[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The United Steelworkers' safety director, FrankBurke, blamed the zinc mill for fluoride and sulfur-gas pollution.Then itgot worse.The steel workers' representative pointed an accusing finger atthe medical experts from the Mellon Institute.Workers trusted neither theMellon Institute nor health officials from the Commonwealth ofPennsylvania to investigate the disaster, Burke announced.State healthauthorities had done nothing to protect Donora citizens, despite thirty yearsof lawsuits and complaints."This is worse than a catastrophe," Burke toldthe Donora Council."Twenty of your citizens are dead.Why weren'twashers used in the mill to strain poisons out of the air? We want the factsand we are going to get them."The president of Donora's Board of Health, Charles Stacy, agreed withBurke any state investigation of the smog would be " a whitewash." Stacycalled for an immediate federal investigation DONORA 125by the U.S.Public Health Service.Like many Americans, Donoraresidents had emerged from the Depression and World War II withrenewed faith in the power of the federal government and its ability toimprove living conditions.Initially, however, Washington pub-lic-health officials had seemed reluctant to get involved in Donora.Twice during the disaster weekend federal authorities had dismissedfrantic calls from Pennsylvania asking for government intervention.On Saturday evening, for example, the mayor of Donora, the badlyshaken August Chambon, had declared a state of emergency andcalled Washington for help.His own mother had been stricken.Afterreturning from shopping, she was discovered "lying on the floor, withher coat on, and a bag of cookies spilled all over beside her, gaspingfor breath and in terrible pain," newspapers reported.A quick federalresponse might have enabled authorities to measure the exact chemicalcontent of the air pollution or to draw timely blood samples.OnSunday, however, a second plea to Washington from the stateauthorities was rebuffed.But subdued Mellon officials soon saw a silver lining in the pro-posed federal inquiry.They faced a public-relations disaster.Anger inDonora and Webster glowed hot as molten steel.Daily press accountsof smog victims' funerals fanned public emotion.Each shovel of earththat fell on the lowered coffins was a drumbeat of accusation againstU.S.Steel.The first lawsuits against its subsidiary, American Steeland Wire, were already being composed.The stakes had suddenly become very high, industry saw.Suc-cessful lawsuits could prove crippling to many U.S.corporations,warned Alcoa's medical director, Dudley Irwin.He compared thedisaster's potential aftermath to the effects of the Gauley Bridgesili-cosis deaths in West Virginia during the early 19305."Therepercus sions of the Gauley Tunnel [sic] episode on silicosis probablywill be dwarfed by the effects of Donora on air pollution," Irwin toldthe powerful trade group known as the Manufacturing ChemistsAssociation, whose Air Pollution Abatement Committee gathered atthe Chemists Club in New York City on January 2, 1950, in theaftermath of the Donora disaster."The Donora incident has not onlymade the public air pollution-conscious and undulyapprehensive, but also it has advanced opinion with regard to the"imposition of restrictive measures by many years," said Irwin.Theoutcome of 126 CHAPTER NINEthe legal action arising from the Donora experience may set a pattern thatcould be followed in other areas."31Although the cards now seemed stacked against it, industry had an ace inthe hole: a friend in Washington.Only 170 miles from the grieving milltown, across the Allegheny Mountains in Washington, DC, the TrumanAdministration was basking in the sunny afterglow of the Novemberelection triumph.Plum jobs were going to those who had engineered theupset victory over the Republican Thomas Dewey.One of PresidentTruman's most trusted deputies and a key figure in the election victory wasfellow midwesterner Oscar R.Ewing.As acting chair of the DemocraticNational Committee, the Harvard-trained lawyer had raised millions ofdollars for the election campaign and had helped to craft the president'sfolksy media image of "just plain Harry."32 After the 1948 election OscarEwing was reinstalled as head of the giant Federal Security Agency (FSA),in charge of the U.S.Public Health Service.Ewing had a very private past.For two decades he had been a top WallStreet lawyer for Alcoa.He strolled to work at his offices on lowerBroadway in Manhattan swinging a leather briefcase embossed with the"gold letters One Wall Street." Inside were legal papers from thepowerhouse law firm of Hughes, Hubbard, and Ewing.The senior firmmember Charles Evans Hughes had been an Alcoa attorney since 1910.Hughes would subsequently be a Republican presidential candidate and aU.S.Supreme Court chief justice, while Oscar Ewing became one of themost powerful attorneys in America, earning a reported Depression-erasalary of $l00,000.33During the war Ewing had moved to Washington as Alcoa's top legalliaison with the federal government.34 A key wartime concern of thealuminum manufacturers was, of course, lawsuits from workers andcommunities for fluoride air-pollution damage to health and property.Oneof Ewing's legal friends was lawyer Frank Ingersoll, from the samePittsburgh firm as Frank Seamans, head of the Fluorine LawyersCommittee (see chapter 8).The old friends kept in touch with Ewing, even after he became a"Washington public servant.A Dear Jack" letter from Frank Ingersoll inJune 1947, for example, sought Ewing's help in getting a friend appointedto the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).35 "Dear Frank," Ewing responded,"I would be only too happy to help any- DONORA 127one in whom you, [Alcoa president] Roy Hunt and George Gibbons areinterested""In the grim days of early November 1948, Ewing's Public Health Servicenow echoed industry's response to the disaster.The same week of theDonora funerals, the U.S.Steel Corporation had taken out a newspaperadvertisement denying responsibility for the deaths."We are certain thatthe principal offender in the tragedy was the unprecedentedly heavy fogwhich blanketed the Borough for five days," the company wrote.That sameweek federal PHS official John Bloomfield also pinned responsibility onthe weather, telling newspapers the smog had been an "atmosphericfreak
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Tematy
IndexChristine Amsden [Cassie Scot Cassie Scot ParaNormal Detecti
Christine Wood [Life Plan 01] A Life Plan Without You (epub)
Christie Craig [Divorced, Des Divorced, Desperate
Moore Christopher Ssij, mała, ssij (II)
Christine Cody [Bloodlands 01 Bloodlands (epub)
Christina Ross [Unleash Me, A Unleash Me, Vol 3 (epub)
Christian Fletcher [The Left Left on the Brink (epub)
Stasheff, Christopher Wizard in Rhyme 6 Haunted Wizard
Christopher G Nuttall [Royal The Royal Sorceress (epub)
Christine Feehan Mroczna Seri Mroczny Demon