Getting people involved

[Glenn Landers <glenn.landers@sierraclub.org>]

It seems to me that at least some of the discussion today relates to a later topic: assistance. 

We should probably distingish between the problem of identifying the interested public and getting them to show up. I would caution, for instance, that a story about the agency sending out two hundred notices to citizens without getting a single response does not necessary mean that the appropriate stakeholders were not identified. 

I hate to admit it, but I can also think of instances where myself or others have said, "how come I never heard about that", only to find the unopened notice on my messy desk or unread in my email inbox. Sometimes I've read the notice, but forgot about it, because I made an instant decision that participation was impractical. 

Most people I work with are completely overburdened because of a lack of resources. Often an "opportunity" to participate has to be turned down because there's no time. Other times, it's because I could never afford to do the research. (I can read somethings off the internet, but there's a limit to what my eyes will stand and printing hundreds of pages gets too expensive.)

I'm not suggesting that EPA can't do a better job of getting to the public, but I would say that this issue is closely related to the need for assistance and that we will never know if outreach activities are adequate as long as the public doesn't have the resources to participate.