NEPA and EIA's

"The underlying, if not central, purpose of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is to provide decision makers, and the public, with a systematic, comprehensive and objective assessment of the environmental consequences of an action." (Weston)

The EIA grew out of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to the readings, the roots of EIA come from the radical social and cultural change we experienced in the 1960s. The conservative, don't question your authorities age of the 1950's was over. The public was awakening to the increased environmental damage that was being done by both government and industry and there was an emergence of environmental groups that demanded public inclusion and participation in enviromental decision making.(Weston)

Sometimes, though we often get more or less than we bargained for with our protests and demands. The reading points out how the goverment created standards for public input and notice of decision making but this was met with some fairly strong weaknesses. Accoring to Weston, the EIA process requires public trust in the experts, and science which really does not exist. Additionally, EIAs are value based, there is no right or wrong answer. In fact, a right answer can be a wrong one for another issue. When I first started in the UST program at ADEQ, I was baffled when the "science guys" could not tell me exactly how fast or with what manner they were going to clean up gasoline contamination. One of them smiled at me and said, well Kristi, you are new, let me tell you...there are no exact answers in environmental science. There are too many variables and we just gather as much background as we can and apply the knowledge we have in the best way we can! Wow, was I surprised!

Shepard and Bowler tell us that we need to include the public, no matter how distrustful they are or appear to be. This is because "[alienated] citizens become skeptictal citizens and, once citizens begin to lose trust in a project proponent, it is difficult, if not impossible for the project proponent to regain citizens' trust." (quoting Bradbury et al, 1994) Ultimately, EIAs are a necessary evil. We must include the public in decision making processes, even if the public does not want to be part of it. This will insure that everyone has an opportunity to speak and share whatever special knowledge they may have.