Evaluation Processes

[Marilyn Null <marilyn.null@pentagon.af.mil>]

Sometime back in my career, I provided recommendations on a 3-tiered approach to evaluation of EPA's Superfund community involvement based on then-Administrator Riley's 90-day study to improve the overall Superfund program.  Those recommendations, I believe, are relevant today:

1. Develop a baseline (someone else mentioned that earlier):  for the Superfund program; I recommended we research Administrative Records and Records of Decision to determine what, if any, documentation existed on opportunities provided and how public input impacted decisions.

2. Implement a feedback process for the Agency to call or otherwise contact a random sample of participants shortly after any given event (meeting, receipt of fact sheet, etc.) to ask if that participant's needs had been met and how the Agency might improve the process in order to better meet those needs.

3.  Document the numbers of specific public participation events in order to report within the system.

Obviously, the first two recommendations were the most important.  In Region VIII, I insisted that the Record of Decision contain a full account of the public participation process and how it impacted decisions.  

In my opinion, the evaluation of a public participation process needs to include an accounting of the opportunities for input and an accounting of what the Agency does with that input.

mn