Public meetings have been around for as long as civilizations have existed, but in the U.S, they can be traced back to New England in the 17th century. The main reason for conducting town meetings is for people to address the issues facing them to their leaders. In doing so, leaders can then serve the public better as it is their sworn duty. This paper will provide a summary of the consent-based siting summary public meeting.
On December 23rd, 2015, the department of energy invited the public to make comments on the federal register, which received 10,000 feedbacks (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). A public meeting was then held on September 15th, 2016 to discuss the raised issues. The meeting started with a presentation from John Kotek, acting assistant secretary of nuclear energy. The presentation covered the outline of the outreach program and then the need to involve the stakeholders involved. The siting panel included some 40 members who had different views. To foster deeper conversations, the department facilitated group discussions among the attending stakeholders. As a concluding remark, Kotek discussed the ongoing plans to reconstitute the office of the Nuclear Energy within the Department to improve its ability to work with the consent-based siting program while setting it up for a smoother transition to another entity if legislation was to authorize it (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). This move was received positively from the attendees with a loud of applause.
After Kotek’s speech, the acting Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Project team leader, Melissa Bates, took the podium to address the issues raised by the public (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). Some of the issues included lack of trust in the department’s ability to create a siting process that builds public confidence, the need for a new agency to handle Nuclear waste management, the necessity to consider the communities currently hosting nuclear waste from shutdown civilian nuclear reactors who have not consented on long-term holding, the need to consider the fairness of the future generations consent based sittings as nuclear material takes hundreds of thousands of year to degrade (Ewing et al., 2016), the significance of environmental consideration, and the recommendation to include the transportation stakeholders in the decision making process. In addition, she also talk about the integral relationship between the tribes and the Federal government and their sovereignty of their decisions regarding siting of nuclear waste management facilities, the need to incorporate diversity of viewpoints in the sittings in terms of the disciplines involved ( socioeconomic, technical, cultural, and political), the need involve all the stakeholders involved in the matter, the call for siting standards that are clear in terms of the transparency of the process, and finally, the elaborate definition of the word ‘consent’, the context of its use, and the role of the stakeholders in telling ‘non-consent’ with respect to the siting (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). All attendees gave appreciated Bates for her great speech and addressing the above issues in detail.
After Ms. Bates’ conclusion, Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary of fuel cycle technologies, Andrew Griffith, wrapped up the panel’s presentation. He did so by highlighting how the department will involve the public on the input of the draft report, Designing consent-based siting process (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). He also argued the importance of having an informed public in the consultations procession and thus the request made for $25M in FY 1017 to educate the public on the matter. Griffith then facilitated a question and answer session in the end where the audience raised a lot of issues that were adequately addressed. The meeting ended with a closing remark from Mr. Kotek. Thus, through the discussions by Ms. Bates, Mr. Griffith, Mr. Kotek, and the question and answer forum, the public got a chance to hear their issues addressed and input on the matter considered.
The central issue raised in this meeting was the nuclear waste management and disposal. Everyone agreed that it is crucial for the sites to be located where the communities involved have given consent over the matter. This is because this material is hazardous to human beings. Nuclear waste in toxic for an extremely long time and future generations in the communities where these sites are located would still face the consequences if the harmful deposits was mishandled. Therefore, the adverse effects of nuclear waste to human health put the issue of safe disposal at the heart of the meeting.
There were many other underlying issues in line with the main agendas of the meeting. These are the lack of trust in the agency handling the waste disposal. Hence, the department was reorganizing the office involved for a needed transition to something that inspires public confidence. It is crucial for that people believe in the agency tasked with handling the waste as otherwise, one will give the consent, and in the case of an accident there would be civil unrest in the country. If the process was going to work, there was also a need to consider the communities that host the waste but had not consented to do it on a long-term basis. The other issue was the condition of the environment for the sites. It is crucial that they are exposed to the least harm possible since we all depend on the environment in one way or the other. There is also a need to involve all the stakeholders involved while considering the many interrelating disciplines in the matter. Lastly, it is important for these stakeholders to make an informed decision on the issue and, therefore, the need for a public awareness program. Therefore, the underlying issues were addressed with various suggested tailor made solutions.
To sum up, public meetings are old forums where the government gets in touch with the public, which was the case with the meeting discussed in this paper. Through these meetings, people can directly make their input on the various issues affecting them. Due to raised concerns about the handling of nuclear waste, the department of energy organized a public meeting to get the input of the public on the important issues. The biggest problem was the decline in public confidence in the agency concerned although other related issues were addressed. These problems were at the heart of the communities involved as their health, and the environment were directly at risk.
References
DOE Summary of Public Input-Consent Based Siting Public Meeting [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8R4pE29wcs
Ewing, R. C., Whittleston, R. A., & Yardley, B. W. (2016). Geological disposal of nuclear waste: A primer. Elements, 12(4), 233-237.
Office of Nuclear Energy, (2016). Consent-based siting of public input. Retrieved from https://www.energy.gov/ne/downloads/consent-based-siting-summary-public-input-meeting
