Environmental Communication Chapters 3-4: Public Participation, 9/11, and Community Collaboration
Chapters 3 and 4 of Environmental Communication discussed public involvement and participation in environmental issues. Chapter 3 gave an overview of the ways in which citizens are able to participate in government actions that determine environmental policy. Cox also provided a history of why things like public hearings and citizens groups are able to be involved in such processes. In Chapter 4, Cox delved into specific information about collaborative and consensus processes, one of the more comprehensive types of public participation in environmental issues.
Cox identified three main tenets of growing public participation in environmental decision making: greater access to information for the public, the mandate of a public comment period for government agencies, and the right of citizens to litigate against government agencies. He goes on to provide the history of laws that made those three tenets possible. Important laws include the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and Right to Know Act of 1986, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 and 1994 Executive Order on Environmental Justice. Cox also develops the concept of standing and asserts that the specific meaning has been interpreted differently by the Supreme Court in the past 40 years. The Supreme Court has come to determine, most recently, that a citizen does not have to endure injury to have standing in court.
The final section of Chapter 3 is dedicated to depicting how public participation, particularly in environmental issues, has changed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The United States government continues to struggle to maintain transparency and also ensure the safety of the nation, and this conundrum is reflected in policies governing access to information. This complex issue may take a long time to be resolved.
Delving into the realm of community collaboration and consensus-based decision making, Cox presents many of the advantages, challenges, successes, and failures encountered in this field. He presents a case study regarding water quality standards in Ohio as an example of successful collaboration. A group of 25 stakeholders reached consensus on a staggering 99 issues centered around water quality in the Great Lakes. Cox also depicts that consensus-based public dispute resolution is not always the proper democratic tool to use. A shipping company in Savannah, Georgia, essentially tried to use a consensus process to get what they wanted rather than truly participating in a collaborative process with community members.
While successful collaboration usually involves a government agency participating as a stakeholder, this is not always so. The Quincy Library Group of Plumas County, California, had to take the document they produced through consensus process to Congress, circumventing the slow moving US Forest Service.
The main point of the chapter is that, while collaboration is not always the appropriate tool to use in decision making, it can be a powerful experience that brings people together who may have previously viewed each other as enemies. It is above and beyond the public comment mechanism for public involvement in environmental issues, and if used correctly, collaboration can produce incredible results.
