4 
the Federal Register and who are sufficiently informed to recog- 
nize their interest in specific actions. Moreover, agencies 
are not bound by public comments and can ignore them. 
When agencies are under pressure to encourage public in- 
put, the most frequent response is to expand the public hearing 
process. Public hearings may have several functions? Often 
they simply present an opportunity to inform interested parties 
about proposed projects. But agencies, hoping to avoid litiga- 
tion, also use public hearings to defuse anticipated conflicts, 
and, sometimes, to discover the ideas of participants. 
In 1970, the Corps of Engineers developed an experiment 
to expand the public hearing process. Its' experience illus- 
trates both the value and the limits of the hearing as a means 
of participation. Faced with continued controversy in the early 
1970' s, the Corps announced a new "open" policy to synchronize 
public hearings with the evolution of a particular project pro- 
posal. 3 Hearings were first held at the exploratory stage of 
planning to discover which issues needed consideration. Then 
a second set of hearings were called to evaluate public support 
for alternatives. A third series of hear ing^ prior to implementa- 
tion were intended to allow last-minute modifications. The 
Corps also held meetings with community leaders to contact the 
full range of interested parties. Even critical environmental 
groups applauded these procedures. 
Despite apparent success, the Corps soon retreated from 
its aggressive pursuit of citizen involvement. Although the 
hearings had improved its public image and sparked useful dia- 
logue, the experiment did not, as anticipated, prevent conflict. 
For the conflicts showed more that simple misunderstanding; 
they revealed a basic disagreement over the relative values of 
technological development and environmental conservation. Par- 
ticipatory mechanisms further exposed and thus intensified those 
disagreements . ^ 
[A-113] 
