Outreach & proposed rules

[Anne Pamperl <anne.pamperl@hhss.state.ne.us>]

Sometimes the stakeholders are identified by EPA but next to nothing is done to actually reach out to these folks. For example, 19 April 2000 EPA issued a Notice of Data Availability for a new radionuclide rule in the Federal Register. EPA correctly identified residents of small communities as those that would be most impacted by a new rule. To the best of my knowledge no effort beyond publication in the Federal Register was made by EPA to publicize this NODA, which by the way was actually proposed revisions to the 1991 proposed radionuclide rule (tough to discern this from the name), to members of small communities. The State made an effort to get the word out via letters to all community water systems in Nebraska and presentations at meetings, but our efforts were limited by a 60-day comment period & our need to prepare detailed comments.  We did some outreach prior to receiving the NODA but were limited as to what we could do because we weren't able to find out exactly what the NODA said until it was published.

The new radionuclide rule for drinking water became final on 7 Dec 2000. I've attended one public meeting already where the attendees were angry that they didn't even know about this new drinking water rule until after it became final. In every instance, the speaker told me that he or she wasn't angry with me (State representative & messenger) but with EPA. They believed that EPA should have let them know that this rule was coming so that they could have commented.

I know that the EPA rule writers are working under tight deadlines, in this case a court-ordered deadline, but involvement of the public prior to publishing the NODA (by the way, a different and more descriptive name for this type of document would be greatly appreciated) would have been beneficial. Our State would have been happy to help EPA with public outreach above and beyond what we were able to do if we'd been given adequate time.

One point I'd like to make - I've noticed in the past when I worked in the State Superfund Section and again now that I'm in the State Drinking Water Program that most people that I talk to view the EPA as a single entity rather than as separate branches.  That means that if one branch upsets the public and loses their trust, this lack of trust is then applied to any other branch of EPA.  Therefore, it's important that a means of communicating with the public for all issues - drinking water, Superfund, etc. - be devised and used by all EPA branches.