John Corra discusses his vision for Wyoming DEQ

John Corra was appointed head of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality by Governor Dave Freudenthal just over a year ago. Corra, who was the Health, Safety and Environment Manager for FMC Corporation in Green River at the time of his appointment, was viewed with some suspicion by the environmental community because of his close ties to industry. A year later, Corra’s work has eased suspicions somewhat, but the fear remains that his past ties could result in undue industrial influence on environmental regulations and enforcement in the state. Within the DEQ, Corra is well-liked and many employees believe he is a better advocate for environmental protections than his predecessor, Dennis Hemmer. Corra has twice met with WOC’s board of directors for informal discussions. He also recently took part in a phone interview with board member, Molly Absolon. What follows are excerpts from their conversation.

Q: What are your top three priorities for the DEQ?
A: The top priority I have for the department right now is that we get clear on our mission, our values, and our performance measures, and that we begin to look at using them as a guide for the way in which we go about doing our work.

The second priority I’ve got is to make sure that our environmental values survive what I call the energy rush. There’s a tremendous amount of [natural resource extraction] activity occurring in the state, and one of my priorities is to make sure when it is done, we don’t look at what is left and say, "Damn it, we should have done something different." So that is a priority. And we need to become a more proactive agency.

Q: When you talk about using the mission and values to guide the agency, was that something that wasn’t there prior to your tenure?
A: No, the agency had a mission, and of course it had its statutes and its rules and regulations. But I came in with a fresh perspective. I have the ability, based upon my newness, to be able to ask questions about what is working and what is not working and to get honest feedback from everyone. And it’s not that I think the agency was necessarily doing anything wrong. But I do believe that it wasn’t always living up to the expectations of its stakeholders, and I think the way in which it was going about its work needed to be looked at.

Q: You mentioned that you wanted to make sure our environmental values survive the energy rush. Do you mean Wyoming’s physical environmental qualities or our individual environmental values?
A: Values is probably the wrong word. What I meant was Wyoming’s physical environmental qualities. These qualities are the "why" we all live here, and the "why" people want to come here to visit, but it is the energy, minerals, natural resources businesses that provide the "how" people live here. So the challenge is, how do you ensure both? How do you make sure that people are earning a living and natural resources are being taken advantage of in the state, while at the same time taking care that the state is still a very desirable place to work and live and visit?

Q: I found the similarities between WOC’s mission and the draft mission for DEQ striking. But while our goals are similar, we seem to find ourselves in adversarial roles frequently. Why?
A: I thought it was interesting that the mission of the Wyoming Outdoor Council is in fact similar to ours. The difference lies in how we go about doing things. There is tension between the need to take advantage of our natural resources and the need to protect them. If there was not that tension there would be no need for the DEQ.

In order to be able to reach solutions, I think we need to change the way we look at a problem. If I start from a place where the solution has to be "either/or," then there is no progress from that place. Because it all of a sudden creates a sense of the absolute. You either don’t do something or you do do it. If you do do it, you’ve screwed everything up, and if you don’t do it, you have protected everything but have no oil, gas or coal for energy.

Instead we need to approach from an "and or both" viewpoint in order to be able to progress. And we can’t forget the dimension of time when we look at these things. So, for example, if you look at a large surface coal mine today, you see one heck of a lot of disturbance. You see a lot of alteration of the landscape, and you know it is going to be there for a while.

But when you think about the dimension of time, you say, "Okay I know this disturbance is going to happen today, but I also know that it is going to be reclaimed later." Then you recognize that you can actually do both.

Q: That makes sense, although I would argue there are some places where there are absolutes, where development should not take place, but I can see that approach is a place to start to move forward.
A: You see, if a conflict between one group’s opinion with another group’s opinion is viewed as "That’s just the way things are, there’s going to be that conflict," well then it is certainly not positive. But if you look at it and say, "Well wait a second, there’s a conflict here but as long as that conflict can be utilized to develop a better outcome, then hey, it’s okay to have the conflict." In this situation, I know something better will come from conflict. There’s a nuance there, and I don’t do a very good job of describing it, but if conflict is simply a means to an end, then it is always going to be negative, but if conflict is the result of differing opinions and those differing opinions lead to better solutions, then that is a good thing.

Q: I’ve heard you use the word "stakeholders" a number of times today and in the past. Who are DEQ’s stakeholders and how do you determine those individuals or entities?
A: I use the word "stakeholders" very broadly. It includes those who have an interest in the work we are doing. A specific example would be the issue of landfills.

We have a number of leaking landfills in the state, we have landfills running out of space, and there are landfills that do not live up to new, tighter standards of performance. This is a big problem for communities, and so, via the governor’s office, we’ve formed a citizen’s advisory group that consists of landfill operators and community leaders from around the state, as well as representatives from DEQ. They are meeting to problem solve, brainstorm solutions, and develop recommendations to deal with the challenge.

Another example is the NPDES task force. We had members of industry — they were stakeholders. We had some environmental groups — they were stakeholders. We had ranchers and landowners — they were stakeholders, and we had DEQ people.

Q: Typically do you seek out these stakeholders or do they come to you?
A: Well, normally we seek them out. But on occasion people will call and ask to be included, and we’ll say okay.

Q: I wanted to follow up on Jeff Kessler’s —the conservation director of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance—question at the WOC board meeting in February. He was specifically concerned about the fact that members of the coal industry had been meeting with DEQ without public involvement to discuss proposed changes in the rules affecting the industry. Do you agree with the issues he raised?
A: I can understand his concern. I took that question back to my staff. We discussed it at a staff meeting and then we actually had another meeting to talk about what we ought to do. His concerns about where do we start and how does someone other than industry get their perspective weighed in early enough in the game to influence the outcome are good concerns. We are going to do things slightly differently in the future in a way that will, I think, get at most of what Jeff wanted.

What we are exploring—and this is not a final decision—but what we are exploring is a way that we can keep matters that we are working on posted on our website. We’d have a special spot highlighting current issues on our website. You could click on that spot, and see what is occupying the agency’s attention at the moment along with the name of a contact person for each issue. Then if you wanted to learn more, you could call the contact person and say, "Hey, I see that you are meeting on coal vegetation rules, what are you doing? Who are you meeting with? When’s your next meeting? Can I come?" And the answer would be: "This is what we are doing, this is our next meeting, see you there." So rather than trying to commit to some big process where we provide public notice, we’ll put the information on the website and people who want to pay attention to what are currently the priority issues at the DEQ will be able to find them online and hook in. There will still be all kinds of other times people can get involved. But this allows public involvement earlier in the process.

Q: At our February board meeting in Laramie, I got the impression that coalbed methane was overwhelming DEQ’s resources. Is that an accurate assessment?
A: Yes, it is. It is occupying a tremendous amount of resource time and also management time. The way we’ve responded to that is by adding people. In our budget for this year we have added quite a few extra people to our water quality division, in large part to respond to the increased workload from CBM development. But the development is paying its own way. The taxpayers are still getting a very good value for their dollars.

Q: Do any other programs suffer as a result of this focus?
A: No.

Q: Even though John Wagner, the administrator of the Water Quality Division, was talking about things like the leaking underground storage tanks that won’t be dealt with until 2015 because of limited resources?
A: Well that is a good remark. The underground storage tank program has been in place for a long time, in fact well before the coalbed methane development took off. It was set up and staffed according to however the management at the time felt it should be set up and staffed. However, over time, the demands placed on that program have grown. John was just commenting that when he looks at the current demand and current resources, he realizes that it is going to take him a lot longer to get the job done. But that is a result of more leaking tanks being discovered, and a result of us learning that it takes longer to remediate one of these sites. It has nothing to do with CBM.

Q: How do you describe your leadership style?
A: The way I look at it, the best way for me to add value to this agency is to ask the right questions, provide a different perspective, and as I said earlier, work to get clarity around our mission, clarity around our values, and clarity around our performance measures. I certainly don’t have the experience of any of the detailed programs to be able to walk in and say, "You know I have a better way of doing this." I can’t do that. But what I can do is facilitate everybody else finding better ways to do things. That’s where I view my role.

Q: It often seems as if the DEQ gets attacked from all sides and I wondered how that affects morale at the organization?
A: That does happen, but I don’t know that morale is a function of that so much as it is a function of how well the agency supports its staff, how well leadership engages staff, and how we go about doing our work.

I think sometimes people in our agency get it from both sides for so long they insulate themselves from everyone. Subconsciously or consciously they may reach a point where they say, "You know I’m going to catch hell for this no matter what happens, so I’m just going to go ahead and do it." They tend to build walls or seal themselves away from outside contact. When I came to the agency I sensed some of this. We need to make sure we don’t allow it to happen. We can’t stop listening to everyone despite the fact that some of them may be very critical when they speak to us.

Q: If you had all the money in the world for the DEQ where would you put it?
A: If there was an unlimited supply of money, I would accelerate the pace of change for bringing information technology tools and solutions into the agency. I would do more monitoring. And I would also accelerate the rate at which we get our work done.