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out the top three with 25.7% of respondents reporting experience using the technique in
environmental disputes.
Bingham (1986) first classified typical ECR cases into six broad categories: land use,
natural resource management and use of public lands, water resources, energy, air quality,
and toxics. O’Leary and Husar (2002:1271) offer a different list that provides a more
detailed list of possible dispute cases. They found that ECR had been used most frequently
in hazardous waste cleanup (53.2%), which is perhaps not surprising since the Superfund
law allocates funds specifically for ADR use. Use of ECR varied among the remaining
categories: quality (36.7%), solid waste (22%), land use (18.3%), water quantity (14.7%), air
pollution (13.8%), siting disputes (11.9%), oil and gas exploration (10.1%), endangered
species (10.1%), and pesticides (3.7%). (Responses sum to greater than 100% because
respondents in this study were allowed to choose all types of ECR in which they had
participated.)
Given the broad list of potentially contentious areas, it is perhaps not surprising that
environmental disputes frequently have multiple stakeholders, including federal, state, and
local governments; citizen groups; environmental groups; private interest groups; any
potentially responsible parties; and the facilitator/mediator. This broad range, and sheer
number, of interested parties increases the complexity of ECR. (Andrew 2000).
Methodology
The primary purpose of this research was to assess usage of ADR in the
environmental arena and offer recommendations to the United States Air Force ADR
Program Office on how to participate more effectively in the process. This study analyzes
ADR techniques and processes, and both the antecedents of and barriers to, successful
ADR usage. The data analyzed comes from environmental conflict resolution practitioners
who have a wide range of experience in all facets of environmental dispute resolution.
Qualitative Research
Research on environmental ADR exists. However, this specific research focuses on
the use of ADR in military environmental disputes, an area underrepresented in the
literature. Accordingly, a qualitative research approach was chosen to collect open-ended
data with the goal of determining themes in the data (Creswell, 1994:7). The data gathered
from this research will be used to build theory on this topic, and the results will be
synthesized into conclusions and recommendations for improving the use of ADR in military
environmental disputes.
Participant Selection
The participants for the study came primarily from two sources. The first source was
the National Roster of Environmental Dispute Resolution and Consensus Building
Professionals ("Roster of ECR Practitioners"), which is managed by an independent,
impartial federal program established by Congress to assist parties in resolving
environmental, natural resource and public lands disputes. The roster was developed with
the support of the EPA (Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, 2004). A search of
the roster was conducted using military/base experience as the searchable term. This
search yielded sixty-nine practitioners. Each of the sixty-nine practitioners were contacted
and asked if they would consent to be interviewed. One of the practitioners supplied two
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