A Phenomenological Approach to Superfund Community Engagement

Superfund sites across the United States pose contamination and pollution issues for communities and ecosystems. These sites often require years of cleanup and millions of dollars to remediate. A critical aspect of cleanup success revolves around engagement with local communities, but often, these efforts fall short in meeting communities’ needs. We sought to understand this gap in the Environmental Protection Agency’s current community engagement approach. Drawing on phenomenological interviews conducted in a community in Montana, we investigate the importance of the community members’ lived experiences. We demonstrate that lived experiences provide insight into the complicated nature of cleanup, where industrial sites are more than contamination, encompassing meaning, narratives, and memory. Our findings underscore a need for collaboration with outside experts, robust Community Involvement Plans, and resources to facilitate informal and relational engagement.