Engaging Citizens in Environmental Decision Making: Burlington, Vermont's EMPACT Project

Abstract

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under its EMPACT Program. The partners included Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO), the University of Vermont (School of Natural Resources, Office of Computing and Information Technology, and College of Engineering and Mathematics), the Lake Champlain Basin Science Center (LCBSC), the Green Mountain Institute for Environmental Democracy (GMI), and the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative (VMC). This group had as its goals developing additional working relationships with other environmental organizations and creating a technological infrastructure for making time-relevant environmental data available to the public. One of the distinctive features of the Burlington EMPACT Program was to involve the public in determining the environmental monitoring programs that the partners should pursue. This level of public participation is part of a growing trend by government organizations to provide opportunities for deliberative public processes in many aspects of public policy and program development.