From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case

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From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case Study of Discord among Trust, Equity and Community Participation Jamie W. Baxter , John D. Eyles & Susan J. Elliott Published online: 02 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Jamie W. Baxter , John D. Eyles & Susan J. Elliott (1999): From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case Study of Discord among Trust, Equity and Community Participation, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 42:4, 501-525 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640569911037

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Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 42(4), 501±525, 1999

From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case Study of Discord among Trust, Equity and Community Participation

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JAMIE W. BAXTER,* JOHN D. EYLES² & SUSAN J. ELLIOTT² * Department of Geography and B.Sc. Environmental Science Programme, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 ² School of Geography and Geology and McMaster Institute of Environment and Health, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1 (Received May 1998; revised March 1999)

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to the noxious facilities siting literature by exploring some implications of adhering to some recommended principles and practices for competent siting. Through a qualitative case study of a land®ll siting process in Peel (Ontario, Canada) three principles are critically assessed: trust; equity; and community participation. While laudable notions in principle, in practice they can impact each other in important ways which can (potentially) undermine the siting process. These impacts result mainly from the failure to achieve meaningful goals associated with one principle (e.g. community participation) which can exacerbate problems achieving goals associated with other principles (e.g. trust). The resulting discord can be further aggravated by the snowballing of adverse effects over time. In particular, practices for achieving trust and equity were adversely linked, as were the relationships between spatial equity and procedural equity and interregional and intraregional equity. These adverse synergisms were linked together with ineffective community participation which brought the process to a halt. Siting inertia (a process momentum dif®cult to redirect) and an in¯exible siting context contributed to these con¯icts. Implications for siting and further research are discussed.

Introduction Locating environmentally noxious land uses (e.g. waste disposal facilities) is becoming increasingly problematic as opposition to such facilities seems to rise in both frequency and intensity (Hadden, 1991; Zeiss & Lesfrud, 1996). There is a considerable literature on what not to do in the site selection process, but only recently has this been translated into concrete recommendations about what constitutes reasonable and effective siting principles and practices (e.g. Armour, 1992; Rabe, 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993). This paper contributes to both these literatures by exploring some implications of adhering to recommended siting principles through the use of a case study. It will be argued that laudable principles for siting, when put into practice, can con¯ict in ways that can both 0964-0568 Print/1360-0559 On line/99/040501-25

Ó 1999 University of Newcastle upon Tyne


502 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott thwart the effective implementation of the principles themselves as well as contribute to undermining the entire siting process. Unsuccessful siting1 is typically the result of strong public opposition (United States Department of Environmental Protection (USDEP) 1979; Furuseth, 1990; Lober, 1993). Mitchell & Carson (1986) claim that people actively oppose potentially hazardous sites because the personal costs of the facility are perceived to be high, while the personal costs of opposition are perceived to be relatively low. Further, many communities are often accused of contributing to the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) phenomenon whereby they may see a need for a potentially noxious facility, but seem unwilling to accept a local facility due to high perceived personal costs (e.g. potential health risks) (O’Hare, 1977; Portney, 1991). However, we are concerned that dismissing failed siting attempts as a consequence of widespread community NIMBY may mask potential problems inherent within the siting process itself (see also Armour, 1992). It is now well documented that locating environmentally noxious facilities (e.g. land®lls, incinerators, nuclear power plants) is costly in terms of both the amount of time and money spent by governments and others on litigious, adversarial processes which seldom culminate in community acceptance (e.g. Lober, 1995; Slovic et al., 1994). There is also a growing literature on the psychosocial costs of siting processes which may contribute to individual and community level upheaval, concerns, anxiety and frustrated attempts to return to `normal’ (e.g. Edelstein, 1988; Elliott et al., 1993; Eyles et al., 1993; Albrecht et al., 1996; Baxter, 1997). Thus, research which explores the reasons for siting failures and recommended siting changes has ¯ourished (e.g. Ristoratore, 1985; Armour, 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993; Petts, 1994; Lawrence, 1996; Murphree et al., 1996; Zeiss & Lesfrud, 1996). This literature marks a shift from a previous focus on the technical issues of sitingÐgetting the science right by gathering accurate information on speci®c selection criteria (e.g. see Noble, 1992; Frantzis, 1993; Zeiss & Lesfrud, 1996)Ðto a focus on procedural principles like development of trust and community participation. Thus, competent siting is presumed to include due attention to both technical rigour and these procedural issues. Little attention has been paid, however, to the ways that principles for procedural competency in siting may interact within the same siting process. This paper documents a siting process which appeared to pay heed to many of the recommended principles for competent siting. Yet this process became frustrated when various siting principles were not met in practice. That is, when meaningful ful®lment of one principle was absent, meaningful ful®lment of other principles was compromised. The resulting discord was further exacerbated by the negative synergisms established, putting in motion a destructive snowball effect. It is important to note that the discord described here is not inevitable; rather, it is contingent upon the context (legislative, community, political) within which a siting process is situated. The remainder of the paper is divided into three parts. First, recent literature on three key principles/practices for facility siting (trust, community participation and equity) is reviewed. This is followed by a case study of a siting process in the region of Peel, Ontario, Canada, from 1990 to 1995. The case study is framed by the ®ndings from 44 in-depth interviews. The ®nal section summarizes the reasons for discordance between siting principles when put into practice and examines potential implications for future siting efforts.


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 503

Figure 1. Idealized model for competent and successful facility siting. Principles for Competent Siting Practice Trust, equity and public participation are principles presumed to lead to successful siting since they are meant to reinforce (arrows with thick lines) some degree of consensus between stakeholders (Figure 1). The effect each principle has on the others (arrows with thin lines) is either presumed to be mutually reinforcing or has not been considered critically. It is important to reinforce that, while the three principles discussed here are prominent in both the literature and in the case study we review, they are not meant to be exhaustive. Developing Trust Trust concerns the relationship between key stakeholders including the government, the siting agency and the community hosts. In many cases opposition to facilities is motivated in part because residents do not trust proponents or the technology they advocate (Greenberg & Anderson, 1984; Armour, 1992; Bord & O’Connor, 1992; Flynn et al., 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993; Petts, 1994; Leiss, 1996). Trust is directly related to public participation (Figure 1). That is, public participation may foster trust while also satisfying other siting goals (e.g. ranking the importance of siting criteria). In this sense, trust may be considered a principle of effective siting while public participation is a practice for building trust. Research on risk perception shows that lack of trust in facility siting managers may exacerbate concerns about risks from facility hazards. For example, Flynn et al. (1992) ®nd that negative attitudes toward a high-level radioactive waste facility in Nevada are strongly associated with distrust of repository managers and only indirectly by the stigmatizing aspects of such a facility. Similarly, Bord & O’Connor (1992) demonstrate a link between trust and general concerns about a hazardous waste site (e.g. community health risk estimates are shown to increase as trust in managers decreases) implying that lay views of risk have little to do with the more technical aspects of locating.


504 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott Further, Laird (1989) highlights that suspicions about facility siting managers may be linked to two components of trust: technical competence; and ®duciary obligation (see also Barber, 1983). The former concerns the ability of managers/ scientists to do `capable’ jobs and Laird argues that this is very dif®cult in an era where science and government are generally viewed as incapable of guarding against environmental risk (see also Armour, 1992; Kasperson et al., 1992). Fiduciary trust involves siting managers putting the public’s best interests (e.g. health, preservation of community values) above their own institutional interests (e.g. ful®lling pre-established time-lines). This element of trust is particularly challenging for siting managers who work within mandates set by others (e.g. governments). While these themes intersect, there is an underlying optimism in much of this literature that trust can readily be nurtured within the process despite its fragility. For example, in their `facility siting credo’ Kunreuther et al. (1993) assert that practices like admitting past mistakes, avoiding exaggerated claims/ promises and highlighting past successes can help to (re-)establish trust between siting agents/governments and the public. Others have suggested, however, that the capacity for complex technical systems to fail (Perrow, 1984) has led to a renewed societal consciousness of scienti®c uncertainties which severely impedes the development of trust generally (see also Beck, 1992). Further, once distrust develops trust is very dif®cult to regain without wholesale changes to the siting process and/or the stakeholders involved (Covello, 1996). Thus, it may be argued that the threat of distrust between residents and siting managers may remain if the process rests too much on a technical/scienti®c foundation for site selection and does not pay due attention to procedural principles. Equity Equity is of increasing interest to siting agents and communities involved in siting processes (Bullard, 1990; Rabe, 1992; Armour, 1992; Lober, 1995; Albrecht et al., 1996; Bowen et al., 1995; Lawrence, 1996; United Church of Christ, 1997). There are, however, numerous forms of equity to be included within the siting process. These may include: the general tenets of environmental equity/environmental justice; and the more speci®c principles of social, spatial, and procedural equity. Environmental equity and environmental justice are closely linked. The former concerns fairness in the distribution, both socially and spatially, of (new) environmental risk based on certain criteria (e.g. in relation to generators of risks). Environmental equity should not be confused with equality which concerns the equal distribution of risks and hazards regardless of criteria. Environmental justice is a broader and more politically charged term since it involves remedial action to affect the distribution of existing risks in addition to equitable distributions of new risks (Harvey, 1973; Cutter, 1995). Thus, environmental equity is often considered the more tractable principle for environmental justice compared with environmental equality. Within the realms of environmental justice and environmental equity are more speci®c principles which provide more practical guidance for siting processes: social equity (the social distribution of waste management burdens); spatial equity (the spatial distribution of facilities); and procedural equity (the fairness of siting processes). In his review of 10 waste facility siting processes in Canada, Lawrence (1996) claims that equity has only recently been addressed, as one of three main


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 505 intersecting approaches to siting waste facilities (along with environmental suitability and community control). However, Lawrence indicates that equity considerations are not as pervasive as this three-fold characterization might suggest. He argues that while all of the 10 processes had some elements of environmental suitability and community control, equity concerns only `selectively in¯uenced’ various siting processes and was only informally included in one of the 10 processes he reviewed: the Interim Waste Authority’s (IWA) process in Ontario, to which we turn our attention in the case study. Thus, since equity considerations have only begun to be incorporated into siting efforts they warrant close examination in terms of how they interact with other siting principles. The literature contains numerous examples of how equity principles may themselves con¯ict when put into practice. For example, distributive equity has traditionally been dealt with through compensation measures whereby prospective host communities are offered ®nancial incentives beyond those directly associated with the facility itself (e.g. tax relief, community facilities). However, many have found that compensation is usually ineffective on its own, especially if it is not offered in an appropriate manner (Armour, 1992; Rabe, 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993). For example, in a study which compared host and control communities Zeiss (1991) found that procedural equity issues of prevention, control and mitigation overshadowed compensation (social equity) as effective and fair waste management practices. Similarly, Kunreuther et al. (1993) and Rabe (1992) recommend that only after residents are convinced that adequate prevention and mitigation measures are in place should issues of compensation be raised. Thus, a potential tension exists if managers only pay attention to distributive social equity concerns vis-aÁ-vis compensation and ignore other procedural mechanisms for dealing with risks from environmental hazards. Public Participation Past efforts at public involvement in siting have focused on keeping the public informed of siting progress rather than involving them directly in decision making. Much has been written on the bene®ts of community participation for increasing public acceptance of facilities and thus the probability of facility siting success (Armour, 1992; Rabe, 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993; Petts, 1995). Further, community participation may be linked to trust and equity (see Figure 1). That is, participation may allow the development of ®duciary trust if the public interest is placed centre stage which may, in turn, give residents more procedural control over how siting decisions are made. Though public participation may reinforce certain forms of trust and equity, there is some evidence that these principles operate independently. For example, Kunreuther et al. (1993) claim that effective public participation can lead to successful siting in the absence of a fully trusting relationship between stakeholders. Similarly, while the focus on procedure inherent in public participation is important, it does not necessarily ensure satisfaction of equally important criteria like distributive and spatial equity. Further, we agree with Daniels et al. (1996, p. 14) that while ªtheoretical progress (on public participation) has been slowº, attention should be paid to how consensus building through public participation is put into practice and with what goals (see also Murphree et al., 1996). Thus, we argue below that ineffective public participation can frustrate the development of trust, the


506 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott satisfaction of equity and siting efforts generally if stakeholders do not agree on the principles and goals which should guide the process. Public participation as a principle for guiding facility siting has a long history in the literature. Much of this literature argues that the form of participation can greatly affect siting success (e.g. Arnstein, 1969). Participation can range from selective community input (e.g. prioritization of screening criteria) to active involvement in the structure and administration of the process with attendant veto power. However, most siting processes seem to focus more broadly on principles for effective public participation including such elements as: early public involvement; consistent public involvement; provision of intervener funding; a collaborative rather than authoritarian/paternalistic environment; and ¯exibility (e.g. Armour, 1992; Rabe, 1992; Petts; 1995). Lawrence (1996), however, outlines speci®c criteria which address various types of control over the process itself: procedural control (in¯uence on the structure and implementation of the general process); locational control (freedom to choose whether or not to accept a site); and facility control (need for, size and operating characteristics of a facility). The main challenge of these criteria is that siting managers must relinquish considerable decision-making power to the public. Thus, processes which satisfy any or all of these are still few (Petts, 1995; Lawrence, 1996). Petts (1995) provides a detailed study of a process which seemed doomed by public opposition but appears to have been turned around by adopting an extensive community consensus building exercise. This contrasts the focus on the mere provision of information which characterized the era of technical siting. Such strategies have been criticized for being mainly public relations exercises since they are not usually associated with any meaningful mechanism for public input even when the public can make sense of the often highly technical information (see also Arnstein, 1969). This public relations criticism may certainly be levelled against the IWA process in Peel (e.g. Lawrence, 1996). However, we submit that there are equally important issues related to the local context of siting and discordant siting principles which may motivate residents to turn public consultation against siting agents to undermine the entire process. We now turn our attention to the case study.

Case Study Background The case study is a two-year (1994±95) investigation of Caledon, Ontario, Canada, a community that was the preferred site for a regional (Peel), solid (non-hazardous) waste land®ll from 1993±95. The objective of the study is to understand the meaning of the siting process including the roles played by risk and uncertainty. This is part of a larger project investigating the different languages and meanings of environmental risk in the social, political and economic contexts in which they are experienced. Thus, the study was not set up speci®cally to test whether siting principles interfered with each other, rather the concept emerged as part of our interpretation of the interviews in combination with existing literature. One of the main ®ndings of the larger study is that the nature of the siting process itself largely affected the manner in which the risk of the proposed land®ll was socially constructed in the community. That is, since the siting process involved con¯ict between stakeholders for a long period of


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 507 time (approximately June 1992±June 1995) resident stakeholders developed views about the risks of the land®ll largely through their social relationships with others in the community. Technical information provided by siting managers was then interpreted by residents mainly in light of the pre-established community-generated de®nitions of the land®ll as high risk. Thus, siting managers and residents themselves fuelled continued con¯ict as each became more adamant about their positions: the managers claimed the land®ll was low risk while the residents claimed that it was high risk (see also Johnson & Covello, 1987; Krimsky & Golding, 1992). Caledon is the northernmost municipality within the region of Peel, one of three regions which make up the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). It may be characterized as predominantly rural with the smallest population in the region at 34 965 in 19912 and has the lowest population density in the region by far, at 51/km2, compared to an average density in the whole region of 598/km2. The community has a largely traditional household structure. That is, the majority of residents live in single-detached dwellings (93.7%) occupied by their owners (86.4%); this far exceeds the regional and provincial ®gures (57.6% and 63.7% for Ontario; 49.4% and 68.3% for Peel). Also, the area has a comparatively large percentage of husband±wife families (93.3%) compared to 87.4% and 88.8% for the Province and region respectively. The higher than average wealth of this community is evidenced by three characteristics: a median income (Can. $65 801) almost Can. $8000 higher than the region and over Can. $20 000 higher than the Province; a very low incidence of low income economic families at 2.6% compared to 8.7% and 10.9% for the region and the Province respectively; and a very high average dwelling value of Can. $334 119 (Ontario Can. $197 967; Peel Can. $247 937). The predominantly rural character of the area, including the small town atmosphere of the largest built-up area, Bolton, has attracted a large number of wealthy people who can afford to commute to the city (Toronto). New, young families seem to have chosen Caledon to raise their families and a small wealthy minority have selected it for retirement. These newer residents, along with the long-time residents, are looking for an alternative to the `hustle and bustle of the city’ which, in the eyes of the participants in this study, is generally too crowded, polluted and crime-ridden. Many of the people live in Caledon because they value such amenities as clean air, open spaces and traditional lifestyles. These valued aspects of the community were threatened by the land®ll as well as the siting process itself which contributed to vociferous opposition (Baxter, 1997). Table 1 sets out the siting and research chronologies which took place in Caledon. There are at least three aspects of the siting chronology which are central to our understanding of the roles of the three siting principles. First, the process was long, yet uncompleted. Over its ®ve-year history a preferred site was identi®ed and evaluated, but environmental assessment hearings were only about to begin when the process was curtailed by a June 1995 change of provincial government. This contributed to a lengthy period of uncertainty about end-of-stream waste disposal in the region, which has continued for at least three more years. Second, the process was constrained by legislation: the provincial Waste Management Act. This restricted the Interim Waste Authority (the siting agency) to consider a land®ll as the only (end-of-stream) method of disposal, to be located within the waste producing region only. The provincial

508 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott Table 1. Siting process and interview chronology Date

Event

November 1990 April 1991

Provincial plan for waste management, amendments to Waste Management Act Formation of Interim Waste Authority (IWA) to site land®lls in three regions in and around Toronto Environmental Assessment (EA)(Draft Approach and Criteria) outlines how the sites will be chosen Revision of EA document based on (lower than expected) public input Long list of 21 sites announced Don’t Assault Rural Environments (DARE) opposition group forms: representing community (initially rural agricultural) interests Short list of ®ve sites announced Preferred site (C34B) in Caledon announced CLEAN opposition group forms, representing local business interests Protect and Respect Our Bolton Environment (PROBE) opposition group forms, representing Bolton (largest local town) residents Envirohealth opposition group forms, comprised of individuals involved in local health care Group leader interviews start IWA personnel interviews start Preliminary environmental assessment hearings start Community (non-group leaders) interviews start Provincial election: Conservatives replace New Democrats (left) in landslide victory IWA dissolved by new governments; siting reverts to a regionally owned process End of ®rst round of interviews Start of second round of resident interviews End of second round of resident interviews

Aug 1991 April 1992 June 1992


November 1992 November 1993 December 1993 February 1994

October 1994 April 1995 May 1995 June 1995

August 1995 July 1996 August 1996

government of the time had put a moratorium on incineration and exportation of waste. The spirit of these restrictions was spatial equityÐensuring that other places do not have to dispose of Peel’s waste. Third, there was considerable opposition to siting in the form of four separate community opposition groups, despite IWA efforts to include the community in the process. Methodology The qualitative methodology used in the study centred on face-to-face, semistructured depth interviews (n 5 44) designed to develop an understanding of the social construction of environmental risk and facility siting in its community context. As the goal of the research was inductive, theoretical exploration, this sample size was suf®cient to produce thematic saturation whereby issues raised by participants were frequently repeated (see Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). While interviews had a conversational style, they were guided by sets of topics including: siting impacts; risk, health and safety concerns in general as well as in relation to the proposed land®ll; community values; trusted sources of information; and the role of experts. Laws (1996) points out the value of conversations or `talk’ for stakeholder negotiation. Similarly, we argue that `talk’ can evoke understandings of environmental risk as well as views on trust, equity/fairness and community involvement in both the formal siting process and grass-roots opposition.


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 509 Study participants were from two major stakeholder groups: IWA siting experts (n 5 4), and residents (n 5 30). The 30 residents were further categorized as leaders of resident opposition groups (n 5 7) and non-leader residents (n 5 23). Residents were recruited from a range of urban and rural locations close to and further away from the proposed site. Such characteristics are noted against the quotations we present below to show the variety of different participants who form the basis of our interpretations. While the four IWA experts we interviewed represented over half of this group, the focus of the study was on residents’ views on risk and siting. Ten of the 30 residents were interviewed a second time to further explore key issues raised in the ®rst round of interviews. The 44 interviews were taped, and transcribed verbatim, which translated into approximately 850 pages of interview text. These were analysed for emergent themes with the assistance of NUD*IST, a qualitative data management software package which allows the indexing (coding) of themes (Richards & Richards, 1991). Contextualized thematic analysis was used to address concerns about the selective use of participants, themes and quotations. Such an analysis is inductive whereby themes emerge from, and are ascribed to, discrete units of text (DUT) within the interviews, some of which are eventually presented as quotations which are linked to theoretical constructs in the interpretation (Miles & Huberman, 1994). This process produced a tree-like hierarchy of 278 themes topped by nine general themes which formed the main branches and numerous, more speci®c, themes branching out below these. The practice of presenting qualitative ®ndings as quotations along with a researcher’s theoretical commentary has been criticized for failing to address representativeness (Baxter & Eyles, 1999). The representativeness of themes in this analysis was dealt with in at least three ways: by outlining an explicit rationale for quotation selection; by including complete tables of sub-themes; and by following qualitative criteria for guarding against threats to qualitative rigour. Quotations (DUTs) were selected from the interviews on the basis of their representativeness of all other DUTs sharing the same theme and the ability of the speaker to articulate that particular theme. Tables 2 to 5 place the themes in a wider context in order to show how they rank in relation to related themes in terms of number of mentions and number of participants who mentioned them (see also Table 2 footnote). The choice of themes and quotations must be selective because of the volume of data. That is, while we do not provide the complete thematic tree, the various branches provided show the relative prominence of themes illustrated by way of quotations. This provides ®ndings which are more transparent and traceable than analyses which rely on quotations alone. Issues of rigour were also dealt with by reference to Lincoln & Guba’s (1985) criteria for enhancing trustworthiness (qualitative rigour). These criteria were used to check the theoretical development and help prevent biased thematic construction and quotation selection. Speci®cally, we used source and investigator triangulation whereby different investigators analysed the same texts; member checking with participants in order to allow for commentary on our interpretations; and prolonged engagement in the ®eld to ensure context was understood. Thus, interpretations were scrutinized by multiple researchers and the participants themselves to check for plausibility and selectivity. Space prevents a more detailed discussion of how each of these were employed, but

510 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott Table 2. Residents’ trusted sources of information about the land®ll issuea Theme/topic ªDid not follow itº Local papers Local government ªMyselfº/family and friends Uncategorized Maximum for residents round 1 interviews

No. of mentions 18 8 7 5 5 55

No. of residents (% of 30) 8 8 4 5 5 28

(27) (27) (13) (17) (17) (93)


a

The ®rst column contains themes from a hierarchical indexing/coding scheme for the interviews; the second column shows how often the topic was talked about; the third column indicates the number and percentage of respondents who talked about that theme. Maxima indicate the prominence of each theme by referring to the highest count for the relevant data set (e.g. residents round 1, experts).

readers are directed to methodological companion papers (see Baxter Eyles, 1997).

Case Study Findings Trust Trust was eroded early in the IWA process which exacerbated problems with most other siting principles including spatial equity, procedural equity and community participation (see Figure 2). Trust was important to the IWA managers as evidenced in the following exchange with Sean: Interviewer: I ®rst want to talk about trust and the relationship between the IWA and the community. How would you describe the relationship between the community and the IWA? Sean (IWA proponent expert): In terms of trust, there’s two levels. One is on a personal individual level, there’s trust that I have with you as an individual. You may represent a much larger organization, but I have a trust with you versus the trust of the organization. The fact that we are seen ®rst as an arm of the government, there is a pervasive view that: `We shouldn’t trust anybody with the government’. So, on a corporate organizational level there is no trust. And I extend that to any arm of government: `Why should I, in the community, believe you, an arm of the government, who wishes, in my mind, to impose a land®ll in my community’. So just the mere fact of what it is that we’re doing questions that trust. So when we go out in the community and try to develop a level of trust, we can do it on an individual level, I can respect you and they can respect me for what it is that I do. But on an overall corporate, or on a much larger level, at the end of the day still represent the Interim Waste Authority, an arm of the government. And that trust, I don’t think can be easily reduced in terms of anxiety for that person in the community because we, the IWA, have a history of the government, quote unquote with us to carry.


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 511

Figure 2. Laudable principles, discordant practices: facility siting in Peel, Ontario. Note: all three principles were only partially successful (mixed line boxes) since the goals of subprinciples were not achieved in practice (dashed boxes). First, Sean talks about ªgoing out into the community to develop a level of trustº. Second, there is frustration in Sean’s comments that the IWA is not seen as trustworthy, despite the feeling that individuals developed trusting/respectful relationships (see Figure 2). The three other IWA personnel also lamented the dif®culties establishing corporate (®duciary) trust (despite individual trust) which reinforces that for them, trust, or its absence, was an important part of the process. We are also concerned with the way residents viewed trust. Trust was expressed in the study in at least two ways: from whom residents sought trustworthy information about the siting process; and, more directly, how they viewed the siting agency experts in the IWA (see Table 2 and 3). We ®nd a pervasive distrust in the IWA, to which Sean alludes, in: the motivations for community opposition; the frustration of constructive community participation; the focus of residents’ attention on equity issues; and the demise of the IWA process itself. Table 2 shows what residents named as their trusted sources of

512 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott


information concerning the siting efforts. Neither the IWA nor its personnel are indicated, however local governmentÐoften accused of favouring development unwanted by the community at largeÐwas trusted by at least four different people. This must be put in the context of a community whose local government was among the most vocal opponents to the IWA activities (see also Murphree et al., 1996). The motivation for trust for many may be summed up in the following exchange with Matt and Veronica who were among eight people who talked about trust in views expressed in local newspapers: Interviewer: As far as getting information about the land®ll issue it seemed that a lot of people trusted the local papers. I wonder what your thoughts are on why that is? Veronica (town, non-leader):4 Because they told the truth. Matt (town, non-leader): Well it’s the local papers so they’re looking out for the community. So I’m sure they’re a little bit biased, but at the same time they’re looking out for the community. Cheryl (rural, non-leader) expresses a similar view when asked about the accuracy of local media reporting: ªI don’t think they will always be accurate. I just think that it will always be negative, because people in Bolton (Caledon) don’t want the land®ll.º Thus, the residents were willing to accept from the local papers `biased’ information that was `not always accurate’ since the papers had the community’s best interests at heart. The latter is a condition of ®duciary obligation (see Figure 2), something the IWA and its agents seemed unable to demonstrate. This is demonstrated further by the views residents expressed in conversations about the IWA, its experts and the siting process generally. The technical competence of the IWA experts was also called into question by residents (see Figure 2). Table 3 includes all themes concerning residents’ views of experts generally. In most cases èxperts’ refers to those employed by, or under contract with, the IWA. As expected there were suspicions about experts’ motives (e.g. biased, more accountable) and frustration with technical and patronizing language. However, the lack of trust has much to do with residents’ recognition of the limits to expert knowledge as represented by the three most prominent themes in the list (as de®ned by number of mentions) limits to expert knowledge (20 mentions), the need for more research (11 mentions) and the idea that commonsense contradicts expert knowledge (11 mentions). Thus, trust is largely connected to people’s concern with technical competence, as re¯ection of concerns about scienti®c uncertainty. For example, Adele talks about her lack of faith in experts’ abilities to predict the long term impacts of land®lls: Interviewer: Do you think the scientists can predict that kind of stuff [impacts of land®lls]? Adele (site, non-leader): No I don’t think so. Maybe the ®rst couple of years they can predict, 10 years down the road they can’t. And I plan on living a long time. So, I don’t know. I don’t think they can. Man can only do so much and then in the end man destroys himself as far as I’m concerned. Thus, the inability of scientists to predict future adverse outcomes undermines the faith residents have in their competence to assure safety.

From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 513 Table 3. Trust and how residents view expertsa Theme/topic Limits to expert knowledge Need more research/testing Commonsense contradicts experts More accountable Biased (even fraudulent) research Stalemate, no de®nitive answers Just a job to them Patronizing Too technical Overwhelming amount of information Maximum for residents data set


a

No. of mentions 20 11 11 9 9 6 6 5 4 4 65

No. of residents (% of 40) 15 8 8 8 7 5 6 4 4 4 35

(38) (20) (20) (20) (18) (13) (15) (10) (10) (10) (80)

See Table 2 for a description of how to read this table.

Equity In Peel, different forms of equity, as implemented in Peel, adversely affected each other because there was no formal discussion between government, siting agents and the communities involved on its meaning(s). That is, residents focused on procedural and intraregional (spatial) equity while experts focused on interregional (spatial) equity (see Figure 2). The role of the provincial government as legislators who guided the practices of the IWA is central to this point. The provincial New Democratic government (political left) attempted to address the issue of spatial equity in the earliest stages of siting. They produced provincial legislation to restrict disposal alternatives in Peel (and two other regions) to include waste diversion (i.e. three RsÐreduce, reuse, recycle) and land®ll at sites only within the regional boundaries. This was meant to encourage waste reduction/recycling but, more importantly from the point of view of spatial equity, to keep any residual from the three Rs inside the region in which it was generated. Most of the people we interviewed, however, objected to this policy arrangement on the grounds that such a process is actually inequitable since it is unnecessarily restrictive and procedurally unfair. Thus, the government’s concern clashed with the community’s concern(s) (see Figure 2). Further, it seems that the government’s decision to restrict alternatives (both alternatives to land®ll and alternative methods of land®ll disposal) to achieve interregional equity was a major motivation for residents to focus on procedural equity issues in the ®rst place. For example, Table 4 includes all themes relating to discussions of alternatives to a large land®ll in Peel. It was one of the most popular topics among the participants with theme mentions ranging from three to 53 from a broad array of residentsÐranging from three (10%) to 28 (93%) of the speakers. It is worth noting that issues concerning alternatives to land®ll and alternatives to the NDP/IWA process were not topics on the interview checklist, and were therefore rarely raised by the interviewer, yet they were among the most common concerns raised by the residents themselves. In order to explore the idea that residents equated adequate consideration of alternatives with (procedural) equity, in a second round of interviews a subset of 10 residents was asked directly what they considered to be a fair/equitable

514 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott Table 4. Resident’s desire for alternative waste management strategiesa


Theme/topic

No. of mentions

Remote areas (particularly Kirkland Lake) Incineration Three Rs Alternatives (unclassi®ed) Rail haul (mainly to USA) Brampton’s turn (regional agreement) Voluntary siting Let the region (not province) decide NIMBY (ànywhere but here’) Local (municipal) dump only Future technological advances User fees Maximum for community round 1 interviews a

53 43 42 15 10 10 9 9 7 4 4 3 55

No. of residents (% of 30) 28 26 23 9 10 8 9 8 6 3 4 3 28

(93) (87) (77) (30) (33) (27) (30) (27) (20) (10) (13) (10) (93)


way of dealing with the region’s waste. Table 5 shows that, as expected, a similar set of themes revolving around the general issue of alternatives emerged from the equity probes. The following passage, which exempli®es some of these community sentiments, is from that second round of interviews: Interviewer: Based on the idea of fairness, what should be done with it (waste)? Nancy: (rural, non-leader): The incinerator. Interviewer: Where should it go? Nancy: I don’t care if it’s next door, I really don’t. Interviewer: You wouldn’t have any concerns about it? Nancy: Of course I would be worried about the traf®c and those are commonsense worries. I would not worry if it was up to date and it was a technologically sound system, I don’t think there should be any worry whatsoever. A land®ll site to me offers hundreds of years of worry. Table 5. Residents’ views on equitable/fair waste management (round 2)a Theme topic Incineration Remote areas (particularly Kirkland Lake) Three Rs Let the region (not province) decide Rail haul (mainly to USA) Brampton’s turn (regional agreement) Voluntary siting User fees Maximum for round 2 resident interviews a

No. of mentions

No. of residents (% of 10)

14 11 11 4 4 4 3 3 16

7 (70) 8 (80) 6 (60) 4 (40) 4 (40) 3 (30) 3 (30) 3 (30) 10 (100)


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 515 Given the substantial literature in North America around community opposition to the incineration alternative generally (see Elliott, 1998, for a review) it is curious that Nancy is willing to accept one `next door’. The veracity of such statements is less of an issue than her implication that forcing her to accept a land®ll is unreasonable. Janice explains further as she accuses the IWA (through Environmental Assessment legislation) of being unfair and in¯exible by `jamming through’ a single àlternative’:


Janice (rural, leader): Well to me what that [rules concerning alternatives] really tells me is that this is not a true environmental assessment where you look at all the alternatives and choose the best. All we’re [the province] doing is jamming this one alternative through and the process is becoming so costly they can’t even afford to retrench now. Thus, practices to achieve equity negatively affected the development of trust. That is, no matter how rigorous the rest of the siting process, the perception that the process was unfair from the outset put technical competency under much scrutiny and reinforced the notion that land®lls are generally unsafe and unacceptably risky. Moreover, comments like Janice’s re¯ect Armour’s (1992, p. 32) assertion that, ªpeople will not willingly consider the merits of a decision if they feel they have been treated unfairly in the process of reaching itº. Opposition by the residents was also reinforced by the way the siting experts talked about equity in siting within a process heavily constrained by legislation (see Figure 2). It is important to recall the political/legal context of equity. The IWA could do nothing about issues like incineration and exporting waste outside the region since these were excluded through Bill 143 (the Act that also created the IWA). Thus, in their Draft Approach and Criteria document the IWA (1991, 6±1) de®nes equity in terms of the distribution of costs (`negative effects’) and bene®ts within the region: ªWhether any community, group or individual is being asked to bear more than à fair share’ of the negative effects [of siting or facility development]º. While this de®nition did not translate into a criterion for siting, it was nevertheless an important enough principle to warrant a formal de®nition. The Act restricting alternatives (a siting practice) was meant to address the principle of interregional equity, leaving the IWA to deal with intraregional equity. Nevertheless the residents and siting agents each emphasized different de®nitions of intraregional equityÐwhich fuelled further con¯ict. The IWA was not willing to consider the location of previous land®ll sites in its selection process. The con¯ict this created is re¯ected in the following comment: Karen (IWA proponent-expert): In Peel you will hear, èquity, equity, equity’, which was a very big topic and a lot of people brought it up. [They] would bring out equity, `we already have one land®ll’. The truth is there are already so many buried land®ll sites all over the place, everybody’s got a land®ll site. Karen describes an apparent ubiquity of land®ll sites at various stages of development/decay àll over the place’ which, from the IWA’s point of view, seemed to preclude any meaningful discussion/consideration of intraregional equity between the IWA and residents. However, many residents questioned this dismissal of the intraregional equity issue since it also ignored the local social and political context of siting. For example, the 14 references to Brampton’s

516 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott turn (to have a land®ll) in Tables 4 and 5 highlight an agreement between the three municipalities in Peel that was usurped by the provincial process. The con¯ict this created is evident in Janice’s remarks:


Janice (rural, leader): They’re [IWA] saying that Peel needs a dump therefore we’re going to look at something that, in their terms, is safe with no regard for what communities actually have committed to themselves or amongst themselves. And that, of course, was one of the big issues in Peel was the fact that as three municipalities we had worked together. Caledon had the ®rst dump, Mississauga had the second, Brampton was prepared to take the third and that was a municipal agreement between the three bodies. Thus, residents were most concerned about procedural equity (adequate consideration of alternatives) and a particular view of intraregional equity (respecting the municipal agreement to `take turns’) while the experts focused mainly their own vision of intraregional equity (environmental suitability within the entire region regardless of existing sites). This bypassing of the municipal process also violated ®duciary trust since the IWA (more accurately, the government) seemed to have ªno regard for what the communities had committed to themselvesº (see Figure 2). Thus, the early focus on interregional equity by the government may have short-circuited hopes of achieving intraregional equity, procedural equity and ®duciary trust since the community felt alienated from the outset. Community Participation Public participation in the siting process was only partial in the sense that there was a limited decision-making role for residents. This served to frustrate efforts to foster both trust and procedural equity (see Figure 2). As we allude in the literature review above, community participation was the means through which residents began to recognize sources of con¯ict with siting agents and formalize their objections to the siting process. The IWA’s approach to public involvement was of®cially called `public consultation’ and revolved around having Peel residents participate in workshops to weight and rank various siting criteria (e.g. agriculture, biology, hydrogeology, social concerns). Thus, the IWA (1991, 5±1) claimed to adhere to an òpen’ process which solicited public input as follows: The Interim Waste Authority Ltd [IWA] is committed to an open and consultative land®ll site search process in Peel Region. The proposed programme is also designed to comply with the Ministry of Environment [MOE] Pre-submission Consultation Guidelines. Throughout the programme the IWA will be seeking input from and listening to the public. The incorporation of public expertise, knowledge and values into the land®ll site search is crucial to this project. While the time available for this land®ll site search is designed to ®nd a site as quickly as possible, every effort will be made to allow time to be responsive to the public. There are at least two points to note about these statements. First, while the IWA may have done a reasonable job of ªincorporating public expertise and knowledgeº 5 they had far less ¯exibility to incorporate `values’. For example, Baxter (1997) ®nds that what the land®ll and siting process at Caledon threatened most


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 517 was residents’ ways of life (e.g. rural farming, safe child rearing, peaceful retirement) as expressed through core values (e.g. attachment to slow growth, trust in neighbours). Second, the ®nal sentence and the reference to MOE guidelines suggest a sense of urgencyÐlikely in the context of limiting siting costsÐwhich serves as a reminder of the regulatory context. Any urgency built into the process may threaten ®duciary trust if residents view the siting managers as pushing things forward without paying due attention to community needs. This phenomenon may be called siting process inertia to describe processes which have a persistent, forward momentum and are dif®cult to slow down or adjust once started. This is due, for example, to self-imposed siting agency or regulatory guidelines (see Figure 2). This inertia remained part of the Caledon/Peel process despite strong signals from public and local government input that it should stop to reconsider, for example, issues like ways to reconcile both interregional and intraregional equity. Siting inertia is also re¯ected in what experts themselves had to say about community participation. While all of the experts interviewed (11 mentions by four experts) talked about how the IWA went to extra lengths to accommodate community needs6Ðin terms of providing information, making it accessible and making themselves availableÐtheir lack of success dealing with public input is clear in Sean’s comments: Sean (IWA proponent-expert): I don’t think you’ll ®nd another process in Ontario which has the breadth in the number of mechanisms that were there. I don’t think anybody could have any criticism about the number of opportunities. What they may have criticism with is, they may say `the IWA wasn’t listening’, or `the IWA wasn’t doing these things’. But you know, we can’t accept what everybody says to us because we would never be able to do it. Sean’s recognition that he and the IWA were often seen as `not listening’ emphasizes the lack of ®duciary trust and perceived procedural inequity in the community which may have sensitized residents to expect that their participation would have no meaningful effect (see Figure 2). Counter to the siting process inertia which contributed to this problem was the desire of many opposition leaders to be actively involved in discussing siting. This participation was not, however, meant to re¯ect community concerns in the choice of sites, rather it was used to sabotage the entire siting endeavour. This is re¯ected in 10 mentions by nine different residents concerning slowing down the IWA process, the second most talked about theme concerning community opposition strategies (Table 6). Giselle explains how slowing down the process through public participation contradicted IWA efforts to move the process forward: Giselle (rural, leader): From a strategic point [of view], they [IWA] were simply government employees. So the way that they think is very much in a straight line. Tick off the boxes, go through this process: Ì’ve got my job to do and I’m going home at ®ve’. It’s like, ìt’s my job and I’m going to do it this way because I’ve been told to do it this way’. But on the outside as someone ®ghting that process you’re a more creative thinker, and you don’t have to think in a straight line, you can say: Òkay, I know how they’re going to think’, so this is how we combat it, we just overloaded their system and that was what probably caused

518 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott Table 6. Strategies for opposing the IWA’s preferred site for Peel a


Theme topic Adversarial: protests Slow down the IWA process Attract media attention Adversarial: visible anger Adversarial: polite legal confrontation Political lobbying Petitions Re-consider previously eliminated sites? Separate politics from science Ethically Letter writing No dump period! (NIMBY?) Participation in IWA process (in good faith?) Maximum for community data set a

No. of mentions

No. of residents (% of 44)

17 10 9 8 8 7 7 5 4 3 3 2 2

13 9 4 7 6 7 6 4 2 2 3 2 2

66

36 (82)


all the delays. We created public participation in such an overwhelming manner that they could do nothing. That was the beauty of it, it was public participation. `What, you don’t want public participation, that’s what your whole programme is about?’! These sentiments run counter to the implicit assumption within much of the siting literature that community participation should nurture trust and reasoned negotiation between siting agents and the public. For example, Giselle’s comment that IWA personnel ªhave a job to do and go home at ®veº indicates her concerns about the lack of ®duciary responsibility on the part of siting agents. It is important to note too that Giselle’s concerns re¯ect the concerns of many in the community in the sense that she is an in¯uential community leader. Trust, Equity and Community Participation:Implications from the Case Study The case study ®ndings are summarized in Figure 2. This is an heuristic device to show how the same principles for competent siting from Figure 1 adversely impacted each other within the Peel siting process when put into practice. There are, thus, ®ve key differences between Figures 1 and 2. First, the principles are outlined by boxes to show whether implementation was successful (solid), partially successful (solid and dashed), or unsuccessful (dashed). Second, the principles are divided into sub-principles to provide more detail about which components’ goals were inadequately met and were thus the source of adverse effects. Third, outcomes in Figure 1 are theoretically supposed to be stakeholder consensus and successful facility siting, but in Figure 2, the empirical case, stakeholder con¯ict and unsuccessful siting are the outcomes. Fourth, many of the relationships between siting principles presumed to be reinforcing, or more likely, whose connections have not been critically considered, in Figure 1, are seen to be negatively reinforcing in Figure 2. Fifth, Figure 2 acknowledges the important roles played by the regulatory context and siting inertia in generating


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 519 and maintaining the conditions for con¯ict between siting principles. In¯exibility and the inability or refusal to adapt the process along the way contributed to entrenchment of stakeholder positions and deliberate sabotage of the process. The remainder of this section elaborates on the relationships illustrated in Figure 2 through a discussion of the implications of the discord between these siting principles as practised in Peel. The lack of trust in IWA experts was closely connected to concerns about scienti®c uncertainty. What is important is not the existence of scienti®c uncertainty itselfÐsomething scientists themselves, and increasingly the public, acknowledgeÐbut more that the residents chose to point out that uncertainty was important. Laird (1989) discusses what he calls the decline of deference which sets the wider context for siting disputes, whereby lack of trust in some experts can be traced to a public which is less willing to uncritically accept the decisions of largely invisible decision makers. Similarly, Kunreuther et al. (1993) argue that a principal reason for a lack of trust in science and government is the growing public concern that the risks of new technologies are poorly understood (see also Perrow, 1984). But not all communities faced with noxious facilities are concerned with deference and trust issues. For example, Webler et al. (1995, pp. 458±459) ®nd that citizens can have high trust in science/experts and may ªnot suspect experts would play political games with scienti®c knowledgeº (see Table 3). Thus, trust cannot be considered in isolation and must be connected with other principles involved in siting. For example, the lack of trust in the siting agency experts can be traced to the equity concerns described above. Since the process was considered by many to be inequitable/unfair from the outset, some residents tended to be sensitized to, and suspicious of, paternalistic experts. This resonates with Covello’s (1996) argument that, once trust is eroded in a facility siting process, it is next to impossible to regain unless there are widespread changes to the structure of the process. In this case, the IWA process was tightly constrained by the Environmental Assessment legislation so the former lacked suf®cient ¯exibility to, for example, adjust the process and accommodate meaningful change to (re-)establish trust (see Figure 2). Nevertheless, the IWA did develop a rather sophisticated community participation process capable of accommodating discussion on issues like the probabilistic nature of science and arguments for and against restricting certain alternatives. However, this participation process (discussed later in this section) served to further undermine, rather than bolster, residents’ trust in the process. Equity was perhaps the most divisive of the three principles since the government’s narrow focus on interregional spatial equity seemed to be the catalyst for opposition at the outset of the siting process. In their efforts to address spatial equity by eliminating alternative courses of action (e.g. ignoring existing municipal agreements, failing to consider smaller municipal land®lls rather than a single large regional land®ll) the provincial government, through the siting agency, created a process perceived to be unfair. This underscores the often crucial role played by the state in facility siting con¯ict (see also Takahashi & Lord Gaber, 1998). While we recognize that an effective and sustainable siting process must satisfy both spatial equity (locally and regionally) and procedural equity, it is also important to acknowledge that the ways these principles are transformed into particular practices (e.g. legislation in the absence of negotiation) can, as they did in Peel, foster adverse effects between principles. The


520 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott process must be considered holistically. This sheds some light on Lober’s (1995, p. 513) concern that: ªThe ®nding of the importance of the perception of fair process requires further research. It raises the question as to what the public might perceive as being a fair process.º Clearly, fair process as it relates to waste facility siting is ®rmly rooted in the local social, political and historical contexts, and it is only through allowing discussion of these among stakeholders at the outset that individual siting initiatives can hope to develop some consensus on the critical issue of equity. While the Province and IWA may have had the best interests of the provincial and regional communities in mind, and residents may be accused of engaging in NIMBY, these issues may mask the equally important con¯icts over lay and expert de®nitions of equity which fuelled resident opposition to the process. Such stakeholder con¯ict has broader implications since it may actually create the conditions for inequitable social and spatial distributions of risks/hazards. For example, the Caledon residents were successful in their opposition to the siting process in part because they had the ®nancial and educational means to mount sophisticated opposition (see below). This raises questions about where the waste will end up. This is of particular concern if the waste is disposed away from Peel (where the waste is generated) and/or near considerably more marginalized groups (Harvey, 1973; United Church of Christ, 1987; Bullard, 1990; Bailey et al., 1992; Mohai & Bryant, 1992) Petts’ (1995, p. 522) comment reinforces this point: ª `Local’ is [often] addressed in terms of the current waste planning requirements of authorities while recognizing that a broader regional perspective will often be more appropriate.º Indeed the provincial government took a regional perspective on interregional spatial equity, but failed to consider how this affects intraregional equity (i.e. local issues), procedural equity and trust. While much of the work on environmental justice has focused on whether patterns of injustice exist, we see the negative synergisms between the practices for achieving siting principles as one potential mechanism for such patterns to emerge and be perpetuated. The situation at Caledon/Peel resonates with Armour’s (1992) claim that equity issues have not found their way from philosophical debates within the social/policy sciences into siting policy and practice. Part of the reason for this reluctance to deal directly with equity issues in dialogues between siting agents and various publics is that neither is equipped to discuss metaphysical issues of this sort. In Peel’s case, however, neither the IWA nor the residents were adequately empowered to discuss equity fully since the regulatory framework limited courses of action (see Figure 2). While the provincial government did attempt to address issues of equity at the outset, they did this without prior discussion with both siting agents and the communities. This led to the unintended consequence of vehement opposition. We reinforce that such issues need not be complicated even if different and potentially con¯icting de®nitions of equity are allowed to emerge. It is not that interregional spatial equity, intraregional spatial equity and procedural equity are so dif®cult to understand or that they inevitably con¯ict, nevertheless they may be dif®cult to resolve. We argue that this resolution needs to happen early, through informed debate about such issues among the potentially impacted stakeholders. In cases where profound disagreements on how equity issues are to be de®ned exist, processes may be dismantled or altered in the early stages to prevent potentially doomed, and hence wasteful, siting processes. At the very least such discussions will force


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 521 experts and lay people to explore the consequences of various actionsÐlike exporting waste to marginalized communities and the impacts of different de®nitions of equity. The absence of such discussions at Peel contributed considerably to the adverse effects different forms of equity and trust depicted in Figure 2. This also contributed to an unintended role of public participation. Public participation may also be connected to social equity through the growing popularity of voluntary siting which ideally requires considerable public input within volunteer communities. This may become an option for governments, like Peel’s, looking for a quick, relatively cheap and usually successful means of ®nding waste sites. Armour (1992) is cautious of processes that are based on community volunteers in that they may lead to `locational opportunism’ whereby socially or economically marginalized communities may be more prone to accepting such sites as a means of, for example, reversing bleak economic/employment trends. Preventing this opportunism is extremely dif®cult since economic concessions seem to factor largely in the reasons for volunteering in the ®rst place. Armour reports ®ve safeguards against locational opportunism in the Canadian federal process to site a low-level radioactive waste site in Ontario. These revolve around full and ongoing community participation in the process along with the funds to support such participation. However, we want to reinforce that open, constant public participation alone will not prevent inequitable distributions of risk. As outlined in the previous section, failing to address complex equity issues (e.g. forcing residents to consider the implications of NIMBY) directly within the context of stakeholder negotiation (public participation) may be as serious as locational opportunism for creating inequitable distributions of risk. Summary and Conclusions Armour (1992, p. 32) asserts that ªthe fundamental issue is not how to persuade the public to accept an unwanted facility but how to structure the process in order to arrive at publicly acceptable decisionsº (emphasis added). In this sense processes should be viewed holistically, not as a mere collection of laudable principles and practices. When this does not happen, siting principles may frustrate each other when various goals are not achieved. We provide some examples of how discord between siting principles may occur (summarized in Figure 2) and lead to widespread community opposition as it did in Peel/Caledon. Not only was trust between the community and siting agents lacking, but issues of trust and equity adversely affected each other. We show why it is important to recognize that there are different forms of equity since practices for spatial equity adversely affected procedural equity which ironically frustrated efforts to achieve spatial equity (if waste is ultimately disposed extra-regionally). Further, community and IWA views on intraregional equity were themselves discordant. IWA efforts to locate a site anywhere in Peel ignored pre-existing municipal waste management arrangements to locate a disposal site within a particular municipality. Failures to meaningfully achieve trust and equity are also linked to ineffective community participation in the sense that the former two (e.g. blocking waste management alternatives through legislation) helped precipitate participation with the principal purpose of grinding the whole siting process to a halt. A key contributor to the con¯ict between principles when put into practice, we argue, was the context of a siting process largely constrained


522 J. W. Baxter, J. D. Eyles & S. J. Elliott by legislation and lacking the ¯exibility to overcome siting inertia. Because of their mandate set by the provincial government, siting agents could not retrench despite strong signals of ingrained opposition and looming siting failure. There are at least four key implications of this analysis. First, while principles like equity, trust and community participation may have been implicitly assumed to be mutually reinforcing (Figure 1), we must pay attention to the possibility that they also have the potential to frustrate each other, as they did in Peel (Figure 2). Practices for implementing siting principles must pay due attention to the contexts (e.g. legislative, social, political, community) in which they are applied. Each principle, however commendable, may be problematic if operationalized in ways that adversely affect the implementation of other similarly commendable siting principles. Second, while public participation may go a long way toward eventual siting success (e.g. Petts, 1995) it may simultaneously act as both a practice and a principle for competent and successful siting. For example, while community participation as a practice may address the principles of trust, equity and public participation (e.g. building consensus) simultaneously, this is not always the case since other practices may mitigate against these same principles (e.g. adhering to preset time lines, government agendas of interregional equity). That is, the practices and principles are linked, but the focus tends to be on the former rather than the latter. Third, siting process ¯exibility seems to be central to the development/ maintenance of trust and meaningful community participation. For example, constraining siting processes by legislative means (e.g. restricting waste management alternatives to ensure interregional equity), however well intentioned, can be counterproductive to the ¯exibility necessary for adequately implementing important siting principles (e.g. developing trust through community participation). For example, Rabe (1992, p. 121) summarizes the tension between protecting the `collective good’ (distributive/social equity) and the `public spirit of community’: The collective good must be seen as a public trust protected by government on behalf of the citizens who have the decisive power to allow siting only when done in the public interest. Here the bene®ts of a site must include economic and social compensation packages but must also feature guarantees that respect the `public spirit’ of a community. This tension aptly describes what happened in Peel whereby legislating for equity undermined both the trust of residents in siting agentsÐin terms of both their ®duciary obligation and their technical competencyÐand the IWA’s efforts at community participation. Further, siting processes should not be allowed to gain unchecked momentum that develops into a process inertia that forces things ahead despite failure to achieve the goals associated with various siting principles. If principles like equity, trust and community participation are not meaningfully addressed, the process should be ¯exible enough to be changed to confront these key issues. This applies to other siting principles and practices as well, including developing consensus on the need for a facility and ensuring that siting agencies/agents are perceived to be at arm’s length from facility operators/ administrators (Rabe, 1992; Kunreuther et al., 1993; Zeiss & Lesfrud, 1996).


From Siting Principles to Siting Practices 523 Fourth, studying other siting processes from the point of view of stakeholders’ understandings of siting as experienced in everyday life may generate additional insights. One of the main sources of con¯ict between siting agents and experts in Peel was the failure of the process to adequately deal with threats to ways of life and core valuesÐthings the IWA hoped to actually address (i.e. under the auspices of `values’). These threats were reconstructed through direct engagement with the residents involved and may have been missed through other methods of studying siting (e.g. textual analysis of policy or meeting documents). While some attention has been given to key informant interpretations of siting, paying attention to the meaning of siting for less involved residents is also important and may further illuminate the sources of tension between not only experts and laypeople, but also different siting principles. More case studies of siting would enhance our understanding of the potentially complex interactions that may exist. At the very least we should be open to the possibility that transforming laudable siting principles into actual siting practices can lead to adverse interactions which, in turn, affect outcomes. Acknowledgements Support for this research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the McMaster Environmental Health Programme. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Notes 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

For the purpose of this paper, `successful’ siting is de®ned conservatively as any process which leads to the construction of a facility. This admits much criticized approaches like the decide±announce±defend procedure to technically be considered `successful’. In principle we prefer success to be de®ned further according to some of the principles discussed here, e.g. equity, but recognize that success is often de®ned in what may be argued to be more practical terms. All socio-demographic statistics from Statistics Canada. The number of interviews is 44; 34 people were interviewed in 1994±95, but 10 of these people were interviewed a second time, in the summer of 1996, to get more detailed information. As ®ve interviews were actually couples the total number of people to whom we talked is in fact 39. All names are pseudonyms. The notation in parentheses refers to where the participant lives (the town of Bolton, the surrounding rural areas, or close to the site) and what may be called their stakeholder role (expert, resident opposition group leader, resident non-leader) to provide some context for their comments. One such case involved inaccurately identi®ed parcels of land, used for screening out inappropriate sites, which were reclassi®ed on the basis of public (intervenor-funded) input. There is no table of related sub-themes as this theme represents its own branch. In terms of prominence, accommodating community needs was the issue most frequently talked about by the group of four IWA personnel.

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From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case

From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case

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