Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act was a landmark in the growing federal response to air pollution, but its significance in Douglas, Arizona, is inseparable from the economic consequences of enforcing cleaner-air standards. The town’s copper smelter continued operating for years amid mounting concern about pollution; when the Environmental Protection Agency eventually ordered emissions controls, its owner chose closure instead of making the required investment.

Legislative Background

During the second half of the twentieth century, Americans grew increasingly aware of the health and environmental dangers created by air pollution. In 1955, legislators funded research into the problem, a development that led to the Clean Air Act of 1963 and subsequent extensions. The law’s historical role in the book is presented through this widening effort to address pollution and the industrial emissions that could threaten communities.

Douglas and the Smelter

Founded in 1901 as a center for smelting ore from nearby copper mines, Douglas prospered around its industrial base. The Phelps Dodge Corporation’s Douglas Reduction Works nevertheless managed to skirt new federal standards until the 1980s. By then, the plant had become the largest sulfur dioxide emitter in American manufacturing, releasing about 950 tons of the pollutant each day. The smoke contributed to acid rain, and its effects were apparent locally: one doctor stopped encouraging patients to exercise because of the risks of heavy breathing, while a nearby Bisbee coffee shop owner described the air’s impact on his lungs.

Enforcement and Consequences

The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Phelps Dodge to install emissions controls at a cost of half a billion dollars. The company shut down the smelter rather than install them. In mid-January 1987, four workers poured the last batch of copper, and exhaust stopped rising from the smokestacks. The haze over the valley dissipated, ending an environmental burden, but the closure also removed 347 jobs and $10 million in payroll—about a quarter of Douglas’s local economy. Residents’ anger over those losses underscored the conflict at the center of the law’s local history: reducing harmful pollution brought visible relief, while the industrial transition imposed an immediate and substantial cost on the town.