Title Silent spill : the organization of an industrial crisis / Thomas D. Beamish

Published Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002

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Description 1 online resource (x, 220 pages) : illustrations Series Urban and industrial environments Urban and industrial environments. Contents 1. Oil History, Oil Production, and the Guadalupe Oil Spill -- 2. Conceptual Footings -- 3. A "Secret" Spill: When Routine Work Becomes Criminally Negligent -- 4. The Agency Beat: Waiting for a "Tanker on the Rocks" -- 5. A Local Focus: "The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back" -- 6. Staring Blindly at a Problem: Incrementalism and Accommodation -- App. A. Methodological Remarks -- App. B. Event Chronology of the Guadalupe Dunes Spill, 1931-1999 -- App. C. Regulators and Regulations Involved in the Guadalupe Spill Summary 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 Analysis ENVIRONMENT/General SOCIAL SCIENCES/Sociology Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-216) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Oil spills -- Environmental aspects -- California -- Guadalupe Region -- Public opinion Petroleum industry and trade -- Environmental aspects -- California -- Guadalupe Region -- Public opinion Pollution -- California -- Guadalupe Region -- Public opinion Public opinion -- California -- Guadalupe Region TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Environmental -- Pollution Control. Ecology -- Public opinion Pollution -- Public opinion Public opinion SUBJECT Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge (Calif.) -- Environmental conditions -- Public opinion Subject California -- Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge Form Electronic book ISBN 0585442568 9780585442563 0262267977 9780262267977 0262261707 9780262261708

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