Community\'s Main Demands and the Company\'s Responses,

¶ … community's main demands and the company's responses, we need to briefly discuss the three main categories of concern that the Manchester community has brought forward. These basically refer to pollution concerns, safety concerns and overall communication with the company's representatives.

The pollution concerns include both phonic and chemical pollution. As a chemical plant, Rhone - Poulenc transports out of the company impressive quantities of chemical waste. Additionally, preparing sulfuric acid, the company's main endeavor, implies the release into the atmosphere of hazardous residues that can only prove harmful to the citizens' health. The examples of cancer and other diseases are numerous in the area, although, as an observation, Rhone-Poulenc is not the only factory operating in the area. Pollution also includes phonic pollution, as numerous transport facilities, notably trains, ensure a noisy day.

In terms of safety, living next to a chemical plant means that one never knows what to expect. In the case study, we had the example of chemical leakage due to transport mishandling, but at any point there is a risk of fire or explosion.

As for communication, this is, in my opinion, the main cause of all debate between the company and the community. Throughout its presence in Manchester, the company has not once attempted to discuss environmental issues or any other potential causes for concerns with the members of the community. The moment they are forced to have contact with them is strictly related to the need to obtain the permit for incinerating hazardous. It is difficult, in this sense, to see something other than selfish interest on the company's behalf, given the fact that this is practically the only contact they have had with a community they operate in. In my opinion, some of the unreasonable demands that the community brings forth are related to a sense of frustration due to the ignoring policy the company has practiced.

Fixed on these three coordinates, safety, pollution and communication concerns, we are now able to list and discuss the community's demands. The first notable demand is that the community should, in the future, "meet directly with Rhone-Poulenc management, without elected or state administrative officials present"

. This is clearly related to the communication issue previously described.

Another demand that should be mentioned referred to the constant and scrupulous monitoring of all transportation that passed through Manchester every day, in order to avoid railroad blockages.

Thirdly, the community demanded the creation of a Community Advisory Committee, "an independent watchdog"

of the company and the improvement of notification procedures in the case of accidental leakage.

Fourthly, the community wanted a scrupulous monitoring and analysis of ground and water quality, in order to be able to detect and prevent in time any environmental disaster in the area. The environmental concerns and demands included an "off-site sulfur dioxide monitoring system" and a "dispersion modeling effort"

. The community would participate in the discussions following the report and findings of the independent environmental auditor required.

Finally, the community demanded that a fund would be constituted at the company's expense that would analyze the citizens' health and would conduct a full survey in this sense.

As a comment on these demands, as I have previously discussed, some of them seem to be unreasonable, mainly because they have nothing to do with what the company can actually control. There is one thing to demand meetings with the management and a totally different one to demand monitoring of all transport that passes through or around the city. It is just as unreasonable to demand that the water surface and ground be constantly controlled, as is the demand that a fund be created for citizens' health surveys. Indeed, it is as if Rhone-Poulenc needs to be made responsible for all misfortunes that may happen around Manchester. The area itself is an industrial one, with several other plants and factories contributing both to an increased number of daily transports and to chemical emissions into the water and ground. There is no reasonable argument that should lead to the conclusion that Rhone-Poulenc alone should be held responsible and should pay for all environmental requirements. In part, the company's responses to the demands reflect this aspect.

As such, the company agreed to meetings with the community without elected or state representative. As a comment, this demand did not imply that much. The company had already held a series of informal meetings with the community members, including the open doors day at the factory that helped, at least partially, improve relations between the parties.

On the other hand, in terms of transport monitoring, there wasn't much Rhone-Poulenc could actually do. First of all and most important, some of the trains belonged to other companies and transported other companies' chemical waste. Rhone-Poulenc could not be transformed into a transport monitor as long as it did not have this authority or the means to implement it. Additionally, related to its own trains, once these were outside the plant's gates, practically there wasn't much to be done.

As for the Community Advisory Community, the "watch dog," the company did not necessarily have something against it, but it emphasized that the operational aspects, the way this was actually going to function, were much more difficult to work out and decide upon.

The demands related to ground and water surface analysis and monitoring, as well as all the other environmental issues that the community demanded and that I have previously mentioned implied that the company did significantly more than the federal and state laws demanded it did. Legally, it could not be bound by many of the community's demands. The monitoring and analysis processes would be expensive and would increase the company's overall costs. Additionally, it could be held responsible for environmental problems it had not caused.

As for the fund, the company agreed to fund up to $4,000 for a citizens health survey. The company demanded that the community would need to specify the exact scope of the survey, which could be rejected by the company. Additionally, the company could also disagree with the methodology or findings.

If we briefly look at the list of demands from the community and the subsequent list of responses from the company, we may arrive to the conclusion that the divergences are not necessarily that great. At the same time, however, given the history of the case, the fact that the community seems to keep coming up with all kinds of demands and the fact that, historically speaking, environmental organization generally prefer to fight issues in court, it seems less likely that practically a compromise can be reached.

There are several things on which the two parties seem to have agreed. The communication issue seems to have been worked out. No matter the comments from the article stating that there were different approaches in tone and matter in the debates, nevertheless, the company's management and the community members managed to successfully get together on several occasions and discuss relevant ways of working out the problem. Additionally, there was an agreement on meeting without state representatives in the future.