This book reviews the efforts of New York state to site a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. It evaluates the nature, sources, and quality of the data, analyses, and procedures used by the New York State Siting Commission in its decisionmaking process, which identified five potential sites for low-level waste disposal. Finally, the committee offers a chapter highlighting the lessons in siting low-level radioactive waste facilities that can be learned from New York State's experience.
Many lament the difficulty of siting hazardous waste facilities that are intended to benefit the public at large but are locally unwanted. Many label local opposition as purely self-interested; as simply a function of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) syndrome. Drawing upon the experience of states trying to site new low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities, Mary English argues that we need to think harder and look deeper, to understand--and, possibly, solve--the siting dilemma. The 1980 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act ushered in a new era in low-level radioactive waste disposal; one of vastly increased state responsibility. By a 1985 amendment, states were given until January 1993 to develop a new system of disposal facilities. English reviews the progress they have made, focusing on one difficulty: that of finding technically and socially acceptable sites. She then turns to issues concerning authority, trust, risk, and justice that help to shape the siting dilemma. This book is made highly readable by vivid examples drawn from recent efforts to site low-level waste disposal facilities. The volume will be a helpful resource to those in the public and private sectors who are immediately concerned with the siting of radioactive waste disposal facilities, hazardous waste facilities, solid waste landfills, incinerators, etc., as well as social scientists who are studying this problem.
A crisis awaits the states without adequate Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) disposal capacity, and states now struggling to comply with U.S. National Policy-widely believed unworkable. Some states may find that they are unable to dispose of the LLRW they generate! Long underestimated-or politically boondoggled-the dread subject of LLRW disposal is now being brought to climax, amidst conflicting viewpoints from generators, regulators, environmentalists and the public...from...medical-clinical labs...nuclear power plants...state and federal agencies...scientists and engineers...consultants...attorneys. This book emphasizes siting, disposal, historical approach to radwaste regulation, public attitudes, and NIMBY. AND deals comprehensively with radiation, biological effects, risk assessment, public health protection and government regulation, safety of LLRW, biological effects, and attempts to develop solutions to this pervasive problem. This text is essential to those likely to find themselves engulfed by LLRW problem: scientists, engineers, managers in many companies and institutions, consultants, and, of course, Government Agency Officials, public interest groups, technical, social science, law, and public libraries. There is no easy solution-but there will be a solution. And we believe this book is part of that solution. Expert authors-provide chapters carefully researched and written for this book; and provide their personal and professional experiences. This book is certainly a step toward understanding and solving the LLRW problem.
Planning for the management of nuclear wastes -- whatever their level of radioactivity -- is one of the most important environmental problems for all societies that produce utility, industrial, medical, or other radioactive waste products. Attemps to site low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities in Western industrial societies, however, have repeatedly engendered conflicts between governments, encountered vehement opposition on the part of local citizen groups, and given rise to overt hostilities among involved parties. LLRW Disposal Facility Siting is the result of a study designed to learn more about the causes underlying failed and successful efforts to site LLRW disposal facilities. The study is based on case histories of LLRW disposal facility siting processes in six countries. Siting processes in five states within the United States and in five additional countries are analyzed using information obtained from public documents and supplemented by interviews with key participants. The selected states and countries are major generators of LLRW and each has made efforts to establish LLRW disposal facilities during the past decade. They vary widely in the approaches they have adopted to LLRW management, the institutional structures developed for managing the siting process, the means used to involve stakeholders and technical experts in the facility siting process and the amount and type of data used in making decisions. The analysis of these case histories provides general lessons about the advantages, disadvantages, strengths, and weaknesses of the various approaches that have been attempted or implemented. LLRW Disposal Facility Siting provides valuable data for academics and researchers working in the area of environmental management.
Considers the politics of low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal (high-level waste is another kettle of [toxic] fish altogether, just now beginning to enter the political arena) from a comparative international perspective in order to discover what factors impinge upon the overriding need for legitimate and publicly acceptable solutions. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
