Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 24, June 15, 2024
(a)Primary goals. A meaningful public participation process has three primary goals. These goals are as follows:(1)Credibility. By creating a visible decisionmaking process to which all participants have access, public involvement provides a means of making both the decisionmaking process and the resulting decisions credible and acceptable to groups or individuals with highly divergent viewpoints.(2)Identifying public concerns and values. Because various parties may have fundamentally different points of view, evaluate any proposed action from different perspectives. Public involvement provides a mechanism by which developers can understand the problems, issues and develop possible solutions before the permit application is submitted.(3)Developing a consensus. Consensus must be formed on an issue-by-issue basis incorporating public concerns and values. Public involvement provides a process by which a consensus can evolve through specific agreed-upon actions.(b)Scenarios. Two possible scenarios can be envisioned: either the developer announces its intent to search for a site for the purpose of providing a facility to manage hazardous wastes or announces its intent to apply for a permit on a specific site which has already been selected. Clearly, the chances of success would appear to be heightened if the former scenario were the one being considered.