Developing the Right Tools

[Helen P. Villasor <helen.villasor@srs.gov>]

As a public involvement specialist working for a contractor who supports a DOE site with a cleanup mission, I have seen firsthand how public participation can be successful.  A fundamental component to that success is a definitive public participation and communication plan of what an organization is attempting to accomplish.  This "blueprint" not only needs top-down management support, but also needs to include recommendations on how the organizations intends to:

Solicit the public's help in identifying problems and issues and the environmental, economic, social and cultural values that relate to those problems and issues.

Solicit the public's involvement in identifying a full range of alternative approaches for addressing those problems and issues, facilitating conflict resolution, and working toward the development of broad-based consensus, both on the organization's objectives and how to achieve those objectives.

Increasing public understanding of our complex environment, the legal, regulatory, political, technical, funding, and resource constraints our world faces, and the need to balance a variety of interest and considerations.

Coordinating, integrating and communicating information about an organization's public participation activities such that the public is not confronted with multiple, overlapping or disconnected participation opportunities.

Providing a range of an organization's public participation opportunities tailored to meet the needs and interests of various segments of the public.

Providing the public with timely feedback on how and why its input was or was not incorporated into the decision making.

Fulfilling the letter and spirit of legal, regulatory, negotiated, and policy requirements of legal processes such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Response Liability and Compensation Act (CERCLA), and in some cases, the Federal Facility Compliance Act (FFCA).