Last Monday, our class had the chance to visit Port of Portland Terminal 4. We learned from Port of Portland staff about the Portland Harbor Superfund site from their perspective. It was very interesting to learn about how the Port has been proactive in the cleanup process. To them, they view the superfund site as an embarrassment that has been put off for far too long. They became involved with other polluters to create the Lower Willamette Group in order to begin the process of determining a Superfund ruling. The Port has also been active in early restoration, and they showed us some of the work they had completed on Wheeler Bay by dredging contaminated sludge and stabilizing the bank. Pictures from the bay can be seen below: We had a short discussion about public engagement with Port of Portland staff. Not much has been done to engage the public so far, but they hope to hit the ground running once the proposal is released. After that, the public has 60 days to comment before the final decision is made. I believe Port of Portland will want community participation since they are a public entity, and part of the cost of cleanup will have to come from the public. As the Port of Portland develops public participation strategies, I hope they keep in mind the following: higher levels of participation empower the public, planners should stay engaged with the community for a long period of time in order to see effective change, and that information on the superfund process should be easily accessible and paired with community information so that those affected have the information they need to participate in the decision-making process.
Level of Public Participation Public participation in a decision-making process can range from non-participation methods such as manipulation and therapy, to higher degrees of citizen power such as partnership, delegated power, and citizen control (Arnstein, 1969). I hope that public participation on the Portland Harbor Superfund site is in the higher degrees of citizen power range. In order for this to be accomplished, citizens should be able to negotiate with the main decision-makers, and they should include a large part of the vote on the decision (Arnstein, 1969). It Takes Time… When Norman Krumholz reflected on his work as a planner in Cleveland, Ohio in the 70s, he concluded that certain skills and ideas were necessary for planners to use to create effective, equitable change (Krumholz, 1982). One of Krumholz’s conclusionary remarks was that in order to be an effective part of the decision making process, planners must participate in an issue for a relatively long period of time (Krumholz, 1982). Many of his cases evolved over a period of five to ten years (Krumholz, 1982). I became involved with Portland Harbor Community Coalition and my spokesperson there shared the same remarks on decision-making processes: it takes time. It takes time for planners and community groups to build the relationships needed to create consensus-based change in which all parties are in favor of the decision. It takes time to ensure that those involved have the resources they need--policy documents on how to clean up a superfund site are not easy reads. It also takes time within the EPA’s framework to go from listing a site as a Superfund site to the actual cleanup process. During that time, it is common to see community groups become exhausted of their time and members--they are often being involved on their own time while staffed positions are getting paid to be involved. I hope the Port of Portland recognizes that this time is a huge commitment for the public, and helps out by providing resources for technical information as well as reimbursement for those missing work or needing childcare to be involved. Street Knowledge Referring back to technical documents, it is important for the Port to be aware that the process of getting involved through the EPA’s framework isn’t a friendly process. This is often one of the tensions between communities and professionals. On the highest rungs of the public involvement ladder, the public is equipped with the resources they need to hire their own technical support in translating these documents to a more public-friendly format (Arnstein, 1969). One method of sharing information used by community groups is popular education--in which community members tap their own experiences and expertise to inform each other (Corburn, 2005). Another method to bridge the power gap between professionals and community members is street science, in which the technical science is paired with the community’s own knowledge and investigations (Corburn, 2005). I hope to see some of these considerations in practice once the superfund report is released. -Kristen Sources: Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of planners, 35(4), 216-224. Krumholz, N. (1982). A retrospective view of equity planning Cleveland 1969–1979. Journal of the American Planning Association, 48(2), 163-174. Corburn, J. (2005). Street Science, Local Knowledge in Environmental Health Policy
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