When the EPA told people in Globe, Arizona, their soil was toxic and needed to be cleaned up, many residents responded in a surprising way: They denied there was a problem and complained that the government was causing unnecessary panic. And it turns out that response isn't unusual in places where Superfund cleanups have taken place.
Nichelle Frank is an assistant professor of US history at Utah State University, Eastern, where she studies the effects of the US Environmental and historic preservation movements on cultural landscapes in intermountain mining towns.
