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This paper’s field of study falls into the cross section of geology and fire science, history, social conflict, public service ethics, and collaborative failures. I explore how a series of small choices snowballed into a full, government funded relocation effort after attempts at controlling the anthracite coal seam fire failed. Geology and fire science worked in tandem during the mine fire, influencing each other and complicating the firefighting efforts. The fire itself was a unique challenge. The history of Centralia played a large role in the government and community response efforts. I use the borough and regional history to contextualize the social conflict that divided Centralia. Social conflict impaired the community’s ability to unify and form a therapeutic community, and in turn, it damaged community-government relationships. The government agencies involved in the mine fire response did their own damage to community relationships by pursuing their own interests. Agencies worried about their brand image, and politicians worried about re-election. I study how these ethical failures impacted the situation. Finally, I look at a few examples of collaborative failures on behalf of the government and the community. Over the course of my research, it became apparent the people killed Centralia, not the fire.
This study examined crayfish diet within varying hydrologic environment in lotic systems using stable isotope analysis of crayfish and basal resources to add depth to previous findings. Crayfish are numerous and are omnivorous, opportunistic feeders, feeding on invertebrates, vegetation and detritus. Arizona streams stand apart from the Eastern and Northwestern aquatic ecosystems of the United States because Arizona has no native crayfish species. Two species have been introduced and become widely established in Arizona (Orconectes virilis and Procambarus clarkii), with concern for further introduction of crayfish species and more information on how these two species impact the native species in the streams is needed. Previous studies have focused on crayfish abundance with hydrologic variation and crayfish diets within a lentic system, but few have focused on how the diet of consumers varies with hydrologic variability. Crayfish are hardy and have a dramatically increasing population within Arizona and therefore inhabit systems with a wide range of hydrologic variability which may contribute to spatial variability. The results show that crayfish diets do show a significant level of seasonal variation in some study locations, in both C source and trophic level. Hydrologic variation was also shown to impact crayfish diet at several study sites, with increasing magnitude of event (both floods and droughts) correlating with a change toward more aquatic C sources and lower trophic position in several of the study sites. In some locations, the correlation was not as strong with variation and diet change and showed less change in C source and rather showed an increase in trophic position.