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HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND 137 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. social trust to reassure local fears over the facility and to withstand a conflict-laden community consideration process. All four assumptions are in doubt, if not outright wrong. The classic equity problem associated with large industrial facilities is simply not an accurate guide to that associated with hazardous waste facilities. Because perceived risk so dominates public response, risk minimization, risk allocation, and risk sharing questions become the dominant equity problems. Accordingly, and as growing experience confirms, the prospect of compensation does not effectively lower the degree of perceived risk nor does it engender a propensity among local residents to trade off concerns. Rather, it is often viewed as a bribe, exacerbating the risk sharing issue and increasing suspicion and distrust of the developer and state agencies. Negotiations, as Raiffa (1982, p. 311) notes, depend upon perception that the process is fair and that there is more to be gained by cooperation than not. Such a reaction was particularly striking in a recent siting dispute in Germany (Kunreuther et al., 1984, p. 482). Further, although not widely recognized, it is also the case that locational opportunism, with its objectionable ethical elements, remains operative in the bartered consent approach because it is the developer (often in the private sector) who seeks out the potential sites. The literature of social impact assessment speaks convincingly to the current limited ability to identify (much less adequately measure) the impacts likely to accrue as the siting process and facility operation unfold (National Research Council, 1984, Ch. 4) so that needed compensation is, in fact, difficult to gauge. Finally, although the bartered-consent model envisions a community social dynamic geared to growing community consensus on the terms necessary for residents to accept a facility, the dynamic that actually occurs is one that shows the classic features of social protest: local efforts to mobilize social resources and to identify institutional opportunities by which to resist the facility (Lipsky, 1968). Approach 4: Fairness-Centered Process Although not widely discussed or adopted, a number of innovative approaches center upon improving the fairness of the risk allocation process and increasing the degree of social trust in the institutions responsible for the siting decision. Some versions also include substantial attention to conflict-resolution mechanisms. Generally they address two fundamental issuesâthe ethics of risk allocation and the distrust of social institutionsâof the siting problems. Interestingly, most have addressed high-level radioactive wastes. According to a "siting jury" approach suggested by Lee (1980), an insti
