On the Deliberation Phase of Environmental Decision Making. G. E. Apostolakis, S. E. Pickett, and R. Accorsi, MIT, Room 24-221, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
The National Research Council has recommended that environmental decision making involving multiple stakeholders include a formal or informal deliberation phase. This paper reports on the structure and results of such a deliberation. Six Remedial Action Alternatives (RAAs) were considered by six stakeholders representing the public, the site owner, and regulatory agencies (state and city). The fundamental objectives of the stakeholders were grouped into six categories: Programmatic Risks, Life Cycle Costs, Socioeconomic Impacts, Cultural Impacts, Environment, and Human Health and Safety. Fourteen Performance Measures (PM) were defined to represent these objectives. Risk Assessments were conducted to evaluate the numerical impact of each RAA on each PM. Using relative importance weights that were derived for each PM from stakeholder input (via the Analytic Hierarchy Process), the RAAs were ranked in order of preference for each stakeholder. Furthermore, the principal contributors to each stakeholder’s ranking were determined from the analysis. These results were made available to the stakeholders before the deliberation. At the beginning of the deliberation, the stakeholders were presented with a number of tentative conclusions that could be formulated from their rankings. These were the broadest possible level, so that consensus could be reached. The conclusions included negative findings, e.g., "it appears that RAA A is not preferred by anyone." There was considerable discussion of these conclusions and how the analytical results supported them. The stakeholders were grouped into six categories: Programmatic Risks, Life Cycle Costs, Socioeconomic Impacts, Cultural Impacts, Environment, and Human Health and Safety. Fourteen Performance Measures (PM) were defined to represent these objectives. Risk Assessments were conducted to evaluate the numerical . . . . . . [RiskWorld Note: Submitted abstract incomplete]