Public Meeting
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 faced with the assistance of their leaders. In doing so, leaders can then serve the public better, which is their sworn duty. For example, to resolve multiple issues related to nuclear waste and possible danger to the environment and people’s well-being, the US department of energy held the meeting involving representatives of each party where were precisely addressed attributed issues.
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). In tur, 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 as an assistant secretary of nuclear energy. The presentation covered the outline of the outreach program and then the need to engage the stakeholders involved. The siting panel included 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 consider the issues raised by the public (Office of Nuclear Energy, 2016). The first problem was a lack of trust in the department’s ability to create a siting process that builds public confidence. Besides, the need for a new agency to handle Nuclear waste management was a concern. In turn, there was expressed the necessity to consider the communities currently hosting nuclear waste from shutdown civilian nuclear reactors that have not consented on long-term holding. Furthermore, there was a need to regard the fairness of the future generations consent based sittings as nuclear material takes hundreds of thousands of year to degrade (Ewing et al., 2016). Then, Melissa Bates examined the significance of environmental consideration, and the recommendation to include the transportation stakeholders in the decision making process. In addition, she also addressed the integral relationship between the tribes and the Federal government, as well as the 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 including socioeconomic, technical, cultural, and political was no less important. Then, Bates brought a matter of great urgency regarding the need to involve all the stakeholders in the matter and to call for siting standards that are clear in terms of the transparency of the process. Finally, the committee managed to elaborate a 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 detailed consideration of the above-mentioned issues.
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). Griffith also argued the importance of having an informed public in the consultations procession; thus, he made the request for $25M in FY 1017 to educate the public on the matter. In addition, the secretary Griffith facilitated a question and answer session at the end where the audience raised a great number 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 get detailed answers on their questions and input on the matter considered.
The central issue raised in this meeting was the nuclear waste management and disposal of substances harmful to the environment. Everyone agreed that it is crucial for the sites to be located in the places where the communities involved have given consent over the matter. The reason is that these materials are hazardous to human beings. To be more specific, nuclear waste is 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 were the main issue of safe disposal considered at the heart of the meeting.
There were many other underlying issues in line with the main agendas of the meeting, especially the lack of trust in the agency handling the waste disposal. Hence, the department was reorganizing the office involved for a needed transition to a facility that inspires public confidence. It is crucial for that people to believe in the agency tasked with handling the waste; 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 would also be 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 contributing to the mistrust was the condition of the environment for the sites. It is crucial people to ensure that they are exposed to the least harm possible since each individual depends on the environment in one way or the other. There is also a need to engage all the stakeholders involved while considering the many interrelating subjects in the matter. Lastly, it is important for these stakeholders to make an informed decision on the issue; therefore, there is a need for a public awareness of program. Thus, to eliminate the lack of trust in the waste disposal agency, the underlying issues were precisely addressed, and various suggested tailor made solutions were developed.
To sum up, during the public meeting held by the US department of energy, there were considered the main issues attributed to nuclear waste and possible danger to the environment and people’s well-being; consequently, all parties involved managed to find solutions of the current nuclear problems. Public meetings are old forums where the government gets in touch with the public. Through this type of interaction, 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 as well. These problems were at the heart of the communities involved as their health and the environment were 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
