Despite the fact that the initial decision-making process was not sufficiently inclusive, the people, communities and elected officials of Rhode Island demanded and claimed a leading role in evaluating the QPP proposal and insisted on a thorough and open process for deciding the economic and ecological future of Narragansett Bay. Some have begun to call it Environmental Democracy. In this case, Governor Almond wisely provided a forum for that review, the Stakeholders process. That process revealed the flaws that made the QPP proposal a bad deal for the State. Unfortunately, Rhode Island has no mechanism in place to make sure that the next proposal to draft public resources into private service will receive the same review.
Environmental democracy depends upon informed public participation and transparent decision-making.
The Bay and CLF worked hard to educate the public about the issue, and to involve citizens and local government officials in the process. One critical prerequisite to meaningful community involvement was the speedy public release of documents held by the government. CLF, in partnership with Save The Bay, led the legal challenge for such disclosure in this case. The state government, to its credit, agreed. It released QPP's port development plans, and avoided the need for litigation.