Forceful Civil Disobedience’: Anti-Government Extremists and the EPA Collide in a Small Montana Town at the End of the Twentieth Century

• In Event: Extraction, Extremism, and the Environment: Using Land the (Far) Right Way

Abstract

In April 2000, two brothers in Libby, Montana, Scott and DC Orr, planned an anti-government rally to protest the regulatory control exerted over nearby Kootenai National Forest by the federal government in land-use decisions. The event, touted as a “forceful disobedience rally” included a parade and demonstrations against the federal government. The Orrs expected three thousand frustrated Americans to attend their “War on the West” demonstration and protest government tyranny. The rally, however, was canceled at the last minute because Libby was dealing with a public health and environmental catastrophe: in 1999, news had broken nationally that decades of mining and processing in the town had released vermiculite dust into the air which contained asbestos fibers. Residents had been breathing in toxic dust for decades and thousands of current and former residents were suffering from asbestos-related diseases and cancers. As the asbestos contamination came to light, local government officials and many residents realized that only one program was large enough to respond to what the EPA deemed the worst case of industrial poisoning of a whole community in American history – Superfund. This paper explores the rise of anti-government sentiment in Libby in the 1980s and 1990s and how residents balanced their anger at the government for environmental policies and regulations with their need for federal assistance.

Author

• Jen Dunn, Montana State University