Gregory S. Wilson, "Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy" (U Georgia Press, 2023)

Dec 7, 2025

Gregory S. Wilson, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Akron, dives into the gripping tale of the Kepone disaster in Virginia. He shares how personal ties to the James River fueled his research on this toxic tragedy. Wilson highlights the intertwining of corporate negligence, environmental impact, and regulatory failures. He also explores the human cost of the disaster through worker stories and legal battles while discussing the broader implications for environmental management and the persistent legacy of Kepone.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

River As Central Actor

The James River and its ecology shaped Hopewell's economy, culture, and identity for decades.
Gregory S. Wilson uses ecological history to show why the river mattered beyond commerce.

ANECDOTE

Author's Personal Connection

Wilson moved to the area at age nine and remembers Kepone stories from childhood.
He fished locally and the river formed part of his everyday experience growing up.

INSIGHT

Historicizing Scientific Knowledge

Environmental history should historicize biological science and its assumptions.
Wilson traces how scientists' data and tests shaped understanding of Kepone in the 1960s–70s.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In 1975 workers at Life Science Products, a small makeshift pesticide factory in Hopewell, Virginia, became ill after exposure to Kepone, the brand name for the pesticide chlordecone. They made the poison under contract for a much larger Hopewell company, Allied Chemical. Life Science workers had been breathing in the dust for more than a year. Ingestion of the chemical made their bodies seize and shake. News of ill workers eventually led to the discovery of widespread environmental contamination of the nearby James River and the landscape of the small, working-class city. Not only had Life Science dumped the chemical, but so had Allied when the company manufactured it in the 1960s and early 1970s. The resulting toxic impact was not only on the city of Hopewell but also on the faraway fields where Kepone was used as an insecticide.
Aspects of this environmental tragedy are all too common: corporate avarice, ignorance, and regulatory failure combined with race and geography to determine toxicity and shape the response. But the Kepone story also contains some surprising medical, legal, and political moments amid the disaster. With Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy (U Georgia Press, 2023) Gregory S. Wilson explores the conditions that put the Kepone factory and the workers there in the first place and the effects of the poison on the people and natural world long after 1975. Although the manufacture and use of Kepone is now banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, organochlorines have long half-lives, and these toxic compounds and their residues still remain in the environment.

Matthew Powell is a doctoral student studying history at the University of Georgia. He focuses on the intersection of environmental and labor history, looking at how workers understand the natural world around them.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network