Improving Public Participation to Achieve Environmental Justice: Applying Lessons from Freight's Frontline Communities

Abstract

Public participation, sometimes referred to as public involvement or engagement, is often a mandated process in agency-led environmental and land use planning with major implications for environmental justice. Theoretically and in practice, quantity and quality of these public participation activities remain variable in the United States. This article reports on residents' experiences in two distinct frontline communities, those living near the proposed New International Trade Crossing in Detroit, Michigan and the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California. Recent studies suggest that persons of color and low-income are disproportionately exposed to air and noise pollution from heavy-duty engines at freight gateways (e.g., ports, borders). Synthesizing findings from qualitative interviews with community members and leaders, content analysis of environmental assessments, and observations at public events, we describe recent freight land use deliberations, as well as public participation experiences, catalysts, and barriers during these deliberations in the two study communities. Drawing directly on perspectives of community members and leaders as public participants, we report how agency-led public participation opportunities, while extensive, may be experienced as confusing, perfunctory, discriminatory, and burdensome. Further, public participation generally entails intensive community organizing efforts and can become a source of chronic stress for active residents of frontline communities— many who have been historically and repeatedly marginalized during land use planning and by its outcomes. We conclude by reconsidering theoretical frameworks, and offering concrete strategies for decision makers in a variety of sectors, such as transportation, housing, planning, and public health, to improve procedural justice and promote environmental justice.

Introduction

Public participation is the institutionally- or community-driven involvement of the public in deliberations associated with policies, programs, or plans that may affect their well-being.^1,2 The “public” may consist broadly of citizens and undocumented individuals; self-defined communities or neighborhoods; and those residing, playing, or working within politically defined geographic areas associated with these deliberations. Many different sectors, agencies, communities, and disciplines use the terms “citizen participation,” “public involvement,” or “public engagement” with similar connotations. Table 1 summarizes key federal rules that codify public participation in U.S. environmental and land use planning.³ In practice, the quantity and quality of these approaches are highly variable, and minimally evaluated.⁴

Table 1.

Key Federal Rules Requiring Public Participation in Land Use Planning

Policy	Description of Public Participation Requirements
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Efficiency Act (2005); U.S.C. Title 23, Parts 134, 135 & 450 (2005)	• Requires metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to develop participation plans, per Transportation Equity Act (1998) • Links transportation planning to NEPA regulations • Mandates that state Departments of Transportation and MPOs must conduct public meetings at convenient and accessible locations
Executive Order 13166 (2001)	• Orders that federally conducted programs and activities be accessible to persons with limited English proficiency
Executive Order 12898 (1994)	• Orders public participation in all federal programs and plans to achieve environmental justice
National Historic Preservation Act (1992)	• Defines format and types of cooperation required between States and Indian Tribal areas in long-term transportation planning
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (1991)	• Among first transportation policies to encourage and fund public participation • Increases flexibility of States in planning processes
National Environmental Policy Act (1969)	• Requires public comment opportunities on draft environmental impact statements after alternatives have been identified and evaluated
Federal Highway Act (1962)	• Requires urbanized areas with populations of 50,000 or more create state and local planning organizations to receive federal transportation funds

Adapted from: U.S. Department of Transportation's “Public Involvement: Key Legislation, Regulations, and Guidance.”

Over the last century, a variety of theoretical approaches to public participation have emerged in the scholarship of environmental and land use planning.^5,6 In the early twentieth century, planners defined rational planning as a key framework, relying on expert technical knowledge to make efficient, cost-effective decisions through a stepwise process of criteria and assessment.⁷ Today, rational planning is commonly demonstrated by the National Environmental Policy Act's process of environmental assessment required for major federal projects. As many recent scholars note, the public's complex role in planning may also reflect communicative⁸ and constructivist⁹ models, which recognize planning as a reciprocal, power-laden activity between experts and community members. Communicative models continue to see planners as experts facilitating decision making, but recognize that they may also take on additional roles by initiating task forces or building consensus, identifying and including diverse stakeholders, or preparing documents for alternative forms of information sharing. Constructivist models more directly recognize experiential knowledge of public participants as relevant in decision making. Communicative and constructive models are heavily interested in how empirical or expert information and local or experiential information is exchanged to inform planning decisions by democratizing science.¹⁰

In practice, public participation is particularly relevant to environmental justice issues. This is because it is “frontline” communities that frequently host and deliberate on policies or plans for multiple industrial, freight, or hazardous waste sites. Many communities facing environmental justice issues have self-identified as frontline communities, rather than “affected” or “host” communities, to emphasize their active role in these deliberations. Additionally, meaningful public participation may offer one mechanism for achieving procedural justice.¹¹ Procedural justice refers to perceived fairness of the quantity and quality of participation processes. Assessing quantity of participation may entail counts of public meetings, comments, press activity, or forums, as well as the number and types of individuals or groups involved.^12,13 Assessing quality of participation may include, for example, measuring how empowering a process is, how networks engage or deepen, representativeness of stakeholder groups, capacity of planners or public participants, or level of involvement.¹⁴ Typically, procedural justice is considered a necessary prerequisite and modifier of distributive justice. Distributive justice refers to the perceived fairness of decision-making outcomes, particularly the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens in relation to income or race.^15,16

Freight developments offer one context for exploring the theories and practices of public participation with regards to environmental justice. Air and noise pollution exposures near freight gateways (e.g., seaports, borders, rail yards) are well documented. These exposures are associated with multiple health outcomes, including respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, cancer, diabetes, nervous system and cognitive effects, hospital admissions, sleep disruption, and premature mortality.^{17,18,19,20,21,22,23} Communities hosting freight gateways are largely comprised of marginalized populations.^24,25,26 The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) exploratory, “initial screening” at 47 marine ports and 33 rail yards found at least 13 million people “in the vicinity” of these freight gateways, and they are disproportionately low-income, African American, and Hispanic.²⁷ At these sites and many others, state and federal departments of transportation, local governments, and metropolitan planning organizations are charged to make decisions about freight land use that are articulated through public hearings, meetings, and documents including draft and final environmental impact statements (DEIS, FEIS), and regional transportation plans.

While public participation is a mandated component of land use decision making, few studies have examined what it means to be a “public participant” from the perspective of community members and leaders in frontline communities. We use qualitative inquiry to examine these perspectives in two freight land use deliberations. Interviewees note general experiences, catalysts, barriers, and stressors associated with their participation. Drawing on these results, we conclude with general recommendations for improving conceptualization and practice of public participation, towards the end of procedural and environmental justice.

Methods

Between 2011 and 2012, case studies at two distinct sites were conducted: the proposed New International Trade Crossing (NITC) in Detroit, Michigan and the Port of Long Beach (POLB) in Long Beach, California. Maximum variation sampling was used to select two cases that were overtly different by geography and context, a selection strategy that allows for identification of crosscutting themes that may emerge despite maximum variation.²⁸ The NITC is the proposed development of a bridge border crossing between Southwest Detroit, Michigan in the United States and Windsor, Ontario in Canada. The new proposed crossing is located about 1.5 miles southwest of the Ambassador Bridge, the largest land freight gateway by trade value in the U.S.²⁹ The POLB in Long Beach, California, is known as the “Green Port” for its progressive and effective environmental policies and programs,³⁰ and considered a model agency for communicating and addressing environmental justice issues.^31,32 It is the eighth largest freight gateway in the U.S. and fourth largest seaport by trade value.³³

The University of Michigan Institutional Review Board approved this study's protocol in 2011. These case studies entailed qualitative interviews with community members and leaders (n=18 in Long Beach; n=14 in Detroit), content analysis of public comments, and participant observations.³⁴ Interviewees were selected using snowball sampling,³⁵ beginning with well-known community leaders identifying potential participants. Interviews were semi-structured and open-ended,³⁶ lasting approximately 1.5 hours, on average. To acknowledge participants' time and contributions, $25 incentives were provided. Interviewees were asked to describe public participation opportunities (e.g., events, comment processes), how they participated (i.e., when, where, how much), and factors that helped or hindered their participation.

After interviews were transcribed, data were coded using themes that emerged in transcripts and organized in Atlas t.i.,³⁷ a qualitative data management software. First, several transcripts were open-coded³⁸ by two researchers, narrowing to a list of approximately 100 codes through an iterative process. Codes related to agency-led institutional public participation processes, for instance, included “general description of processes,” “amount (e.g., number of meetings),” “timing of solicited public participation (e.g., before/during/after environmental assessment, allotted time for comments),” “solicitation processes,” “general barriers,” and “general catalysts.” All transcripts were then focus-coded³⁹ using this list, with all text associated with each code highlighted and compiled for thematic analyses. Analyses were conducted to generate themes both within each case and across cases. Many findings were consistent across cases, and are reported below by quotes from just one case site to illustrate these common themes. Findings that were case-specific are reported as such.

For content analysis, the following documents were collected: 1) Draft and Final Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS, FEIS) for the NITC and the POLB's most recent deliberations, 2) corresponding public comments for these DEISs, and 3) additional texts interviewees deemed relevant (e.g., outreach materials). Observations were conducted at several events, including state and city hearings, windshield tours of transportation infrastructure and frontline communities, community meetings, door-to-door flyering with community leaders, large town hall events, community clean-ups, and government-organized information sessions on deliberations. Content analysis and observations provided opportunities to contextualize and triangulate interview findings.⁴⁰

Results

History and context

The NITC and the Delray Neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan

Planning for the NITC began in 2002 when the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) initiated a planning and feasibility study. Deliberations spanned over a decade, including an environmental assessment process that lasted from 2006–2009. In 2010, the Canadian prime minister offered Canadian tax dollars to the U.S. to fund the bridge, and in 2013, the secretary of state signed a Presidential Permit to approve its development. The NITC is now planned to become a major feature of the Delray neighborhood, particularly affecting those along the transportation corridor that consists of the Detroit Intermodal Freight Terminal (DIFT) and many major highways extending through the greater Southwest Detroit region.

Delray residents currently experience multiple economic and environmental challenges. It is a frontline community hosting a steel mill, a coke storage facility, a rail yard, an oil refinery, and a wastewater treatment plant in or nearby. The population of Southwest Detroit decreased by approximately 40% between 1950 and 1980 and, of those who remained, by another 60% between 1980 and 2010.⁴¹ Approximately 46,000 residents remain today. Delray, a subset of Southwest Detroit, contains approximately 2,780 residents, 57% of whom are persons of color. Among Delray residents, 43% have less than a high school education, median annual household income is $26,000,³⁵ and 31% of those in the civilian workforce are unemployed. Of about 1,200 houses in Delray, at least one quarter are vacant.

The POLB and Long Beach, California

The POLB in Long Beach, California and its connecting transportation corridor frequently undergo redevelopment. This corridor includes the physically adjacent but separately governed Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the I-710 highway. Many freight-related issues have been deliberated in the region over the last several years, currently including the proposed expansion of the I-710 and the development of the BNSF Railway Company's Southern California International Gateway, a $500 million rail yard. In 2002, the City of Los Angeles experienced the biggest legal settlement of their history in Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) v. the City of Los Angeles, one of the most locally impactful freight deliberations.⁴² As a landlord port managed within the City of Los Angeles, the POLA had entered into a contract with China Shipping and begun building a new terminal to accommodate 250 of the world's largest container vessels, greatly increasing the region's trade volume. After 18 months of litigation, the courts ruled that the POLA's Environmental Impact Review was inadequate, violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In the years that followed, the POLA and the POLB developed many environmental initiatives. At the POLB, these included the Green Port Policy, the Clean Air Action Plan, the Clean Trucks Program, and the Green Ships Incentive Program, which have reduced diesel particulate pollution by approximately 81% since 2005.⁴³

Built in 1911, the POLB grew from 800 acres to 3,200 acres over the last century. Between 1943 and 1997, the U.S. Navy maintained a shipyard at Terminal Island which lies between Long Beach and San Pedro, Los Angeles' port district. Since that era, industry has continued to change, with Long Beach transitioning into the port community it is now. Approximately 20 intermodal freight facilities and 60 industrial facilities, including three oil refineries, chemical manufacturing plants, a coke processing facility, and various fabricated metals plants, are all within 5 miles of the POLB. Today, one of every eight jobs (about 30,000 jobs) in Long Beach is related to the POLB. Overall, during the last thirty years, the proportions of the Long Beach's population living in poverty, unemployed, and having less than a high school education have all increased, from 14% to 19%, 13% to 22%, and 6% to 7%, respectively.⁴⁴

Institutional approaches to public participation at the NITC and the POLB

Between 2000 and 2012, government agency staff, elected officials, and consultants solicited public participation to deliberate the proposed NITC in four primary ways: legislative hearings, general local meetings, topic-specific workshops, and a local advisory council (LAC). Over 140 in-person forums resulted. Between 2006 and 2010, they held approximately 20 legislative hearings with hundreds of public testimonies in front of various state and house subcommittees to discuss NITC-related bills, appropriations, or specific data (e.g., presentations on traffic projections). Between April 2005 and October 2008, MDOT held approximately 25 meetings to update community members and present specific details of proposals (e.g., drilling plans, interchange designs). Between December 2005 and December 2007, MDOT coordinated a series of 18 workshops, inviting the public to, “provide their thoughts on the ‘look and fit’ of the proposed river crossing in the context of its surroundings.”⁴⁵ Assembling approximately 70 times between March 2005 and May 2011, the LAC consisted of 59 organizations and representatives invited to attend monthly meetings. While the deliberation continues, legislators halted related appropriations in 2011, preventing MDOT from holding ongoing NITC-related public meetings.

Interviewees discussed two kinds of public participation opportunities developed and expanded by POLB staff over the last decade: ongoing and project-specific. In 2005, when the POLB Board of Harbor Commissioners established the Green Port Policy, they also established a 2006–2016 Strategic Plan, outlining a new community engagement program to, “facilitate better understanding among key stakeholders, engage partners to help work toward common goals and encourage greater public participation in decision making.”⁴⁶ Led by the Communications and Community Relations Division, ongoing activities at the POLB are extensive, including harbor tours, sponsored events, speakers, Pulse of the Port (monthly video episodes about POLB happenings), Tie Lines (a monthly newsletter), Re:Port (a quarterly newsletter), and various educational opportunities. In these efforts, the POLB has developed scholarships, high school curricula, internships, and field trips for students. More specifically related to environmental and land use planning at the POLB, ongoing opportunities for public participation include biweekly public Board of Harbor Commissioners' Meetings, Let's Talk Port (a series of semi-regular interactive forums started in 2008 designed for the public to ask general questions), and monthly environmental meetings attended by the POLB's Department of Environmental Affairs and Planning staff and local non-profit leaders. Finally, project-specific participation opportunities vary by project but include required meetings associated with the CEQA and NEPA processes. Some Long Beach residents are also selected to participate in POLB deliberations through formal, structured opportunities. For instance, a mayor-appointed advisory committee established in 2010, which includes Long Beach residents, selects grantees for the POLB's Community Grant Mitigation Fund that finances interventions that mitigate the Port's environmental effects.

Catalysts to public participation at the NITC and the POLB

Interviewees at both sites described many catalysts to their participation in freight deliberations. Most notably, these included development of long-term relationships across multiple transportation projects with project staff, extensive reciprocal information sharing among lead agencies and community organizations, and accessibility of project staff. At the POLB, in particular, many also reported a “cultural shift” over the last decade towards increased opportunity for public participation. Interviewees described this shift as a result of many converging factors: a “proactive response” to the 2002 lawsuit at the adjacent POLA over inadequate environmental assessment;⁴⁷ an increased effort “to measure and be transparent and informative;” a “very vocal” community to maintain a sense of accountability; a societal shift to an “electronic” and “information” age to make environmental assessment documents more accessible; a “period of exponential growth” to generate revenue to fund public participation and mitigation activities; and a “generation of leaders who prioritize environmental stewardship” and “go beyond compliance.”

Barriers to public participation at the NITC and the POLB

Still, from the perspective of interviewees in both cases, public participation can be improved. Table 2 shows barriers to public participation commonly described in Detroit and Long Beach with selected quotes from interviewees across sites, highlighting three types of barriers or challenges encountered during both NITC and POLB deliberations. First, interviewees described inaccessible public participation processes, with much confusion and uncertainty surrounding information and procedures. For instance, environmental assessments, on which they are invited to comment, can include thousands of pages of technical information. Interviewees repeatedly noted the need for technical assistance to make sense of air and noise quality data and findings. Second, they described inadequate and, at times, discriminatory, public participation processes. Examples included input that went unheard or did not influence decision outcomes, particularly when solicited too late in the decision-making process or if countering input from private interests. Finally, they described how public participation placed undue onus on community members and leaders to address their concerns on their own or with minimal agency support. Participants described initiating their own research on, for example, mitigation strategies, interagency relationships across transportation and housing sectors, and related educational opportunities for their community.

Table 2.

Common Barriers to Public Participation in the Freight Deliberations with Descriptions from Community Members and Leaders in Detroit, Michigan and Long Beach, California

Public Participation is Confusing and Uncertain

Uncertainty underlying 5–10 year decision-making processes

The longer we wait, the cost will go up further. They want to know how much money do we want from the company to do what we want? How can you ask us that kind of thing? We don't know how many houses you're going to take. They want the CBC [Community Benefits Coalition] to spell out how much it's going to cost. We're not engineers. We're simple people. You know?

Difficulty gaining access to or knowing which decision makers are influential

Sometimes when you would call up, they would ask, “Are you a constituent?” Well, no we're not a constituent in their area, but they are going to be voting on our neighborhood. Therefore, we think we should be able to talk with them about their vote.

Uncertainty of how, when, or where to participate in institutional opportunities

That's the thing, like, if you haven't gone through the process, if you don't happen to have experience. Basically, if you aren't, if you don't know of the groups that are following these things or if you don't happen to live close enough to a project where you've gotten one of those notices …

Difficulty understanding technical information in environmental assessments

There's no way you can understand these things as a human being. It's not user-friendly at all. If you were to look to the Port to make it understandable, you'd be wasting your time. That's how I see it.

Inherent political nature of major land use decisions, entailing misinformation

I have never been involved in one singular topic that has been so controversial and so bogged down with misinformation.

Public Participation is Inadequate and, at times, Discriminatory

Feeling unheard, discriminated against, or disrespected

… when the people come to tell you something, they don't listen. You're on the phone. You're doing other things, and you don't put attention on what the people are saying. And, I believe education includes full attention to what the people tell you. The people from my community, they believe, well, we didn't go to school, we have no studies, but you went to the school and university, you do a lot of things in your life…but you don't have education. You don't have respect.

Logistical barriers to participating in events

Because when city council was going to vote on, when we turned in 1,800 signatures, we had like 200 people come down. But the city council jockeyed the schedule around and we were supposed to be at the beginning of the meeting…you've got 10 people making comments. Well I was supposed to go up and present them with a petition. Well, they took that section and moved three or four items above it, and by that time, our bus, we had chartered a bus to get some people down there, the bus had to pick people up and take them back. I think it was intentional …

Perfunctory opportunities—“I feel it is just a big PR [public relations] event.”

I am reluctant to go because I feel it is just a big PR event. If you say anything you're just railroaded, in terms like “Oh, it's not true.”

Inaccurate representation of residents

They [private interests] can easily make phone calls and get 200 community people to fill the room saying that they want the project. So it drowns out the true voice of the residents.

Overriding considerations of adverse impacts, “where economic, social or other stated benefits are sufficient to warrant project approval” ^a

That does not mean that, ultimately, the community has influence…theoretically, I mean, I suppose that's what people would say. But, in the end with overriding considerations, they don't. There's no guarantee that allowing the community to come in and speak and get educated means that they're going to influence the process.

Inauthentic communication—“They try to trick us.”

But they try to trick us…A lot of our people do not have any jobs. They bring the project like something beautiful, something wonderful. We are going to have jobs. We are going to have a lot of things—everything green. Sometimes they mention to the community, “Yeah, we are going to do this. But, don't worry, we will plant trees, and we'll plant more green.” They bring pollution. It's like, you know, come on! So then when our group tells the community, “You know what this group wants to do in your neighborhood? Demolition. Your house and the apartments and planning to spread the freeway or railway.” And, you know. It's like the people who live close to those areas don't know nothing about it. And they say, “You're going to have jobs.” They don't ever explain that these will be temporary.

Public Participation Places Undue Onus on Community Members and Leaders in Addressing Their Concerns

Responsibility on residents to work across sectors and agencies to address concerns

We actually brought in the MSHDA [Michigan State Housing Development Authority] people. They never did it. We brought this up to past Governor Granholm. And I said, well, “What are we going to do for the seniors?” And then the Governor said, “Oh, yeah, we've got to jump on this …” and said, “you guys get together with MDOT.”

Extensive outreach demands on leaders

And then we went house to house and wrote down every address…and flyered each house as we did it and made up a mailing list and gave it to [project staff ] so they could send out mailings to all the people. We notified the people of the upcoming meeting, and at the next meeting 180 people showed up. Well, actually, that is their job.

Competing priorities for community's resources

Everybody is not up on it and educated and communicated with. Everyone is, you know, so busy. And we are, all busy. Middle class. Whatever. Lower class. Middle Income. Low Income. No income. Everyone's trying to survive day-to-day. Get your food on the table. Get your kid cleaned or get your kid to school. So, the majority of people don't have the time to be on top of every single thing that might happen or be happening or even catch the darn news.

Minimal economic resources to organize and participate

Now getting people there's a lot of money just in gas money and making sure people have a ride, making sure people are fed and organizing people …… And, then, do it on very short notice. That's a problem. That's a big problem. And, we're left to scramble and get people there. So, I don't find that helpful. It's something that…we have funders that are helping us to try and make it happen

Few, if any, precedents for community involvement in land use governance

… everybody was saying, “Can't we do this?”—“this” being community benefits— in another way. We said, “Fine. Find us a legally binding way to do it. Show us.” They would never produce it. They kept talking about MOUs and MOAs. Someone said there was a past example of an MOA that was signed between MDOT and former Mayor Coleman Young that they're still abiding by. Well, show it to us.

California Environmental Quality Act of 1970. California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Division 6, Chapter 3, Sections 15000–15387.

Community organizing as public participation at the NITC and the POLB

When asked how they participate in transportation decision making related to the NITC and the POLB, interviewees at both sites frequently responded by describing various community organizing strategies, rather than the aforementioned institutionally led opportunities. Residents engaged in various activities as public participants, including but not limited to:

• Press releases

• Community trainings and presentations

• Newsletters or flyers

• Policy advocacy

• Petitions

• Testimonies at hearings

• Lawsuits

• Toxic tours

• Community-based research

• Social media

• Door-to-door outreach

• Community advisory boards

• Rallies or protests

• Public comments on DEISs

In Delray, the neighborhood in Southwest Detroit where MDOT plans to build the NITC, a Community Benefits Coalition (CBC), formed in 2008, does much of this organizing. The CBC formed to advocate for a community benefits agreement⁴⁸—a contract that would assure that some of the proposed bridge's benefits (e.g., jobs) are available to residents, while simultaneously requiring additional mitigation measures to reduce its' adverse effects (e.g., increased truck traffic, air pollution, and displacement). In Long Beach, a robust network of community-based and academic organizations, including those organizing around the adjacent Port of Los Angeles and the greater I-710 freight corridor, does much of this organizing.

Public participation as a chronic stressor at the NITC and the POLB

In both cases, interviewees clearly described public participation as a long-term process for frontline communities, posing many challenges. First, residents who engage in deliberations learn further about their exposure to compounding environmental risks that often go unaddressed. Many raised concerns about how their health was affected by these cumulative risks, asking, “What happens when you live there for 30 years and every day you are exposed and you are breathing this?” These processes reinforced the institutional discrimination that many experience, feeling like “—they've been using us as a laboratory.” Further, the act of participation itself becomes burdensome, with many community members noting, “You never finish with these kinds of things.” Some felt their constant participation in deliberations was necessary and, at times, expected to protect their community's health. As one Southwest Detroit resident explained, she wakes up each day and asks, “Which whale are we going to save today?” In these frontline communities, diverse chronic stressors emerge during involvement in both specific deliberations that may last five to ten years, and perpetual deliberations related to a variety of land use issues.

Interviewees at both sites explicitly described physical and mental health implications of these stressors. A Long Beach resident explained how being a public participant over the course of multiple deliberations contributed to her illness, “So, I'm stretched thin. And then, recently I haven't been involved at all because I'm sick. It probably won't be as much as it was before because that was part of why I got sick.” Similarly, a community organizer in Detroit elaborated on the impact of long-term and perpetual deliberations, “Because people have been promised so much. They've convened so much. They've been studied so much. And, they're so sick of it. It's really hard for them to just live their daily lives. I really want that to end for them…the empty promises and delays that are hurting them so much.” Collectively, interviewees noted that their participation in land use deliberations involved uncertainties, discrimination, delays, and long-term commitment, in addition to continued environmental exposures, likely affecting their well-being in adverse and profound ways.

Discussion

The themes elaborated above highlight the many barriers, under-acknowledged chronic stressors, and implications for well-being experienced by members of frontline communities as they participate in deliberative processes related to land uses and environmental exposures in their communities. There is increasing evidence that participatory processes contribute to effective policymaking, decision making, and advocacy outcomes that promote health equity.^{49,50,51,52,53,54,55} With recent federal policies pushing for more efficient environmental assessment procedures^56,57 and the increasing privatization of developments,⁵⁸ decision makers should examine the question of whether sufficient opportunities and resources are provided for early, informed, and meaningful participation. While there are practical concerns regarding distribution of scarce public resources to conduct public participation,⁵⁹ results reported here emphasize the need to improve public participation to achieve procedural justice toward the end of environmental justice.

To improve procedural justice, our findings suggest that more may not be better. As highlighted by the cases of the POLB and the NITC, planners, consultants, decision makers, and other project staff dedicate a laudable amount of time and energy to both rational planning (e.g., NEPA-related meetings) and communicative planning (e.g., LAC meetings, workshops) approaches. These extensive efforts, while informative, can also perpetuate uncertainties, discrimination, and delays that contribute to chronic stress among participants. Efforts to build interagency capacity and recognize and support extensive community organizing efforts, may improve procedural justice in overtaxed communities. For instance, community members and leaders described conducting outreach about upcoming institutional public participation opportunities to solicit attendance at meetings or comments on environmental assessments, educating neighbors about the purpose of such opportunities, and developing relationships across sectors and agencies to address related housing or health concerns. Outreach, education, and coordination efforts could be led or financially supported by government agencies to support effective community participation.

Many existing policy, governance, or funding mechanisms may help to institutionalize procedural justice, reducing barriers and further catalyzing public participation. Community members and leaders described long-term relationships with project staff and extensive reciprocal information sharing as enabling institutional shifts that promoted procedural justice. For example, the NITC's Local Advisory Committee and the POLB's Community Mitigation Fund provide opportunities for such relationships and information sharing. Yet, community members and leaders noted that, in order to increase procedural justice, these approaches must be representative and influential. Other governance models, such as community benefits agreements, promoted by Detroit's CBC and successfully used at the Los Angeles International Airport, may be a tool to ensure the interests of frontline communities are integrated into decision-making and agencies are held accountable over the long-term for a development or policy. Lessons may also be culled from models such as the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's Participant Funding Program.⁶⁰ Through this program, individuals, non-profit organizations, and Aboriginal groups may be eligible for funding to support their participation efforts. A similar funding mechanism would address barriers described by residents in both Long Beach and Detroit where resources for travel, language translation, and translational science are minimal.

Decision makers might also borrow from the EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC)'s recommended model guidelines for public participation⁶¹ to reduce barriers to public participation, including many described by interviewees and presented in Table 2. Presented partially in Table 3, these offer concrete strategies and resources to increase community input and procedural justice. For instance, among the most repeatedly cited barriers to public participation in this study, community members and leaders expressed the confusing and inaccessible nature of technical information included in environmental assessments. NEJAC recommends that agencies hire trainers as “ambassadors of the community engagement process” who can work with both decision makers and residents to plan trainings, for instance, on how to read an EIS or make public comments.

Table 3.

Recommendations for Implementing Public Participation in Frontline Communities

• Develop co-sponsoring/co-planning relationships with community organizations and provide resources for their needs.

• Schedule meetings and/or public hearings to make them accessible and user friendly for EJ stakeholders. Consider timeframes that do not conflict with work schedules, rush hours, dinner hours, and other community commitments that may decrease attendance.

• Hire trainers with a good understanding of the subject matter, both technical and administrative. The trainers should be ambassadors of the community engagement process.

• Provide information to communities about the government's role as it pertains to short term and long-term economic and environmental needs and health effects.

• After holding a public forum in a community, establish a procedure to follow up with concrete action to address the community's concerns.

• Establish interagency working groups (at all levels) to address and coordinate issues of EJ.

• Provide information to communities about the government's role as it pertains to short-term and long-term economic and environmental needs and health effects.

• Train staff to support inter-and intra-agency coordination, and make them aware of the resources needed for such coordination.

• Prior to conducting agency meetings, form an agenda with the assistance of community and agency representatives.

• Design and implement educational efforts tailored to specific communities and problems. Increase the engagement of ethnic caucuses, religious groups, the press, and legislative staff in resolution of environmental justice issues.

Adapted from: National Environmental Justice Advisory Council's “Recommended Model Guidelines for Public Participation.”

EJ, environmental justice.

The POLB in Long Beach and the NITC in Southwest Detroit differ in terms of local politics, funding, community capacity, history, and policies. Despite these distinctions, interviewees expressed comparable catalysts, barriers, and stressors. While these findings may be most relevant to those working in the transportation sector or in freight's frontline communities, many of the reported barriers are likely experienced in the context of other environmental justice issues, as community members and leaders described the many “whales” they strove to save each day. As such, existing funding and governance mechanisms, as well as the NEJAC recommended guidelines, might apply broadly.

Conclusion

The development or enforcement of environmental and land use laws that minimize environmental health risks would eliminate many distributive justice issues in the U.S. A reconsideration of public participation to achieve environmental justice is warranted. Frequently, low-income, persons of color—who have historically been excluded from land use decision making in the U.S.—must protect their communities, sometimes over the course of concurrent, decade-long deliberations through participation in hundreds of meetings and extensive community organizing efforts. In the context of two freight-related deliberations, barriers, catalysts, and chronic stressors associated with public participation offer tangible lessons for those looking to increase environmental justice underlying diverse permitting, planning, and policy decisions. Specific and achievable actions can be taken to provide support for residents of communities encountering excess environmental health risks. Investing in such actions can have profound benefits for public participation, and for the attainment of environmental justice and health equity.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Nathan Barnes of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan for his assistance with data analysis.

Author Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose. This research was supported by the Rackham Graduate School at University of Michigan.