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HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND 119 GOVERNMENTAL PERSPECTIVES original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. 2. to examine the adequacy of the current approaches to facility siting underlying current national and state waste management programs in light of the problems; and 3. to suggest some of the ingredients of an improved approach to waste facility siting. KEY PROBLEMS IN FACILITY SITING Although hazardous wastes facilities share a number of problems with other unwanted facilities, they present a different configuration of impact on these problems. They also reveal some risk and choice considerations not found in many other siting tasks. The major issues contributing to difficulties in siting are the lack of a systems approach, uncertainty of risk, public perceptions of risk, inequities in costs and benefits, institutional distrust, difficulties in communication about risk, and the availability of ample institutional means for resisting the imposition of unwanted waste facilities. The Need for a Systems Approach By its nature, hazardous waste management requires a systems approach. As Figure 1 shows, the waste production process is a complex one, involving numerous opportunities for management to reduce risks, to lower economic costs, and to recycle wastes to beneficial uses. All opportunities need to be weighed against one another to maximize health protection and economic efficiency and to minimize the transfer of risks to future generations. No less than waste management, facility siting is also a system activity. The deployment of a waste management system requires a network of waste processing, storage, and disposal facilities, interconnected by waste transportation links. The network may be designed in ways that increase equity, minimize risk, and lower costs, or, alternatively, produce the reverse effects. This is apparent in Figures 2 and 3, which show the implications of a centralized versus a regional siting strategy for high-level radioactive waste repositories. The centralized system creates a national system of waste movement involving many nonnuclear states in risks, public concern, and regulatory burdens. The regional system, by contrast, minimizes such problems, thereby suggesting the importance of the underlying policy choice. Unfortunately current hazardous waste facility strategies tend to be facility- specific. Most of the state laws governing hazardous nonradioactive waste facility siting are geared to the process for siting a given facility. Low-level radioactive waste facility siting, because of the scale of the institutional structure, addresses the siting of a single facility. Network and systems
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Figure 1 GOVERNMENTAL PERSPECTIVES The waste production process. SOURCE: National Research Council (1985, p. 19). HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND 120
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.GOVERNMENTAL PERSPECTIVES HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND Figure 2 Projected annual spent-fuel shipments to a western storage site in 2004. Basis: truck shipments from all reactors (for demonstration purposes only). 121 SOURCE: National Research Council (1984, p. 70).
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.GOVERNMENTAL PERSPECTIVES HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND Figure 3 Projected annual spent-fuel shipments to regional storage sites in 2004. Basis: truck shipments from all reactors (for demonstration purposes only). 122 SOURCE: National Research Council (1984, p. 63).
