Deliberation : integrating stakeholder values and risk assessments in environmental decision making

Abstract

Risk management has gained a significant amount of attention from both policy makers and the public over the past thirty years, as the interaction of technology and policy choices become more predominant in the evaluation of trade-offs in a democratic society. This is particularly so in decisions regarding the management, disposal and clean up of hazardous wastes throughout the United States. The responsible agency must balance the multiple elements of risk, multiple and conflicting objectives, and stakeholder values and perceptions inherent in environmental decisions in order to meet social needs, while maintaining the integrity of both the technical and social aspects of that decision. The National Research Council (1996) has recommended that the responsible agency incorporate all relevant stakeholders in the decision making process from the start, specifying an analytical-deliberative process for dealing with decisions that involve substantial risk analysis and assessment. The basic premise of this recommendation is that by involving the stakeholders in the process from the beginning and simultaneously performing the necessary risk assessments, taking into account the stakeholder values in an analytic-deliberative method, the decision making process can be enhanced. The concept of bringing together multiple stakeholders in environmental decision making attempts to address the fact that past decisions have neglected stakeholder values, however, by bringing together the multiple stakeholders, the agency is faced with numerous other challenges. These challenges include:: communicating and characterizing risk, unreasonable expectations, selecting of stakeholders, utilizing of time and resources efficiently, providing access to resources, addressing stakeholder concerns, and defining consensus. In order to aid in this process, this work investigates the integration of risk assessment and stakeholder involvement in reaching a fair, wise, efficient and stable decision concerning environmental remediation. We propose an integration of stakeholder values and risk assessments using a combination of mathematical and decision analysis tools which culminate in a ranking of the remediation alternatives. From this integration, we devise strategies for a consensual deliberation that focus on the interests of the stakeholders while simultaneously account for the technical issues. This work presents the results of such an integration and details the formulation of strategies.