“Right” Discourse in Citizen Participation: An Evaluative Yardstick

The official from the State Department of Environmental Protection locked the door to the County Agricultural Extension Service building and the five of us walked together out into the parking lot. After almost three and one-half hours of heated discussions with citizens in the meeting room, the fresh, cool air of the night was reinvigorating. I was thinking to myself, I’m glad that’s over with! when the DEP official aggressively said, “Well that finishes any chance of our getting a landfill sited in this part of the state for the near future. The participation project was a complete failure. NIMBY strikes again.” Between the lines I thought I heard him say, “Thanks for nothing.”