Victor Yannacone

DDT

Yannacone's involvement with DDT began around 1965, when his wife Carol expressed dismay at dead fish in Yaphank Ponds, her childhood swimming holes in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Yannacone, as reported in the Ann Arbor News on March 11, 1970, at the University of Michigan Crisler Auditorium, "outlined his concerns with the environment as an offshoot of his work as a civil rights lawyer under Saul Alinsky". The young attorney developed some novel arguments and legal strategies, as well as spearheading a national publicity campaign, all leading to major court cases and the eventual United States ban on the pesticide's use. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) grew out the small local grassroots group that gathered to help organize the campaign, which included founders Art Cooley and Charles Wurster.

A similar effort in Nassau County about a decade earlier involved citizens and scientists who suspected a connection between widespread DDT use and rapidly declining bird life. Although they were unable to inspire any governmental action, their efforts (reported in The New York Times) interested the naturalist author Rachel Carson. She suggested to The New Yorker editor William Shawn that he commission an in-depth piece on the subject, and she reluctantly accepted his request that she do it herself. The result was Silent Spring, a bestseller that produced a fierce response from the chemical industry. It was this well-funded and determined opposition that the nascent EDF had to overcome.

Yannacone's involvement in the Agent Orange issue was not an unqualified success, largely due to internal personality conflicts, and he left the campaign before its work was completed. His representation of a community group fighting to stop construction of a large tower at the Gettysburg Battlefield ran into even more controversy, when he accepted an offer to switch sides. The Gettysburg National Tower, as it was called, was built in 1974. Historic preservationists remained opposed to it and it was demolished in a public ceremony on July 3, 2000.

In 1979, prior to his involvement in the Agent Orange class action, Yannacone represented Linda Boreman, known by her screen name as Linda Lovelace, in a lawsuit to recover a portion of the substantial earnings of the film "Deep Throat". The lawsuit, brought in Nassau County, New York, was dismissed without a trial and was never appealed. Yannacone is a prominent figure in Boreman's 1986 autobiography "Out of Bondage".

Yannacone's work in the DDT case, and perhaps in the early phases of the Agent Orange case as well, remain among the more notable campaigns in the short history of environmental law — a history that some say began in Yaphank in 1966.

Yannacone reentered environmental law in 2003, representing a group opposed to wind turbines in Kansas. The suit was unsuccessful and came at a time when renewable energy was heavily promoted.

Patchogue Village controversy

Around 1999, Yannacone became immersed in Patchogue Village politics, and in efforts to revive the fortunes of this fading commercial town on Long Island's Great South Bay. His party won, and the picturesque, but hazardous remains of a large historic lace mill were soon demolished. This was said to be a giant step forward in the community's revitalization.

Yannacone's involvement in Patchogue Village politics also led him to a bitter fight with local teachers in the Patchogue-Medford School District over the issue of teacher tenure. Yannacone's position gave him some notoriety in the mainstream media when he was prominently featured on the ABC-TV series 20/20 in a report about teacher tenure.