Enhancing the Role of Science in Stakeholder-Based
by
Gail Charnley, Ph.D.
2. The Problem: Uncertainty, Credibility, and Communication
The root of most debates about the role of science in risk management decision-making is the fundamentally uncertain nature of science. Most highly subjective, contradictory, or incorrect scientific claims occur in the areas of uncertain knowledge, or in the application of well-established knowledge to novel or ambiguous situations (Mazur 1998). Uncertainty allows the participants in a debate to generate competing technical analyses to support their conflicting policy arguments (Mazur 1975). Surprisingly often, disagreements on key technical points remain unresolved and scientific uncertainties remain unaddressed, undermining opportunities for resolving policy debates (Adler et al. 2000).
The essential problem with the “dueling scientists” approach is that the adversaries recognize that each group can manipulate or distort its analysis to support its policy position. The resulting suspicions make it difficult for any one participant to generate technical information that will be credible to the other participants (Busenberg 1999). When no common ground of technical knowledge is achieved, its role and importance in deliberation can be diminished or eliminated.
Poor communication about the role of science in a risk management decision-making process also leads to misunderstanding and suspicion. It is often the quality of the communication-not the technical information itself-that stands in the way of finding common ground (Hance et al. 1988). Problems arise when participants misunderstand the extent to which science can and cannot provide answers to their concerns. If nontechnical stakeholders do not understand the science or the role it can play in decision-making, it is unlikely to play a significant role. If the scientists or technically oriented stakeholders do not understand what the real concerns of the other stakeholders are, then science-no matter how well deployed-will not solve the problem.
This section uses two case examples to illustrate the problem of resolving technical policy disputes. The first involves competing scientific knowledge claims and the second, conflicting goals and communication failure among the participants.
Case #1: Valdez, Alaska (Busenberg 1999). Large volumes of crude oil are shipped in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska, with oil loaded onto tankers at the port of Valdez at a terminal operated by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (Alyeska). Alyeska had supported the establishment of a Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council (RCAC) to help oversee environmental management of the marine oil trade there. The RCAC and Alyeska engaged in two major disputes involving technically based policy issues. In the first, a suspicion that science was being distorted to support the industry’s desired outcome led to a stalemate, with the technical issues ultimately ignored in the risk management decision-making process. The participants in the second dispute, perhaps learning from the lessons of the first, resorted to a collaborative process instead (see Section 4).
The first dispute involved the impact of crude oil vapors emitted by the oil terminal on air quality in the city of Valdez. Alyeska had commissioned a series of air quality studies that examined the levels and sources of airborne volatile organic compounds in Valdez and the RCAC convened a panel of scientists to evaluate the results of the studies. The panel agreed with the findings regarding the levels of ambient airborne benzene but disagreed with the method used to identify the source of the benzene emissions. The two groups of scientists then generated contradictory knowledge claims regarding the sources of benzene, with the RCAC concluding that 90% of it originated at the oil terminal and Alyeska concluding that only 25% originated there. The RCAC asked Alyeska to install vapor control systems and Alyeska refused, unless a significant health risk could be attributed to the terminal. Interviews revealed that the Alyeska scientists questioned the validity of the RCAC models and that RCAC scientists believed the Alyeska results had been manipulated to support the industry’s arguments. Mutual suspicions of distorted communication arising from claims of mistaken and manipulated analyses led to an impasse, with neither party accepting the other’s interpretation. In the absence of a common foundation of knowledge, further discussion stalled and the Valdez air quality debate remained deadlocked for two years.1
Case #2: Baltimore Community Environmental Partnership (US EPA 1999a). Southern Baltimore is an industrialized area with a large concentration of industrial, commercial, and waste treatment and disposal facilities. Major facilities include chemical manufacturers, petroleum storage facilities, a medical waste incinerator, the city landfill, and a municipal wastewater treatment plant, 11 of which report air emissions to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory. Additional facilities, such as the city waste incinerator, a large steel mill, and two utility power plants, are located nearby. Altogether, more than 175 chemicals are emitted from facilities in the area, leading residents to rank air quality first on their list of concerns at a community priority-setting meeting. In particular, community residents were concerned about the possible public health consequences of exposure to the combined emissions from all the industrial, commercial, and waste treatment and disposal facilities located in and around their neighborhoods. A Community Environmental Partnership2 had been started in southern Baltimore as a community-based approach to environmental protection and economic development. A subcommittee of the partnership comprising representatives of different community sectors was formed to address air quality, while a separate subcommittee was formed to address community health. The goals of the air quality subcommittee, co-chaired by one resident and one industry representative, were to determine whether current levels of air toxics resulting from industrial emissions in partnership neighborhoods might affect community health and to recommend actions to improve air quality. All decisions were made by consensus.
The air quality subcommittee chose to use a risk-based screening method to help provide information on the potential health risks associated with airborne chemicals in partnership neighborhoods. The approach used standard methods to identify chemicals from air pollution sources that might pose the greatest health risks. Three successive screens of the original 175 chemicals of potential concern identified four chemicals as being of most concern to the partnership neighborhoods. Of those four, only benzene emissions were estimated to result in airborne concentrations above the subcommittee’s screening level, suggesting that local industrial emissions do not pose a threat to public health in that area. Petrochemical storage facilities in one neighborhood were identified as the primary source of the modeled benzene, but contributed only 12% of the measured ambient benzene concentrations in the area. Mobile sources were thought to account for most of the ambient benzene concentrations but mobile sources were not considered in the screening exercise, which looked only at point-source emissions.
The limited scope of the subcommittee’s investigation produced a dilemma. The subcommittee wanted to focus on facility-related point-source chemical emissions and to develop concrete recommendations to improve community health. As it turned out, the study found that the point sources evaluated were not likely to be a significant contributing factor to community health concerns. By not including a potentially important source of air pollution-mobile sources-in the study, the subcommittee did not have enough information to develop the most effective recommendations. Thus it is possible that poor air quality does contribute to public health problems in South Baltimore, but by failing to look at the whole picture, the study could not answer the question. The relationship between the limited scope of the subcommittee’s work and its ability to make recommendations for improving community air quality and health was not adequately discussed, understood, and agreed to at the beginning of the effort.
When the participants realized that the results of the study were not going to be able to show what some expected-that industrial air emissions posed risks to their health-the environmental advocacy group representatives resigned from the subcommittee. In a letter to EPA (timed to be released one day before the study results were made public), those who resigned (and others who had not been involved in the project at all) stated that they were “deeply committed to the Partnership’s ultimate goal: the discovery of more effective ways to reduce pollution through the reinvention of traditional regulatory programs.” That goal had not, in fact, been articulated and agreed to at the start of the effort. The letter authors went on to say that what they had sought by participating in the project was “a real opportunity [to develop] a new and deeper understanding of the environmental conditions that threaten us and [to debate] the best way to address those problems” [emphasis added]. Thus those who resigned had started with the assumption that the environmental conditions they were addressing posed risks to their health. When that assumption was not borne out by the results of a process they had agreed to and participated in from the start, they resigned in an attempt to discredit the process and findings and to maintain their adversarial position. In this way, the conflict became one less about what science was relevant and more about whether science was relevant. Scientific legitimacy was appealing when it suited the needs of the environmental advocacy participants; scientific information was sought as a means to buttress their beliefs, not to answer a question or solve a problem.
While the Baltimore Air Committee process did not exactly fail, its results did not have the support of all participating stakeholders. It was not able to use science to change views, solve a problem, or develop a consensus. One problem was that the environmental activists were the only community resident representatives involved. Broader community representation that did not rely on only one sector or viewpoint would have created better conditions for an effective deliberative process. The process should have clarified at the outset what the science would and would not allow the study to accomplish and how the science and the political agendas of some stakeholders conflicted. Involving participants in collecting actual data to verify the estimates of the air contaminant exposure models might have contributed to a shared understanding of the results of the study and improved its credibility. Finally, by taking a longer-term view of the deliberative process and an iterative approach to problem definition, the two subcommittees formed to address air quality and community health separately might have been combined. This study could have been one of several steps taken towards answering the larger question, What factors contribute to health problems in the community? By focusing on the narrow question it did, it could not answer the broader public health concerns of the community.
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