Sustainability: Public Involvement as a Crucial Building Block
Presented by: Tim Brown, Delta Institute; Marion Cox, REuSOURCE Associates; Ida Koppen, Sustainability Challenge Foundation; and Kim Watchman, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

The U.S. EPA’s mission to protect the environment impacts many issues related to resource management and protection, environmental impacts on human health and safety, and waste management and disposal practices. For an increasing number of communities impacted by U.S. EPA actions, issues related to sustainability (economic, cultural and ecosystem sustainability) have become important components of environmental protection and cleanup activities. Public involvement, transparency of government decision-making, and collaborative approaches to issue identification and problem-solving lie at the very core of initiatives to protect the environment and to address sustainability issues. Meaningful and focused public outreach and involvement are the cornerstone and a crucial building block of any successful sustainability effort.
Presenters will engage participants in a dialogue about how public involvement efforts must move to a new level of engagement with local communities and affected stakeholders. This session will begin with a presentation of case studies where community involvement and sustainability issues have been fully engaged with impressive results. Next, several important U.S. environmental management programs will be discussed that envision local input into sustainability issues, such as Brownfields initiatives and Superfund decisions. Session participants will be asked to compare and contrast what we are doing in the U.S. with efforts of other countries. Plus, participants will be asked to comment on several questions like: why are we NOT doing more in the U.S. to involve communities in designing their own futures and visions for sustainability? and what can we do, in the U.S., given current laws and regulations, to update and upgrade our approach to community involvement in environmental decisions to promote a local vision of sustainability?