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HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND 130 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. fits will actually flow in timely fashion (especially given that they cannot be well predicted in advance) exacerbates the problem but is probably not decisive. Moreover, among at least a significant minority, benefits at any feasible time are unlikely to change committed resistance to a disposal facility. In cases of risks that elicit dread and intense fears and simultaneously involve difficult value conflicts, research suggests that fairness may well depend more fundamentally on the distribution, particularly the sharing, of the risk and on the characteristics of the process that allocates risk than on the relationship between risks and benefits. If this is correct, fairness is best accomplished through strategies designed to reduce risks (even at substantial costs) and to produce widespread sharing of the risk rather than strategies designed to convince some to take uncertain risks on behalf of others in exchange for compensation. Institutional Distrust The analysis of the siting problem to date unmistakably points to the need for institutions capable of eliciting strong confidence that health and safety will not be compromised in the face of other needs and that fairness will be adhered to scrupulously. Unfortunately, such confidence does not exist. Indeed, there is widespread distrust of the institutions responsible for decisions about siting and for the assurance of safety at a particular site. This is not surprising, of course, for the record clearly shows that toxic wastes have been badly mismanaged over decades, radioactive waste disposal has been neglected, and regulatory agencies and industries have left a legacy of burden for future generations to assume. Should we be surprised that there is not a clamor to be the next site for a waste facility? The distrust of institutions is part of a fundamental, long-term trend in American attitudes. This distrust is pervasive, ranging from social institutions to the family to the federal government and most strikingly to industry. A 1976 poll, for example, revealed the following somber statistics concerning those groups in whom the public had "a great deal of confidence" on nuclear power issues. The group in whom the public placed the greatest confidence was scientists (58 percent), followed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (39 percent), the heads of electric power companies (19 percent), and companies that produce equipment for nuclear power plants (12 percent) (Harris and Associates, 1976, p. 29). A 1980 survey of Wisconsin residents revealed that most respondents did not believe that government was moving fast enough to solve the waste disposal problem or was interested in what local citizens thought (Kelly, 1980). Similarly, the 1983 Massachusetts survey of attitudes toward the siting of hazardous waste facilities
