ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the larger concept of risk-based planning, including but not limited to the comparative risk component. Environmental decision-making is too often considered the exclusive bailiwick of the government and 'the experts'. Seattle Mayor Norm Rice initiated a risk-based environmental planning process -called the Seattle Environmental Priorities Project – in 1990, shortly after his election. The Mayor also appointed a 35-member Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to lay the technical foundation for the process. The TAC spent close to a year identifying the list of environmental problems to be considered and studied by the project, and analysing and ranking those problems. In conducting the comparative risk assessment of environmental problems, the TAC focused on three types of risk: human health risk; ecological risk; and quality-of-life risk. The Policy Advisory Committee was charged with translating the TAC's work into a set of environmental priorities for the city.
