Environmental
Control

Paper companies and individual mills must decide whether an EPA initiative will be a regulatory hindrance or a beneficial community outreach program

New Federal Guidelines Challenge Industry's Risk Communication, Management Skills

BY PATRICK J. HURSTON

Just as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nears final completion of its much anticipated proposed "Cluster Rule," the U.S. pulp and paper industry now faces new and altogether different regulatory challenges. Several recent federal initiatives suggest a trend toward a further strengthening of mandatory public disclosure of hazardous processes and products. Primary among them is the EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule, a key amendment of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

EPA published the final version of the RMP, 40 CFR Part 68, in the Federal Register on June 20, 1996. The rule, originally proposed on October 20, 1993, became effective August 19, 1996, with compliance on or before June 21, 1999. EPA estimates that the RMP will govern more than 66,000 U.S. industrial facilities, requiring them, among other things, to do the following:

• Conduct a detailed hazards analysis

   

• Identify and disclose facility-specific "worst-case" scenarios based on process hazards

   

• Develop a prevention plan addressing this and other, more likely
  scenarios

   

• Develop an overall risk management plan, including prevention measures and emergency response

   

• Release this plan to the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) and to the community.

   

For the facilities affected, the Rule poses unique challenges regarding the broad dissemination of environmental, health, and safety information. It also offers a unique opportunity to build effective partnerships with LEPCs, community residents, the news media, and the general public.

Those affected are all too aware of the technical ramifications and compliance factors of the rule, but it is equally important-arguably sometimes more important-to understand the business implications of large-scale, mandatory risk communications.

Conducting a mill's hazards assessment and developing a worst-case scenario is one thing, communicating it to constituents and stakeholders is another. And for members of the technical, regulatory, or scientific community, many times it is more challenging.

While a top-down, large-scale "dump" of risk information may achieve compliance with the letter of the rule, it serves neither the interests of a company or industry, nor the benefit of the public. It is far more productive to use the three-year compliance period to establish an ongoing dialogue with mill communities, LEPCs, and civic and activist groups, on whose goodwill the facility relies. Once this dialogue is opened, public concerns can be analyzed, addressed, and incorporated into an overall risk management program, thus improving the ability to comply with the rule with minimal business and production disruption.

DEFINING RISK COMMUNICATION. In considering RMP information, it is important that managers define risk communications. Based on experience, Bivings Woodell views risk communications as a continuing program of activities whose goal is informed consent concerning environmental, health, and safety risks arising from hazardous processes, products, or operations.

In other words, risk communications is a dynamic process, not a one-time event. And, most importantly, risk communications derive from quantifiable performance measures. In other words, performance drives perception. As a result, not surprisingly, the most effective and successful risk communications programs are an integral part of an ongoing risk management program, one which with any luck, is already tried and true.

As noted in Figure 1, the traditional model of risk communication involved and engaged little or no public participation in the development of risk assessment data and ensuing communication. Often times, as those in high-hazard/
high-risk operations discovered, this can produce a severe disconnect between the assessment process and the communication of its results.

This linear model does not anticipate the concerns of the public. If these concerns are not factored into the risk assessment, the results can be both incomplete and ineffective because while a mill has met its needs by complying with disclosure requirements, the needs of the community have not been met because their concerns were not addressed in the risk assessment.

For example, residents of a community adjacent to a bleached chemical pulp mill may be concerned about potential health effects resulting from the facility's operation that members of the scientific and technical field know are highly unlikely. However, precisely because they don't see these effects as a potential hazard, the science and technical team may not address them during the risk assessment process. And as a result, public concerns are not satisfied. Had these concerns been anticipated, they could have been addressed and the community's fear allayed, thus meeting both the letter (public disclosure) and the intent (informed consent) of the rule.

For instance, at the 1995 meeting of the International Joint Commission, a high-profile environmental activist organization known more for its media savvy than its sound science, released a controversial report alleging that bleached chemical pulp mills are a likely source of toxaphene pollution in the Great Lakes. As scientists within the pulp and paper industry know, toxaphene cannot be created at a pulp mill in the absence of light. However, public concerns that it may exist were not factored into the risk assessment, therefore leaving its communication incomplete and unsuccessful in terms of meeting the needs of concerned citizens.

A BETTER MODEL. Today, forward-thinking companies try to incorporate public information needs into their overall risk management program, as shown in Figure 2. A historical perspective shows that risk communications can no longer be a one-way process, but rather, by its very nature, must engage public discussion and give close consideration to the end use of the risk data-information and education. The RMP rule, because it takes public disclosure requirements to new levels of detail, will almost certainly also raise public interest and involvement to a new height.

The differences between the traditional model (Figure 1) and the emerging model (Figure 2) are important distinctions because informed consent is a condition of doing business today. Why? In the last decade (for example, Bhopal and Exxon) a coalescence of social, political, and demographic trends has significantly raised public demand for accountability, followed by an increased level of public participation that may take the form of legal, regulatory, voluntary, or extreme action and/or intervention.

The RMP suggests a further strengthening of the trend toward increased mandatory public disclosure of hazardous products and processes, and with increased disclosure comes increased accountability and public involvement. Though the public disclosure criteria of the rule may not require a mill to hold a public forum to release a hazards analysis, worst-case scenario, or prevention plan, there are those who will seek it out from the LEPC and are only too willing to share it.

As mills consider the development and use of RMP information, they should understand that productive use of these data will place a greater value on the effect of a product or process, in addition to what causes that effect. For some in the scientific and technical communities this may mean a shift in focus and an improved understanding of the context (i.e., public concern) in which risk assessment data are received.

The pulp and paper industry's challenge now becomes effectively emphasizing what a process or product does, in addition to what it is. Consider, for example, that most people are likely to be more concerned with a product's:

• Health effects vs chemical composition

   

• Environmental impact vs underlying process

   

• Usage vs design.

   

Similarly, it is more important that a mill's safety record is unrivaled and that the mill has automatic interlocks and emergency shutdown systems in the event of an emission. But what might be communicated is that based on an EPA air-dispersion model, the chemical concentration would represent just the odor threshold limit, as opposed to the short term or immediately dangerous to life and health limit, by the time it reached town.

With the benefit of a three-year compliance period, now is the time for companies and individual facilities to evaluate their current risk management programs and incorporate risk communications as an integral component. Thanks to the RMP rule, industry must now fully inform communities about the risks their operations impose-at a time when industry, as never before, relies on the goodwill and approval of those in the community.

The RMP rule gives regulated industries the opportunity to turn what may appear to be just another regulatory interference into a bona fide public outreach and education program-one that educates the people on the benefits of their business and the widespread and beneficial uses of their products. The RMP offers the opportunity to clarify scientific and complex industrial processes, which in turn helps to promote more productive interaction between industry and those it serves. For management, "an educated customer is our best customer" will have new-and perhaps more sincere-meaning.

The risks vs the benefits will ultimately depend on the manner in which regulated companies craft their risk management plans and outreach programs. Given the reality of the rule, companies should view its promulgation as an opportunity, not an obstacle.

Patrick J. Hurston is a senior associate with Bivings Woodell, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm.