RE: Conventional wisdom

[Connie Tucker <socejp@igc.org>]

This point has often been made while we are busy at work at EPA meetings/fora.  We are network of impacted community groups and what we have done to avoid the trap that you well describe is to have our own goals and objectives.  Although we have a long way to go, we see the fruition of those efforts in dialogue and actions from Region 4 EPA employees who have finally got it, folks like Betty Winter, Cythia Perefou and numerous managers and middle staff now committed to environmental justice.  We have come a long way from the time that EPA came into our communities and did what they wanted with local government and corporate offenders with out a word to us.  Public participation has long been talked about regarding EJ communuities with first direction coming from the NEJAC, much has followed, but more important, much has changed in how epa field folks deal with EJ communities.  We need to identify the models that impacted communities find successful, not those the EPA deem successful and use them as models, communities like Spartanburg, SC and Anniston, AL.  While I want to give credit where credit is due I don't want to give the impression that we do not have problems, we have plenty and many are beyond the EPA.  But we are not having that discussion now, we want EPA to have a successful public involvement and participation policy that empowers impacted people to make life impacting decisions.