Through an ongoing first-person case, we consider whether Superfund’s community involvement program should, as a matter of policy, promote community empowerment, particularly through direct participation in risk-based decision-making. Apart from her academic work in environmental law and policy, the author is a founding board member and current chair of the Swannanoa Superfund Community Advisory Group (SS-CAG) for the Chemtronics Superfund site in rural N.C.

Superfund sites are frequently near residential areas, and commonly trigger high levels of community concern. Accordingly, EPA is committed to “early and meaningful” community participation in Superfund cleanups. This participation is brokered through Community Involvement Coordinators (CICs) staffing EPA’s 10 regions. Among other things, CICs help communities develop their own Community Advisory Groups (CAGs). As of the mid-1990’s, about 10% of Superfund sites had CAGs associated with them; as of 2017, it appears closer to 5%. CAGs are advisory by design; while they exert varying degrees of influence, they have no authoritative decision-making role.

There are reasons to believe CAGs should have authoritative influence beyond the merely advisory. Impacted community stakeholders are, ironically, excluded from decisive roles in setting success metrics for environmental remediation of the sites they live with. Some have argued that local expertise improves remediation outcomes. And because trust between stakeholders and involved organizations positively impacts restoration success, community involvement beyond the merely advisory creates greater power equity, hence more trust. But the science and risk analysis of hazardous waste sites are highly technical, and sometimes tangential to core community concerns anyway. The SS-CAG’s experience is instructive on whether community involvement policy should move in the direction of empowerment. Several factors complicate the matter including the challenges of technical communication; implications of “risk-based” regulatory framework versus “environmental” or “health-based;” triangulation of community, regulators, and site owners; and the hazard of long-term alienation from land that may be geographically or culturally central to the community. [citations omitted]

knisleyaess2017chemtronicssitehistorysitemaps2.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/swannanoasuperfundcag/about-us/announcements