2-way communication - building trust

[Myra Immings <myra.immings@fta.dot.gov>]

Several participants have aptly mentioned the necessities of building trust, listening to communities with a culturally-sensitive ear, and including environmental justice-protected miniority and low-income groups in our public involvement efforts.  It seems to me that the public involvement policy could be strengthened by including a training component concentrating on environmental education tailored to specific groups and offered in a neutral frame of reference--that is to say general and basic in nature, and unrelated to a contentious issues.  

Training programs could be developed with input from the communities centering on local environmental features, addressing cultural values and could be delivered in languages and to  groups determined by the communities' preferences. (Example:  discussion of the dynamics of cap rock aquifer and its effect on water resource preservation as land is develped in Hawaii, keyed to Polynesian cultural values, delivered in lay terminology at schools, for civic and cultural interest groups, and in articles for both general publication and in ethnic publications.)  

By getting out into the public under the agency aegis to provide basic information while demonstrating cultural respect and inclusion before a contentious situation becomes the issue, EPA can garner trust and residual support we from the ej-communities when the chips are down. I realize that this "bread on the waters" is expensive, yet I believe it tends to pay for itself in short order.  Public familiarity witht he agency in the role of service provier, and environmental education need to be bigger pieces of the charter.