Facilitating Local Solutions Effectively by EPA

[Charlie Atherton <charlie@structurex.net>]

For EPA to help facilitate local solutions, EPA must identify one to three credible, knowledgable, real residents living in the affected area and encourage, help, and support these people to form a citizen commitee. These residents can guide EPA through the local government level of interest and give EPA the history and background of the local environmental issue.

It is critical that EPA identify and provide free of charge(TAG?) a competent, credible, person that the residents and members trust, that can provide technical assistance and advise to the group. This technical assistance is the cornerstone of the committee. This person may not even be a local person.

EPA should stay away from national or international groups claiming to represent the "impacted" residents. EPA should only make decisions based on REAL residents input. 

Remember if EPA does it's job correctly and properly, then these national or international groups don't have a job.

EPA should help the residents to form the committee and decide who the committee members are. With proper EPA encouragement, residents will identify stakeholder that represent a broad cross section of the community as members that can work together. EPA should be resource members, not consensus members, and encourage the state and other agencies to also participaate as resource members. 

Committee meetings should be open public meetings run by a local credible resident facilitator that has the integrity and respect to run the meeting. This facilitator's station in life may be a school janitor, sanitation worker, lawyer, doctor, white collar, blue collar, or have no collar... just have community respect to be fair and honest to provide a level playing field for the meeting.  EPA should work closely with this facilitator until both have a comfort level.

EPA Region top decision makers should attend these meetings and provide to residents and members a timely communications mechanism to and from the residents.

EPA will have to stay in constant contact with real residents and fully support the committee meetings by providing members with free technical assistance, free information, free education, toll free phones to the agencies, and agree to meet with the residents alone to discuss issues (even teleconference), when residents feel it is necessary.

Meetings should provide an agenda agreed to by real residents and members, and for an open public microphone after each agenda item (before the committee itself actually takes action on the agenda item) for the public to make comments, ask questions and get answers. This is very important as each person who attends the meeting comes there to participate in some fashion.

At the end of the meeting there should again be an open public microphone for public to make comments, ask any questions, and get answers about any issue they want to talk about that was not on the original agenda.

Charlie Atherton