Your absolutely right about realistic goals. And, don't mean to suggest that permits be an exclusive focus.
But, one reason I'm so enthusiastic about permits, at least air permits, is that they are such a good organizing tool.
Almost everyone lives near some facility that will need a Title V permit. When that permit comes up, it provides a perfect reason to educate and involve the community. In the process, you can start familiarizing people with other aspects of air issues - new source review gets introduced because of construction permit terms get rolled into the Title V permit, enforcement gets talked about because compliance information must be in the Title V. If you're in an EJ area, you might learn about EJ issues to to challenge the permit after issuance, arguing for better monitoring requirements than what the agency provided.
After the comment period ends, you figure out the next steps.
And, throughout the process, you still use all the other organizing tools available to you. These should, in fact, compliment each other. The permit organizing work you do is newsworthy, and the newspapers that cover it will help the permitting agencies decide to pay some attention to what you have to say about the permit.
On the water side of things, I'm less sure of myself. There must be some good opportunties in some areas. I've had some folks within a state agency suggest to me that the kind of work I do would be very useful on wetlands permits. I think there is federal oversight on NPDES permits, but I not familiar with how it works.
But, to get back to libraries, I'd love to see libraries take on the role of information provider about public participation opportunities. Depending on the resources available at the library, I'd like to see a display and work area that has information about agency actions that affect the local area, as well as access to databases and information resources that will allow citizens to effectively participate. I think most libraries already have meeting rooms that groups can use. I don't know if they do this or not, but libraries could also allow groups to keep documents that a group provides in a kind of information repository, the same way they keep a file on a permit on behalf of a state or federal agency. I'd also like to see libraries have some kind of print-on-demand capability, so that documents available online can be printed out and cheaply bound, if needed.
Finally, I think it would be great if libraries can have some training of staff to help point point people in the right direction or can quickly research the question. they don't have to take a position on an issue, just help identify the information resources. Sooner or later, I'm bound to be in a situation where I have to learn about those water permits, and I sure don't want to have to go through the same steep learning curve I went through to learn about air.
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