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federal facility cleanup decisions and priorities reflect a broad spectrum of stakeholder input from affected communities including indigenous peoples, low-income communities, and people of color. Like pollution prevention and pollution control measures, meaningful stakeholder involvement has in many instances resulted in significant cleanup cost reductions. It should therefore not only be considered as a cost of doing business but as a potential means of efficiently determining and achieving acceptable cleanup goals”. In particular the 1996 report stressed the importance of assuring the transparency of the whole process. For example, the report specifies on page xiii (PDF - 12): “...that all community involvement processes must be transparent, open, interactive, inclusive, and responsive. Committee members also stress that agencies need to develop a communications structure in which public concerns are communicated to both headquarters and field office levels”. The entire 1996 report comprises more than 150 pages. Whether in electronic or paper form, this document provides many informative recommendations and insights that are the fruit of previous deliberations and analyses. Indeed, this report deliberately explains on page xiv (PDF - 13) that its recommendations have evolved from “...the collective experience of the first two years of implementation of the Committee's original recommendations regarding advisory boards”. For example, on pages xiv to xvi (PDF -13 to 15) the 1996 report provides the following clarification of the purpose and essential nature of a restoration advisory board: “Establishment of Advisory Boards—Federal agencies should establish advisory boards to provide independent policy and |
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technical advice to the regulated and regulating agencies with respect to key cleanup decisions. Boards should be formed when an affected local, state, tribal or federal government entity requests the establishment of such a board, or when at least fifty residents of the community or region in which a facility is located sign a petition requesting an advisory board. When more than one advisory group exists for a facility or region, agencies should consider consolidating their activities, or establishing clear communication between the groups to determine if and how their scope of issues overlaps. Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) 2—Whether or not agencies charter their advisory boards under FACA, the Committee recommends that boards and agencies comply with the spirit of FACA regarding maintaining balanced membership, holding open meetings, and providing public notice for the meetings in manners that are appropriate for the facility's community. For agencies that do charter their advisory boards under FACA, the Committee encourages agencies to make very judicious use of FACA authorities and do so in consultation with board members. Finally, chartering agencies should seek to reduce the bureaucratic burden of the law on the board members to the greatest extent possible. Scope—Advisory boards should focus on protection of human health, cleanup, waste management, and technology development issues that are clearly relevant to the cleanup of the facility. Boards should have the discretion to hear about the social, economic, cultural, |
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11. The Role of Future Land Use Determinations in Making Cleanup Decisions—Reasonably anticipated future land uses should be considered when making cleanup decisions for federal facilities, provided that at the time of any land transfer there are adequate safeguards to protect land holders, those who will receive or lease the land, and surrounding communities. The communities that are affected by federal facility cleanups, along with their local governing bodies and affected Indian Tribes, should be given a significant role in determining reasonably anticipated future use of federal property that is expected to be transferred, and in how future use determinations will be used in making cleanup decisions. 12. The Role of Studies in the Cleanup Process —The identification and characterization of contamination and the evaluation of health impacts on human populations are essential parts of the cleanup process. Efforts to streamline the cleanup process should focus on reducing paperwork and moving away from adversarial relations toward cooperation, not the arbitrary capping of funding for studies. 13. The Need for a Systematic Approach to Decision Making and Priority Setting—Federal facility priority-setting decisions should be made in a manner that recognizes their interconnectedness to other environmental problems. 14. Stakeholder Involvement—Public stakeholders and local governments historically have not been involved adequately in the federal facility cleanup decision-making and priority setting process. Agencies responsible for conducting and overseeing cleanup and related public health activities must take steps to address this problem, with the overall goal of ensuring that |
FFERDC Guidance (pre 2000)
(CONT’D FROM P. 16)
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