Doctoral Dissertation Research: Reflection, Refraction, and Rejection: Copper Smelting Heritage and the Execution of Environmental Policy

铜冶炼为探讨环境修复与工业遗址历史文献和保护之间的冲突提供了一个理想的场所。铜冶炼厂是通信和电气化革命的关键技术组成部分，但自1980年《综合环境响应、赔偿和责任法案》（Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act）通过以来，它们也承担了一些规模最大、成本最高的超级基金清理工作。在探索了美国铜冶炼的环境和技术历史的历史背景后，这个由科学、技术和社会计划资助的项目通过对几个历史悠久的铜冶炼遗址的比较研究，揭示了环境修复和历史保护之间的冲突。这种冲突通常会导致相互冲突的处理建议和国家工业遗产关键要素的丧失。这个项目的知识价值来自于它对多个地点的比较遗产和环境政策实施问题的关注，这些地点既产生了历史价值，也产生了污染。虽然以前的学者研究了铜工业历史的一般经济，采矿，社会和环境方面，但很少有人将他们的研究放在国家工业遗产重要元素的破坏（违反1966年的国家历史保护法）或与环境法规相冲突的背景下。本项目旨在了解遗产利益与环境法规之间的复杂关系，以及两者碰撞时影响结果的因素。该项目更广泛的影响是重大的。首先，该项目是跨学科的，因为它研究了当联邦政府在遗产保护和环境修复领域的授权发生冲突时，不是一个学科，而是多个学科的结果如何相互作用。了解这种冲突对未来重要工业遗址的环境修复项目具有广泛的意义。其次，该项目在学术研究和公共领域的专业实践之间架起了桥梁。从本质上讲，它试图利用技术历史和环境政策/历史的学术研究，作为理解和分析公众关注的两个关键领域——遗产保护和环境修复——如何在多个地点发生冲突并得到解决的基础，以及如何在未来更好地解决遗产与环境之间的冲突。

Copper smelting provides an ideal venue in which to explore the conflict between environmental remediation and industrial-site historic documentation and preservation. Copper smelters were key technological components in the communication and electrification revolutions, but they have also been responsible for some of the largest and most expensive Superfund clean-ups since the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act was passed in 1980. After exploring the environmental and technological histories of copper smelting in the United States for historical context, this project funded by the Science, Technology, & Society Program uses a comparative study of several historic copper smelting sites to shed light on the conflict between environmental remediation and historic preservation. This conflict generally results in conflicting treatment recommendations and the loss of key elements of the nation's industrial heritage.This project's intellectual merit derives from its focus on comparative heritage and environmental policy implementation issues at multiple sites for the operation of an industrial process that has produced both historic value and contamination. While previous scholars have studied the general economic, mining, social, and environmental aspects of the copper industry's history, very few have placed their studies in the context of the destruction of significant elements of the nation's industrial heritage (in violation of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966) or conflict with environmental regulation. This project seeks to understand the complex relationships between heritage interests and environmental regulation and the factors that influence the outcome when the two collide.The project's broader impacts are significant. First, the project is interdisciplinary in that it studies how the results of not one, but multiple disciplines interact when conflict occurs between Federal mandates in the areas of heritage preservation and environmental remediation. Understanding this conflict has broad implications for future environmental remediation projects at significant industrial heritage sites. Second, the project bridges the gap between academic studies and professional practice in the public realm. Essentially, it seeks to use the academic study of the history of technology and environmental policy/history, as a foundation for understanding and analyzing how two key areas of public concern -- heritage preservation and environmental remediation -- have come into conflict and been addressed in multiple locations and, perhaps, how the conflict between heritage and the environment could be better addressed in the future.