By David Poulson
poulsondavid@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 7, 2009
I attended a Great Lakes public hearing this week that really wasn’t.
The event at Michigan State University was one of the EPA-sponsored meetings held to solicit feedback for the Obama Administration’s proposed $475 million investment in environmental restoration.
And while the meeting was open to the public, not much of the public was represented.
Instead, this was mostly a Great Lakes love-in.
Much of the crowd consisted of the same people, or the same kinds of people, whom I’ve met during 25 years of covering similar gatherings. All had been significantly engaged in Great Lakes environmental and economic restoration. How could they be opposed to Obama’s downpayment on a promised $5 billion Great Lakes investment?
Here’s who was missing: Anyone with an idea different for spending this money than the proposed 100-odd projects developed by a collaboration of agencies and organizations. You mean absolutely everyone agrees that EPA has the magic distribution formula? I’m surprised you can get such unanimity on the five spending categories and how the money is allocated among them, let alone on the actual projects.
It will be interesting to see after all this public input – you can still send comments to EPA before Aug. 19 – whether the agency’s proposal changes a wit.
Here are two ideas I would have liked to have seen fleshed out at a true public hearing:
- Instead of 100 projects, how about 20? Or six? Or one? Long-time Great Lakes watcher Dave Dempsey has raised this issue several times. Why not focus this money in a way that truly demonstrates a significant piece of environmental protection or cleanup? How about completely cleaning up one Area of Concern? What about a full court press on ballast treatment and regulation? What if we invested much of this money in aggressive wetland protection? The diversity and spread of the projects produce a whiff of compromise – of trying to please a lot of constituencies and agencies. Might someone argue that a handful of significant projects demonstrates what can be accomplished with a focused attack? Might that also spur yet more public investments? Would such an issue prompt you to vote here?
- Don’t spend the money at all. As Congress debates this expenditure, that issue will certainly be central to many lawmakers already railing about stimulus spending. Why not get it out in the open right now? Democracy is messy. If nothing else, raising that question gives others the opportunity to justify the expense – and perhaps change a few minds.
A lack of wrestling with these kind of questions isn’t the fault of those who organize hearings. People attracted to a hearing on spending money on environmental protection are likely people who desperately want to see that investment. And a lack of quibbling over spending specifics may represent a reluctance to rock the boat when such a bonanza is in sight.
But we lose when we fail to engage in meaningful debate.
It’s an issue not unlike the struggles journalism faces. As readers in the information age we have the ability to choose the kind of journalism that exactly reflects our beliefs. As journalists in the information age we have the task of engaging diverse readers who may not choose to consume news that challenges their beliefs.
With a scant four months under our belt, the question here at Echo is whether we can attract an audience with diverse enough members that they inform each other in a way that builds greater understanding.
So if you think that the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is mistaken or even poorly focused, I’d like to hear about it in the comments below.
And, of course, you have the opportunity to defend it here as well.