The Guiding Principles have been applied in various ways. The Woolwich Township Council incorporated them into their strategic planning exercise in 1996. Members of the Healthy Communities Coalition also used them to develop and distribute a series of questions for candidates during municipal election campaigns. The Principles have been applied to inform several potentially contentious decisions, including decisions about expanding the Waterloo Regional airport, which is located in Woolwich Township; building a "big box" store in a township woodland; and evaluating a waste disposal proposal submitted by a local industry (Wismer, 2000).

While the application of the Guiding Principles has not always resulted in health-promoting decisions (the Township Council, for example, supported the proposal for a big box store construction over the objections of community residents), the work of Woolwich Healthy Communities over the past decade has produced an impressive legacy of accomplishments as well as an innovative approach to community action for other rural municipalities to consider. Projects like the development of Guiding Principles show how a community challenged by divisive environmental health concerns can improve its quality of life and build a deserved reputation as a healthy community.

Implications for Practice

Woolwich Healthy Communities response to addressing environmental health concerns incorporates a number of features shared by effective community mobilization initiatives, including:

a clearly defined community of interest (i.e., Woolwich township residents)
an emphasis on building the community's capacity to address its shared concerns about water quality rather than imposing 'top-down' solutions
a process-oriented, locality development approach to community mobilization that organized interested community members into small task-oriented groups (i.e., the Well Water Quality Group) focusing on specific environmental issues
the establishment of a coordinating committee, with representation from the key community sectors with an interest in environmental health issues, to guide the initiative
a well-defined mission, sense of purpose and clear objectives (achieved through the visioning workshops and the guiding principles document)
a willingness to evolve in response to changing circumstances and identified community needs (shift from issue-specific, action-oriented workgroups to the development of principles to guide environmental planning and policy decisions)