"Despite acceptance of the benefits of public participation for clean up of contaminated sites, agencies often struggle with executing public involvement methods. The literature provides guidance on evaluating methods, but tools for assessing group decisions were difficult to find. This study tested an application of the National Issues Forums (NIF) method for clean-up of dioxins on the Tittabwassee River. The research recruited people to attend a forum in their neighborhood, discuss clean up options, and develop consensus about the preferred solution. This thesis assessed the group decisions according to six dimensions. Forum participants differed in some ways from the neighborhoods at large and the quality of the group decisions varied. The study concludes that while the subjectivity of any assessment method makes evaluation of outcomes difficult, based on the tool developed for this study, the NIF method can produce good decisions in neighborhoods impacted by contaminated sites"--Abstract.
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