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Topics:
Environment
Army
Corps Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution
Army Corps
Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution. Faced with continual
disputes among environmentalists, developers, communities, and
industry, mid-level civil servants in the Jacksonville, Florida
and Vicksburg, Louisiana districts took the initiative to develop
a general permitting process that was innovative, even revolutionary
for the Corps. Instead of acting as a technical evaluator, or
as a proponent for a particular position, the Corps decided to
act as a neutral facilitator of a consensus seeking process among
all stakeholders. The results were striking in terms of preventing
litigation and promoting collaboration. Additional case studies
and agency-wide evaluation of public involvement programs. Case
study plus.
Index
Story:
Army Corps Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution
Case Study Plus: An
Organizational Assessment of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
in regard to Public Involvement Practices and Challenges: an extensive,
150-page assessment conducted by Stuart Langton in January 1994.
Includes executive summary and recommendations, 3 long case studies,
an historical profile, and bibliography.
I. Forward
II. Executive Summary
III. Organizational Assessment
IV. Case Studies
- Case
Study #1: Public Involvement Related to HTRW Problems
Associated with the Expansion of the Winfield Locks and Dam.
- Case
Study #2: The Experience of the White River Dissolved
Oxygen Committee.
- Case
Study #3: The Fort Ord Reuse Case.
V. Appendices
A. Selected
Opinions
B. Historical Profile and Bibliography
Contents
Story:
Army Corps Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution
Story:
Army Corps Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution
In the 1980s,
the Army Corps districts of Vicksburg in Louisiana and Mississippi,
and Jacksonville in Florida, were confronted with permitting disputes
that typically produce conflict and delay, are enormously costly
in time and money to all parties involved, and still end up in
court or are unable to be implemented. In Vicksburg, the issue
was hydrocarbon exploration drilling across both states, and the
Sierra Club and other environmentalists, determined to fight on
every issue, had already filed lawsuits. In the Jacksonville District,
the new Sanibel Island city government confronted the problem
of how to regulate development in ways consistent with protecting
the island's unique ecology.
Mid-level
civil servants in both districts took the initiative to develop
a general permitting process that was revolutionary. Instead of
acting as a technical evaluator, or as a proponent for a particular
position, the Corps decided to act as a neutral facilitator of
a consnesus seeking process among all stakeholders. It would not
write the general permit in house, but invite the parties to develop
one collaboratively themselves. It pledged to environmentalists,
citizen groups, contractors, industry representatives and government
agencies that, if they could agree to the specifications of a
permit within the broad legal constraints of Section 404, the
Corps would simply confirm the agreement and call it a general
permit. If they did not, permitting would continue on a slow and
costly case-by-case basis, with no party certain that its interests
and values would be respected in the final outcome.
In each
case, Corps personnel faciltated four workshops among relevant
stakeholders, who in turn spoke with their constituencies in between.
The workshops generated increased trust and mutual respect, as
well as a broader understanding of their shared and separate interests.
Conflict was transformed into positive benefits to all stakeholders.
Not only were the agreements seen as broadly legitimate, and hence
more able to be implemented, but they were also viewed as technically
superior to what otherwise would have been produced. By the fourth
workshop, groups that had been locked in conflict were claiming
joint ownership of solutions, and taking joint responsibility
for discussing them with the general public. Lawsuits were dropped,
and the general permits have since been renewed.
The Corps
was able to achieve such results (and save millions) because it
used its authority and expertise in new ways. Training in alternative
dispute resolution enabled staff to take initiative in bringing
parties together in a mutual learning process—parties that,
in some cases, had never sat at the same table together before.
Rather than remaining simply a regulator or becoming itself a
party in the dispute, the Corps reconceived its authority as a
carrot in moving opponents away from costly adversarialism, and
its expertise as a tool for collaborative problem solving among
citizens and interest groups themselves. In doing so, it set important
examples of how a government agency can actively promote a civic
culture of constructive participation.
More
Information
Jerome Delli
Priscoli, Senior Policy Analyst
Institute for Water Resources
Army Corps of Engineers
703-355-2015
Index
Story:
Army Corps Districts Use Alternative Dispute Resolution
Case Study Plus: An
Organizational Assessment of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
in regard to Public Involvement Practices and Challenges: an extensive,
150-page assessment conducted by Stuart Langton in January 1994.
Includes executive summary and recommendations, 3 long case studies,
an historical profile, and bibliography.
I. Forward
II. Executive Summary
III. Organizational Assessment
IV. Case Studies
- Case
Study #1: Public Involvement Related to HTRW Problems
Associated with the Expansion of the Winfield Locks and Dam.
- Case
Study #2: The Experience of the White River Dissolved
Oxygen Committee.
- Case
Study #3: The Fort Ord Reuse Case.
V. Appendices
A. Selected
Opinions
B. Historical Profile and Bibliography
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