Ducktown Smoke

The Fight over One of the South's Greatest Environmental Disasters

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Law, Legal History, Science & Nature, Science, Biological Sciences, Environmental Science, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Ducktown Smoke by Duncan Maysilles, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Duncan Maysilles ISBN: 9780807877937
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: May 30, 2011
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Duncan Maysilles
ISBN: 9780807877937
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: May 30, 2011
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

It is hard to make a desert in a place that receives sixty inches of rain each year. But after decades of copper mining, all that remained of the old hardwood forests in the Ducktown Mining District of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was a fifty-square mile barren expanse of heavily gullied red hills--a landscape created by sulfur dioxide smoke from copper smelting and destructive logging practices. In Ducktown Smoke, Duncan Maysilles examines this environmental disaster, one of the worst the South has experienced, and its impact on environmental law and Appalachian conservation.

Beginning in 1896, the widening destruction wrought in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina by Ducktown copper mining spawned hundreds of private lawsuits, culminating in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., the U.S. Supreme Court's first air pollution case. In its 1907 decision, the Court recognized for the first time the sovereign right of individual states to protect their natural resources from transborder pollution, a foundational opinion in the formation of American environmental law. Maysilles reveals how the Supreme Court case brought together the disparate forces of agrarian populism, industrial logging, and the forest conservation movement to set a legal precedent that remains relevant in environmental law today.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

It is hard to make a desert in a place that receives sixty inches of rain each year. But after decades of copper mining, all that remained of the old hardwood forests in the Ducktown Mining District of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was a fifty-square mile barren expanse of heavily gullied red hills--a landscape created by sulfur dioxide smoke from copper smelting and destructive logging practices. In Ducktown Smoke, Duncan Maysilles examines this environmental disaster, one of the worst the South has experienced, and its impact on environmental law and Appalachian conservation.

Beginning in 1896, the widening destruction wrought in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina by Ducktown copper mining spawned hundreds of private lawsuits, culminating in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., the U.S. Supreme Court's first air pollution case. In its 1907 decision, the Court recognized for the first time the sovereign right of individual states to protect their natural resources from transborder pollution, a foundational opinion in the formation of American environmental law. Maysilles reveals how the Supreme Court case brought together the disparate forces of agrarian populism, industrial logging, and the forest conservation movement to set a legal precedent that remains relevant in environmental law today.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Search for Security by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Crafting Lives by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book River of Death--The Chickamauga Campaign by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Science and Ethical Values by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book A Tree Accurst by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book The Deepest Wounds by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book The Imagined Civil War by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book The Senator and the Sharecropper by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Builders of Empire by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book The Jeanes Teacher in the United States, 1908-1933 by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Engines of Innovation by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Gulf Stream Chronicles by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Revolution within the Revolution by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898 by Duncan Maysilles
Cover of the book Southeastern Geographer by Duncan Maysilles
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy