Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) delineate the potential environmental and public health effects of large-scale development projects. Historically, EIAs have been produced by industry consultants and evaluated by regulatory agencies. Parameters of risk are defined by geologists, biologists, archeologists, hydrogeologists, and other experts deployed to quantify the relative worth of natural systems; a process largely devoid of perspectives from implicated communities. However, novel uses of information technologies (IT) by concerned citizens, capacity building organizations, and advocacy groups—such as data transparency projects, participatory mapping platforms, and digital storytelling efforts—are increasing public engagements with industrial development. These efforts not only expand public discourse, they also draw out concerns for equity, democracy, and community values not readily quantified in traditional EIA processes. This paper evaluates such critiques through two conceptual lenses. The first builds on recent work in Science and Technology Studies exploring “critical” EIAs that emerge to reject reductionist approaches to risk science; ones that seek to reinsert marginalize forms of local knowledge and alternate expertise. The second conceptual lens examines the role of data-enabled engagements in critical EIAs, characterizing these as an advocacy-drive “civic informatics” determined to shape policy and not just get data into the hands of more people.
The paper explores these relationships through the story of communities grappling with two proposed hazardous liquid pipelines at different stages of development in Pennsylvania. Opposition to pipelines has moved to the forefront of anti-extraction movements due to their implications for locking the region into long-term energy development dependencies. These movements have also drawn together unlikely partnerships bridging geographic, economic, and political divides. Comprehensive data on proposed pipeline routes and their likely impacts are fundamental to these fights. Historically, such data is rarely provided to the public, or made available after regulatory approval. However, a wave of public pressure is changing how the state responds to data requests. In other instances, advocacy groups have partnered with capacity building organizations to discover and publicly analyze alternate sources of data in order to produce narratives countering industry and regulatory claims of safety and necessity. The paper describes the author’s role as a researcher in one such organization, how the conceptual lenses of critical EIA and civic informatics shaped that work and, ultimately, their significance for reshaping dynamics of power between concerned citizen groups, regulatory agencies, and industry.
