And who will INVOLVE the community, said the Little Red Hen?

According to Roseland, a collaborative process is a better alternative to the traditional DEAD approach (Decide, Educate, Announce, Defend) because it draws in the community and other potentially-impacted stakeholders early on in the decision making process (190). Collaboration is “…based on the democratic maxim that those affected by a decision should participate directly in the decision-making process” (Roseland 191). It involves actively planning with stakeholders, not for them (Roseland 191).

The advantages to shared decision-making include:

• More intelligent decisions b/c it incorporates best thinking of everyone
• Keeps people from getting into adversarial attitudes
• Increases likelihood of new/better ideas being thought up
• Everyone has a stake in implementing a decision b/c all have participated in its formation
• Lessens possibility that a minority will feel that an unacceptable decision has been imposed on them
• Each participant has an effective veto – levels playing field, creates equal authority in decision (Roseland 191-192).

Canadian Env. Assessment Agency (www.ceaa.gc.ca)

Okay, we’re sold on the concept. How do we do it?

The EPA website has a dizzying array of collaborative problem solving methods, public participation planning guides, and consensus building tools for environmental managers/public officials.

There is also SMARTe, a state/federal/international partnership to develop tools for community involvement in site revitalization (i.e. hazardous waste, toxic cleanup projects). And even IDEM has the CLEAN Community Challenge to help communities create and 

implement sustainable development plans.

Plenty of information exists for citizens too. Just one of the many user-friendly sites is the MyEnvironment website, where a citizen can enter their address and find out information for local air, water, and land quality; health hazards; energy production/savings methods; published reports; and opportunities for community connections. They even have a “Shout Outs” section to post environmental events happening in your area. It also connects the user to the MyEnvironment EPA blog and the official EPA blog, Greenversations.

However, based on citizens’ preferences (NOT managers and officials), is the internet the best venue to inform/communicate with people about environmental issues? I wonder…

I found a great article published by the EPA and Forest Service with results from an 8-year project evaluating the EPA’s Superfund community involvement program. From their many surveys, focus groups, and telephone interviews they gained some pretty telling insights about how people like to receive information:

• A majority of respondents, averaging 74%, prefer site cleanup information to come from the EPA directly. This means people find information from the EPA credible, an important characteristic in the stakeholder communication process.
• Sadly, only 44% of respondents reported actually receiving information from the EPA; the majority (average 78%) got their information from the media, especially newspapers! What a lost opportunity for community building between government agencies and citizens.
• Surprise! The preferred method of communication in ALL survey result categories was a mailing list, and a majority reported that radio, TV, and newspaper sources were NOT preferred.
• Web sites were preferred for less than 10% of respondents (Charnley and Engelbert 172).

What really counts in this study is the following (fairly obvious) finding: “An important pattern that appears…is that respondents who felt informed about the cleanup effort also appeared to have a positive view of EPA's effectiveness in cleaning up a site” (Charnley and Englebert 173). Citizens like to be informed, they like it to come from a credible source, they don’t want it second-hand from the media, and they’re not thrilled with the internet.

As environmental managers/public officials, we have research telling us how people like to get their information; access to all these tools for successful communication with stakeholders; and a few laws that kind of force us to get input from the public. But who is best for facilitating collaboration? They have to (1) be credible, (2) be physically accessible to both inform stakeholders and receive their input, and (3) have some level of authority to carry out any agreements reached via the collaboration process.

My vote is for local government (and no, there wasn’t any consensus on this one). Roseland lays it out pretty nicely. He writes that local governments can be great potential catalysts for sustainable development through the collaboration process because they:

• Are closest to communities
• Build/maintain infrastructure, set standards, regulations, taxes, and fees
• Can influence markets for goods and services (Roseland 193).

BUT as we all know (including Roseland), local governments are generally not rolling in dough. “Policy statements supporting stakeholder participation are inadequate, however, if they are not backed by sufficient resources, staff, and commitment to implement meaningful participation” (Roseland 191). This is where the need for citizen organizations comes in because of limited resources (staff, money, time, political will), and an array of other advantages:

• Provide innovative concepts
• “Furnish whole new paradigms for problem definition”
• Organize information laterally
• Can network across jurisdictions and sectors (public, private, government, corporate, NGOs) (Roseland 194).

Policies, laws, and important resources (i.e. money) often come from the national and regional levels. But when it comes to community/stakeholder involvement it seems like local governments – in coordination with citizen organizations – might be the best option in terms of individualized service.

But I could be wrong! In the study done by Charnley and Engelbert, respondents said they like to get information from the EPA directly, but didn’t specify which level (national, regional, representative state agencies). Maybe the local government doesn’t have the same measure of perceived expertise. Or perhaps people would be concerned with local politics getting in the way of candid discussions. Regardless of who facilitates collaboration, it is imperative to accept and include the public as a legitimate partner, listen to their concerns, and be honest and open throughout the entire process. Or you could just blow it off altogether...