III.B: Participation Innovations

Launch several efforts to further public participation

Other Information:

Although you can still send a letter to EPA or call us, EPA has launched several efforts to further public participation. We described several of these efforts in Section II, since many of our projects that foster participation also promote transparency. Some of the new ways we are enabling partners and stakeholders to participate in carrying out our mission include: * Video contests, leveraging YouTube and the public to educate others on environmental issues and successes: We have launched a series of contests and envision continuing them indefinitely. As this report is being published, we currently have one video contest and one participatory video project running. * Town hall meetings * Greenversations blog at (http://blog.epa.gov) * The MyEnvironment Web page (www.epa.gov/myenvironment/) features environmental shout outs, which give the public the opportunity to publicize good-for-the-environment activities that are happening within their communities, such as river cleanups and volunteer monitoring or e-cycling efforts, using MyEnvironment's mapping interface. Within the Agency, we are identifying ways to coordinate and organize a formal network of EPA staff experts to connect and respond to public inquiries, encourage public participation and provide consistent service. 1. Examples of How Targeted Groups Get Informed - In addition to providing information geared to the public, we offer many ways for groups and communities with specific interests or concerns (target groups) to become informed and share ideas. * EPA and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) developed a forum (www.ChemicalRight2Know.net) to provide access for communities, industry and interested stakeholders to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and other environmental data. * EPA is holding a conference, the 2010 National Training Conference on the TRI and Environmental Conditions in Communities, to support environmentally-informed decision making in communities. * In the area of waste management and cleanup, EPA has held two video town halls targeted to citizens. These videos are described and viewable at: (www.epa.gov/oswer/videotownhall.htm). The first town hall was on the Superfund program, and the second focused on environmental justice as well as how citizens can reduce their carbon footprints through reducing, reusing and recycling. * One EPA office posts a question for discussion at least once a month on their blog (http://blog.epa.gov/oswerforum/). A recent question was: How would you grade EPA’s role in addressing environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities? 2. Links and Websites for Public Participation and Engagement - EPA will rely on several sites to announce opportunities for our partners and the public to participate in accomplishing our mission. For simplicity, the primary site for learning about these opportunities is (www.epa.gov/open). EPA is committed to keeping this site as current as possible and will strive to provide ample advance notice for upcoming activities. This site is also available from EPA’s home page (www.epa.gov) by clicking on the OpenGov icon. The advent of Web 2.0 offers new ways for the public to participate. For that reason, EPA is pursuing a variety of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and wikis. Currently, EPA is hosting more than 140 applications on the Internet and EPA’s internal Web site. Some examples include: * Metal Mining (https://blog.epa.gov/metalminingblog): A blog to obtain public and industry comments on pre-regulatory rulemaking related to the Metal Mining Industry. * Thorium and Uranium Milling Facilities (http://blog.epa.gov/milltailingblog) (coming soon on the Internet): A blog to obtain public and industry comments on regulatory rulemaking action to 40 CFR192, Thorium and Uranium Milling Facilities. Additional links and ways to speak out and participate include1: * Greenversations blog: http://blog.epa.gov. * Facebook: www.facebook.com/EPA. * Twitter: http://twitter.com/epagov. * Many more social media opportunities: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html. Another site where opportunities may be announced includes: * http://yosemite.epa.gov/opei/RuleGate.nsf. 3. Partner and Stakeholder Feedback Methods - From EPA’s open government Web site (www.epa.gov/open), the public can follow progress on flagship projects, select opportunities to participate, find data sets recently made available on Data.gov, and access the OpenEPA Web site to provide feedback. The OpenEPA Web site also allows us to solicit comments and provides partners and stakeholders a way to comment or vote on ideas submitted by others. In response to requests on the OpenEPA Web site, EPA plans to keep the site active after our Open Government Plan is published, which allows the public to continue providing feedback and learn about our progress. We will also evaluate and establish standards for the how often EPA will engage in dialogue with submitters. We realize the tools and methods in our current toolkit are efficient means of communication for technology-savvy stakeholders, and we are committed to broadening our reach to involve those who are not technology-driven or who may not have easy access to technology. Our commitment to reach the public contributed to our selection of Community Engagement as our Flagship initiative. We will test other participation methods through the Flagship projects and continue adjusting the number and variety of tools we use. In addition, we provide feedback to public comments related to open government on our OpenEPA forum. Please visit us at www.openepa.ideascale.com to view the current status of ideas. Finally, we are always looking for great ideas in your community. We have established an interactive, web-based ―Shout out Feature‖ that allows you to provide recognition for community efforts. The purpose of this shout out feature is to applaud the environmental efforts of local communities, but also to make neighbors aware of all the good that is being done right in their own backyard. We encourage you to show us where something was done to help your local environment and provide a short description. Your local activities are a key part of keeping our nation's water, land and air clean, and we believe in the motivational value of these actions in spurring similar action across the nation. You can find this feature at www.epa.gov/myenvironment by entering your zip code or location information, and then clicking on ― Give A Shout Out icon.

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