/210802.pdf

  • Petitions to Protest Alleged Air Pollution (1970, January 7) Cañon City Daily Record

  • Picou JS, Marshall B, Gill D (2004) Disaster, litigation, and the corrosive community. Soc Forces 82(4):1493–1522

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rich R, Edelstein M, Hallman Wandersman A (1995) Citizen participation and empowerment: the case of local environmental hazards. Am J Community Psychol 23(5):657–676

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ritchie L (2012) Individual stress, collective trauma, and social capital in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Sociol Inq 82(2):187–211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ritchie L, Gill D (2007) Social capital theory as an integrating theoretical framework in technological disaster research. Sociol Spectr 27(1):103–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ritchie L, Gill D, Farnham C (2012) Recreancy revisited: beliefs about institutional failure following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Soc Nat Resour 26(6):655–671

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shriver T, Kennedy D (2005) Contested environmental hazards and community conflict over relocation. Rural Sociol 70(4):491–513

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer M (2011) Down cancer alley: the lived experience of health and environmental suffering in Louisiana’s chemical corridor. Med Anthropol Q 25(2):141–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor SM, Elliott S, Eyles J, Frank J, Haight M, Streiner D, Walter S, White N, Willms D (1991) Psychosocial impacts in populations exposed to solid waste facilities. Soc Sci Med 33(4):441–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas MA (2003, March 26) Cotter history one of dishonesty. Cañon City Daily Record

  • Tracy E (2002, June 12) Cotter not a good corporate neighbor. Cañon City Daily Record

  • Zhuang J, Cox J, Cruz S, Dearing J, Hamm J, Upham B (2016) Environmental stigma. Am Behav Sci 60(11):1322–1341

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zielinski R, Chafin D, Banta E, Szabo B (1997) Use of 234U and 238U isotopes to evaluate contamination of near-surface groundwater with uranium-mill effluent: a case study in south-central Colorado, USA. Environ Geol 32:124–136

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Criminology and Anthropology, Colorado State University – Pueblo, 2200 Bonforte Blvd., Pueblo, CO, 81001-4901, USA

    Chris M. Messer

  2. School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0410, USA

    Alison E. Adams

  3. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8107, USA

    Thomas E. Shriver

Authors
  1. Chris M. Messer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alison E. Adams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Thomas E. Shriver
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris M. Messer.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Messer, C.M., Adams, A.E. & Shriver, T.E. Living with chronic contamination: a comparative analysis of divergent psychosocial impacts. Nat Hazards 99, 895–911 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03781-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03781-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation