Our principals have successfully applied Mediation/Facilitation consensus building techniques to a range of disputes and decision-making processes, many of which have been complex and have involved multiple parties. Notable examples include:

Cactus Playa, Northern Texas
The Challenge: The Cactus Playa is a natural playa (lake) in the Texas panhandle and provides a roosting area for up to one-third of the migrating waterfowl in the central flyway, including large numbers of migrating shorebirds. Unlike most natural playas, Cactus Playa always contains water since it is an integral element of the local community’s wastewater system, acting as a 146 acre holding pond for treated water prior to its being used for crop irrigation. In this arid region, where playas are diminishing due to development, any playa that is a reliable water source provides critical wildlife habitat. However, the community needed to expand its wastewater treatment system to meet the requirements of local industrial growth. The resultant pressures on the resources created antagonism among the multiple stakeholders.

The Intervention: Tuss Erickson mediated the conflicting interests and drew together the various stakeholders into a functioning coalition of wildlife interests, city and state governments, and industries. This coalition worked together to create a 1500 acre conservation easement to protect the Cactus Playa.

Results Achieved: The Cactus Playa conservation easement and associated program elements provide for wildlife habitat restoration, monitoring and viewing, environmental education, and water reuse, all while enhancing local economic development and growth.

Metcoa Restart Site, Pulaski, Pennsylvania
The Challenge: The Metcoa Site was a former metals reprocessing facility in Pulaski, Pennsylvania which had been contaminated by metals, some of which exhibited low levels of radioactivity. Approximately 200 parties were identified by EPA as being potentially liable for the costs of cleanup, including numerous scrap dealers and parties that had allegedly shipped or consigned radioactive metals to the owner/operator of the Metcoa Site. The potentially liable parties had aligned themselves in antagonistic groups and were actively of litigating their liability in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The Intervention: Michael Last, as Chair of the Allocation Committee, facilitated a comprehensive allocation process during which the facts relating to each party’s potential liability were assembled, reviewed and tested for factual accuracy by the parties; each party was accorded the opportunity to advocate its position regarding a fair allocation of liability; consensus-based decision rules for liability allocation were established; and an allocation of liability to each of the parties was made.

Results Achieved: This facilitated, cooperative allocation process resulted in 199 out of the 200 parties voluntarily settling the litigation based upon their allocated shares of the liability, thus avoiding further extraordinarily costly and contentious multi-party litigation.

Project XL (Excellence and Leadership) for University Laboratories
The Challenge: Many colleges and universities conduct teaching and research activities that generate hazardous wastes. The Federal regulatory scheme designed for higher volume industrial users is expensive, inefficient and ill-suited to the laboratory setting at institutions of higher learning. As a result, many colleges and universities find themselves characterized, and penalized, as significant environmental violators. Efforts made by colleges and universities for over a decade to reform Federal hazardous waste regulation as it applies to research and teaching laboratories had been unsuccessful.

The Intervention: Anne Kelly, Tom Balf and Michael Last fostered a consensus among multiple colleges and universities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and interested stakeholders which enabled three schools to test a new, more efficient approach to managing their hazardous wastes. By convening and facilitating several national stakeholder meetings and program design conferences and developing draft program documents, all parties agreed on how best to design and implement the new laboratory waste management model. Our team used several facilitation and mediation techniques, including a three day retreat sponsored by the Santa Fe Council for Environmental Excellence, to enable representatives of the colleges and universities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state regulatory agencies and environmental organizations to break through the barriers which had previously blocked innovation.

Results Achieved: Through a hard-won change in federal regulations, three New England colleges were permitted by the EPA to implement customized laboratory waste management systems, which are practical, transparent and cost-effective. The long-term result of this innovative experiment could affect hazardous waste management in research and teaching laboratories around the country.

Londonderry Ecological (ECO) Industrial Park, Londonderry, New Hampshire
The Challenge: The Town of Londonderry, New Hampshire, working with multiple stakeholders, wished to foster the development in Londonderry of an ecological (eco) industrial park where leading edge environmental and energy efficiency techniques would be implemented and showcased. However, certain of the stakeholders were at odds with each other over key program elements, and there was confusion as to how the Eco-Industrial Park could be effectively structured and operated.

The Intervention: Over a period of several months, Michael Last and Tom Balf facilitated discussions among the developer, Town of Londonderry, New Hampshire officials, potential users and environmental stakeholders with respect to the development of the Eco-Industrial Park.

Results Achieved: The facilitated discussions led to the development of consensus-based project elements and guidelines, including the use of key centralized functions such as an environmental management system and mechanisms to enable one tenant’s waste energy or other byproducts be beneficially used by other tenants. At the request of the parties, we then helped them to formulate and draft a set of covenants, restrictions and by-laws for the Eco-Industrial Park to assure that the agreements resulting from the facilitation process were incorporated into legally effective documents.

Okmulgee Refinery, Oklahoma
The Challenge: A bankrupt company owned Okmulgee refinery in Oklahoma. The refinery was shut down in the early 1980’s, and had been left to deteriorate. It constituted both an environmental and physical hazard to the community. Local children were seen playing on the site.

The Intervention: Tuss Erickson assembled a team that successfully removed the bankrupt landowner. They found a local entity willing to accept the risk of owning the land, with the goal of developing it into an industrial park. Tuss Erickson then facilitated a multi-party cooperative agreement to demolish and remediate the 200 plus acre former refinery site.

Results Achieved: Plans for redevelopment were initiated and the community viewed the cleanup coalition members as local heroes, all while avoiding the risk of the site being drawn into the Federal Superfund program, with its associated delay and transactional costs.