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Hazards: Technology and Fairness (1986)

Chapter: Conceptualizing the Siting Problem

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Suggested Citation:"Conceptualizing the Siting Problem." National Academy of Engineering. 1986. Hazards: Technology and Fairness. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/650.
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Page 138

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HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY SITING: COMMUNITY, FIRM, AND 138 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. tutional approach to siting must be able to manage conflict under conditions of high technological complexity and political uncertainty. In this scheme a siting jury would function through the various stages of the siting program. In the initial phase of national site searching, each state would appoint a state representative whose tenure would equal in duration the entire site-selection process. This would allow the mastering of scientific, managerial, and technical complexity and also provide a degree of judicial independence from political consideration. As the siting process progresses to particular regions and actual sites, the jury (except for the initially chosen juror from the area of interest) would change in composition to reflect the narrowing geographical focus. The author, in a recent study of equity issues in radioactive waste management (Kasperson, 1983, p. 351), has proposed a lottery mechanism for excepting sites from candidacy for a potential high-level waste repository. Noting that lottery mechanisms are often used for situations of feared risks when fairness of selection becomes an overriding requirement (for example, the draft, dangerous military missions), the authors argue that this mechanism can be integrated into a sound program of technical qualification of sites while increasing public confidence in the intrinsic fairness of risk allocation. TOWARD A NEW APPROACH More effective approaches to hazardous waste facility siting depend upon a clear conceptualization of the siting problem, a sound ethical base to guide the design of siting strategies and to begin the recovery of social trust, and a set of policy tools by which the strategy can be realized. Conceptualizing the Siting Problem Current approaches to siting are prone to predictable failures because of misconceptualizations of the siting problem. It is crucial to understand that this is a systems-level, not a facility-level, task . Waste management must be undertaken with an understanding of the relationships between disposal strategies and opportunities for reducing the generation of waste. It is also clear that what is at stake is not the deployment of a facility but a network of waste generation, waste processing, waste movement, and storage or disposal, a system that needs to be integrated with land-use planning. Relative risks associated with alternative designs need to be assessed and built into decisions on system design. High levels of perceived risk and associated public concern will accompany the deployment of this system, fears that are almost certain to persist in the face of assurances, technical studies of risk,

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"In the burgeoning literature on technological hazards, this volume is one of the best," states Choice in a three-part approach, it addresses the moral, scientific, social, and commercial questions inherent in hazards management. Part I discusses how best to regulate hazards arising from chronic, low-level exposures and from low-probability events when science is unable to assign causes or estimate consequences of such hazards; Part II examines fairness in the distribution of risks and benefits of potentially hazardous technologies; and Part III presents practical lessons and cautions about managing hazardous technologies. Together, the three sections put hazard management into perspective, providing a broad spectrum of views and information.

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