The ongoing battle between environmental interests and business—her business—had become an embarrassment. She hadn’t even known there were environmentalists in Sullivan before the paper-borne tirade had begun, about a year back. It had started with a letter about dumping of industrial waste in the local watershed, and gone on from there to veiled and then not-so-veiled suggestions of guilt. Customers were asking pointed questions about whether the allegations against Gilbreth concerning dumping and toxic waste were true. This wasn’t national politics, where the querists were reporters she’d never see again who could be put off with a press release from one of her assistants. She was forced to make expensive changes in her business practices, though she could hardly spare it from her campaign. She had won the nomination for Representative, but it would take careful management and a lot of fundraising to see her all the way through the November election. There was a chronic shortage of donations for the smaller candidacies.
