Case For Substantive Public Particiaption

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>]

From: Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>
Subject: Case For Substantive Public Particiaption

************* WARNING: This Is A Long File ***************

 Comments by

 ROSS VINCENT

 Member, Conventional Munitions Network
 Military Toxics Project
 and
 Chair, Environmental Quality Strategy Team
 Sierra Club

 at the opening session of

 UXO FORUM 1996

 sponsored by the 
 Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board

 at Williamsburg, VA
 March 26-28, 1996

 
It is an extraordinary pleasure for me to be here today and a special 
privilege to be able to share a few thoughts with you. It isn't often 
that concerned citizens from affected communities get an opportunity to 
meet in forums like this one with the people who are at the cutting edge 
in developing and deploying the technologies needed to solve our pollu-
tion problems and protect public health and the environment back home. 
I think there are about a half dozen of us here. I wish there were 
more. I hope there will be more community participation at future meet-
ings like this.

As I see it, there are three major challenges facing us all as we con-
front the problems of unexploded ordnance (UXO) cleanup. 

1) We need to develop reliable technology to identify and characterize 
 buried and submerged ordnance. 

 You'll note that I said "develop...technology". Many people in af-
 fected communities believe that the technology already exists and, 
 in fact, some of it does. But the message that fully adequate tech-
 nology isn't available is a hard sell among experienced community 
 leaders. They are all too accustomed to hearing that "it can't be 
 done" -- whatever "it" may be -- when in fact it can be done. This 
 meeting, with citizen leaders present, is a good start toward get-
 ting useful information out to communities so they can become better 
 informed and decide for themselves.

2) We need to develop the technology to retrieve and process UXO.

 You will note that I did not say "destroy" UXO. Waste is never de-
 stroyed. It can be altered or encapsulated. Ultimately, it is 
 either stored or released. But it is never destroyed or "disposed 
 of".

3) We need processes that engage and involve concerned citizens in UXO 
 cleanup at every level -- from research and development, to deploy-
 ment, to operation and verification. 

 You'll notice that I said "engage and INVOLVE". Even in some of the 
 programs that are making a sincere effort to reach out to communi-
 ties these days, the objective seems to be to engage and "persuade". 
 If this effort is going to work, it must NOT be viewed as a sales 
 job. It is an exercise in TEAM BUILDING, and that requires a much 
 different approach.

The tasks facing us are daunting from a purely technical standpoint. 
They are exacerbated by a number of burned and charred bridges out there 
in affected communities that we will need to rebuild and reinforce in 
the months to come. But it can be done. None of these problems are in-
surmountable if we approach them TOGETHER.

We can learn helpful lessons, for example, from similar exercises in the 
past. The challenges facing us in the UXO arena are not unlike those 
faced by the chemical industry a quarter of a century ago. In fact, the 
parallels are striking. 

We have now, as we did then, a whole class of previously unregulated or 
under-regulated entities facing the prospect of serious regulatory over-
sight for the first time. There is, as there was then, massive contami-
nation from past practices in numerous places, continuing contamination 
from current practices, and no clear consensus -- internally or exter-
nally -- about how (or even whether) to go about fixing all of these 
problems. 

It's disconcerting for many, frightening to some. That shouldn't be 
surprising. 

There are even striking similarities in the rhetoric of the day. These 
are some of the things we heard from the chemical industry in those 
days. See if you haven't heard similar themes in recent months. 

 "We're the experts," they told us. "We know what we're doing. Leave 
 us alone and we'll fix it."

 "Don't pass tough laws and regulations," they said. "You'll make it 
 impossible for us to do business." (Read that "carry out our mis-
 sion" these days.)

 "If there have to be regulations, let us do it. We're responsible. 
 We can regulate ourselves."

 "Don't make us disclose our problems to the public. They won't un-
 derstand. They'll overreact. Our competitors will get access to 
 our most important secrets." 

 "Pollution isn't a problem unless there is too much of it in the 
 wrong places. We can figure out how much is too much and where the 
 wrong places are and we'll save a bundle of money by leaving some of 
 the contamination where it is. We'll reduce releases and exposures. 
 It's impossible to prevent them entirely and, what's more, it isn't 
 necessary."

Sound familiar? I'll bet it does. 

Then, as now, there were elements of truth in those arguments. And 
then, as now, they were a prescription for disaster. They are the ves-
tiges of the same kind of faulty reasoning that got us into this mess in 
the first place. 

The first time around, they guaranteed the creation of a huge and com-
plex bureaucracy designed to figure out how much pollution was too much 
and where the wrong places were (and we still don't have good answers to 
those questions), and then to figure out how to convert that knowledge 
to enforceable regulation. 

They deprived industry managers and planners and technology developers 
of clear and reliable environmental targets to shoot for in the develop-
ment of new products, technologies and facilities. 

And they guaranteed twenty-five years of continuous and costly conflict 
between the industry and the public. 

By the mid-'80s, industry leaders found, much to their chagrin, that 
chemical companies ranked second only to tobacco companies in unfavor-
able ratings in public opinion polls. Even worse, their popularity in 
company towns and among their own employees wasn't much better. 

It has taken that industry nearly a quarter of a century to get to the 
point where many top corporate executives understand what the visiona-
ries in and out of the industry -- and the people in plant communities 
-- have been telling them all along. "We can solve these problems, but 
YOU WON'T SUCCEED IF YOU TRY TO DO IT ALONE." 

The military doesn't have to make the same mistakes the chemical indus-
try made a quarter of a century ago. None of us do. 

The chemical industry's response is a program called "Responsible Care". 
There may be lessons the military can learn from that effort. At it's 
heart, "Responsible Care" is a recognition that plant communities are an 
integral part of the chemical industry's efforts to produce and market 
its products. The same goes for the military. 

Why involve communities? At a very basic level, because it's the right 
thing to do. The people who live around and work at military and indus-
trial facilities are the ultimate customers for the technologies that 
facility managers choose. It is they who will have to live with the 
consequences of those choices. They are the ultimate beneficiaries and 
the ultimate victims. They have an absolute right to be involved in 
those choices. 

But that's not the only reason. Smart chemical industry leaders will 
tell you what they have learned the hard way -- that obvious and contin-
uous performance improvement is the key to earning public support, and 
that communities must be involved in efforts to achieve those perfor-
mance improvement objectives if the public is to understand and appreci-
ate and support the results. 

Perhaps even more important from a management standpoint, many industry 
leaders will tell you that it is a sound, cost-effective investment. 
Without community involvement, they make mistakes -- often very costly 
mistakes. Without community involvement, they miss important opportuni-
ties -- and lost opportunities are often even more costly than mistakes. 

We can learn from that history. We do not have to repeat the divisive 
and costly mistakes of the past twenty-five years. 

Cleanups at military facilities are tougher these days than they were 
even a year or two ago. Substantial new budget constraints have stalled 
many cleanups and suspended important R&D projects. I believe that the 
severity of these cuts is serious, and I'm sure that many of you do, 
too.

It would be easy -- too easy, I believe -- to blame those cuts on over-
zealous budget-cutters in DC. In fact, the severity of those cuts is 
due, at least in part, to lack of coherent public support for many clea-
nup programs -- FOR THE PROGRAMS, NOT THEIR OBJECTIVES. 

Public support for environmental protection and cleanup is solid. Every 
public opinion poll I've seen shows strong public support and a willing-
ness to pay for environmental protection. But the connections are often 
unclear, at best, between the environmental protection people want and 
the programs the military proposes.

In the process of getting ready to come here for this meeting, I made a 
few phone calls over the weekend to activists I know in communities with 
significant munitions-related pollution problems. Most of these people 
are reluctant activists. They would much rather be spending their time 
with family and friends, earning a living, playing or relaxing. But 
they feel that they have no choice. They are threatened and they have 
responded, as every good citizen should.

One of the people I talked to over the weekend has spent most of the 
last decade advocating and agitating for the cleanup of her local muni-
tions-contaminated facility. At her neighborhood facility, like many 
others, the cleanup budget for next year has been cut by almost two-
thirds. 

She was bemused -- and amused -- by the fact that the facility people, 
for the first time in their long association, have approached her to 
suggest that she might want to help them try to get some of that funding 
restored. Her comment to me was: "I'm not sure I want to do that."

Her reaction to that long overdue request for help, is a striking -- but 
not unusual -- commentary on the state of public support for military 
cleanup efforts. Here is a community leader who has spent enormous 
amounts of time and energy -- at some risk to home and hearth, if not 
life and limb -- trying to get her local military facility cleaned up, 
but she isn't sure she wants to speak up for more money for the program 
that the military says will do that job for her. She is not sure the 
money will be spent in ways she approves of. 

Another classic example is what is happening to EPA these days. In the 
'70s and early '80s, the EPA enjoyed broad and deep public support. But 
they have lost the bulk -- and certainly the passion -- of that suppor-
tive constituency. Now when members of Congress take off after EPA pro-
grams, they are relatively easy targets. Very few people care. Most of 
the people in communities affected by pollution -- the people who ought 
to be the solid core of the EPA's constituency -- have never met an EPA 
official, and most of those who have in recent years have found the ex-
perience unpleasant. The result -- EPA's current political problems are 
a yawner for many, "just desserts" as far as a number of others are con-
cerned. 

Closer to home, in a military program I have a lot of personal experi-
ence with -- one that shall remain nameless in deference to present com-
pany -- the experience is even worse. These folks have taken the art of 
missing opportunities to earn public support to new heights. 

As a result, they are blessed with substantial and growing public oppo-
sition. They have experienced dramatic cost increases over the years 
and substantial delays. They are the subject of an almost steady stream 
of bad press, which leads to growing skepticism in Congress about their 
ability to perform, which leads to reduced and constrained appropria-
tions, which leads to further delays, more cost increases and more bad 
press. 

And all of that is happening to a program that has at its disposal a 
well organized, well connected network of experienced community activ-
ists in every community where they operate, made up of people who would 
like nothing better than to be able to support the program. But they 
are prevented from doing so by the barriers that the program's managers 
have placed in the way.

Clearly, there is a connection between community support for environmen-
tal programs and their ability to perform. When community folks feel 
that their homes and families and communities are threatened, they get 
upset. If they think the people responsible for those threats are ig-
noring or manipulating them, they get angry. And once angry, they tend 
to stay that way and to act on that anger, unless they are given good 
reasons to change their approach.

An editorial writer I once knew wrote a feature article about a promi-
nent local activist. The activist, he wrote, "is like a horsefly in a 
stable full of mules. He simply will not go away." It was a comple-
ment, intended by the writer and appreciated by the activist. Most com-
munity activists I have known over the years are just as persistent. 
Imagine what we could do if even a small part of that energy and per-
sistence could be turned into cooperative efforts to solve these prob-
lems. 

What do communities want? Not very much, really. They want to be 
treated as members of the team, with the same rights and privileges that 
other players have. 

They want INFORMATION -- timely, candid, useful and convenient informa-
tion. 

They want ACCESS. They want to be there when you meet with regulators. 
They want to be there when you discuss your options and their merits and 
demerits. They want to understand not only what you are doing, but why 
you are doing it.

They want RESPONSIVENESS. They expect honest, candid, "spin-free" an-
swers to their questions. They expect their views to be taken serious-
ly, and their preferences to be accommodated unless there are good rea-
sons why they cannot be. 

They want THEIR UNIQUENESS RESPECTED. The "one-size-fits-all" approach 
won't sell. Most community leaders believe that their communities are 
special, unique in many ways. And they are usually right. No two com-
munities are the same. The combination of relevant factors -- topology, 
geology, hydrology, climate, demographics, culture, politics and insti-
tutional structure -- makes every community different. 

They want CREATIVITY. They want to learn from your experience. They 
expect you to learn from theirs. And they will frequently be willing to 
work with you to find new and better ways to get things done. 

And, finally, they want HANDLES. They want recourse if they don't like 
what you're doing. And that is only fair. 

CREATIVITY, CANDOR, COOPERATION -- the three "C"s of getting things 
done.

Tad McCall (Dep. Asst. Secretary of the Air Force) says that we need to 
do cleanups SAFER, BETTER, FASTER, CHEAPER. He's right -- and, what's 
more, he thinks we can do it. So do I, but ONLY IF WE DO IT 
TOGETHER.

TOGETHER IS SMARTER. Together works. Add that to "safer, better, 
faster, cheaper" and we have the foundation for programs ---

-- that get the kind of cooperation
-- that encourages understanding 
-- that produces ideas
-- that generate enthusiasm 
-- that can be translated into political support 
-- that can get the resources 
-- to support the research and development and the deployment
-- of the kind of innovative and broadly acceptable technologies 
-- that can get the job done 
-- for the military AND for affected communities. 

That's where I hope this program is headed. If that's where you want it 
to go, then please count me in. And I am confident that community lead-
ers from one end of this country to the other will agree. These are the 
kinds of programs we want to be part of. I hope we get the chance. 

I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to be here today and to 
share these thoughts with you. I hope they are helpful. The fact that 
some of us from affected communities are at a UXO Forum for the very 
first time is a major step forward and a tribute to Kelly Rigano and the 
conference planners, to Jim Souby and the Western Governors' Association 
and to the leaders of the DOIT Military Munitions Working Group. 

I am looking forward to our discussions over the next few days. Let's 
hope that this is just the first of many opportunities that we and our 
colleagues in other communities will have to work with you toward real 
solutions to UXO problems. 

Thank you very much!