Author

Amber Neumann

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Patrick Donnay

Abstract

Hypothesis: That comments collected from agency “experts” during the scoping phase of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process would be disproportionately represented as changes in subsequent drafts of NorthMet’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Methods: Tabular analysis of data collected from the Minnesota DNR publication of Response to the Public Scoping Projects PolyMet Mining Inc.; NorthMet Project. 2005

Results: There is an excellent cross section of comment sources represented in changes to subsequent drafts of NorthMet’s EIS. A lot of overlap exists between various types of participants and their concerns, resulting in many of the successful comments stemming from multiple sources. Subsequently the most influential participants are those who have the same concern as three ore more fellow participants and those who belong to interest-groups; not agency “experts”.

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