Informing policymakers and the public in landfill siting processes

Policymakers and the public often turn to scientific experts for help in developing solutions to their most challenging policy problems. This emphasis on science informing policy has been especially prevalent in the realm of environmental policy. This approach relies, in part, on a belief by policymakers and the public that a best answer or a best decision exists. A serious problem with this approach arises for many environmental decisions when complexity makes a single best answer virtually impossible to determine. As a result, experts must rely on scientific judgment when significant uncertainty in measuring variables or in understanding causal relationships exists; and decision-makers must rely on political judgment in determining which variables to consider and how to make tradeoffs among them. Such judgments are all too often submerged, intentionally or inadvertently, in a complex presentation of methodology and results-which serves to confuse rather than inform policymakers and the public. Policymakers and the public clearly need help interpreting the results of technical analyses. Both groups need to know: a) what relevant objective information or data exist; b) what questions can that data reasonably answer; and c) what questions must inevitably be left to scientific and/or political judgment. Employing a case study of a landfill siting process in Orange County, North Carolina, we develop analytical tools that serve to simplify the information presented to the public. These methods show promise for facilitating decision making regarding other locally unpopular land use (LULU) siting processes as well as any environmental decision that requires simultaneous consideration of several factors.