United States 1980 Environmental Protection SWB36 Agency Solid Waste &EPA Public Understanding and Involvement- The Key to Environmental Protection ------- PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING AND INVOLVEMENT— THE KEY TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Thomas F. Williams* L In the middle 1960s, when the original solid waste and resource recov- ery legislation was passed, the public's rising anxiety about environmental problems that our society had overlooked during two centuries of economic growth was accompanied by two illusions that it has not been easy to dispel. The first of these was that science could magically produce a quick solution to almost any problem; and the second, that government alone could readily work out the means of applying the solution. Under these principles, newly discerned environmental problems could be solved while everyone went on pursuing business as usual. As we have painfully learned since that time, progress depends upon the abandonment of such illusions and acceptance of the fact that solving environmental problems necessarily interferes with business as usual. Congress has acknowl- edged the fading of these illusions by placing specific provisions for public participation in the major environmental and consumer laws which have been created or amended in the last 10 years. *Deputy Director, Office of Public Awareness, U.S. Environmental Protec- tion Agency. Presented September 12, 1979, at a conference sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology, Solid Waste Manage- ment Division, Little Rock, September 1979. ------- Built on the firm base of the Nation- al Environmental Policy Act, created at the dawn of this decade, these laws and amendments have made for revolu- tionary changes in the way our society operates. We can no longer randomly build airports, highways, or power plants, dam rivers, market or dispose of any chemical concoction anyway we please while a quiet, trusting, and docile public sits on the sidelines and leaves it all to the experts. The trend toward making our institu- tions more responsive to the public will has placed special communications responsibilities on government agencies. Unless these responsibilities are taken seriously, meaningful public participa- tion will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. This extremely serious matter has not received enough attention at any level of government or in any branch of government. It is the responsi- bility of agency managers to ensure that the public has access to the scientif- ic and economic information on which agency decisions and actions are based. Since agencies cannot expect the public to read every pertinent and voluminous technical report published, agencies have an obligation to communicate the essence of complex issues in such a way that the voting public will under- stand them as well as the experts do. To carry out this objective, agencies must communicate in a variety of ways. Computer printouts may be precisely what the nuclear scientist needs, but the worker in the generating plant and the citizen who lives nearby need to be informed also. In an open process of assessing technology, each has one vote. For the process to work, those who are employed in government agen- cies must regard the public with the ------- same respect that the authors of the Constitution had in mind. We must all be aware that our audience consists of environmental, industrial, health, trade, civic, and service groups; ethnic minorities; rural and urban people; young and old people, whose priorities and values vary greatly. We must strive to communicate what we know openly and consistently, in such a way that everyone receives in essence the same message. To do so, we must all understand that what we communi- cate, to whom we communicate it, and how we communicate it are inextri- cably linked—and that accurate informa- tion poorly communicated can be just as misleading as inaccurate information effectively communicated. Those within agencies who are responsible for conducting research and carrying out technical assistance, enforcement, or other traditional "line" responsibilities must learn that inform- ing and involving the public is one of the agency's major responsibilities, and hence one of theirs. The alternative is to play into the hands of those who view the public as a vague, primitive force, susceptible to infinite manipula- tion and deception—those who distort issues, conceal facts, and smooth over all difficulties with superficial public relations double talk. The communications responsibilities which face government agencies are extremely challenging. We cannot, or should not, employ the techniques often used in commercial advertising where very compelling psychological legerdemain is placed at the service of those who want the consuming public to see a particular thing in a particular preconceived manner. On the other hand, it does no good to conduct research and carry out the many other activities ------- which result in the development of vital information and then wrap it up in some dreary package which will defeat the most public-spirited citizens' efforts to understand what the govern- ment has done for them with their tax monies. While government agencies must avoid the temptations of institutional salesmanship, they must, nevertheless, process the staggering amounts of raw data which current research and monitoring efforts and technical informa- tion-gathering technology make accessi- ble. Moreover, they must make it available through various media so that as broad a spectrum of the public as possible can think, act, and vote with the fullest possible awareness of the issues confronting our society. Environmental agencies at all levels of government have not succeeded in fully meeting this challenge during this critical decade of environmental improvement. Environmental program managers, for a variety of reasons, are not yet convinced that seeking public understanding and participation is as important as anything else they have to do. Fortunately, the Solid Waste Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has traditionally taken its public information and participation responsibilities more seriously than most. It has, within the limitations of resources and an uncertain climate, operated in accordance with the princi- ple that the general public has a right to information and to a voice in the program's affairs. This view was reflec- ted in the development of the original public participation guidelines, published in January 1978, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), Public Law 94-580. ------- The Solid Waste Office was very much aware of the fact that the public participation provisions of environmental laws have often amounted to little, that they were almost never properly combined with public information activi- ties, and that they seldom touched the mainstream of agency research, technical assistance, and regulatory activities. The guidelines underscored the need for developing public information materials on the solid base of technical information, so that public participation could be meaningful. The original guidelines lost something of their impact and clarity as they became integrated with the public participation regulations under the Clean Water and Water Quali- ty Laws (Part 25 of Chapter 40 in the Code of Federal Regulations), published in February 1979. Nevertheless, Part 25 does require that information and education activities be an integral part of other elements of public partici- pation—meetings, conferences, workshops, consultations with interested parties, proper notification to the public, and so forth. What these regulations actually mean to programs being conducted under RCRA is that every agency that receives EPA financial assistance will be required to submit, as part of its grant application, a public participation work plan which reflects how public participation will be provided for, encouraged, and assisted. All reasonable costs of public participation identified in an approved work plan will be eligible for funding. The public participation requirements contained in Part 25 will be carried out in the individual RCRA program regulations. These are: ------- • the State solid waste manage- ment plan guidelines under section 4002(b) • the permit regulations for hazardous waste facilities under section 3005 • the State hazardous waste program/regulations under section 3006. There is, lam happy to say, substan- tial evidence that the entire staff of the Solid Waste Program of EPA has itself taken public participation seriously. Since December 1976 over 150 workshops, public meetings, and public hearings have been held through- out the country on every major aspect of the waste problem. Literally thou- sands of drafts have been distributed to a wide spectrum of interested persons. The information and views received as a result of this effort have added greatly to the quality of the regulations and to the understanding of staff mem- bers. Even though t;he U.S. EPA has found it very challenging, indeed, to get on with its role in implementing RCRA, the Federal effort is likely to be the easier part of the formidable job mandated by the law. The more difficult, long-term challenge faces State and local govern- ments. Moreover, the job is even more urgent, more critical, and more difficult than anyone was aware of when RCRA was being developed and enacted. Not until this year—when Love Canal and similar disasters hit the headlines and the public's demand for hazardous waste control and, ironically, the con- comitant public resistance to having treatment and disposal sites established anywhere near them became clear— did we realize the full dimensions and the intense pressures of the waste ------- issue. All of this, of course, has made the necessity for meaningful public awareness and participation even more critical than we originally thought. Douglas Costle, Administrator of the U.S. EPA, commented on the difficulties facing States last February when he spoke before the National Governors' Conference in Washington, D.C. He said "Every State, I suggest, needs to establish a process—consistent with its own Constitution and laws-- for making decisions on the siting of hazardous waste facilities. That process must be one that the public will judge environmentally sound and politically fair. Above all, that process must go beyond debate and produce decisions." This process, of course, will not work without genuine public understanding and participation. In light of all this, what is one to say when a State, in good faith, holds a public meeting on an aspect of hazardous waste management under RCRA and almost nobody shows up to participate? Under such circum- stances, what generally follows is that many of those who work for the agency involved complain to one another that the public does not really care, that the public does not know what it wants, that the public gets what it deserves, and so on. A primary purpose of public partici- pation regulations is to make it difficult for public participation efforts to elicit this unfortunate and all too familiar response. Hence, the regulations require that proper and timely efforts be made to ensure that the public does show up for the meetings and that they have a reasonable opportunity to learn about the issues to be discussed beforehand. Indeed, proper regulations are intended to enable citizens to express themselves ------- before, during, and after meetings for the development and implementation of important decisions and regulations affecting their welfare. But as we are so often reminded today—and there is some truth in almost every cliche— you cannot accomplish everything through regulations. Proper attitudes are also essential. We must admit that those of us who work for govern- ment agencies, at all levels, operate within a historical tradition which does not yet include the proper attitude toward public involvement. This tradi- tion does not yet encompass the full scope of our activities as they have been redefined in recent environmental and consumer laws. Our embryonic efforts to accommo- date ourselves to the "new" public participation requirements are often made more difficult by widespread distrust and cynicism. In actuality, the resources available to agencies are much lower than is widely under- stood—particularly in the environmental area where there are so many long- neglected, difficult problems in search of quick and easy solutions. Resources needed to do the job usually trail several months, or years, behind newly minted authorities and responsibilities. In this decade, environmental managers have often found themselves in the same position David would have been in if he had lost his sling before confronting Goliath. In light of the constant need for more reliable scientif- ic information, more engineering and legal talent, and more days in each week, the relatively recent require- ment for public participation gets lost in the shuffle, and if any effort is made at all, it is usually little and late. ------- The solid waste management prob- lem is perhaps even more illustrative of the need for sustained and successful efforts to involve the public than other environmental issues, which have en- joyed much earlier national attention. The public has demanded air and water pollution control efforts. And the public has paid, directly or indirectly, for the controls placed on industries and municipalities. Even though few people have been personally involved in these issues, almost all segments of the public have been represented by a variety of public interest groups, which have influenced the development and implementation of legislation. But air and water pollution problems have not presented anything quite comparable to the dilemmas faced by government officials charged with hazardous waste control responsibilities. These public servants must somehow meet the public expectations for protec- tion against a neglected and insidious problem at the same time that the public seems to feel that these wastes must be treated and disposed of on another planet. Without a high degree of public understanding and participation at the grassroots level, the solution will be elusive. We must keep in mind that the public is not accustomed to being asked for their views and assistance in manag- ing solid wastes. If people fail to re- spond with alacrity to our first gentle call for help, we should call again and again and again. This does not mean the government should resort to some of the high-pressure techniques used to sell commercial products and services, although the need to follow through and properly explain the problems and the services to be performed is just as important in government as in private institutions. 10 ------- Under current norms when an agency seeks public involvement, it finds an appropriate place to have the meeting. It puts out a press release and announces the place, time, and purpose of the meeting. In addition, the agency might be able to place an ad in the local newspapers serving the area of the proposed meeting. It prepares materials for the meeting- some of which are likely to be very difficult for the public to understand— and makes phone calls—often only to those persons who have already demonstrated an interest in the issue, due to limited resources. Public meet- ings by government agencies are not regarded as particularly newsworthy events by the media, so the newspapers, TV, and radio give the announcement minimal coverage, if any. The meeting is held and very few people show up. But when a private institution wants to introduce a new service or product to the public—a new beverage, a new automobile, a new cosmetic, or whatever— the scenario is quite different. National, regional, State, and local strategies are developed, redeveloped, revised, and again revised months or years in advance of the actual inauguration of the new service or product. Advertisements are placed in all media, public relations events of various types are created and staged, and a good number of other activities, generally falling under the rubric of advertising, public relations, and product acceptance, are carefully planned and implemented. Moreover—-and this is the principal point—these activi- ties receive generous budgets because they are known to be just as vital as anything else that the company has done before, the research and develop- ment, engineering, production, and all the rest. 11 ------- In government, quite the other way around, the Congress produces a very complex law, which can certainly be called a product even when not universally regarded as a service. This law affects everyone and many do not like it. It requires effort on the part of all levels of government and the private sector as well. It certain- ly is not as interesting as marketing a new beverage, automobile, cosmetic, or service that a private institution offers. And as it turns out, it is pri- marily the environmental managers at the various levels of government who have the unenviable job of getting everyone to accept the law, to under- stand and support it. What's more, all of this must be successfully underway within a period of between 6 to 18 months because after that, the regula- tory provisions of the law are scheduled to take effect. In most instances the new law hits an environmental manager before staff and budgetary resources have caught up with the public sentiment that moved the Congress to pass the law in the first place. The manager and his or her staff were already very busy before the law appeared. Regulatory agencies are busy developing, reviewing scientific data, making impor- tant decisions—and they live in an institutional climate in which public information and participation activities have been regarded as an unimportant fringe that can be given minimal atten- tion after all the important work is done, which, of course, is never. The effect of all this, ironically, often leaves the agencies' staffs feeling a greater sense of guarded rapport with fellow engineers, technicians, lawyers, and others employed by the organizations that the Agency regulates rather than with the general public. 12 ------- The citizen often ends up being regarded as an ignorant and bothersome third force, or fifth wheel, without whose interference all of us experts in govern- ment and industry could do the job much better. We simply cannot go on this way. Public information and participation, and the necessary resources—both personnel and budgetary—to make sure it is done properly, must be placed on the same level as other important tasks that environmental managers have always accepted as part of their key responsibilities. The complex and difficult laws we are increasingly called upon to implement and the increas- ing need for real cooperation among Federal, State, regional, and local agencies cannot be accomplished with an appropriate degree of success without public involvement. Ensuring that the public is sufficiently well informed to be meaningfully involved in the public's environmental business is just as important as anything else the govern- ment has to do. Since the beginning of the U.S. EPA, the Office of Solid Waste has devoted a significant portion of its resources to public information and participation programs. Even before the program was moved from the Depart- ment of Health, Education, and Welfare to EPA, it devoted substantial effort to a publications program, serving both technical audiences and the general public. Moreover, since 1972 the program has offered annual grants to civic, scientific, environmental, consumer, labor, and other organizations to conduct public educational activities suited to their own constituencies on the full spectrum of solid waste problems. These activities were enhanced with the program's development and implemen- 13 ------- tation of the public participation guide- lines under RCRA. The objective of all this activity has been to help citizens understand the issues, which we all now know to be of critical importance to Federal, State, regional, and local efforts. The Office of Solid Waste public participation and education programs are being continued and are being supported, in a number of areas, by EPA's Office of Public Awareness. One major activity, titled Waste Alert!, has been initiated for the express purpose of involving citizens in planning and decision making at the State and local levels as they face the difficult problems of implementing RCRA now and in the years ahead. Waste Alert! will extend over several years. It is intended to involve citizens, ultimately, in all 50 states. While EPA is giving financial support and technical guidance to the program, it is fundamentally the responsibility of six eminent, national- ly known organizations—the American Public Health Association (as coordina- tor), the Environmental Action Founda- tion, the Technical Information Project, the National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League of America, and the League of Women Voters Education Fund. Waste Alert! involves conducting 3-day conferences around the country on issues related to the problems of abandoned waste sites, siting new facili- ties, implementing RCRA regulations, and other aspects of waste management. Ten regional conferences in the first 2 years will focus on identifying and training citizen leaders and reaching appropriate communications media; developing work plans for implementing RCRA at the State level; planning for State conferences; and identifying State action groups and assisting them, if they wish, in holding State conferences. This is an unusually long-term public 14 ------- information/participation program and one can only hope that the funding will continue so that it can achieve its objectives. Its objectives will not be achieved, of course, unless the pro- gram moves from the Federal to the State to the local levels as time goes on. It is significant that EPA funding under RCRA's Subtitle C hazardous waste program for the development of State public-interest coalitions and conferences to inform the public is intended to grow out of the Waste Alert! effort. The hazardous waste problem that we confront today underscores perhaps more certainly than any other environmental issue the importance of the public participation provisions which appear in recent Federal legisla- tion. The waste problem cannot be magically solved by science and technol- ogy, and government and industry alone cannot work out the means of applying appropriate solutions. This has been underscored as we have learned we are dealing with two discrete issues: the management of wastes that are being generated today, or will be gener- ated in the future, and also with the management of wastes which have been improperly handled in the past. It is not clear which is the greater problem. What is clear is that the waste problem is too difficult to be solved by experts alone. It will not yield to shortsighted or lopsided attempts to place it into one discrete category or another. It is a public health problem, a conservation problem, an economic, a waste reduction, an urban, a rural, a social, and a scientific problem which will be solved only if we do not forget it is all of these things and more—and that only the public can properly cope with such complexities. 15 ------- EPA is charged by Congress to protect the Nation's land, air and water systems. Under a mandate of national environmental laws focused on air and water quality, solid waste management and the control of toxic substances, pesticides, noise and radiation, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions which lead to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and nurture life. If you have suggestions, questions or requests for further information, they may be directed to your nearest EPA Regional public information office. EPA Region! » JFK Federal Bldg. • Boston MA 02203 • Connec- •ticut. Maine. Massachu- setts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island. Vermont • 617-223-7223 EPA Region 2 • 26 Federal Plaza • New York NY 10007 • New Jersey. New York. Puer- to Rico. Virgin Islands • 212-264-2515 EPA Regions* 6th and Walnut Streets • Philadelphia PA 19106 • Delaware. Maryland, Pennsylvania. Virginia. West Virginia, District of Columbia • 215-597-4081 EPA Region 4 • 345 Courtland Street NE • Atlanta GA 30308 • Alabama. Georgia. Florida. Mississippi. North Carolina. South Carolina. Tennessee. Kentucky" 404-881-3004 EPA Region 6 • 230 S. Dearborn • Chicago IL 60604 • Illinois. Indiana. Ohio, Michigan, Wiscon- sin, Minnesota * 312-353-2072 EPA Region 6 • 1201 Elm Street • Dallas TX 75270 * Arkansas. Loui- siana, Oklahoma. Texas, New Mexico • 214-767-2630 EPA Region 7 • 324 East 11th Street* Kansas City MO 641O6 • Iowa. Kansas. Missouri. Nebraska • 816-374-6201 EPA Region 8. 1860 Lincoln Street • Denver CO 80295 • Col- orado. Utah, Wyoming, Montana. North Dakota. South Dakota • 303-837-3878 EPA Regions* 215 Fremont Street • San Francisco CA 94105 • Arizona, California, Hawai Nevada. Pacific Islands • 415-556-1840 EPA Region 10* 1200 Sixth Avenue • Seattle WA98101 • Alaska. Idaho, Oregon. Washing- ton • 206-442-1203 n. 0) f> -r5 >mc un o n KJ o .& 01 o 3 — «2 3 re m >"D nmnj <"»< r 3 v a 01 o 3 5.5, ^ ------- |