ML20206R281
| ML20206R281 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/12/1999 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0130, NACNUCLE-T-130, NUDOCS 9905200061 | |
| Download: ML20206R281 (220) | |
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[
e OniGlNAL kdhdE O/SO OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
Title:
MEETING: 109TII ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) i TRO8 ;ACNW RETURN CRIGINAL
. TO BJWHITE O
's M/S T-2E26 415-7130 l Work Order No.: ASB-300-776 T e s: ;
/
i 9905200061 990512 PDR ADVCM NACNUCLE T-0130 PDR LOCATION: Rocktille,MD DATE: Wednesday,May 12,1999 PAGES: 56 - 253 l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
p 'I025 Connecticut Ave.,NW, Suite 1014
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Washington,D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 ACNV/OrtrC9 m . m g
, ' ~ - MWiiOF_DE00MulTTEE o --
q DISCLAIMER UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCTEAR WASTE MAY 12, 1999 The contents of this transcript of the proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory O
(,j Committee on Nuclear Waste, taken on May 12, 1999, as reported herein, is a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
This transcript had not been reviewed, corrected and edited and it may contain inaccuracies.
,O 1 k
l
56 l' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
() 2 3
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE 5 ***
'6 MEETING: 109TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE 7 ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) 8 9 U.S. NRC 10 Two White Flint, North 11 11545 Rockville Pike, Room T2 B3 12 Rockville, Maryland 13 14 Wednesday, May 12, 1999 15 16 The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:35 17 a.m.
18 19 MEMBERS PRESENT:
20 B. JOHN GARRICK, Chairman, ACNW 21 RAYMOND G. WYMER, Member, ACNW 22 GEORGE M. HORNBERGER, Member, ACNW 23 CHARLES FAIRHURST, Member, ACNW 24 25 i O ' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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57 1 STAFF PRESENT:
() 2 LYNN G. DEERING, ACNW 3 RICHARDLK. MAJOR, ACNW 4 ANDREW C. CAMPBELL, ACNW 5 HOWARD J LARSON, ACNW 6 DR. LARKINS, ACNW 7 PARTICIPANTS:
8 WILLIAM TRAVERS, NRC 9 FRANK MIRAGLIA, NRC 10 MICHAEL JOHNSON, NRR 11 BRUCE BOGER, NRR 12 MS. HOWARD, NEI 13 WALTER HILL, NEI 14 DR. SCHOENFELD, Research
( 15 MS. DAWES, EPA l 16 DR. CARL PAPERIELLO, NMSS 17 MR. REAME l 18 l 19 20-l 21 22 l
23 l
24 25 !
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Washington, D.C. 20036 ;
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- i 58 t
1 PROCEEDINGS i
(O j: 2 [8:35 a.m.]
3 DR. GARRICK: Good morning. The meeting will now 4 come to order.
5 This is the second day of the 109th meeting of the l
6 Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. My name is John 7 Garrick, Chairman of the ACNW. Other Members of the 8 Committee include George Hornberger, Ray Wymer, and Charles 9 Fairhurst.
10- The entire meeting will be open to the public.
11 Today the Committee will first discuss recent experience and l
12 plans for improving risk communication and public outreach 13 with representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency, 14 the NRC staff, and the Nuclear Energy Institute.
A k,) 15 We will meet with the NRC's executive director for 16 operations, Dr. William Travers, and NRC's deputy executive 17 director for regulatory affairs, Mr. Frank J. Miraglia, to 18 discuss items of mutual interest. And we will discuss 19 possible ACNW reports on first, low levels of ionizing 20 radiation, second, a white paper on repository design, and l l
21 third, NRC's waste-related research and technical assistance '
22 program.
23 Lynn Deering is the designated Federal official 24 for the initial portion of today's meeting.
25 This meeting is being conducted in accordance with l
f)
A/
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p 59 1 the provisions of'the Federal Advisory Committee Act. We
() 2 3
have received no written statements or requests to make oral statements from members of the public regarding today's 4 session. Should anyone wish to address the Committee, 5 please make your wishes known to one of the Committee staff.
6- And as usual, it's requested that each speaker use 7 one of the microphones, identify themselves, and speak with 8 clarity and volume so that we can hear what you have to say.
9 Today we as a Committee venture into some I
I 10 relatively new territory. One of the issues that we have on 11 our first-tier priority list this year is to be more active 12 in offering advice to the Commission on stakeholder 13 participation. A component of that activity is the business 14 of how we communicate with each other and with the public.
() 15 We are planning a working group on that subject later this 16 year.
17 In preparation for that, we will be hearing from a 18 variety of experts and organizations that have programs or 19 activities having to do with outreach, having to do with
- 20 risk communication, and the general subject of how to l
! 21 involve the public in the nuclear regulatory decision making I
22 process.
23 So I think with that we'll move directly into the 24 presentations. Our first presentation will be from -- as I 25 understand it there's been a substitute here. It was to be O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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60 1 Frank Gillespie, but it's going to be Michael Johnson and
() 2 Bruce Boger. I gather they're from the same Office of 3: Inspection and Support from NRR, and they're going to talk 4 to us about risk-informed, performance-based regulation 5 communication strategy.
- 6. Please introduce yourself and the subsequent 7 speakers. Welcome.
8 MR. BOGER: Thank you. My name is Bruce Boger. I 9 am the director _of the Division of Inspection Program 10- Management at NRR. And today Mike Johnson, who's the 11 section chief in the Inspection Program Branch, is going to 12 provide a presentation on not quite what you said, but 13 something pretty.close.
14 [ Laughter.)
15 DR. GARRICK: Well, that isn't the first time I've 16 misrepresented something.
17 MR. BOGER: When we make some of these last-minute 18- changes, sometimes things fall through the cracks, but 19 basically there has been a lot of interest and concern in 20 -whether or not the NRC' inspection and oversight program has 21 kept pace with the progress that industry has made. By many 22 measures the industry is performing better, and so in 23 recognition of that, we've made some changes.
24 We're looking at ways to change the inspection 25 process, ways to change the performance assessment of
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61 1 licensees, and Mike's going to talk about that. But it is a 2 big challenge for us, because it's not only a communication
- 3 issue with the public or with people outside. We have a
~4, large communications challenge within the NRC, our 5 inspectors, our supervisors, and the like. So what we ,
~6 thought we'd do is talk about changes to the process itself, 7 because'you may not be familiar with the changes that we l 8 need to make, and along the way we'll discuss the' 9- communications issues that we have. And if that's okay with 10 you, then Michael, carry on.
11 MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Thanks, Bruce.
12 As Bruce said, my name is Michael Johnson, from 13 the Inspection Programs Branch. And I've handed out a slide 14 package, but again admittedly the slide package and the 15 presentation I'd actually planned to give you focuses a lot I
- 16. on the oversight process, not a lot on what we've done in 17 terms of bringing in stakeholders and the development of the I 18 process and what we plan in terms of the communication.
19 So what I'll do is I'll go through that 20 presentation very quickly to sort of give you the overview, l 21 but I'll try to weave in what has been a substantial effort, l.
22 really an outreach effort for us in developing this revised 23 oversight process, and I'll talk a little bit about what it 24 is we plan to do to implement that process, t communicate 25 the process both internally and to keep stakeholders, the O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 I
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I 62
- 1 external stakeholders, all of the stakeholders involved as
,m 2 we go into implementation.
3 Just by way of background, as Bruce indicated, 4 beginning a year ago and even earlier we began to recognize 5 and get feedback on the fact that in fact there are some 6 changes going on that we needed to be responsive to in the 7 area of reactor oversight. We had a maturing industry and a 8 maturing technology, certainly a demonstrated history of 9 improved plant performance. We've had tools, regulatory 10 tools that we've been working on and refining over the 11 years. And in the area of deregulation, where licensees are 12 pressed upon to become more and more competitive, and with 13 the internal factors that we had going on at the Agency, we 14 certainly began to recognize that we need to find ways to be q
()
15 more effective, that is, to get the information that we need 16 to allow us to do our mission, but do it in a way that 17 minimizes unnecessary burden to licensees. And so that was 18 the real impetus for what we did, took on in terms of 19 revising the oversight process.
20 Just n quick couple of slides that I won't spend 21 any time on, really, the trends are, if you'll just glance 22 at them, this is the industry's performance, using the 23 performance indicators that we keep track of and that the 24 industry keeps track of, and as you can see, from '86 to 25 1988 there have been drastic improvements in the performance
()
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63 1 of the industry.
() 2 'IMR. GARRICK: Do you think that message is out to 3 the pu$lic about this drastic improvement?
4 MR. JOHNSON: I think it is, actually. We -- as 5 I'll talk about in a few minutes, when we've gotten in front 6 at public meetings and talked about changes to the revised 7 ' oversight process, in fact when we've made changes, recent 8 changes to the way we oversee reactors, we have tried to 9 communicate the fact that in general the message is good, in 10 general the trends are good, and we -- in fact, I'll talk 11 about what we think are the important mission directions 12 that we ought to take in the area of overseeing reactors, 13 and that is reflective of the fact that the industry's 14 performance is improving, and we try to communicate that in 15 as many forms as we possibly can. But you're right, it's a 16 tough message to get out there.
17 DR. GARRICK: Yes. Thank you.
18 MR. JOHNSON: One of the first things that we did 19 with the thoughts that I've just mentioned with this 20 maturing industry with the trends in improvements, with the 21 need that we felt to improve'our effectiveness and to 22 consider stakeholder input and how we ought to really be 23 overseeing the performance of reactors, one of the first 24 things that we did was to develop a top-down approach to 25 developing the revised oversight process, and we structured O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- b. ,
64 l' that top-down approach in' terms,of a framework that I'll
() 2 ' talk about in just a.second. And then we looked at some --
3 given that framework,-what are.the defining principles, what l
4 are really the design specifications that you would put in
! 5 place to implement that --
to defer the development and i
r l 6' implement that framework.
l l 7 And then we conducted a.public meeting. That 8 public meeting was in October, September and October of last 9 year, where we invited members from the industry, utilities, i I L 10 NEI, INPO, State regulators. We invited folks and as many 11 people who would show up we entertained in that workshop, 12 and the purpose of that workshop was to try to get alignment
.13 on this top-down approach to oversight in the area of l
14 operating reactors.
() 15 This framework, and I won't spend a lot of time on l
16 the framework and the details of the process, but the 17 framework really does start at a high level, our public 18 safety mission, the mission as it is outlined in the Atomic
~
19 Energy Act, and it's near and dear to us. In fact, it shows 20 up on our strategic plans and in many, many high-level 21 documents. It's to provide again adequate protection of 22 public health and safety.
t 23 Then if you look, working down, at the strategic
( 24 plan, the strategic plan actually talks about areas of 25 performance where we actually in the strategic plan have O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 ,
l 1 l
65 1 specific goals with respect to reactor safety,' radiation
() ~2 safety, and safeguards. And so we looked again to fulfill 3 that mission at figuring out what those areas were.
4 Now this whole framework then is driven by the 5 next level down, which are our cornerstones, and basically.
6 what we've done in designing the cornerstones is asked 7 ourselves to recognize that there are a lot of things that 8 we could be worried about with respect to this revised 9 oversight process. There are a lot of regulations, a lot of 10 regulatory requirements, there are many, many things that 11 licensees ought to be worried about. But what are those 12 core essential things that if we have information on them we i 13 can know with a degree of assurance that if the licensee is 14 performing adequately with respect to these cornerstones, 15 that we are performing adequately in these strategic 16 performance areas, and therefore the licensee and we are i
17 meeting our ultimate' mission of providing adequate 18 protection of public health and safety? And so this 19 process, the framework that we developed, really is very 20 much driven by these individual cornerstones.
! 21 What we did then was to look in those cornerstones
- 22 and ask ourselves what are the important pieces of 23 information with respect to these cornerstones, and the 1
l 24 cornerstones are -- I guess I ought to just spend one more 25 second to talk about the cornerstones.
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66 1, Basically what we said'is if licensees maintain or
() 2 . minimize these initiating events r*2t ultimately end up in 3 .resulting in core damage, if they can somehow minimize those
~4 initiating' events, if even though they have those initiating 5 events.they can -- the systems, the functions that are 6 required to'be called upon to mitigate those events in fact 7 do work if they maintain the barriers, the physical barriers 8 that would result in exposure or release of radioactive 9 material to the environment, if those barriers function 10 properly such that even if you had an initiating event and 11 your mitigation systems didn't work, the barriers would 12 ~ function well, and if the licensee had an emergency plan 13 that could be implemented, exercised appropriately to get 14 people living near the site away from and to avoid exposure 15 to radioactive materials, if again the licensees performed 16 in each of these areas appropriately, then we could say with 17 respect to reactor safety that our public health and safety 18 mission was being implemented.
19 Juni so it's very much an indicator sort of an 20 approach to looking at again these cornerstones, the 21 essential information to make decisions about our public 22 health and safety mission.
23 Now within each of those cornerstones what we did 24 was we asked ourselves what are the important attributes l 25 that I need to decide that the initiating events are okay, O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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t-67 1 what of that information can I get directly from performance
() 2 indicators, what of that information can I get directly from 3 performance indicators, what of that information do I have 4 to get from inspections because performance indicators are 5 not appropriate or not adequate to give the information that 6 we need, and then so it's the combination of those 7 performance indicators and inspections and other information 8~ that we'use to make decisions with respect to each of the 9 cornerstones. That's the framework.
10 DR. GARRICK: Yes, these strike me as the kind of 11 performance indicators that really are in keeping with the 12 transition to risk-informed, performance-based regulatory 13 practice.
14 Are you also able to at this level address the 15 issue to the public at the level of the cornerstones for 16 example of what the NRC means by defense in depth?
17 MR. JOHNSON: Are you asking if we are able to 18 or --
19 DR. GARRICK: If the public asks the question. I 20 understand this has a very logical progression, but one of 21 the fundamental tenets of our regulatory practice of the 22 Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the concept of 23 defense-in-depth. Now how does that enter -- I am asking 24 this as if.I were a member of the public.
25 MR. JOHNSON: I understand. That is a real ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r 68 1 communications challenge, to answer that question, in fact, 2- ..and if you look at what we have'on the docket in terms of 3 ~ written information about defense-in-depth and how that fits 4 into the process you would really have to go back to the 5 Commission paper that forwarded the entire concept.
6 We haven't done a lot in terms of speaking to the 7' public in terms of how that fits within this process. I am 8 going to.taak in a second -- I will show you very quickly 9 what the inspection program, the risk-informed baseline 10 . inspection program ends up looking like to support the 11 information that we need with respect to initiating events.
12 DR. GARRICK: The only reason, Mike, I bring up l '13 this point is I think one of the things that the public is 14 -looking for is connectivity, if you wish, logic between the 15 practices that the NRC is engaged in and every time 16 something is proposed, is it proposed just because.somebody 17 has raised a question and this is a response to that ,
18 question, or is there a fundamental philosophy from which i
19' all of this comes that one-can draw and provide mapping from
, 20' une aspect of that fundamental philosophy to the other.
l 21 MR. JOHNSON: I understend.
22 MR. BOGER: Mike, I think one aspect of that is 23 when you look in the inspection area certainly design 24 control is an element that we have to inspect. We can't go 25 by performance indicators for design so that is an embedded l
i i
3
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V. -
69 1 1 thing, and that is where a lot of the defense-in-depth is
()
t 2 already built into the system, so we would be monitoring 3 actual design through the inspection process so I appreciate 4 your question, but I think that is another element that we 5 bring into this.
l l .6 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. Bruce is exactly right. The 7 other thing to keep in mind is, and again I will show you l 8 the inspection areas and you will see that we really do i
1 l 9 touch quite a bit outside of what we can directly monitor 10 through performance indicators.
11 The other thing to keep in mind is that this 12 oversight process really is -- it doesn't supplant the i
13 regulatory requirements. It doesn't let the licensees off 14 the hook with respect to all of those things that I said 15 licensees need to worry about, but what it does do is it -
16 enables us to figure out by focusing on the key essentials 17 how we ought to -- basically at a very quick look at where 1
18 the licensee' stands but also how we ought to interact based 19' on where we think the licensee falls out with respect to 20~ performance. That may become clear but it certainly is a 21 good question.
22 That is the framework.
23 Let me mention just quickly the process.
24 MR. BOGER: It's straightforward. j 25 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, with lots of colors. The i
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70 1 process then really does again' rely on performance
() -2 indicators and risk-informed baseline inspection because 3 ithere are again holes;in the performance indicators.
-4 Incidentally, there's an area of this 5 -risk-informed baseline inspection that needs to verify'the 6 PIs'to make sure that'the PIs that are.being reported are 7 being reported accurately.
8 We take that information.from the inspection 9 program and we take that information from the performance 10: indicators and that information -- we look at that 11- information in each of the~ cornerstones to make decisions 12 about -- to enter an action matrix. I will show you the
.13 action matrix very quickly. That action matrix then,. based 14- on the performance and the performance indicators and the 15 risk-informed baseline, decides or helps us decide what 16- actions we ought to'take on in terms of interacting with 17 licensees in terms of what should we have a management 18 meetings, what. licensee's actions would be appropriate based 19- on the performance that we have seen, what NRC inspection is 20 .necessary to follow up on what we have seen, what other 21 regulatory actions would be appropriate, what assessment 22 reports, how do we. communicate the results of that 23 assessment to licensees and to the public and then how do we 24 communicate that information in a public meeting such that 25 all of the stakeholders can understand where it is we think ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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rs )
71 1 the licensee stands with respect to the performance again in
{) 2' the framework and what actions we intend to take to address 3 areas where we think performance deficiencies exist. So 4 that in a nutshell is how this revised oversight process 5 will work.
6 Now let me just go on to say very quickly that the 7 process is very much thresholds driven. The fundamental 8 concept is if we establish PIs and we assign thresholds to 9 those performance indicators, and if we establish somehow 10 thresholds for the inspection that we are going to do, if a 11 licensee hasn't crossed those thresholds then that really l 12 does belong, even though we may find things that are of 12 concern to our inspectors or the management of the NRC, if 14 the licensee hasn't crossed those thresholds that licensee's (O
,/ 15 performance is in the licensee response band, or really the L
16 green band.
l 17 This is sort of a conceptual model. If you look 18 at any one of those performance indicators, if you look t-19 the inspection that we~will do in any of the areas that we 20 will do with then the cornerstones to supplement the 21 performance indicators, we make decisions. We apply those 22 results to see where the thresholds fall out and if the 23 licensee hasn't crossed any of those thresholds, then the l 24 licensee is free to manage themselves. Issues that we find 1
25 will:go into the licensee's corrective action system. They ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
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72 1 would address those concerns.
I() 2 3
I won't say a lot about the thresholds except to say that this threshold is set we think at a low enough
( 4 level to allow us to recognize on those performance 5 indicators and on the inspections deviations outside -- what 6 we did is we took the normal, what is normal industry '
l 7 performance with respect to the number of scrams for 8 example, and we looked at what is a nominal deviation 9 outside of that normal performance, and so this threshold is 10 set on picking up licensee performance outside what is a 11 nominal deviation from normal performance, so this is set at 12 a fairly low level.
13 The reason for that is we want to be able to 14 interact at a low enough level to enable us to take action
) 15 again before a significant decline in performance occurs.
16 This threshold is -- the white to yellow indicates 17 that we leave the increased regulatory response performance 18 band to a required regulatory response band and in the red 19 zone again a greater performance degradation. We have told 20 ourselves that we are not going to allow plants to operate, 21 and we in fact talked with the industry and the industry 22 agrees, this is a band thht neither the industry would 23 expect o operate or we would expect to allow the industry 24 to operate with performance in this particular band.
25 Any question on that -- this band's performance?
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I 73 1 DR. GARRIGK: Yes. We know about the maintenance I
2 rule and how it works but do the plant-specific PRAs enter
(/("')
~
l 3 into the threshold decision-making process in any way?
4 MR. JOHNSON: They do, but we are not driven by 5 the plant-specific PRAs, so let me try to explain that a 6 little bit.
7 We set thresholds -- let me go to a chart of the 8 PIs, for example, and that may make it clearer. This is 9 just a table of the performance indicators, a list of the 10 performance indicators starting with that list.
11 You actually have two slides in your hand on the 12 performance indicators, and you will see that the right 13 column is a little bit chopped off, so you won't be able to 14 read it. I apologize for that, but that is okay. We really e
( ,)s 15 wanted to just give you a list.
{
16 What we did in setting the thresholds, the green l 17 to white thresholds, again was to try to say what is the 18 deviation from nominal performance? To go to that next 19 level, we really try to look at performance declines that 20 where we could quantify them would result in a delta CDF of 21 e to the minus 5. That is how we tried to set that second, 22 that green to white, threshold. Let me see if I can find 23 this chart.
24 Where we could possibly quantify it, we tried to 25 set thresholds for the PIs -- I'm sorry, from this white to
()
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l 74 1- yellow threshold,,at a delta CDF of e to the minus 5. Now
() 2 3
we didn't do that baseline on any plant-specific PRA. In fact, this is very crude, as you will recognize, but we 4 think that's okay.
5 MR. BOGER: Mike, there is another aspect that I 6 know you will get to when you talk about how we treat some 7 of the inspection findings, and I think that is an 8 opportunity where we would factor in some plant-specific PRA 9 type information.
10 DR GARRICK: The only reason for the question is 11 to get some sense of the extent to which it is truly 12 . risk-informed and since risk-is such a plant-specific 13 phenomena I was just curious as to how you were accounting 14 for the specificity issue.
(,,
O) 15 MR. JOHNSON: So the way we account for it is we 16 do it sort of on a generic basis. We say this is a j 17 threshold -- this is sort of a generic threshold. Does this 18 mean that licensee tripped from a graen to a white? If that 19 licensee has tripped from a green to a white based on the 20 performance indicators, we do it sort of based on the
'21 generic PRA results.
22 We don't actually require that we get to a 23 plant-specific PSA result based on the PIs. Now as Bruce
- 24. has indicated, also we do an analogous thing with inspection 25 results. We run it through a significance determination
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i
m 75 1- process again set up to use generic sorts of insights to
( 2 decide whether the licensee is in the green band, the 3 utility response band, or the required regulatory response 4 band or whatever.
5 Now should enter into the later phases or have to 6 do additional work, we get into discussions with the 7 licensee as to where exactly the performance is that is 8 supposed to have an issue, a finding. An inspector goes out 9 and has a finding and based on that finding we would say the 10 licensee is in the white band, so we are going to do some 11 follow-up inspection, and the licensee says well, no, 12 actually if you look at my plant's PRA, we really would be 13 in the green band. We have in fact in the significance 14 determination process that Bruce has talked about provisions 15 to actually take that additional step to make those kinds of 16 discussions.
17 We realistically hope that that kind of discussion 18 does not have to happen, because, as I talk about in the 19 action matrix, the thresholds, the consequences for crossing 20 the threshold from green to white really simply are that we 21 are going to go out and do some additional follow-up 22 inspection to see in fact if there really is a problem so in 23 that additional look we will be able to iron out any gross 24 assumptions that we made in this performance indicator 25 scaling or in the significance determination process.
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1 76 1- Let ac just put up two additional charts and then
() 2 .let me try to tall. about what we have done in terms of
( 3 communicating this process and what we plan to do.
4 You can't read this on the viewgraph. It is l
5 really put'up for effect. The only point I am trying to .)
6 make --
- 7. DR. GARRICK: It is really put up to show that you ;
8 are probably an engineer. ,
1 9 [ Laughter.) ;
10 MR. JOHNSON: Right. This wouldn't be a very good 11 presentation if I didn't put up a slide you couldn't read.
12 I am really just trying to indicate to folks who 13 would say or be concerned that -- and in fact some of our 14 'non-industry stakeholders have been concerned or were
) 15' concerned in the early days that Ne were giving it all to 16 these very high level indicators and we were going to
[ 17 totally back off based on the fact that no plant ic going to 18 exceed -- the green and white threshold for scrams for i
19 example is three scrams per 7,000 critical hours. The 20 industry averages about half a scram. If you just rely on 21 the indicators ~alone you are never going to get to a point l 22 where the regulator goes out and does additional inspection.
23 Well, there really are, as I'have indicated, areas 24 where we need to do inspection. There are areas that the 25 PIs don't touch. One of those bullets, as Bruce talked ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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L_
~
E l 77 1 about, is we know that we need to go out and we need to look s
2 at' design. We know that there are various areas that we 3 need to'look~at within each of the cornerstones to satisfy 4 ourselves that we know where the licensee's performance is,-
.5 and these areas are captured in the performance-based j 6- baseline inspection program.
7- Again we have a risk-inform?.d approach to figuring
-8 out what we are going to sample in each of these areas and 9 what frequency we are going to sample those various areas.
10 The purpose of all of this-is to get inputs to the 11 action matrix to allow us to decide based on the performance 12 of the plant, based oz. wltether or not that plant has crossed 13 thresholds, what actions should we take to ensure tnat the 14 licensee is following up and addressing concerns and
(/"')
,f 15 implementing lasting corrective e.ctions.
l 16: This action matrix has the results and the 17 responses down~the left column. It has, as you look across 18- the top, the results of the PIs and the inspections that we 19 do, and as you can see in looking at this left column if you 20 have a plant and that plant hasn't crcssed any of the 1
21 thresholds, that plant is simply going to get risk-informed !
22 baseline inspection, the risk-informed baseline inspection l 23 that I talked about, in that very busy viewgraph, and we are 24 going to send oct an annual assessment report that is very 25 brief that cries to convey as concisely as possible the fact ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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78 1 that the. plant is all green because it.hasn't crossed any
() 2- thresholds. We as a regulator believe that that plant is 3 operating in a manner that enables us to say that the public 4 health and safety is being protected -- so that is for a 5 plant that is in -- again, hasn't crossed any thresholds.
6 As soon as a threshold is crossed we do follow-up, 7 focused follow-up in that particular area, to see what the 8 cause was, to see what the licensee has done to address 9 those particular -- the root causes that enabled them to 10 cross that threshold, and again we sign out -- we do an
! 11 annual assessment report and sign that out.
12 Then as move -- and I won't go all through this 13 table -- but you see as you go further to the right, the NRC 14 inspection gets more invasive. The regulatory actions get
( 15 more severe, and again for a plant that is overall 16 unacceptable we are not even going to allow that plant to 17 operate.
18 So what will the public see? What will this look 19 like? We anticipate a report card. If you remember the old 20 SALP report with SALP functional areas and all of that, we 21 envision on Internet, on the web page, external web page 22 that you will be able to get on to, in fact, we are planning 23 that you will be able to get on for a plant and pull up a 24 screen that looks very much like this.
25 Again, you will recognize the framework. This ,
I\ s#
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79 1 will actually be in colors. These are the PIs, scrams and
() 2 transients.
~
This is trying to indicate, I guess the white 3 -- this is actually a green. The licensee hasn't crossed 4 'the threshold here, the licensee has crossed this threshold.
5 These are the inspection areas that we will do within each 6 of the cornerstones.
7 And so at a glance you can see where the 8 licensee's performance is and then you will be able to click 9 on any one of these if you want to see, for example, what 10 the trends and scrams have been. And there will be a graph, 11 and I didn't bring one, but it will show that trend. It 12 will show where the threshold is. It will show comments, 13 for example, where the licensee has, in fact, crossed 14 thresholds.
() 15 Likewise, you can click on one of these inspection 16 areas. Let's say in this area was a significant inspection J17 finding, you can actually go and click on that inspection 18 finding, see what it was, see why we think it was 19 significant and see what the licensee has done in response 20 to that. So we think it is going to be a neat communication 21 vehicle, again, that we make available to the public on the 22 external web -- public and other stakeholders on the 23 external web.
24 Questions on that?
25 DR. GARRICK: I could ask a lot of questions, but I
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- a. --
80 1 I won't.
( 2 Charles, do you have any?
o 3 DR.;FAIRHURST: No, thank you.
4 DR._GARRICK: Do you have any questions, Ray?
5- DR. WYMER: I have a comment. What you have got 6 is very reasonable looking. I would be very. surprised if
- 7. you'hadn't been doing all this before your new framework. I 8 can't imagine that it is a radical departure from what you 9 have been doing.
10 MR. JOHNSON: There ya many elements of the 11 revised oversight process and the revised inspection program 12 that we have, in fact, been doing. But one of the things, I 13 think the beauty of this framework and the approach that we 14 have taken has been that we, for the first time, have this 1 51 framework on paper. And, in fact, we have then the plans or 16- -the structure, if you will, to entertain changes, future 17 changes to the inspection program or future changes to the 18 oversight process based on what is going on.
19 For examnle, we have -- we frequently have issues 20 that inspectors find in the field that they are concerned !
l 21- about, that they believe ought to result in additional 22 inspection. And the question is, given this framework, 23 where.does it fit in the framework? How does it line up 24 . with the cornerstones? Does it, in fact, provide 25 information on one of the attributes that we need
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1 81 1 information on to support what it is that we are trying to r~
I 2 do?
3 So the framework really is one of the things that 4 we think is the strongest point of this revised oversight 5 process.
6 The other thing that we think is important about 7 the revised oversight process is that we developed it with 8 the industry, with the external stakeholders, with internal 9 stakeholders in a way that has been unprecedented.
10 Following that workshop that we had in September and October 11 that we had outstanding participation on, that we had 12 alignment at that workshop -- I led that workshop and I 13 talked about alignment and we had agreement with the 14 industry with the stakeholders that this was the framework,
) 15 that if it is to be concerned, if we are to be concerned 16 about safety, it is on these pages, within this framework.
17 We talked about the principles that we would use, that we 18 would have thresholds, and we got alignment in that workshop j 19 on those principles.
20 Moving forward from that workshop, we have hao ;
1 21 sometimes weekly meetings, no less than biweekly, with the 22 industry, public meetings with the industry. We have had j 23 meetings with David Lochbaum and members of the trade press, 1 24 whoever would show up at those meetings, where we have done 25 the development of this concept into the process that I just ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I f
82 1 showed you, into the procedures that we have just talked l %
! ) 2 about.
l \~)
i 3 We have shared the draft procedures with the 4 industry, something that is largely unprecedented. In all 5 of the development that we have done in the past on 6 inspection procedures, they are typically developed 7 in-house, shared with the regions, and then we implement a 8 new inspection, and for all but major things like 9 inspection, for example, the maintenance rule we did a more 10 interactive approach with the stakeholders on that, but, 11 typically, licensees find out about new inspections because 12 they see a new inspection procedure that has been 13 implemented. And so we have had an incredible outreach 14 program to get people online instep with this development
~N q_) 15 and get their input to make changes as necessary.
16 MR. BOGER: One subtle reaction. Down in the 17 lower righthand corner it talks about problem identification 18 and resolution. There is a large reliance upon licensee's 19 corrective action programs to identify problems and correct 20 them. So, one of the reactions you may have from an 21 inspector to a reactor scram, if a licensee is in the 22 licensee response band, the resident staff, if it was a 23 scram without complications, would be expected to really not 24 react the way they used to. Rather than going in and 25 finding out exactly what went on, what the details were and
! ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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83 1 things like that, the reaction is to see what the licensee
() 2 is doing and monitor the licensee's corrective action 3 program as a result of that scram, because they are in the 4 licensee response band.
5 So that is a significant change for us to put our 6 hands in our pockets and watch that.
7 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
8 DR. WYMER: The really important differences are 9 kind of buried in the process.
10 DR. GARRICK: I think one of the -- we are the 11 Nuclear Waste Committee, not the Reactor Committee, but we 3 12 are interested in the process. And one of the things that
-13 we will really mcVe this into the regime of being
- 14 risk-informed is to eventually be able to click on things
() 15 that tell you where you are with to your risk measures.
16_ And, of course, the maintenance rule is a step in i
l -17 that direction in trying to be accountable for the different l 'a- configurations of the plant and the risk is a function of
! 19 those configurations.
l j
20 We know that the core damage frequency, for 21 example, varies anywhere from one to three orders of 22 magnitude depending on the canfiguration. And so that is 23 the kind of information that'would really I would think 24 maybe be the next step here, is to be able to display to how 25 often a particular plant was in configuration A versus B, C, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 84 1 or D and, of course, what the risk was in those different j 2 configurations, so that you begin to get some insight into 3 the dynamics of what is going on.
i 4 But I would just make the comment because it seems 5_ to me that if, indeed, we are interested in being 6 risk-informed, we have sooner or later got to be able to 7 calibrate that against some sort of risk measure. And the 8 maintenance rule is clearly a step in that direction.
9 MR. JOHNSON: I understand and that is a very good 10 point. Incidentally, and we are not there yet, but, in 11 fact, this significance determination process that we are 12 running the inspection findings through has the inspection 13 finding that they would put forward as a finding of 14 significance, in fact, consider aspects of configuration in 15 sort of a risk framework approach to try to gauge the 16 significance of that finding. So that is how we are doing 17 it today.
18- But you are right, it would be wonderful to be
'19 able to see, from a historical perspective, where the plant 20 has been with respect to risk based on the operating 21 profile.
22 DR. GARRICK: Right. If there was even something 23 like a year summary --
24 MR. JOHNSON: Right.
25 DR. GARRICK: -- that.would give you some sort of
)
h V
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85 1 tabulation of the times that the plant was in these
() 2 different configurations and what the risk assessment said 3 the risk was during those times, you would begin to get some 4 insight --
5 MR. JOHNSON: Right.
6 DR. GARRICK: --
into how often the plant had 7 compromised, you might say, its baseline risk.
8 MR. JOHNSON: Right. I understand.
9 Let me, and I know I am out of time, let me just 10 talk about the major transition milestones. We are awaiting 11 final Commission approval, I have seen the voted sheets, and 12 we expect that approval, with comment, of course.
13 We have been conducting workshops, a series of 14 workshops, internal workshops for the staff, to bring the i 1 Nm ,/ 15 staff up to speed and to get them trained. Also, the 16 workshops with the industry, we had a PI workshop a few 17 weeks ago now out in Chicago to meet with the industry and 18 the staff, a joint workshop to talk about what the PIs were, 19 how you calculate the PIs and so on.
20 There was a workshop a couple of weeks ago down in 21 Atlanta, an internal workshop to talk about the significance 22 determination process for inspectors. There is a workshop 23 next week which is a joint NEI, joint industry-NRC workshop 24 to talk about the entire process. We are aiming for 25 mid-level industry managers and NRC managers, to get them
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86 1 across the table sitting around talking about the issues
. ,~.
( ) 2 that we expect will come out, to smooth implementation.
3 We-began a pilot process in June that will last 4 until December. We will have a further round of workshops, 5 one held in each of the regions, to really do outreach, to 6 get to the licensees so they can show up, but also to get to 7 members of the public, to allow them to come in each of the 8 regional offices to the extent they are able to, to talk 9 about the process in a week-long workshop.,
10 We complete the pi)ot process, implement changes 11 and then we expect that we are going to begin getting 12 information reported to us in January of 2000, and we will 13 complete the first annual assessment in April of 2001. So 14 that is the approach that we are taking and the course that O
Q 15 we are on.
16- We have done some additional things in terms of 17 outreach, trying to get to the internal stakeholders. We 18 recognize that this is a fundamental change for inspectors, 19 a fundamental philosophical change. And so we have, for 20 example, established a change coalition, a coalition, a 21 subset of folks in the regional offices, in the program 22 office who are opinion leaders, who can go out, who we 23 brought in to help them understand the process, and then we 24 want them to go out and help facilitate that process to get 25 feedback and to feed that feedback to us. We have had that
())
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87 1 underway now for a couple of months and we have gotten great 2 returns from~that.
3 In addition, we are going to have local -- we are 4 going to have meetings in the vicinity at a number of sites.
5 I think we are thinking about -- I have seen scheduled now 6 five sites, but we are going to try to get to sites in the 7 vicinity of.these pilot plants where we have an evening l 8 meeting, where we invite people, the local citizens, to come 9 out and talk to us about the revised oversight process and 10 to raise concerns and to talk about.how we are proceeding.
11 So we have done -- we have planned quite a bit of 12 ' outreach in that aspect. There is an entire communication 13 plan. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough, forward looking )
, 14 enough to bring that today, but we have really gone and 15 thought about how we need to work with the internal 16 stakeholders and the external stakeholders in terms of
- 17. making this change come to pass.
18 DR. GARRICK: 'Thank you. George.
19 DR. HORNBERGER: Mike, what group or groups do you 20 envision _to be the customers of your web page and how are 21 you testing it with this group or groups to ensure that the 22- information is being transmitted?
23 MR. JOHNSON: The customers of the web page we 24 think are going to be licensees. They are going to be 25- members of the public, real members of the public. I am O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 88 1 sorry_now that I put emphasis on "real," because we also
() 2 expect David Lochbaum, for example, is going to be very 3 interested,'Public Citizen. There are people who are more 4 . attuned to -- geez, I am so sorry I said that.
5 (Laughter. ]
6 MR. JOHNSON: Let me just say members of the 7 public will be attuned to the web page.
d 8 We have gotten calls. We have had, from the 9 Office of Affairs, a number of interactions with us in terms 10 of our' existing processes. Members of local and state l
11 governments, for example, we expect that they are going to 12 be attuned to this web page and trying to get in and 13 understand the-information.
14 We'have developed the input tool to get PIs in.
e j
(,,}e 15 We haven't yet developed the output tool, what this web page 16 is going to actually look like, but when we do, we will do 17 what we have done with the other remaining parts of this 18 process. We will hold a series of meetings, public 19 meetings, and we will show the web page and we will get 20 input on how the web page out to look and what would be nice 21 to have on that web page, those kinds of things.
22 DR. HORNBERGER: In addition to just having public 23 _ meetings, I would think that on something like this, you 24 would actually want to beta test it in some form, that is, 25' actually have people use the web page, not just hear about
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89 1 it. Is that in the plans?
() 2 3
MR. JOHNSON: Actually, we have plans for beta testing, but probably more limited beta testing. Well, we 4 probably hadn't thought about, or haven't yet planned to do 5 beta testing for all of the stakeholders, and that is a good 6 idea. We ought to work on that, and that is something I 7 will take back from this.
8 DR. GARRICX: Any other questions? Staff, any 9 questions?
10 {No response.]
11 DR. GARRICK: Thank you very much. Very 12 interesting. Even though it was substitute people and a 13 little of a substitute message, Congratulations.
14 MR. JOHNSON: Thanks.
) 15 DR. GARRICK: All right. I guess we are a little 16 behind, so we will do our best to catch up. Our next people 17 is going to be Isabelle Schoenfeld from Research and she is 18 going to talk about a risk communication project under a 19 cooperative agreement with the University of Wisconsin, 20 Madison.
21 DR. SCHOENFELD: Good morning. I am going to be i
22 talking about research that's in progress that's being 23 conducted by Professor Vicki Bier, who is director of the i
24 Center for Human Performance in Complex Systems at the l 25 University of Wisconsin. And the focus of this project is
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1 90 1 to look at risk communication to the public and risk
'2 communication to decision makers, that is primarily internal
- 3 within the Agency, bt:t decision makers outside the Agency as 4 well, l
'5 The project got started about a year ago, and soon 6 after its start we held a one-day workshop at the University 7 of Wisconsin with subject matter experts in these two areas, 8.' that is, risk communication to the public and to decision 9- makers. The were eight subject-matter experts who broke 10 into.four in each group, public and decision makers, and 11 they got a number of questions ahead of time, and those 12 questions were addressed during the workshop. I'll just 13 show you a list of who those participants were so you have 14 some idea. They had expertise, as you see, in different
- 15 . areas and were affiliated with different organizations and 16 universities.
17 We produced a summary of the workshop that was.
18 made available as a letter report sort of highlighting the l 19 conclusions from this day's work.
20 Following the workshop we then went to -- rather
,21 Vicki Bier produced an annotated bibliography on risk I 22 communication, and this annotated bibliography was actually 23 a supplement to a bibliography that the Society for Risk l 24 Analysis had produced in 1995 for industry practitioners.
25 Her supplement focused on information available since 1995 l l
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) 91 1 and also focused more on Government practitioners.
() 2 Since then we have received a draft of a summary j 3 of the state of the art on risk communication to the public 4 and a draft on summary of the state of the art on risk 5 communication to decision makers. These summaries are 6 essentially a summary of the findings -- of the workshop and 7 the findings and go into more detail than our annotated 8 bibliography does in particular important areas relatec to 9 risk communication.
l 10 The maj " as addressed in the summary for risk 11 communication to public are these areas. They are l 12 primarily report C empirical research, and what I'd like 1
13 to do is just to provide you with some highlights from that 14 summary. These are not recommendations nor suggestions that 15 I'll be discussing, but just findings of the research that 16 appears in these summaries.
17 The first area on format of risk communication 18 messages, firstly, a major conclusion is that there is very 19 little definitive results regarding format of risk 20- communication messages because of the small number of 21 studies or because of ambiguous results. And this seems to 22 be the case in most of the areas regarding risk j 23 . communication. It's just a very immature research area, and l
)
24 a lot of the information that we have is -- well, it's from
- 25. empirical research, but small studies, or it's from
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92 1 anecdotal information or based on people's experiences.
r 2
( The research we've looked at, qualitative versus 3 quantitative and command versus control, brochure versus 4 computer-mediated communication, and no single presentation 5 format appears to be the best. The preferred format varies 6 depending on whether the purpose of the risk communication 7 is to educate, to affect risk perceptions, or to motivate 8 people to take appropriate action, though verbal or 9 graphical representation probabilities may be easier to 10 understand than numerical values and may reduce the tendency 11 to overemphasize small probabilities by effectively 12 illustrating how small they are. However, there was large 13 variability in the interpretation of probabilistic phrases 14 such as " highly unlikely." And there are other areas in a (O,,) 15 probabilistic discipline that is hard to interpret for the 16 public, to be understandable to the public in the way that 17 they are presented today.
18 So it is important to pilot-test risk 19 communication messages before they're used, since the 20 general guidance on how to best structure them is not 21 sufficiently available. That's one of the lessons we learn 22 from this research.
23 The other area, use of risk comparisons, what the 24 research says is that risk communicators may be tempted to 25 compare the risk of a rare event such as core melt at a T ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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93 1 nuclear power plant with the risk of being struck by
( ) 2 lightning or the loss of life expectancy due to smoking a 1
3 pack of cigarettes a day. However, it is difficult to 4 identify suitable risk comparisons, and they need to be used 5, with caution.
6 In addition, particular comparisons may be 7 considered acceptable when used by, for example, a 8 university professor to further understanding, but less so 9 when used by an organization to justify an unpopular 10 decision.
11 Hence, it's difficult to identify suitable risk 12 comparisons, and even seemingly reasonable comparisons can 1
13 serve to increase.the perceived risk of a particular hazard
]
14 if there is a distrust of the entity giving that 15 information.
16 Finally, the acceptability of risk comparisons may 17 depend not only on the nature of the comparison itself but
'18 also on the purpose for which it is used.
.19 Concerning differences in risk perception amongst 20 .different audiences, the evidence regarding differences in 1
21 'both attitudes and knowledge about risks highlights the l 1
22 importance of assessing what your intended audience already 23 knows or believes about a particular issue. For example,-
24 this can be done through focus groups, public information
- 25 officers, surveys, or already published information.
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94 1 In addition, one needs to consider the A. 2 socioeconomic differences.
( j There is something called the 3 white male effect, which is that white men -- research has 4 reported that white men tend to judge risks as smaller and 5 less problematic than women or nonwhites. White males with 6 the lowest risk ratings tend to be well educated, well off
.7 financially, and relatively conservative politically.
8 Surprised?
9 DR. GARRICK: That about says it.
10 [ Laughter.]
11 DR. SCHOENFELD: In addition, if the hazards 12 predominate in low-income areas, those most affected by the I 13 risks may possess the fewest resources, and therefore may be 4 l
14 the least likely to participate in the risk communication-() 15' process. Special attention may be required therefore to 16 ensure that their concerns are fully addressed.
17 People who are highly motivated are likely to 18 learn more from the message than people for whom.the 19 information is less salient. While it may be impossible to 20 gain agreement of all the interest groups, carrying out risk I 21 communication in a way that. indicates a desire to consider 22 the various viewpoints of concerned citizens can help to
- 23. maintain trust and credibility. Hence, there appears to be 24 no one-size-fits-all risk communication effort 25 Concerning mental models in risk communication, O' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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95 1 there are three barriers that have been identified in the
() 2 literature regarding risk communication. One is lack of 3 mental models, that is, how people understand and view 4 various phenomena. Two,.a lack of familiarity with a 5 particular concept or a term. And, three, the existence of 6 misconceptions.
7 Risk communication messages based on mental models 8 are more effective at con'veying both general knowledge and 9 also information about risk-reduction strategies. Assessing 10 what your intended. audience already knows or believes'about 11 ~a particular issue is clearly important in designing 12 effective risk communication messages. Some methods to 13 assess this is through focus groups, consulting with public 14 information officers, as we-said earlier, or others who 15' regularly interact with members of the general public, and 16 : relying on public information about attitudes.
17 Risk communication messages based on a particular 18 mental model of the phenomena being discussed convey
- 19. information more effectively, it is found, than mere 20 collection of facts and concepts.
21 An-explanation designed to clarify the meaning of
-22 a particular term should ideally include along with the 23 definition a variety of-examples illustrating what the term ,
1 24 does but also what the term does'not mean. The intended ~
25 audience for a risk communication message may already hold- j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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p:
t 96 1 misconceptions about the specific hazard, and hence may find
) 2- the~information being conveyed implausible or difficult-to j 3 -understand. 'When a significant misconception exists, it is 4 important to. address it explicitly by pointing out why the l
5 misconception may seem intuitively plausible, why it is 6' flawed,.and then present the expert viewpoint along with an I
7 explanation of why it fits with the facts than merely
- 8 presenting the' correct information right up front.
9 -Another. challenge, as we said earlier, in risk 10 communication is the complexity of the subject matter to be i
o 11 conveyed. Some researchers advocate a problem-solving 12 ' approach in which the first task is to identify the most l 13 'important problem or problems to be1 overcome by the risk
'14 communication message. The message can then be designed
( ) 15 'with those specific challenges in mind. All too often, 16' commonly known facts may be repeated, while potentially l 17 useful,ones are presented without the necessary context.
18 In addition, it is often helpful to structure 19, messages using a concept map of the phenomena being'
- 20. described. That:is a spatial representation for each 21 concept. .For example, circles and arrows charts that show 22 how various ideas are related to each other. Essentially 23 it's graphically portraying the mental model. ,
24 'Some researchers promote a constructivist approach 25 to surveys-as an alternative to traditional surveys to i
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97 1 elicit attitudes about complex problems. Constructivist (q) 2 survey methods help people think through the questions they 3 are being asked to respond to, and in so doing construct 4 their values, beliefs, and preferences rather than expect 5 respondents to already have preestablished views on the 6 subject.
7 Concerning credibility and trust in risk 8 communication, as we know, trust is easier to destroy than 9 to create, and negative events carry much greater weight 10 than positive events.
11 Risk communication methods and decision making 12 processes should be explicitly designed to function 13 effectively in situations of distrust. Some strategies are 14 when the audience has various concerns or negative
) 15 impressions, one must begin by listening to them before 16 giving information. Attempting to convey new information 17 before understanding which concerns are important to one's 18 audience may suggest to them that those concerns are not 19 being taken seriously or are being dismissed as misguided.
20 It may be constructive to create mechanisms by which 21 concerned individuals can monitor potentially challenging !
22 situations as another way to establish credibility and 23 trust, or the ultimate solution to situations of distrust is 24 direct stakeholder participation in the process of decision 25 making, I
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7 98 1- We go to stakeholder participation process.
() 2 3.
Again, there's little empirical evidence on how to structure stakeholder participation processes which are most 4 appropriate for which situations. Much of the research has 5 been qualitative or anecdotal.
6 As I was saying, much of the research has been 7 qualitative or anecdotal, that is, evaluations of a specific 8 . stakeholder process rather than comparisons of multiple 9 processes. There's not yet agreement on the appropriate 10 measures of success for stakeholder participation processes.
11' There is recommendation that -- or it's a need for further
' 12 - studies on the membership selection processes, for example, 1 13 -for citizen advisory councils, the role of the facilitators, 14 the methods by which agendas are set, role of independent
) 15 experts, methods by which the CACs can be held accountable 16 to the public, methods of feedback from sponsor to CAC, and 17 the purpose of CACs as perceived by members and sponsors.
18 However, there are a few basic rules of thumb 19 about stakeholder participation. The organization should H2 O not attempt stakeholder participation without a true
- 21. commitment to the process. That is, going through the ,
i 22 motions of stakeholder participation will simply increase 23 the hostility that might be there.
i 24 Important to clarify the audience's role to all ;
25 concerned early in the process, that is, it is important to i
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99 1 distinguish between the role of the stakeholder is O) t
%/
2 decisional, consultative, or informational.
3 A needs assessment, that is, the purpose of the 4 risk communication effort, the characteristics of the 5 audience, what methods to assess the audience knowledge and 6 attitudes about the subject matter is a critical part of any l 7 planning process for stakeholder participation, that is, 8 two-way exchange of information to elicit what various 9 publics believe they need and want to know.
10 I'll now address the findings regarding the )
11 empirical research and risk communication and decision 12 makers, which in this area there is even less research than 13 in risk communication to the public.
14 The research indicates that aims and objectives of 15 risk communication to decision makers need to take into 1 l
16 consideration the needs of the senior managers for risk 17 assessment information. These might include the 18 applicability and usefulness of the assessment for public 19 policy decision making should be clearly stated, the 20 presentation must be credible and fully defensible, the !
21 basis for the choice of critical scientific assumptions 22 should be described, along with discussion and resolution of 23 issues as far as possible.
24 Risk analysis should provide a variety of risk 25 measures, as well as a clear statement of uncertainties. It ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r 100 1 could be a discussion of the legal requirements and the
() 2 available options for reducing the risk.
3 The extent of concern about the issue on the part 4 of various groups is also useful information for senior 5 managers. Risk communication briefings should address both 6 quantitative and qualitative descriptions of risk, and 7 should include key uncertainties. Risk communication should 8 be proactive, helping decision makers identify the most 9 likely public responses to the various decision options l 10 under consideration.
11 Diagnostic feedback and mechanisms for early 12 warnings and quick adjustments to permit mid-course 13 corrections if a particular decision or program does not 14 seem to be working as well as anticipated is an important I'd
(_/ 15 need.
16 Finally, two-way communication between assessors 17 and users is important, and therefore recommend conferring !
18 with senior managers before risk analysis is actually !
19 performed to determine how the results will be used and 20 which questions most need to be answered.
21 Regarding treatment of uncertainty and variability 22 and correlation, decision making based on explicit statement 23 of uncertainty has numerous advantages over decision making 24 based purely on point estimates, the research shows. Taking
! 25 uncertainty into account will lead to a better decision than A
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{
101 1 ignoring the uncertainty and relying on a single point (s} 2 estimate. Decision theory provides guidance on whether it 3 is preferable to make decisions or gather more information 4 or to defer the decision until the information is available.
5 One important use of risk analysis is that it includes an 6 explicit statement of uncertainties as to assist in 7 determining whether additional research is needed.
8 It also helps to clarify the concept of the value 9 of the information, and there is a distinction between 10 outcome uncertainty, that is, what might actually happen, 11 and with what probability, and assessment uncertainty, how 12 much the results of the analysis might change with 13 additional information.
14 Population variability, that is related to outcome O
( ,/ 15 uncertainty, and state of knowledge uncertainty, which is 16 related to assessment uncertainty, for example, when the ;
i 17 plants or facilities in a population differ a great deal I 18' from each other, that is, there is high population l 19 variability, but the risk at each one is accurately known, 20 so there is our low state of knowledge uncertainty, then it 21 makes sense to talk of regulatory efforts at the facilities 22 with the highest estimated risks. Hence, risk analysis 23 results can be used to prioritize regulatory efforts.
24 Finally, there is little research on effective 25 methods of communicating risk analysis results to decision t
l
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102 1 makers. Hence, it's important to pilot-test communication
( ) 2 messages and approaches wherever possible. Even informal 13 evaluations or anecdotal information on effective and
-4 ineffective approaches to risk communication can be 5 valuable, since the' understanding in the field is at a 6 relatively early stage.
7 Regarding format of risk communication messages to 8 decision makers, briefing should ideally begin with an 9 ~ overview of why the action, that is, the regulatory decision 10 under consideration, is important, who cares about the 11 information, and what the major stakeholders are saying.
12 The technical portion of the risk communication should 13 discuss the level of confidence in the data and where-the 14 data gaps are, 15 Overly complex formats with more detail than 16 needed to make decisions and overly simplistic presentations 17 were found to be problematic.
18 Rather than an emphasis on statistical methods, 19 . decision makers are likely to want more information about
- 20. the qualitative assumptions underlying the analysis and the 21 reasons for the results.
22 We had a paper submitted by an NRC staff person, 23 Doug Hull. He's a senior risk analyst, and he made the 24 c.following several points. He believes that results of a PRA 25 should be presented in a manner that places risk-important
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103 1 SSCs -- that is, structures, systems, and components -- into
(). 2 an accident sequence context that reveals their risk 3 relationship to other SSCs, helps to reveal accident 4 sequences in terms of their penetration through specific 5 layers of defense in depth in a manner that shows how and 6 where PRA uses traditional engineering analyses, that is, 7 success criteria and its influence on the results.
8 Another researcher who has worked at NRC, Bly, 9 suggests the use of event sequence diagrams to graphically 10 describe the stepr leading to a particular type of accident 11 sequence. With an appropriate computer implementation, he 12 suggests, the approach could let users click on elements of ,
13 the overall event sequence diagram to obtain additional 14 relevant information such as systems schematics and 15' descriptions of operator actions. Such an approach would 16 reduce the emphasis on numerical results and statistics in 17 presenting risk analyses results and instead focus attention 18 on the physical' phenomena responsible for the risk.
19 However,-in conclusion, the best presentation 20 format may vary depending on the disciplinary background of 21 the intended audience. Hence, once again, pilot-testing of 22 different presentation formats could be very important for i
! 23 decision makers as well as for the public.
24 And finally I'd just like to say that the reports ;
25 I'm discussing today are providing a technical basis for us
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104 1 to establish guidelines that can be used by the NRC staff in
() 2 3
communicating risk, both externally and internally.
Our next step in this research is to have a needs 4 assessment protocol which we will apply to the NRC. Staff to 5 find out what their risk communication needs are. Following 6 that will be the development of the guidelines. Thank you.
7 DR. GARRICK: Any questions?
8 DR. FAIRHURST: Do you know of any examples where 9 risk to public had had a severely wrong impression of 10 something and where a risk communication program had 11 significantly changed their perceptions?
12 DR. SCHOENFELD: That's a good question. I don't 13 know of any. Perhaps EPA, the speaker from EPA will provide 14 some examples of that. A lot of the literature actually is
() 15 information that was derived from a lot of the EPA programs 16 but I could not give you an example of that.
17 DR. WYMER: I have a sort of general observation.
.18 It seems to me that risk communication or any communication 19 is basically a matter of human interactions. The 20 personality of the interacter or the communicators it seems 21 to me plays a key role because either he is believed or he 22 isn't, he or she is believed or isn't believed.
23 DR. SCHOENFELD: Right.
24 -DR. WYMER: And I guess to cite a kind of 25 anecdotal example, certainly the evangelists that we see are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.s 105 1 some of the most effective communicators that there are
() 2 anywhere and so it seems to me that somewhere in all of 3 .this, which is technical and formal and what you would 4 . expect out of a bunch of academics --
5 [ Laughter.)
6 DR. GARRICK: Do you know any evangelists who are 7 nuclear engineers?
i 8 DR. WYMER: I know some that would claim to be --
9 just like that.
10 [ Laughter.]
11 DR. WYMER: So it seems to me that somewhere in 12 .here there.ought to'be a recognition of the human.
13 DR. SCHOENFELD: Right. My understanding is that 14- the agency is developing training modules for people in the (D 15 (ms/ agency who will be in a position of communicating risk 16 information, and those modules are being developed now.
17 DR. GARRICK: I think one of the things that Ray i 18 may be getting to is what are we going to use to test the !
l 19 utility or the usefulness of the research. What kind of 20 pilot programs are envisioned for interacting with the 21 public?
22 DR. SCHOENFELD: Right, well, you are ahead of me 23 on this research. There are lots of different risk j 24 communication efforts and just public communication efforts
.25 going on in.the agency. On this research results there will i
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106
- 1 be pilot testing of'the guidelines after they are developed
/
( 2 but we have not yet designed -- the guideline development 3 and pilot testing and the implementation, et cetera, is a 4 separate research effort from this, from our present scope 5 DR. GARRICK: Okay. George?
6 DR. HORNBERGER: Isabelle, perhaps it is a white 7 male syndrome but we talk a lot about risk comparisons and 8 trying to figure out how to convey information a 9 risk-comparison basis.
10 DR. SCHOENFELDa Right.
11 DR. HORNBERGER: And yet I think we have been 12 somewhat aware of the warning that you brought here again to 13, us today that these things don't tend to work.
14 Is there some way that we could work toward b) g,, 15 conveying such information? I mean EPA now talks about risk 16 harmonization and NRC, which inherently involves 17 comparisons.
18' DR. SCHOENFELD: I think that when we get into the 19 stage of the guideline development, we will get more ,
i 20- specific information on what is applicable to.the NRC l 21 environment. A lot of what you heard is because of the l
l 22 structure of a cooperative agreement is information and j 23 research that is applicable to many environments, but it is 24 in the guideline development stage that we will be more l 25 specific about NRC's use and I would hope that we will get l
l
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L 107 1 more information on what comparisons work in our environment rg-( -2 at that point.
3 DR. GARRICK: Okay. Any questions? Staff? Lynn?'
4 [No response.] l 5 DR. GARRICK: All right. Thank you very much.
6 DR. SCHOENFELD: Thank you.
7 DR. GARRICK: Our final presentation from the NRC 8 is going'to'be from Mal Knapp, Deputy Executive Director for 9 Regulatory Effectiveness. Mal?
10 MR. KNAPP: Good morning. My voice may not be 11 everything we would like it to be this morning. I will ask 12 your indulgence a bit.
13 I have just a few slides. I would like to talk
'14 about communications activities across the agency and you
'15- will note that the title of this slide is, " Communications 16 Activities" rather than Communications Program.
17 I don't think that the activities that we have, a 18 number of which are a result of initiatives in various 19 offices have yet coalesced to the point where I can say in 20 good conscience that.we have a well-constructed program, but 21 we are communicating more with each other, and I will talk a
~
22 little bit about that. I will talk a little about 23 communication from cn overall agency perspective.
24- This will be kind of a broad brush and I will be 25 happy to go into more detail if you like.
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108 1 The first thought that we have is that I am sure
() 2 you are_ aware of_the various what we might todcy call 3- performance goals or outcome goals that have been identified 4' by.NRR and in the Office of Research the High Level Waste 5 Program, one of which is-increasing public confidence.
6 I would assert that public communications and 7 public' confidence are inextricably linked and that the 8 former is really a means to increase confidence in the 9 latter, so when we look at public communications and we look 10 at the outcome goals associated with public confidence, I 11 -think we need to put those together and that is something we 12- _will be doing on more of an agency basis. As we run these 13' goals up to.the Commission, I think the Commission is 14 ' favorably inclined towards the. goals, but those will begin
) 15
~
to become drivers I think for some of our public 16 communications activities.
17 When I became Deputy I' inherited the 18' responsibility for public communications and as a part of 19 that the plain language activities, according to the 20 direction of the President last July, and more recently Bill 21 Travers and I have agreed that I will also be responsible 22- for internal communications as well as public
.23 communications.
24 Internal communications take on a fairly important 25 role as,the culture change which we are going through goes ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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109 1 through the agency and we.want to communicate such things as
() 2.
3 the new reactor oversight process or the performance or outcome goals that are being developed to the Staff.
4 To support me in this for'this year I have been 5 allotted one full time person, and that is Louise Lund, who 6 is over there in the green suit, and most of-the good things 7 you will hear about in the next 10 or 15 minutes I would 8 like to take credit for but Louise deserves the credit. She 9 has in fact done the work.
10 One of the things that I would like to do and were 11 I to come back and discuss this with you in say six months 12 or a year, I would tell you that we have a systematic 13 approach to communications. We have a uniform program that 14 deals both with internal and external communications in the
() 15 agency and that all the parts worth smoothly together.
16 At this point we are still bringing a number of 17 these initiatives together, and what I will talk about a 18 little more this morning is how that is going to happen with 19- the Communications Activities Group that I will use briefly 20 to give you a sense of all the communications activities 21 that are going on. I will talk a little bit about the 22 public communications initiatives that resulted from the ;
23' strategic assessment and rebaselining, and the 24 implementation plan in response to those which is before the 25 Commission as we speak, and then finally a bit about the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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E l 110 1 plain language action plan which is responsive to the 2 President's. direction.
3 En the second slide we talk a little bit about the
~4 Communications Activities Group. Right now there are about 5 .eight areas or organizations that.are involved in these.
'6. The first two you have heard about this morning and of 7' course the. third is the one'that Lynn is active in. The 8 fourth is the one that Louise and I are involved in, in 9 implementing the DSI and plain language guidance. The 10 fourth area is work being done in the Office of Public 11 Affairs -- Bill Beecher, Mindy Landau. The fifth is 12 internal communications, at this point largely done by EDO's l
13 office and'for which I picking up the responsibility or have 14 within the last couple of weeks.- The Publishing Services 15 Branch under Walt Oliu is involved in communications in a ,
l 16 variety of areas, among them the websites that the NRC has.
17 Finally wa de having woIK done by Chip Cameron in 18 .the Office of General Counsel. I am sure you are aware of U 19 Chip's skills in publin involvement, and Chip is going to be 20 ruhting together a Public Involvement Handbook. That l .i 21 handbook will I think address a couple of the concerns I )
i 22- heard just in the last few minutes when I came in as to how l
23 we might better interact with people. ]
! i 24 Principally in public meetings, how we might --
l 25 part of it will also be drawing on some of the work that I !
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111 1 Isabelle has done into how we can better communicate risk. l I
2 More specifically, I believe that Chip will have
-3 the. handbook -- our target for completion is the end of this l {'
i 4 calendar year. He is going to be doing that with some l-5 contractor assistance,-and that should then be used, will be
'6 available to train folks that are going to be involved in 7 that activity.. How much training we will do at this point 8 is still under discussion, because this particular year we l 9 have a great deal of training to do associated with change l
10 and how much we will be able to devote to this activity, 11 this particular training, isn't really clear yet.
12 Let's see if there's anything else on this slide 13 that is particularly necessary. If you have no questions, I 14 think I will just go on to the next slide.
15 This is the Public Communications Initiative, 16 sometimes referred to as DSI-14. The source of the 17 initiative is that after the Commission gave us the 118 direction to proceed, Chip Cameron and Bill Beec;'er headed a 19 team that put together a number of suggestions. Taese went
'20 to the Commission last summer. The Commission like what 21' they saw and directed the Staff to put together an 22 implementation plan, which we did -- more accurately I would
.23 say Louise with the help of a number of offices did.
M4 This was provided to the Commission in March. We 25 do not yet have an SRM but the votes I understand are pretty
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112 1 much in and they seem to be favorable. As soon as that is j p 2 the case we will continue with the implementation plan and I 3' willbe more than happy as soon as we can to share a copy 4 with the ACNW.
5 Some of the things in the plan that might be of 6 interest, there are five principal areas which you can see 7 on the slide. I will just mention one or two items under 8 these.
9 Under Clarity and Timeliness of Communications, 10 the Plain Language Initiative fits under there, which we 11 will be discussing shortly. There is direction that we will 12 have -- some of these may seem kind of simple but they are 13 kind of important. We will create a glossary of technical 14 terms so'that we can communicate better, and there will be O)
(, 15 more amphasis on. communicating clearly. Instead of saying 16 "1 e to the minus 5" we might say "one part in one hundred 17 thousand" -- things that we would like to move more and more 18 in the direction of presuming that our readership is 19 intelligent but not f amiliar with the NRC jargon and 20 acronyms and not necessarily familiar with all the j 21 technology.
22 There will be a number of activities. We are 23 going to be using more and more plain English in executive 24 summaries of our technical reports. We are going to have 25 more coordination with the Office of Public Affairs as to l 1
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113 1 how we can communicate clearly.
- )
( 2 In the public involvement process among the steps 3 we are going to take, I think you are aware that when the 4 agency proceeds toward a rulemaking, we initiate that with a 5 rulemaking plan. We are going to be considering more and 6 more in the development of a rulemaking plan how during the 7 rulemaking itself we should decide to involve the public.
8 Would we have an enhanced participatory process? Would we 9 take advantage of the website by putting up drafts of a rule 10 early? These decisions will be made more and more at the 11 outset of rulemaking rather than on perhaps, as it 12 occasionally has happened, an ad hoc basis during the 13 rulemaking.
14 This is also the area that the public involvement 15 handbook, that I mentioned earlier that Chip is developing, 16 -will reside.
- 17. With respect to responsiveness to public inquiry, 18 we try to be responsive. We are not always as responsive as 19 we would like to be or as timely as we would like to be, and 20 a part of this effort is just to ensure that we are fully 21 responsive and, in some cases, for example, when we cannot 22 respond in a timely way for technical or policy reasons, at 23 least we communicate with the person and let them know what 24 we are doing and why we are doing.
25 I am just giving you one or two items under these O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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L 1 various areas there. In fact, some are in the neighborhood
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2 of 30 initiatives that were originally considered and we 3 have I believe'14 specific activities in the implementation 4 plan.
I 5 With respect to public access to information, i
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! 6 there are a number of changes with the advent of ATOMS and 7 moving more into electronic information exchange. This is 8 having an impact on the public document rooms and the local 9 public document rooms. This is'where this will be 10 addressed.
11 With respect to outreach, we are doing a number of I
l 12 things. Public Affairs is developing a centralized 13 audio-visual library so that we will have materials that are 14 available to make our presentations more clear We are 15 going to develop some standardized presentations, again, 16 with the ability to communicate clearly with the public.
17 One of the things they have worked on this area 18 which you might want to take a look at some point, if you 19 turn to the NRC web site, there is a student teacher corner, 20 and if you were to thumb through that, you would find that 21 that is a pretty clear product. j l
22 With respect to our web sites in general, again, I 23 will be candid, right now it is a mixed bag. If you go 24 'through our web site, it may not be as easy to navigate as 25 you would like in some areas. There are some areas which I O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 think are very well done and some areas which need a lot of l j 2 attention. And one of the activities that I will be engaged 3 is trying to set certain -- by the way, Walt Oliu is doing l 4 some good work on setting some standards, but our intent is 5 that in the not too distant future, you will find the NRC 6 web site is more easy to navigate and that the information 7 is -- there is sounder information in there. Frankly, some t
8 of our pages are now a couple of years out of date and we 9 need to ensure that we are current in those pages.
10 Moving on to the -- if there are no real 11 questions, moving on to the next slide. One aspect of this 12 which is kind of interesting is the plain language action 13 plan. Last year the President directed that all federal I 14 agencies would move in the direction of plain language. He 15 directed us to do such things as use easy to read design 16 features, common' everyday words, active voice, use you and 17 we as opposed to the agency says and does. Use short 18 ~ sentences, use logical organization.
19 This does not sound to me like rocket science, but 20 those of you that have read federal publications will be 21 well aware that it will have a salutary effect to write this 22 way.
23 DR. GARRICK: Not relevant to nuclear safety, but 24 do you suppose he talked to the IRS about the same subject?
25 [ Laughter.]
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116 1 MR. KNAPP: In-filling out my return for this 2 year, I didn't see what'I would call strong evidence of 3 that. But as a matter of face, he did, and one of the 4 things that is worth noting is that he also talked to the 5 Securities and Exchange Commission. And this is a book 6 which they put out, which we have, with their support, taken 7 and are using with our staff, a plain English handbook.
8 Bottom 1,ine is it was a lot easier to borrow theirs than to 9 try to write our own, a lot more cost effective.
10 One of the things that I think about with the 11 plain language in general is we have to recognize the agency l
12 has a lot of activities going on, there is a lot of change, 13 and while I want to be very responsive to the President, and 14 I want us to address these issues, we also have to strike a 15 balance between simply overloading the staff with everything 16 else' that is going on this year. So what we have tried to l
17 do is to move _in the direction, without using too many 18 resources to do it. And one of them has been to use the 19 plain language handbook.
20 Another has been to use more of a carrot, if you 21 like, than a stick, We are moving more to sell this.
l 22 Louise is going around to -- I think by the time she is 23 done, she will have visited just about everybody in the 24 agency,and talked to them a bit about plain language and 25 made copies of this handbook available. We have information i 79 V
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117 1 on the web site.
() 2 We are not trying for perfection here. We think 3 .that you can make a major difference with making -- putting 4 an awful lot of work into it. And this is not unlike, in 5 fact, what the President, the Vice President are doing. The 6 Vice President puts out a no gobbledygook award each month 7 for a product which is particularly clearly written.
8 And as a matter of fact, we submitted an entry t 9 which, although a decision has not been made, it has been i
10 well received, and this is a primer which NRR put out on a l 11 their new oversight process. This is another item, if you 12 would like to see something clearly written, we think it is 13 very well done. We have gotten compliments from the public, 14 and you can find that on the web site as well.
) 15 That, by and large, is where we are on the 16 communications activities from an agency basis. I would be 17 happy to answer any questions that you might have.
18 DR. GARRICK: You. talked about that what you were 19 going to talk about was activities, and I guess you implied l
l 20- by that that this will evolve into some fundamental program.
21 Can you tell us a little bit about when that might happen 22 and what it might be?
23 MR. KNAPP: Well, I went to be very careful here.
24 The implementation plan which we have put together has many 25 of these. individual activities in it. And with respect to-l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ,
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118 l 1:. external communication, I will argue that we pretty well do-()
2 -have a program right now.
3 The concern that I have is, for example, the work l
4 that Isabelle' told you about should be included in the 5 handbook that Chip is writing. I will feel that we have a 6 program when I am confident that -- and, by the way, that 7 communication is occurring and that will happen. I am not 8 confident at this~ point that all of the players are as fully i
9 engaged with each other as they should be to make this, if 10 you like effective and efficient. And since that is --
11 DR. GARRICK: Yes. I 12 MR. KNAPP: That is my interest. What I i
13' anticipate is this, two areas where I think we have work to J 14- do. One, I am not confident that our internal communication
) 15' at this point is everything that it is going to have to be.
16, l We have done a number of things, we have had a number of j 17- meetings. We have talked to the staff. But the fact is 18- that when we go through the culture change that the agency 19 is engaged in, one of the things that the people that the i 20 people that have talked to us in the past have said, or that 21 have gone through this, is that we tend to underestimate.the 22 amount of resources, the amount of management time, and the 23 amount of' communication necessary to make this change 24 successful. !
25 I don't think at this point we are putting enough l l:
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119 1 energy and enough creative though into communicating the s-2 culture change. That is one area where until we have that (mV) 3 -- and, frankly, I am not even sure what that should be.
4 This is not intended as a criticism of what we have done, it 5 is a recognition that we are still ourselves as we go 6 through the process, and what we sometimes call the Arthur 7 Andersen process. We are still learning what some of these 8 changes are going to be.
9 This is expected to be probably a three to five 10 year process. It is one where we are going to need to 11 involve all levels of management and the staff. And to 12 communicate to make that work is something that is still 13 under development.
14 The other thing that we need to, for example, we
( ,, 15 do not -- we recognize that we have a problem with our web 16 site. We do not at this point have a plan in place where I 17 can tell you by date X we are all going to be in lock step 18 and by date Y the web site is going to be something that 19 will reflect a great deal of credit on the agency. Until we 20 have things like that, then I am not going to be convinced 1 1
21 that we have what I will call an internal and external 22 communications program.
23 But I think people are working well together. I 24 think there is a lot of enthusiasm. In fact, there is a lot 25 of individual initiatives which we are coordinating. j l
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120 1 I would estimate -- well, I won't actually 2 estimate, I think Louise and I have an agreement that before 3 she finishes her tenure at the end of the fiscal year, we 4 will have a communications program agency-wide up and 5 running, so I think that is what I can tell y about that.
6 But I can't really tell you exactly how it is going to look 7 because we are still learning ourselves.
8 DR. GARRICK: Okay. Questions?
9 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes. With the Nuclear Regulatory 10- Commission being what it says, regulatory and with 11- litigation being always sort of the one just hiding behind 12 the corner of anything, the use of the language is extremely 13 litigiously directed or dominated, and so do you have -- are 14 you going to attempt to put that into plain English? Or are 15 you going to have caveats which say, if in doubt as to what 16 we meant, please consult the back of the agreement or 17 whatever? You know, how do you deal with that?
18 DR. GARRICK: Is the Office of the General Counsel 19 really on board?
20 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, that is what I was quite 21 fascinated by.
22 MR. KNAPP: I am sure that Chip Cameron will be 23 anxious to speak to that. And I couldn't think of a better 24 way to set him up right off.
25 [ Laughter.)
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121 1 MR. KNAPP: And, actually, Chip, you can correct
() -2 me,.but actually the fact is --
3 DR. FAIRHURST: It is a real serious issue.
4 MR. KNAPP: It is a legitimate question and that 5 is addressed, in part, in this SEC handbook in the following 6 way. They had this very problem. The reason t: hat they 7 wrote the handbook was the Securities & Exchange Commission 8 was putting together stuff that nobody could understand, and 9 I certainly would not say the lawyers in SEC were the only 10 folks, everybody was concerned about making sure that we 11 were completely -- they were completed covered, the language 12 was right, touched all the bases.
13 What they began to find was you could still do 14 that and write it in a way that was understandable. You
(,,/ 15 could still writa it in chort sentence, you could still make 16 it clear. It is, if you like, a habit that can be overcome. !
17 [ Laughter.]
i 18 MR. KNAPP: And the fact is, we are working with 19 OGC and Karen Cyr, General Counsel, is very supportive, and 20 I think we are going to make this thing work. In fact, if 21 Karen were here, probably the first thing she would tell you 22 is that much of the difficulty that you have in 23 understanding things comes to OGC that way and they are not 24 -- if you like, they are trying to clarify some of the 25 products that we have.
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n 122 l 1 .I have to give you a mea culpa. I mean I have f
2 (f written or contributed to my share of regulations, and I 3 know~that I have written 60 and 70 word sentences. In fact, l 4 those of you have that have looked at Part 60 would probably l 5 agree there could be a little more clarity here and there l
6 perhaps in some of the parts.
7 Your point is very well taken, and it is something 8 we are going to have.to pay attention to.
9 But one of the things we are finding out, at least 10 from the experience of others, is that it is not any harder 11 to write in plain language. You do not have to write it in l 12 a complicated way and make it simple. You can start and 13 write it simple, and once you get used to it, it turns out 14 to be easier.
15 So I can't promise how it will come out. I can 16 tell you that there is no interest in the agency in going l
17 back over existing regulation and attempting to rewrite 18 them, because the problem that you described, that is, if we 19 change it and then that has some sort of a ripple effect on 20 subsequent -- on decisions made after the rule was 21 promulgated, but prior to a rewrite, that is a direction we 22 don't want to go. But we are going to be looking very hard
- 23. at every new regulation to see that they are written in 24 plain language, that's one of the charges that the folks in' 25 admin have, and that's one of the reasons that Louise has, j f
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123 1 early on, talked to the people who are presently most 2 actively involved in writing regs.
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[G) 3 DR. GARRICK: Ray?
4 DR. WYMER: Well, maybe I can further ingratiate i
5 myself to the people that are involved in this communication 1 6 issue.
(
7 I did think, incidentally, that this, what I l l
8 referred to as a bunch of academics, came up with a lot of 9 good points. I just thought that the business of i
10 personality of communicator was about equally as important 11 as all the other stuff put together.
12 But I want to discuss the web site issue. I was 13 pleased to hear that you are going to update the web site.
14 I think it will probably be very effective with respect to
("%
(_) 15 internal communication with the web site, with its 16 improvements, but externally if you are talking about what 17 we refer to as the public, the number of hits you are going 18 to get on your web site as a fraction of the number of j i
19 people'out there that you really were trying to communicate 20 I suspect will be extremely small. In the first place, they 21 don't even know what the web site is or how to access it, so 22 I wouldn't put too much reliance on that. It seems to me 23 that there ought to be a parallel effort, totally 24 independent of electronic activities, that we try to get out 25 to them equally strongly, with as much effort.
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124 1 MR. KNAPP: I agree, but you -- under your O} 2 comment, that raises a whole series of questions that we 3 need to wrestleTwith.
4 For example, one of our outcome goals is increase 5 public confidence. What public are we talking about?
6 DR. WYMER: That's the point.
7 MR. KNAPP: We could spend the entire agency
- 8. budget, and we wouldn't touch what would amount to, I think, i
9 what'they spend on Super Bowl ads.
10 DR. WYMER: Have you identified your public?
11 MR. KNAPP: We are still identifying, and I can 12 make -- I can identify a variety of them. You know, for 13 example, we could say everybody that lives within the EPZ
'f 14' around reactors. We could add everybody that lives in the
) 15 near -- you pick what you mean by the word near -- Yucca 16 Mountain, our low level waste site, or an SDMP site. You 17- could pick everybody that lives along the route where we are 18 going to be transporting spent fuel or high level waste.
19 And I am not again sure exactly when we want to increase 20 public confidence. For example, there are obviously going 21 to be people at both ends of the spectrum that we are 22 unlikely to convince, and so the question might arise, okay, 23 who do we really want to convince? You heard me earlier 24 think of a target as an intelligent person who is simply not 25 familiar with the way NRC does business.
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E 125 l1 One of the tests we put to ourselves is a very 2 simple one': Suppose someone.were to tell you that they had 3 decided that it' made good sense to store biological weapons j 4 about two miles from your house. I don't know about you, l 5 but I think I'd probably go to the public meeting on that 6 and-try to find out exactly how safe I was going to be.
- 7. One of the things where I think we may have a bit 8 of a blind spot within the agency is we are quite familiar 9 with a number of aspects of risks, and we tend to forget 10 that the public does not have that. Just as we would be 11 concerned about' biological weapon storage, they are 12 concerned about spent fuel storage or about an SDMP site.
13 And.I think to try to better put ourselves in the position 14 of those members of the public -- in other words, deal with 15 again -- recogni::e we are never going to reach everyone, but 16- there is a group out there that we can and should attempt to 17 reach. We are still defining that group.
18 DR. GARRICK: One of the things that you keep 19 referring to now that's very important is this business of 20 the cultural change.
21 MR. KNAPP: Yes.
22 DR. GARRICK: And, of course, the topic we are 23- involved in here is a part of that cultural change, the 24 whole business'of risk, of which risk communication is part
'25 of that. taxonomy is a driver in the agency moving in the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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126 1 direction of a more risk-informed approach to regulation.
2 What other issues do you see as being major parts 3 of the cultural change that are complicating our ability to 4 find resources to get to some of these issues? )
5 MR. KNAPP: There are two that I think that are 1 6 particularly significant. Looking at what Reactors has done
.7 as they have changed their oversight process -- well, let me l l
J 8 start perhaps with a fundamental one, and this is the 9 Commission's movement in the direction of risk-informed, j i
10 performance-baced regulation. If you take a look at what l 11 NRR was doing a year ago and you look at the changes that 12 they are making, I think you could say that they are very 13 consistent with the Commission's approach to risk-informed, 14 performance-based regulation. I am not going to take a lot 15 of time and reiterate the setting the SALP process aside, 16 changing the way that the senior management meeting is I 17 operating, but this is-a whole different approach to 18 oversight, and it's a link up between inspection and 19 oversight, enforcement is taking a different role, as you 20 are aware. Level 4 violations have taken a very different 21 path than they had a year ago, and this is a real change.
22 This is we are focusing on what is really important to 23 safety. That's one change.
24 And Carl Paperiello, in about November something, 25 had a similar -- he had an all-hands meeting both at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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127 1 headquarters and.with the regional folks, and he is taking
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'similar directions with respect to licensing and enforcement in the materials program. It's not the same thing, but 4 again it's a recognition that we need to make some of these 5 changes. That's one type of change.
6 Another type of change which we might call --
7 again, you've heard it with Arthur Andersen, PBPM, 8 performance goals, outcome goals, but it's a concept of 9 moving towards an outcome rather than an output-based set of 10 goals for the agency, and one of the things I think folks 11 don't tend to think about very much, in my view, this is a 12 big change. As recently as the strategic assessment work 13 that I was involved in three to four years ago, the idea 14 that the agency would base its reputation success on O(,j 15 outcomes was foreign, because we can't control outcomes. We 16 can control outputs, but we cannot really control what a 17~ licensee does- We can affect it, but we can't control it.
18 And so moving towards outcomes, where we are 19 judged.not only on our success but the success of those that 20 we license, that is a big difference, and that is going to
-21 drive a different way of looking at things. And when we 1
22 look at these outcomes, we are going to be less -- well, for 23 example, if we look at enforcement, we might have said that l
l 24 a good goal for enforcement a year ago is we will complete 25 95 percent of our cases within six weeks or three months or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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128 1 something like that. Maybe we should have another goal
() 2 3
which says what goal -- or asks what goal shall we have for enforcement that says licensees as a whole will be more 4- safe, what. goal do we set to reach that? It may be such 5 things as whether the licensees are seen to change their l 6 activities;'as a result of the enforcement process, there l
7 are fewer violations in a particular area in the future. We L 8. haven't thought that far ahead. We are still in this 9- change. But it will be a significant cultural change to 10 look at outcome rather than output.
11 There are two other changes which are not really 12 cultural, but they are substantive in the agency, that are 13 affecting us this year. One, to move to the eight-to-one 14 staff ratio. We have just gone through a substantive
() 15 organization of most of our offices, and that takes 16 management and staff time and attention.
i 17 Another is we are going to be moving with the 18 Adams system, this calendar year, to what I will call a 19 semi-paperless office -- I don't want to say words that the 20 CIO_ folks would disagree with, but we are certainly going to 21 be much more involved in electronic media than we are today.
22 And so -- and again, reacting to this change will be 23 substantive. So we really have an awful lot of change going l
24 on right now.
25 DR. GARRICK: Yes. j l
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1 MR. KNAPP: And I think we need to be very
() 2 3
careful, -- again, experience of those where we have taken major facilities and said you folks have got to make a 4 change and they have brought themselves from a mediocre 5 performer to a top one, they tell us that one of their 6 common mistakes is just underestimating the resources 7 necessary to get there in terms of communicating with the 8 staff and the impact it has on staff. So we are aware that 9 these problems exist, but I would not be surprised, if we 10 were to discuss this process one or two years from now, I 11 would say and, as a matter of fact, when I was there in 12 1999, I had significantly underestimated the resources it 13 would take.
14 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
) 15 MR. KNAPP: With respect to training, for example, 16 just to train in these various areas, to talk more about how 17 we are doing oversight, how we are moving to Adams and other 18 _ things, is just about -- it's taking a big chunk of the 19 training budget that we have for 1999 and 2000, and there's 20 a lot of other training we need.
21 DR. GARRICK: Thank you. That's excellent.
22 Any other questions, comments? Your voice held up 23 very well, and we appreciate your being here and sharing the !
24 time with us. This was very valuable information.
25 MR. KNAPP: My pleasure. l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 130 1 DR. FAIRHURST: Is it possible to get a copy of
() 2: the plain English handbook? I think that would --
3 MR. KNAPP: We'd be delighted to provide them to 4 you.
5 DR. FAIRHURST: I'd be very interested, i
6 MR. KNAPP: And certainly -- Louise, do we have 7 enough that we can do it today?
8
- MS. LUNDY: Yes, I think we can do that.
9 MR. KNAPP: Yes, I think we can do that today.
10 DR. GARRICK: Charles is the plain Englishman on ,
11 the committee.
12 (Laughter.]
13 DR. GARRICK: All right, I think we will take a 14 recess and reconvene at 10:45.
/"N U 15 [ Recess.)
16 DR. GARRICK: I'd like to come to order, if we 17 could, and continue with our presentations on this subject.
l 18 We are now going to go outside the NRC and hear from, among 19 other people, the Nuclear Energy Institute and Angela Howard 20~ is going to carry the burden and introduce other people as l 21 appropriate on this subject.
l 22 So, Angela, it's your -- you have the floor.
1 i 23 MS. HOWARD: Good. Thanks very much. Let me i 24 introduce Walter Hill. Walter is Director of our i
25 Communication Services Group within NEI, and responsible for i j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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131 1 a lot of our written product in plain English --
2 [ Laughter.)
3 MR. HILL: We hope.
- 4 MS. HOWARD
- -- in our web development and our web 1
5 sites and a number of other activities that we have, and 6 also in prior life was responsible for some training in risk 7 communications work, so has a history there as well.
8 We really applaud what the committee is doing here 9 in looking at risk communications and getting into the 10 nitty-gritty of this. In supporting your initiatives, we 11 would like to provide sort of an industry view on your 12 action plan, your communications action plan. I would like 13 to taar to go over some of our experience relative to risk 14 communication, and I would like to leave you with some key
() 15 recommendations that we have thought about as we go forward, 16 We have participated in the NRC's DSI process and 17 provided comments there on the communication plan, and look 18 forward to also working with the NRC as we move forward in 19 beginning to communicate not only to the industry but to the 20 public about the new assessment and enforcement procedures; 21 so very much a lot of communication that needs to go on over 22 the next coming months.
23 I was delighted to hear the comments this morning, 24 both from Bruce and Michael on what they are planning to do 25 in that area. I look forward to getting more information ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l O- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
132 1 'from Isabel on the research. That's going to be very
() 2 3
helpful to the industry'at large. Not only to the nuclear industry at large, but I think it is going to be helpful to
(
4 the communications profession at large, so I look forward to 5 seeing those results, and then working with Mal Knapp.
6 There's'a lot of jargon, though, that we deal 7 with. The words risk-informed are words that resonate here.
8 I think we probably all have a common understanding of what 9 we are talking about within the NRC, within NEI; to perhaps 10 a lesser degree within the nuclear industry; and to a much, 11 much lesser degree to a few members of the general public.
12 But I don't believe that we are really reaching the broader 13 audience that we hope to do with these concepts and so, of 14 course, therein lies the challenge: How do we do that?
(s
(,,) I 15 You today, and particularly the committee, you are 16 the experts in a lot of this probabilistic risk assessment 17 and analyzing the technical processes that go into risk and j 18 how you deal with the technical subjects. You are 19 benefiting the regulatory process-as you go through this.
20 But suppose as you leave here today, either to go out for l 21 lunch or this evening, you are staying in the community and 22 you are talking with someone you strike up a conversation !
23 with at a shop you might go into this evening, and someone
- 24. asks you what do you do. You know, that's a tough question.
25 We all face that. What do you do. Well, explain that to O
i i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
133 1 me, You may have a problem.
7s
( ) 2 If you're talking to your office colleague who 3 shares your fascination with risk assessments, you can talk 4 to 10 to the minus 6 and all sorts of quantified types of l 5 dialogue. But if you run into someone who is your neighbor, 6 who is an expert in his or her own right, your neighbor, or j l
7 you run into someone that you meet in a casual social I 8 setting, the average person may understand little, given the 9 array of comments and discourse that we hear in the general 10 public, they have misgivings. They may have imagery that 11 the public perceives about nuclear energy, radiation or 12 radioactive waste in a very different way. 1 l
13 You can be assured that the soccer mom, the single !
14 dad, or the retired grandfather going about their annual A
(,) 15 daily chores is not thinking about risk communication or 16 they are not thinking about the subject in the same way that 17 you want to communicate it. So it's no wonder that they are 18 sometimes suspicious of what we are saying, matters that are 19 nuclear-related. And then if you get into the situation 20 where they believe their family or their children may be in 21 harm's way because of what business we are in, their 22 perception of the risk is something that's entirely 23 different from yours and mine. And seemingly no amount of 24 education -- and I use that in quotes -- on your part, on my 25 part, will convince them that the risks that they are ex
( ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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134 1 concerned about is only 10 to the minus 6. So you lack the
/ 2 credibility at times to convince them that they and their
(
3 families are really safe. So, no , we are not talking to our
'4. colleagues.
5 What I would want to try to do also is give you a 6 'little bit'of.my own perspective in dealing with the 7 communities around nuclear energy plants that I have gone 8 through.
9 But just to step back a little more, to put this 10 in perspective, you had the public meeting last March on 11 Part 63 out in Nevada, and I think that's a very good case 1 12 in point. There were a lot of astute and technical 13 questions that were asked, but most of the questions were l 14 highly personal in nature. There were questions about the
()
15 cultural heritage of the native people, and those present 16 voiced their mistrust of the technical experts who were 17 comparing radiation exposure from Yucca Mountain with the 18 natural background radiation.
19 We got feedback that there were mushy technical 20 language that made it impossible to interpret the comments 21 without a technical expert.
22 There were comments to the effect that a change in 23 the. rules now was a quote, double-cross, close quote, on 24 Nevadans. There was an expression of concern about children 25 and infants. They are classic risk communications.
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7 135 1 .The instinct and' approach by many of our i
(O ,f 2 technically trained people is to respond to these issues in 3 terms of facts, figures, and risk comparisons. We have
- 4. heard this. Those responses don't clearly address the 5 concerns of the local residents, and they don't do so even 6- when there is awfully good intent on the part of the 7 technical expert to try to communicate. I am not suggesting 8 that there is a purposeful obfuscation. It's just that you 9 are talking on two different plains, and what happens.
- 10 Isabel told us that there was some credibility 11 gaps that prevent some communications. The regulator may 12 suffer from a credibility gap that prevents them from 13 communicating.their most important objectives, their
,, 14 objective to craft the most efficient regulations that
\m / 15 really should provide members of the public with a greater 16 assurance of their safety. But if they don't talk at the 17- same level, they lose their credibility and lose it very
- 18 quickly, if they don't listen early on to what the questions 1 1
19 really are.
20 So your objective in advancing your action plan is 1 21 appropriate to establish a greater public trust, confidence, 22 acceptance in NRC's decisions and actions.
23 As I illustrated earlier, communicating risk among 24 technical experts is considerably different from 25 communicating risk to members of the public. The trust l
l D 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
l L-
c:
136 1- ' levels'do' vary,:and so must the approach. That is if you 2 ! expect to be listened to'at all.
< .3 .As you go about'what you are trying to do, I-
-4 encourage you not only to hear from us, like we are doing 5 _today, but also look at various other experts on risk 6 communications. There are a1 number of individuals, they are 7 well known. .Dr.-Vincent Cavello is one and Dr. Peter 8 Sandman.
- 9. I am not an expert in the theory and the technical, but come 110- September I will start my 30th year in this industry 11 communicating to the public about nuclear energy, and )
- 12 there's a lot of-experience and practical knowledge that I l 13- think I have gained over that time.
14 I started out working at Oconee as-it was under 15 construction; this is in northwestern South Carolina. It's 16 where'I grew up. I was working there.at the visitors 17 center, talking'to the public who was coming in, looking at T18 la huge. construction project. Not only were there three 19 nuclear units being built, .but there were also three dams 20 and two lakes. It was big and there was a lot of activity, 21 and there was a lot of genuine interest and questions about 22 what was going on.
23 As I would greet people, members of the public, 24' they were coming in and they wanted to know if we were 25 building another bomb plant, and very astutely we were l
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137 1 trying to' communicate that, oh, no, this is not a bomb, the
() 2 plant cannot explode, this is -- we were going through all 3 the technical language, until after a little while I started 4 thinking these folks want to know if it's another bomb 5 plant. The bomb plant is in Aiken, it's about 100 miles 6 south. Bomb plant has been the greatest thing since sliced
) 7 bread in Aiken at that time, in that perspective. People
, 8 were happy as bud up there about it being a bomb plant.
t 9 [ Laughter.)
10 MS. HOWARD: They weren't worried about that. And 11 so again, it was what was the question. You know, to them, 12 is this going to be a project that's going to give us good 13 employment, it's been good to the environment, we've had a 14 strong economy because of this, with influx of federal
) 15 funding and all of the kinds of things. And so it's how you 16 were_asking and where were those questioners coming up.
17 Yes, there were other concerns and people wanted 18 to know about the project, but it was not from an anti --
l 19 when your immediate reaction is, you know, to try to explain l l
20 it away technically and they were just sitting there looking 21 at me like I -- you know, you're not listening to me, and I 22 wasn't. 1 l
23 Is the source of the risk information trusted? Do i i
24 the people that you're talking to-feel that they have a 25 choice in volunteering or accepting the risk, or do they O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
138 1 -feel they have been coerced into it, into just living with
() 2 it? Those are -- are they familiar with the technology?
3 And I think that's a very key issue, and as we -- as you 4 talk about risk comparisons, it's easy to compare, and we 5 have things we can. compare with, and in fact, in 1975, when 6 WASH 1400 came out, we used those comparisons and used them !
7 very. effectively, in a way of sitting down with members of 8 the public and talking through that. But you still had 9 that, well, there's nothing that I can really do about a j 10 meteorite, and that actually was effective with the public 11 because there wasn't anything they could do abcW: a 12 meteorite, and you knew that the risk of a reactos. accident, 13 of a fatality in a reactor accident, was about the same.
14 But then there were the otter aspects of I choose A)
(,, 15 to drive an automobile and I understand whht those risks 16 are, but what are my benefits? Or I choose to live where I 17 live, or I choose to smoke because even that -- and that was 18 in North Carolina -- there were a lot of us who were smoking 19 back then. Those were the kinds of things that were public 20 choice, and to many of the public at the time I'm talking 21 and today, talking about the risks that you are dealing 22 with, if they have no choice or no say in the outcome, that 23' puts a very different light in how one understands and wants i 24 to perceive < hat their risks are.
25 One of the things we have also learned is a part ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 139 1 of that is in perhaps not only comparisons of other risks,
() 2 3
what you also need to talk about are what are the benefits in relation to the risks. And those are some of the things 4 that in the industry we have been doing a lot.
5 If you have a lot of memorable or negative imagery 6 associated with the technology, that creates a whole nother 7 example of how you talk about risk. Is there a sense of 8 dread or catastrophe? Does the source of risk information 9 appear open and honest with those sorts of issues? And 10 certainly today, in the nuclear industry to a certain 11 degree, we live with Chernobyl, and our critics have now 12 taken the transportation issue to mobile Chernobyl; very 13 effective sound bites. And those are the things that we 14 have to talk through and talk about. Yet you've got to
() 15 appreciate the fact that the public does have an image of 16 Chernobyl burning and, therefore, that image of mobile 17 Chernobyl is a very, very effective communication that the 18 critics can use to try to again sway public opinion. You 19 don't ignore it, but you simply have to work through that 20 and communicate through that.
21 One of the points that I learned also early on in 22 communicating and what the images were and how people were 23 perceived as being credible, probably within a year after 24 the first unit at Oconee started operating, we did --
25 exceeded our instantaneous liquid rad waste release limit; O
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140 1 not the hourly, not the daily; the instantaneous release.
b
.g 2 It was just a spurt that went down through the discharge and 3 the_ discharge there goes on down in the tail race of the 4 Keowee Dam that.goes into Lake Hartwell which is the Corps 5 of Engineer project downstream, but about eight miles 6 downstream is Clemson, Clemson University. And at the time I l
7' it was reported to the NRC, and working with the region, we )
8 came to the conclusion that their advice that it was an 9 instantaneous release limit and not really reportable to the 10 public, no need to make a public statement. We were young j 11 and just learning.
12 About three weeks later, headquarters decided that 13 we needed.to make a public statement on this. Well, that
.4 little bit of rad waste was probably already in the Atlantic 15 Ocean by that point. Certainly had the Savannah River still 16 been free-flowing and not have all those Corps of Engineer 17 dams on them. But we did have to make a public statement 18 about the instantaneous release limit and we tried to 19 explain what that was.
20 Well, probably within about three or four days, I 21 found myself at a town meeting in Clemson that outgrew the 22 town hall -- not that it was that big to begin with, but it 23 outgrew the town hall, and we walked up the steps in this 24 little community to the sanctuary of the Methodist church, 25 which happened to have been the church that I went to. I'm l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
141 1 from Clemson, and went to work at Oconee. By this point I
() 2 had moved and was working in Charlotte. And here I am in 3 the sanctuary, down in front of the pulpit, and Doc Murphy, 4 who was one of our resident inspectors, first resident 5 inspector at Oconee, and I and Ed Smith, who was the plant i
6 manager, were trying to explain what these limits were, and 7 we also had someone there from EPA, and trying to explain to 8 this public, the community there, who was furious, 9 rightfully so. It's the first that it happened, you told us 10 we wouldn't have anything to worry about, and now our orange 11 juice that we mix the concentrate in with the water from our 12 taps has a chance of having radioactivity in it.
13 And finally, you know, it came down to someone in 14 the back, after all the technical experts had been up there O
(_) 15 trying to explain it, someone in the back saying, "Angie, 16 would you stand up and tell us, would yc. drink this water?"
17 Again, it comes back to I was someone who was 18 trusted. I had brought with us the experts who were trying 19 to explain what was going on, but I was trusted, not because i
20 I was an expert, I was trusted because I was from there.
21 You know, I didn't bring anything other than the fact that I 22 was local. Some resented the fact that I was coming down 23 there trying to talk to them and coming back to my hometown 24 to try to quell the natives, But others did say, "Would you 25 do this?" You know, "Would you drink the water?" And I hM-
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o 142 1 could say yes. And then they quieted down.
() 2 So the point I am trying again to come back to is 3 do you know the local? Do you know your constituency? This 4_ is an awfully important point, and this was in probably 5 1975. And one of the things that we decided at that point, 6 at Duke, was to go back and make sure that our community 7 relations were so strong within those communities around the
(
8 stations that we never had a situation where we did not know 9 our locals.
10 One of the things that I think of the lessons 11 learned from Three Mile Island was that we needed to have 12 .much better emergency preparedness. And I always said as we 13 talked through this, you cannot go in and introduce yourself 14 to the local sheriff as the plant manager, introduce
() 15 yourself to the local sheriff and say, by the way, I need 16 your help in evacuation. It just isn't going to work.
1 17 [ Laughter.]
18 MS. HOWARD: You've got to have some kind of 19 ongoing communication, so then you have that credibility and 20 that trust.
21 We do a lot of research -- and I am going to talk 22 a little bit more about it in just a minute -- but one of l 23 the things that we have learned from the public, in asking !
24 who do they trust, they trust the experts from the local 25 plant, they trust their local utility more than they trust ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
143 1 anti-nuclear. And to some degree, more than they trust 2 third party. If they know their local people, they trust 3 them. And we see that in spades as we do research around 4 reactor sites or around other nuclear sites. There's a 5 higher favorability rating. Why? Because there's a greater 6 public understanding, and they go to church, they go to shop 7 'with people who work at the station. So if John and Betty 8 work there, and they live nearby, and they have their kids 9 in school and they coached Little League, there is a feeling 10 of trust and awareness. And so that's how an element of 11 risk communication can play if you use it in the way of 12 communicating on a daily basis what the aspects are; or, if 13 you are comfortable in the community. And so I encourage, 14 from the regulators' standpoint, of again from the residents 15 or from the others who are coming in and out, you can't get 16 to know the local community necessarily, but you can get to 17 know the local officials. You can have interactions. You 18 can do that through a process, and particularly as you are 19 looking at the very specifics of the Yucca Mountain-issue on 20 the waste side, there are ways that you can become more 21 involved through your process so that you have garnered and 22 developed knowledge and therefore some credibility and 23- trust. And then you will be believed.
24 I mentioned using the reactor safety study and 25 risk comparisons and it really did have a profound effect as l
'h. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. j Court Reporters 1025' Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036
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..t 144 1 we were'trying to go'about public participation in building 2 new reactor projects'in the Duke Power Service territory.
3 One of the things that we did was to try to 4 . identify public participation opportunities. In the case of
'5; Yucca Mountain you have got so much work that is underway 13 : now,fthe extensive studies that are ongoing, how much exact 7 contribution you can get to the technical aspects of the 8 study may be problematic, but you can involve the members of 9 -the community in analyzing the results and understanding the 10 results of the studies.
11 One of the things that we found again as I was 12 working in'the '70s in building new additional sites is that 13 we went in and identified the public and by this point we 14 did have anti-nuclear opposition to the project, but we C
(,j) . 15 identified members of the public who ought to be 16 stakeholders early on and invited them to participate in the 17 process before we started the licensing process. We were 18 just as the site review stages and the preliminary stages of 19 looking at sites and finalizing design.
20 We tried it also and even more effectively with a 21 storage project, of going in and identifying environmental 22 groups, fishing groups, for a pump storage site up above 23 Oconee, and the contribution there was significant as well 24 because they came in.and said your plan for the road, access 25 road, ic not as good as if you would look at this other L
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Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L
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145 1 ridge and coming in a different direction, and the company (y
3 2 at that point could make those changes and as you went j 3 forward in licensing there was not the opposition, but it 4 was bringing those stakeholders who were identified, not
)
5 those that just showed up -- because oftentimes those that l 6 just show up are folks who have real concerns or haven't !
7 been talked to, but it was going out and proactively 8 identifying within the community who were the people who you l 9 felt, we felt needed to know about this who were the opinion 10 leaders, who were the labor leaders, who were the local 11 community, and quite often it was not someone who was l
12 necessarily president of the local mill or the chamber of 13 commerce.
14 Very often it was someone who may have been a blue 15 collar worker but just was a key that individual community, 16 and you could identify those people. That is not a hard 17 proceso to do, but it's being on the ground and being local l
18 where you can really bring those people in and provide them 19 background, give them ample opportunity to ask questions.
20 You are not teaching them. You are gaining as much 21 knowledge as you are imparting to them, so as a result those 22 local people become the project's supporters.
l 23 They have the buy in and we are seeing that today I I
24 l as we go through the relicensing hearings with Calvert l
l 25 Cliffs and Oconee, some of those same folks who have been p.
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146 1 involved.from' day one coming back out and urging the NRC to
() 2 3
relicense facilities.
Let.me move to just briefly why it is no wonder 4 that some of the public may mistrust regulators or the 5 industry if they feel there concerns aren't fully addressed.
6 Let me give you a couple of hypothetical questions and l 7 answers.
8 .Will this repository affect the safety of my
~
- 9. family? Now a couple of responses. "Any exposure from the 10 : facility is well within regulatory limits" or "This facility 11 will provide an adequate level of public health and safety."
12 Does that make you feel-any better about --
13 [ Laughter.]
14 MS. HOWARD: --
about the radiation from this
.15 " repository leaking in our groundwater and poisoning it? No.
16 Not when we consider.that'the concentrations of 17 radioactivity at that point will l>e of little regulatory 18: significance.
)
i 19 Or -- "I have got to review this issue with my '
i 20 colleagues. I will get back to you with an answer."
21 Those responses are truthful and accurate and l 22 probably caged a little bit to be protective of perhaps the l
.23 responder, but they eren't going to be perceived that way by 24 lyour audience. What that results in is a public ripe to 1
25 listen to others who want to use the process to stop or to
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l 147 1 kill or to not allow a process to go further, and there are 2 plenty that way out in the community and we know them.
I 3 I will give you an example. Certainly the
'4 transportation of nuclear waste is a very critical area. It 5 is one that we have seen done and handled extraordinarily l 6 successfully in the United States. We have transported spent 7 fuel and other nuclear materials over miles and miles of 8 highway and railway and we have had a few accidents and none 9 have resulted in release beyond regulatory limits --
10 [ Laughter.]
11 MS. HOWARD: But we also have people going around 12 using the term " mobile Chernobyl." We have NBC coming out 13 with a program next Sunday and Monday called " Atomic Train,"
14 which by the way, if you have not heard, is now a Russian
) 15 warhead that has been smuggled.onto a train carrying 16 hazardous waste, not nuclear waste -- but there are those in 17 Nevada who are taking out quite a lot of, we understand, 18 perhaps even some ads that said, you know, "This can happen 19 here. If you transport' nuclear material across the United
- 20. States into Yucca Mountain, Nevada, this could happen to ,
21 you." I l
22 They are using the opportunity. They are seizing i 23 .the opportunity. That is their right and that is the right j 24 of being an American citizen to do that. I, to a certain
'25 degree, support that.. However, if we aren't doing the l
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148 l
1 proper communication and involving people in understanding
() 2 and' appreciating what the real risks of transportation are, 3 those who seize the opportunities or we let them seize the 4 opportunities will win the day with the public, because they l
5 are appealing to what the public can understand, they are 6 ripe to-understand, and if we are responding to them in.
7 obtuse kind of responses and regulatory-ese or j 8 engineering-ese is it easy to know who the public is going 9 to turn to and listen.
10 Words like " transuranic" or even " millirem" are 11 words that we use daily but they sound like nothing more 12 than technobabble to a mistrustful or an uninitiated 13 audience -- not an uneducated audience -- don't get me 14 wrong. It is uninitiated, and as the conversation we had 15 earlier in the discussions a lot of very well-educated, 16 well-informed, intelligent people simply don't pay a lot of I
17 attention to our side of the business and so they just don't '
18 know the lingo and the lingo-ese and it is our job to 19 communicate correctly.
20 At NEI we have learned a lot about communicating 21 pure data about nuclear energy and we have also learned that 22 it is impossible without a good background on how the i
23 audience is reacting in receiving the information. We know i 24 from our experiences that audiences are more inclined to 25 understand the risks more clearly if they understand the
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'i 149 1 benefits that are associated with nuclear energy.
rs i 2 Let me go through a couple of results. We have 3 put in the back some of a public opinion writeup, some of i 4 the public opinion research that we have done.
5 We see that 9 out of 10 college graduates agree 6 that the U.S. should renew the licenses of nuclear plants 7 that meet safety standards. We know that 3 out of 4 of 8 those polled agree that we should keep open the option of 9 building more plants. More than half said that the country 10 should build more plants in the future. So those are the 11 ~ kiro 7 of responses that we get when we ask these kinds of 12 questions - "Do you support license renewal?" "What is 13 your opinion on the nuclear use of the future?"
14 We also have learned though that those who
) 15 identify themselves as favorable to nuclear energy also have 16 some real perceptions. They perceive. that nuclear is used 17 more in other countries than here in the United States.
18 Most would guess when we have asked focus groups about this 19 that there are less than 10 plants in operation in the 20 United States. When there are nuclear plants in the local 21 area many of them don't even know that there are plants in
- 22. the local area or are surprised to find that out.
23 That means that they also don't understand the 24 benefits. If they don't.know that there is a local plant in ]
25 the area, they don't understand its clean air benefits, they ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
~/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
150 1- don't understand its energy supply benefits. So that tells
() 2 us where we need to do some more work.
-3 Even more telling is some polling that we did last 4 December among college-educated voters regarding legislation 5 to take used nuclear fuel to a central temporary storage 6 facility. When informed that nuclear energy provides 20 7 percent of the nation's electricity without polluting the 8 air, 68 percent of those polled said this would increase 9 their support for the legislation. And then when presented 10 with the idea that it would be easier to monitor and 11 regulate fewer fuel storage sites, 67 percent said that
~12 would increase their support of the legislation.
13 Again, greater familiarity leads to a greater 14 receptivity to the information.
15 One other last part, while the polling has shown 16 that a majority of those polled support nuclear energy, that 17 same majority believes that their neighbors don't and we 18 call this the perception gap. And-when we did focus groups 19 trying to understand the perception gap, why was this so, 20 those that said that they -- those that felt comfortable 21- about it may still have some reservations, but they had 22 concluded themselves that nuclear energy is needed and 23 provided real benefits.
24 They also fe3t that'others had failed to come to 25 that conclusion, a little bit almost elitist _in that, well, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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151 1 I have make this conclusion, but I am sure others haven't a
() 2 sorted through or thought through this process.
3 Others also said they are influenced by what they 4 see and hear, and what they don't see and hear. So if they 5 see and hear negative images and don't see and hear positive '
6 images, that, again, while they had made their opinion on 7 nuclear somewhere else, they felt others perhaps hadn't come 8 to that conclusion.
9 The public also told us that they felt that there 10 was not enough salient information in the media and other 11 public forums about the benefits of nuclear energy, that the 12 plants in themselves were absent from the public arena. So, 13 again, that told us that we needed to do a lot more and to 14 , communicate about the benefits.
) 15 There is a great amount of information out there 1 <6 about risk communication, about the process and how to gain
-17 more confidence in it. There are a lot of pitfalls, but
- 18. they are not insurmountable. .The NRC, I think has a desire 19 tx) improve its ability to communicate the regulatory process 20 efficiently and effectively. As I said earlier, I am J21 pleased to hear the direction that you are going.
22 I think the bottom line is, as you communicate
! 23 that', what'is the public asking for? Are they asking for 24 zero risk? I think the public, if we aren't communicating 25 risk communication appropriately, expects to be told that it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
i Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 e
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152 1 is zero risk. And so as you go through that process, we
) l2 have got to understand, and particularly I think the Yucca 3 Mountain is a. case in point.
4 The studies that are being done there are to 5 understand the mountain and understand then how to apply )
1 6 engineering principles and design principles for further 7 protection of the public, not'to make Yucca Mountain itself j 8 the sole protection of the public health and safety once --
9 if it proves suitable and the site is licensed, but to i
10 understand what is there. l 11 So the process that the public needs to anticipate 12 is not that it is zero risk, but what is the risk and how 13_ they can understand it and accept that into their 14 day-to-day. I am confident it'can be done.
() 15 So let me leave you with just several L 16 recommendations. Recognize the wide range of public 17 audiences that the NRC must reach. When we commented last 18 year on the NRC's communications initiatives, we recommended 19 that the NRC really revisit its apparent approach in looking 20 at the public as one broad group with little distinction 21 between the broad general public and those special interest 22 groups.
23 And if you don't make that distinction, the NRC 24 can expend its energy debating highly l technical issues with 25 a very small subset of the public, and oftentimes the subset O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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153 1 that has a very specific interest in not so much learning
() 2 more about the technical issue, but in perhaps stopping the 3 process altogether. And what that results in is leaving 4 those members, other members of the public who generally 5 have an interest, confused and oftentimes feeling neglected 6 or that their questions aren't answered.
7 I think, you know, Chip, we have seen some of that 8 in that. process with license renewal hearings.
9 Second, really risk communications training for 10 the appropriate technical personnel. And I was delighted to 11 hear the NRC's talk about they do plan to do training, 12 because it a kind of how you listen, and how you respond to 13 questions that is unique. And, first of all, those 14 listening skills, it is just like my worry about people
/'s
' (,) '15 worrying -- asking whether it is a bomb plant.
16 You know, you have got to know what they are 17 asking and what they are wanting to know, and that is a 18 unique skill. And it is not so much a skill of being able 19 to respond in a sound bite and getting everything down to 20 what.is going to appear on the evening news, but it is 22 responding clearly and crisply to the questions that are 22 asked, but also trying to think through to what is the 23 ' question that is not being asked, but really is the question 24 that they want -- is the answer that they want, or what it 25 is-thatLthey are trying.to know. Sometimes we go far too O ANN RILEY~& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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m 154 1 far.in answering the questions and really obfuscating the 2 .results.
3 Adapt to the appropriate context when
-4 communicating risk. Again, not every audience is the same 5 and the training can accommodate that. You have got the 6 opportunity to consider the best practices in the fields and 7 to craft some of those protocols that work for NRC4 8 And then, finally', solicit that routine feedback 9 on communications effectiveness. Don't buy the line that 10 'you can't measure commun'ications. You can, and you can get 11 routine feedback. You can get ongoing polling results and 12 you know how you can resolve.
13 Feedback is integral to NRC's ability to respond i
14 effectively to public input. Being prepared in advance.of
) 15 the public meetings, incorporating the most effective and 16 credible ways to respond to the public concerns is vital.
17 That way you can respond to the issues that are raised most 18 effectively, thoughtfully and thoroughly.
19 So I commend you for taking this issue up. I 20 pledge to you that NEI will be pleased to continue to work 21 with you, answer your questions now that you might have, 22 but, certainly, on an ongoing basis, share the information 23 that we have learned and try to be as responsive as we can l 24 be to you.
=25 DR. GARRICK: Thank you very much.
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155 Questions from the committee?
1 2 [No response.]
l 3 DR. GARRICK: I wanted to just pick up on a couple l'
! 4 of things you said, because I think they are very key to l- 5 this whole process of communication. You know, there is the 1 6- issue of communication and then there is the issue of 7 influence. And I think one of the biggest challenges that 8 exists is~to be able to represent before the legislators, I 9 for example, the balanced public view.
10 I have participated in a number of public forums 11 and most -- many of the public forums were attended in such 12 a way that it was clearly not balanced, and so the i 13 communication that took place was in many cases not 14 representative of the public, but representative of some i 5
15 segment of the public.
16 I am also reminded that if you spend _some time at 17 particularly the state legislature, that you find that the 18 lawmaking and the influence comes from professional 19 lobbyists and groups that in many cases are not, again, a 20 balanced representation of the public views.
)
21 You commented on how important it is to have that 22 kind of representation and I agree with you. I guess the 23 question is, how do you get it? And, secondly, how do you 24 get the output of that in a way that does in fact represent 25 a reasonable approximation of the truth as far as public ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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156 1 views and interests are concerned?
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!, s 2 MS. HOWARD: It is hard, it is real hard because
\_/
3 so often there is a -- whenever there is a public meeting, 4 you have got to have a yea and nay, and then you have a 5 debate, and oftentimes the questions don't get fully 6 addressed. {
7 I think one of the ways that you do get your input 8 into the legislative process, both at the state level and at 9 the federal level is through both grass roots and coalition 10 building. From the grass roots standpoint, it starts at 11 home, it starts within the businesses that use nuclear 12 technology, if we are talking nuclear-specific. It starts 13 with those that have affiliations with them and educating l 14 and providing information to the employees, to the (3
( ,/ 15 suppliers, to the vendors, to labor, in a way that they see i I
16 a picture and are willing -- and, also, a very key part of !
17 that is communicating the importance of public involvement 18 in a public decision making process.
19 That, just as it is important to vote, it is l
20 important to communicate views and opinions to the 21 legislatures. And we understand that legislatures 22 oftentimes make opinions based on 10 or fewer comments from 23 the public. They will listen and they- will get those, and 24 that means more when it come from home than any kind of 25 lobbying than can take place at the state house or at the
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1 157 l 1 Congress, that input that comes from the local district.
() 2 And so, again, it is development of effective 3 grass roots communications, it is interactions with the 4 state officials, with the county officials. It is bringing 5 in your constituencies. In the nuclear industry, some of 6 the constituencies today that have a lot of interest are 7 folks who are interested in maintaining and meeting Clean 8 Air Act requirements. The states today are very concerned 9 that nuclear plants may shut down. And the states that are 10 concerned are those that are responsible for meeting the 11 state implementation plans in the 22 states that are not in 12 attainment with the Clean Air Act. Because if stay out of a 13 containment, you won't have highway funds.
14 So those -- it is knowing who those audiences are
) 15 and presenting them with information that they can then use 16 and oftentimes they do. But it is ongoing, day-in, day-out 17 kind of communication.
18 DR. GARRICK: Another key word that you used is 19 the word " choice." I think if you think of people and why 20 they get angry at certain decisions, it is more often than 21 not because they did not feel there was a choice.
1 22 And I think a lot of that is our fault, it is the 23 technical community's fault. It is so logical that it is 24 rather amazing that somehow it is not a very visible part of 25 the whole process of development of any project of any ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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158 1 activity. It's so logical that indeed there was a process
() 2 that was -- the promoters of the project probably went 3 through'to look at different alternatives and to evaluate 4 the alternatives against certain attributes such as cost and 5 risk.and benefits. And I think that one of the things that 6 you'll hear out in Nevada as much as anything is they're 7_ angry because they feel that the whole process of decision l
J 8 making was an arbitrary one.
9 So if it seems if there's one device that we need k 10 to employ more or at least make more visible, because I 4 1
11 think it is employed, I believe what the primary problem is 12 is that we just don't make it visible -- is to structure 13 these issues and projects and activities in a form that j 14 makes it clear that there is an alternative, there are 15 different options available for solving a particular 16 problem.
17 MS. HOWARD: Yes.
18 DR. GARRICK: It's my belief that even in the 19 Yucca Mountain-project the thing went through several 1
20 evolutions, and it was ultimately Congress that said let's 21 .stop looking at alternatives and start thinking about 22 evaluating whether a specific location is suitable. But 23' somehow in that whole process it was lost that early in this l 24 process.they were clearly utilizing the concept of decision 25 analysis --
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159 1 MS. HOWARD: Um-hum.
2- DR. GARRICK: As a tool for moving towards a 3 solution to this problem.
4 Have you had any experience or any activity where 5 the issue of alternatives has been kind of a central theme 6 of public participation? In a democracy you'd like to think 7 that these projects, civil projects certainly have to submit 8 to that process.
9 MS. HOWARD: Well, the ones that I mentioned when j 10 I was at Duke, where we were in the building mode then, we 11 did implement that. Unfortunately the Cherokee and the 12 Perkins nuclear sites fell victim to the cancellations of f 13 the late seventies.and early eighties time frame, both from 14 a need -- the pump storage project did go forward, and 15 again, where there we solicited as well as, you know, 16 received any, but solicited those individuals who we felt 17 would want to have a say or who could, you know, be 18 potentially adversaries to come in and sit down with us as 19 we did the initial planning of, one, how we were going to 20 meet additional, in this case it was peaking capacity, the 21 attributes of pump storage, and the sites -- and there were 22 several sites that were possible -- within a certain 23 geographic area -- it was not a matter of going 100 miles 24 . east -- but'of these sites, and actually got technical as j i
25 well as experience in the part of nature, naturalist j
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160 i 1 experience,- to-come and'really provide a strong input into 2 the project. And everyone left not getting everything they 3 wanted.
4 Some of the choices that Duke made cost more than 5 .the original plan, but it was a better road, you know, this 6 happened to be the access road going in, and the project 7 went forward, you know, without the public intervention.
8 That's a big site. But the plans early on in the idea of l 9 going ~to'a one-step licensing with early site -- preapproved 10 sites and preapproved designs -- the preapproved siting l 11 process very much, and this was in the late seventies and 12 eighties, as we were doing these ideas had that exact 13 element of public participation in coming in and looking at 14 the~ regional energy needs and how do you site energy 15' facilities or energy complexes before, you know, plans were 16 drawn and designs were put down on sites.
j 17 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
- 18. MS. HOWARD: So it's very much a process that I 19 think you can involve'the democratic process. It doesn't 20 mean you won't have intervention, but it also means that if 21 you have intervention, you can hold the intervenor much more 22 accountable..because of the overall public process that's 23 been put into place.
24 DR. GARRICK: Any other comments?
25 DR. FAIRHURST: I think something you said almost i
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161 1 alluded to a fear that I have, and that is that technical
(,~) 2 people tend very much to overreact to provide far more l
1 3 information than anybody wanted, to give a complex answer 4 when a simple one can do, a simple yes or no.
5 I was kind of intrigued as to what you have done.
6 You actually have, if you like, a position in this. You 7 would be perceived as'having a position. Recently I was at 8 a meeting, it was a conference on retrievability, and the i l
9 public apparently were -- the main reason for retrievability 10 is not that anybody technically feels that it is going to be 11 necessary, it's something to satisfy public concern that l
12 you're stuffing something away forever. And most of the 13 technical people in the audience were talking about keeping 14 the repository open for 100 years and so on, and this was
,m
( ,) 15 across the board, not -- many countries.
16 And Swedish people said what we're going to do is 17 we're going to take a couple of our waste packages or 18 simulated waste packages and drill holes and put them in, 19 would invite the TV crews in and all the press and bring it 20 in, stick it down, pick it up, take it out, and say that's 21 retrievability. And it'll take us maybe three or four years 22 and the public will have -- we'll see how they react to that 23 and get onto the next problem. And I suspect it wasn't the 24 technical people that had told them that, it was somebody 25 else.
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162 1 And so I have a great reluctance to become, if you
[ \ 2 like, a direct participant in this. I'd rather be guided by l
- l. 3 somebody who has a much better understanding, or be like l
4 you, fall into a situation where I happen to be at that time 5 a member of the local community, fight the railroads like 6 I'm doing right now.
7 I was wondering to what extent you've been able to 8 . identify a pattern for success, if you like. You mentioned 9 one where you happened to be in the church where you grew up 10 and so on, but are there any --
11 MS. HOWARD: I think some other patterns that i
12- we've seen is the visual imagery is very important. As (
1 13 people have talked about spent fuel or waste, the public 14 conjures up green goo, and when you can take them into a
- 15 spent fuel and show them a spent fuel assembly and show that j
- 16. 'being loaded onto a cask, even if it's a dry storage pad, 17 you know, cask, as opposed to -- and many companies do do 4
18 some of this, and they've shot footage of that. So it's the 19 - bringing the real irrage of what it is that you're talking 20 about to the public so that they can see it, they can 21 visualize it, they can get a sense of what you're talking
-22 about.
23: On the retrievability, I don't go along with the 24 ' creating something that is not real. I think that's a 25 mistake. But if you -- I think you've got some who want to l
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163 1 ' simply be reassured that the engineering is there -- there
() ' 2- are.some who would like you to believe that you're just 3 going to throw these spent-fuel canisters in the mountain 4 and walk away and nobody's going to do anything. And, you 5_ -know, who knows what, what if.it should leak or what if or 6 what if or what if, instead of giving an assurance that it 7 is an engineered facility that's going to be there and is
- 8. going to be monitored and with engineering judgment we can 9 ~ monitor and we can make decisions down the road. There's a
-10 managed process there. There's a responsibility there.
lli Because others would have you believe that you are 12 -just going to throw it there and ignore it, and I think that 13 is the element that -- and some of that goes back to how we pm 14 have managed other hazardous waste in this country. It is
(,,/ 15 not just a matter of perception. There is key to or a tie 16 back to, you know, the rogue waste haulers opening the 17 , spouts from between 2:00_and 4:00 in the morning and driving 18 down a country road. That's how they dispose of hazardous 19 waste. I'mean we know some of that has-occurred. We've 20; seen:it with PCBs so the public learns about that and they 21 cannot necessarily trust _that.that won't happen with 22 nuclear.
'23: That is why you have to continue to give them the 24' images and the sense of responsibility and the sense of 25 . management that there is an integrity on the part of the
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p 164 1 process.
() 2- DR. FAIRHURST: Has NEI talked to debating, high 3 school debating groups, or something like that, to get them 4 to take this topic up and debate it pro and con?
5 MS. HOWARD: Was it last year? I believe last 6- year er maybe two years ago that was a part of one of the 7 national high school debates was nuclear and we did provide l 8 a lot of packages of material and use our website 1
9 extensively for those sorts of things.
10 DR. FAIRHURST: It is likely you would get a 11 reasonably balanced argument there.
12 MS. HOWARD: You do. You do. As a matter of l
13 fact, I was a little bit taken aback by my daughter's eighth 14 . grade science teacher chose to teach nuclear energy, the
() 15 components in nuclear energy, by assigning people to be pro 16- and con and have a debate. I didn't think that was exactly, 17 you know -- wasn't sure that they were going to get all the 18 technical information_they needed, but we went along with it 19 and my daughter, who is a-fairly rabid pro --
20 [ Laughter.]
21 DR. FAIRHURST: I wonder why.
22 MS. HOWARD: -- drew an anti slot and had to argue 23 the other, which was great fun.
24 DR. FAIRHURST: No, that is the whole point.
25 MS. HOWARD: And they did learn and, you know, we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 165 1 had people come, so to me they didn't treat coal or they
() 2 didn't treat other aspects that way. That is the choice of l
3 the students probably enjoyed it and they probably got a 4 little more out of it because they put a little more into 5 it, but we don't do a lot with the general public and with 6 the schools because our resources are simply not -- we do 7 more of our work at opinion leader and policy maker. That 8 is why you see in our research that it is the 9 college-educated voter that is more the opinion leader as 10 opposed to the general public.
11 MR. HILL: I think just to follow up on your 12 original question about is there a pattern in addressing 13 some of the matters that you talked about, with the 14 discipline of risk communication, yes, there are a lot of
() 15 proven examples where varying approaches in talking about 16 risk comparison work better than others, and I think the l 17 research that Ms. Schoenfeld alluded to this morning point 18 that up, but just to emphasize Angie's point that providing 19 training to technical people to make them aware of those l
20 sensitivities is really key, because applying those 21 principles they feel largely foreign to those who have a 22 great deal of technical background and it takes a lot of 23 practice, a lot of dedication to the principles.
24 There are advocates of risk communication that 25 think that if you have a technical background and you l
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166 1- communicate to the public where you are not typically or
() 2 predisposed to be trusted, then knowing those principles
.3 should be part of your profession, should be just simply one
~
4 of your course requirements as you go through school that 5 you have these proper communications tools as you move 6 forward.
7- DR. GARRICK: Very good. All right. Well, we 8 appreciate your sharing your information with us. It was a 9 very timely message and I am sure it is going to help us a 10 great deal in formulating our planning for the working group 11 session.
12 MS. HOWARD: Good.
13 DR. GARRICK: So we thank you very much.
14 MS. HOWARD: Thank you.
) 15 MR. HILL: Thank you.
16 DR. GARRICK: In our final presentation we turn 17 from an industry-oriented association back to a Government 18 agency. We are now going to hear from Catherine Dawes from 19 the EPA. I guess you are going to talk to us about the EPA 20 XL Program for Regulatory Excellence. We are all very 21 interested in that.
22 MS. DAWES: Good' morning, my name is Catherine 23 Dawes. I work for the USEPA, the Environmental Protection 24 Agency. I have been with the agency for about nine years, I 25 am now working in the Office of Reinvention, in which I work
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L 167 1 on the XL program, wh'ich I will tell you a little bit more
() 2 3
about. I have also worked on what we call the Common Sense Initiative, which'was a sector-wide effort to work with 4 industry and stakeholders on a variety of issues And in 5 the past I have also worked on what we call brown fields, 6 which are redevelopment sites, a little bit on Superfund, 7 which I think has a. lot of parallels-to the work that you 8 all do.
1 9 And I just.want to start out by saying that 10 working with stakeholders is an area that EPA has been 11 recently gaining a lot of experience in. I think like the i
12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we are an agency made up 13 generally of engineers and lawyers. I am neither one. I am 14 policy wonk, which is just as bad I think in some cases.
() .15 So risk communications, stakeholder involvement, 16 environmental justice, these are terms that have really come 17 to a lot of use in I would say the last ten years of the 18 ~ agency. The first 20 years of the agency was really focused 19 more on regulations, rules and command and control.
20 So let me'get more into Project XL. Project XL is l 1
21 a USEPA reinvention initiative. It stands for Excellence in l l
22 Leadership and it has been underway since March of 1995 when l 23 it was announced by the Clinton Administration. The XL
- 24. program designs experimental, site-specific pilot projects 25- that are aimed at carrying out new ways of doing things like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Court Reporters 1 1025 Connecticut-Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
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168 1 permitting and reporting. The key of Project XL is to give 2 facilities the flexibility in how they implement rules, l 3 ~ regulations and policy in exchange for, superior l
l '4 environmental performance.
5 Right now EPA has 11 of these projects underway 6 with companies like Weyerhauser and the Intel Corporation.
7 We have 27 projects in development, and there are a whole 8 host of proposals that have come in to EPA which we have 9 chosen not implement for one reason or another, in some 10 cases because the stakeholder involvement component did not' 11 work -- did not work well, or some might say it did work 12 well and that is why we do not have those projects.
13 Since its inception, meaningful and organized 14 participation on the part of the community and national 15 r. ;i-governmental organization representatives has been a 16 criterion of the project selection process and a cornerstone 17 of the XL program.
18 Public participation has also proven the most 19 difficult, most challenging component of the program. ,
i 20 Because EPA. views public participation in XL to be so 21' important, the agency has undertaken efforts aimed at 22 looking at the program stakeholder processes, including
- 23. formal stakeholder evaluations of individual projects, a 24 copy of which has been passed out to you all; stakeholder 25 roundtable meetings, as well as a process reengineering work ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
169 1 group. And this process reengineering_ work group was
() 2' composed of EPA staff, industry, stakeholders, local 3 representatives as well as national NGO representatives, and 4 it worked to streamline the XL process, while improving 5- stakeholder access to information, input into 6 decision-making, influence on the project's design, 7 implementation and evaluation.
8 Overall, all of these forums revealed difficulties 9 experienced by public stakeholders involved with XL, several 10 of which EPA has taken formal steps to address, and I will 11 summarize them for you now. And if you have any questions, 12 please jump in and interrupt me. First -- and some of these 13 findings are going to seem like common sense, but difficult 14 to implement.
/
\ 15 A clearly superior model of involving stakeholders 16 in the XL project development process has not emerged.
17 There is no cookie cutter formula. There is no one model of 18 doing it. We, early on in the program, determined that a 19 one size fits all approach would not be suitable, 20 particularly for the innovative nature of the initiative, 21 but I think you would find that it is not suitable for any 22 site-specific effort.
23 Therefore, EPA chose to focus on defining the 24 principles and process by which stakeholder involvement in 25 the XL project should be governed. By focusing on
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170 I
)
i principles, the. project sponsors, i.e., the Weyerhausers and
() 2 the Intels of the world, are the managers of the process and 3 can tailor the stakeholder involvement to reflect the scope '
4 and complexity of the process -- of the project rather, 5 EPA expects each project to reflect the complexity l
6 and the uncertainty of the project in the investment of the 7 stakeholder process. In other words, we expect that if a 8 project is a relatively simple one to implement and to 9 comprehend, that the' stakeholder involvement is not going to 10 be that complex. However, if you have a project that 11 involves multimedia, involves a number of different 12 statutes, or is controversial, we expect the stakeholder 13 involvement process to be more complex and involved. The 14 key to this is.to allow the stakeholders themselves to have 15 a say in how the process is structured and conducted.
16 The second major finding is that the clarity of 17 the structure and objectives for the process are the most 18 important indicators of success and credibility of the 1
19 stakeholder involvement effort. Early in XL we found that 20 the confusion about and the time-consuming nature of the 21 process -- procedures for negotiating the project's final i
22 agreements created problems in how our stakeholders I 23 perceived our efforts, i
24- EPA took steps to clarify and improvement and '
l 25 streamline this process, resulting in a better understanding
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L 171 1 from all participants and a related reduction in the what we
() 2' 3
call transaction costs of the stakeholder process.
The reengineering effort that we initiated led to 4 changes in the actual negotiation process, including a 5 Project XL Stakeholder Involvement Guide, a copy of which 6 you all should have. The guide provides information on (1) 7 how to determine what type of process is appropriate; (2) 8 the-stakeholder needs regarding time commitment and 9 technical assistance, which I will come back to, and, also, 10 as I discussed before, the scope and complexity of the 11 involvement process.
12 EPA is going to continue to evaluate these process 13 changes. We have only recently initiated them, but we are 14 already seeing better participation and better sense of
() 15 credibility on the part of our stakeholders.
16 Now this is, as I said, one of our obvious 17 findings, but it is still critical to state, and that is 18 building and maintaining trust is critical. The program XL 19 has faced perceptions that a project sponsor could 1
20 orchestrate stakeholder support and that EPA also needed to I l 21 better define the parameters of stakeholder involvement.
22 A crucial means to addressing both of these issues 23 has been for EPA to clarify its role versus that of the 24 project sponsor in managing the stakeholder groups. Now, 25 the project sponsor, not EPA, is responsible for initiating I
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r 172 1 and maintaining the stakeholder involvement process. The
() 2 3
new Stakeholder Involvement Guide also recommends steps for a sponsor to follow and identify and work with stakeholders 4 on project ideas.
5 While the stakeholder has -- rather, the project 6 sponsor has the primary responsibility for this stakeholder 7 group, experience shows that in the most successful 8 processes, the sponsor and stakeholders co-create the 9 process, in other words, they talk through how they are 10 going to manage public meetings, how work groups are going 11 to be constructed, the time that is going to be needed as 12 'well as technical assistance.
13 While this participation is important to help 14 ensure that these processes are transparent, it should not (Oj 15 be confused with EPA's ultimate role of guaranteeing an 16 adequate stakeholder process. In other words, EPA still 17 retains and understands that it has a responsibility for 18 ensuring that these stakeholder groups are transparent and 19 are working credibly.
20 We also -- EPA also retains the authority to 21 approve or disapprove an XL project based on how well the 22 criteria are met, and also States share the ability to veto 23 any one project. So our authority, EPA's authority is not 24 delegated to stakeholder groups, but the views and 25 recommendations of direct participants strongly influence
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173 1 the decisions of_the regulators.
l.
2 EPA has taken other activities aimed at building 3 and maintaining stakeholder trust. For example, we now have 4 facilitation assistance for project sponsors to initiate or 5' kick off the overall process, and also we've found that 6 facilitation by a third party and face-to-face meetings and l
l 7- also having site visits stand out as demonstrated mechanisms 8 for building trust.
9 And I can't emphasize L,you more how important it 10 is to consider the third-party facilitation, to have a sense 11 of someone who is not invested in the process but who can l I
4 12 help-you work through the issues, and in this case we chose, 13 that third party is not EPA. When we say third party, we 14 ,really mean someone who is not associated either with the
) 115 Agency or with the project sponsor.
16 As I talked about before, an especially important 1
17 step in the XL process is for the. sponsor and stakeholders 18 to agree on ground rules and responsibilities. Well-defined 19 and transparent ground rules are very, very important. I 20 can't emphasize that more. Key topics for consideration j l
l 21 include participants' role, are they going to be part of an l l 22 advisory group, are they going to be a group that is simply 23 consulted, or are they going to be a group that has a j 24' decisional role? l 25 Also, you need to define how that input should be i >
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174 1 expressed. Particularly when you're talking about
/
( 2 decisional group, you need to talk about whether things are 3 going to be-done!by consensus or by majority vote. And I 4 will further remark that you have to define what consensus 5 means. There are many different ways to define a 6 constructive consensus process. And if it's not clearly 7 defined from the outset, you're going to have a lot of 8 troubles. These topics as well as other ground rules must 9 be discussed and consented to by the direct participants.
10 Another finding, again common sense, tells us that l
11 input needs to be obtained by local and national 12 stakeholders early in'the process. We found that there's 13 nothing more difficult than going to the stakeholders and 14 their having a sense.that a decision has been made among EPA
) 15 agencies as well as the project sponsors, particularly i l
16 companies, big companies, and they sense that we've already 17 made a decision about what was going to happen and how l 18 things were going forward.
l 19 So the stakeholder involvement guide emphasizes 20 ~ steps that we expect sponsors to take to obtain stakeholder l 21 input as early in the project development process as 22 possible.
23 On the flip side, we also recognize that if you go I l
l '24 to stakeholders with a project idea too early, it may not be 25 well formulated encogh to communicate it well.
l 1
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175 1 Resources such as third-party technical assistance
() 2 should be made available to ensure local stakeholders have 3 the ability to assess the technical and environmental 4 issues. What we heard from our stakeholders repeatedly is i
5 that they had trouble comprehending the technical issues and '
6 that they felt that using the project sponsor as their 7 resource for understanding those technical issues did not 8 necessarily satisfy them, and they did not necessarily {
9 consider that to be credible, nor in every case did they 10 consider EPA to be a credible resource.
11 So what EPA has done to address this is to seek i
12 out means for local stakeholders to receive technical 13 assistance. In some cases it may be fine from the project 14- sponsor. There may be a State government resource that is 15 available or a national environmental organization or 16 academic institution may be able to provide technical
- 17. information or assistance to local stakeholders. However, 18 when these means are not available or appropriate, EPA has i
19 set up a mechanism to provide specific technical assistance )
20 to stakeholders using the Institute for Conservation 21 Leadership. This assistance is available to up to $25,000 22 per project when requested by a stakeholder group.
23 What we've found, and this is now going back to 24 more the issues of who is participating in these stakeholder 25 processes, one of the key findings that we've seen is that a
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176 1- number of'our industry project sponsors really have lacked
() 2 experience in convening and managing a site-specific 3 intensive stakeholder process, and they have asked -- and 4- they asked us frankly, EPA, to come up with recommendations 5 for how they should conduct a good stakeholder process, and 6 so the stakeholder involvement guide is part of our response 7 to that.
8 One of the. things that we found interesting to 9 note, however, is that the past industry participants both 10 who have had successful projects as well as proposal ideas 11' that did not become projects have reported that in every 12 case they found the stakeholder experience to be beneficial 13 in the long run. So even though it was difficult and 14 challenging and in some cases more expensive than they
() 15 expected it to be, they found it beneficial for their 16 reputations in the community in the long run.
17 Also, another very interesting finding is that we 18 have learned that the participation of national 19 nongovernmental organizations such as your NRDCs, your EDFs, 20 have received very mixed reviews from other stakeholders.
21 This surprised us. In some projects the participation of 22 the national -- and I'll just say NGOs -- the national NGOs 23 was consistent, timely,'and really helped the project ]
l 24 process to move forward. And too the local stakeholders 25 ~gave national NGOs very high praise for being helpful to O
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7 177 1 them by bringing expertise to the table that the local 2 citizens felt that they themselves lacked.
3 On other projects, however, the participation of 4 national NGOs was perceived as being inconsistent, late, 5 difficult to predict, and in some cases undercutting the 6 goals and desires of the local community.
7 The national nongovernmental organizations' 8 approach was perceived as intervention and believed by the j i
9 local citizens to be disconnected from what they were trying 10 to do, and we think -- we're not exactly sure, I don't want 11 to speak for the communities when I just -- but I'd like to 12 just suggest as to why we found that disconnection.
13 I believe that part of it was because the national 14 NGOs are much more considered with the effects of a 15 site-specific project on the implications of national 16 regulations and national policy and national guidance. They 17 felt that this could be precedent-setting, and therefore if 18 there was1something that they were nervous about or didn't 19 understand, their goal was to stop it, not even to discuss 20 it, but to stop it, whereas local communities, when you're 21 talking about a site-specific effort where they were assured 22 and sure.that the companies were not going to do anything !
23 that was jeopardizing them in their local area, they were '
24 much more willing to go along with an innovative project 25 idea and not necessarily interested in the national l
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178 1 implications of an unusual or flexible process.
2 .To try to get beyoN this local versus national 3 issue, XL took the time to define different tiers of public 4 participation. For us direct participants are involved in 5 the day-to-day aspects of project negotiations. You must 6 sign on-to be a direct participant as a national or local 7 stakeholder and they influence the design and development of 8 the project and they may also influence EPA's ultimate 9 decision to go forward, but they have to be prepared to make 10 a time commitment in the project.
11 Commenters are stakeholders who have an interest 12 in the project but do not participate on the day-to-day
)
13 negotiations and project development. EPA requires sponsors 14 to provide information to potential commenters and create 15 periodic forums in which they can express their comments.
16 That may be through periodic public meetings or through the 17 Federal Register or other means.
- l 18 The general public is involved -- that is our 19 third tier -- is involved by having clear access to 20 information on the development and environmental results of 21 the project on an ongoing basis and we expect them to l 22 arrange public information or rather the project sponsors 23 who arrange public meetings where information is available 24 and allowing opportunities for the public to influence the .
25 decision-making.
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e
.179 1 Where we can, EPA also encourages viable links
() 2 3
between the national and local groups who are interested in individual XL projects when a direct participant role is not 4 feasible for the national groups.
5 With a major goal of facilitating more timely 6' participation with national NGOs in the commenter role EPA 7 is currently compiling an XL Commenters List that will 8 assist the agency in notifying any NGO when a proposed 9 project is covering a topic they have shown interest in 10 before.
11 Our final finding on what we have been learning 12 about public interest and participation is that it may drop 13 off~significantly once a project is in the implementation 14 stage. This surprised us. We expected it to be even more
() 15 intensive but it seems that once you have broke through what 16 the project is going to be and once they are getting 17 information, knowing that the project is either working or 18 they understand what the status of the project is, the 19 . day-to-day interest in the project drops off quite a bit.
20 We are not absolutely sure that it's because they 21 are sure of the project. It may also be because the !
22 technical nature of the project is too much for sustained 23 interest. We have heard a little bit of that, but until we i 24 understand this trend we are going to focus our future EPA 25 evaluations to get a better understanding of this.
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Fr )
180 s 1 As a final point I will quickly wrap up by saying 2 that there are things outside of XL that the agency is doing 3 in order to gain better experience and expertise on 4 community involvement. In fact, EPA now is going to have 5 its second annual Community Involvement Conference coming up !
- 6. -in May and I don't have the details on that but I can
~
'7 certainly send it back to you all later.
8- We also have what we call a Stakeholder 9 Involvement Action Plan where we are looking to do research 10 on what different EPA programs have learned about their
.11 experiences in implementing stakeholder involvement in 12 public participation mechanisms, and also I would like to 13 point out that the Superfund program has a very long history 14 of building a stakeholder involvement component, and if you 15 haven't had them come speak to you, I would recommend that 16 -you do that, and again I can supply you with names of people 17 to do that, because I think there are a lot of parallels 18 because of the kinds of hazardous waste issues that they are 19 handling that you all may learn from if you haven't already.
20 DR. GARRICK: Thank you. Questions? )
l 21 DR. HORNBERGER: Is XL still in EPA's view sort of l 22 in a pilot stage? Is there a plan to move this -- have you 23 learned enough to do a lot-more of these or are these so 24 energy-intensive because they are specific that they are 25 going to remain sort of just a small fraction of EPA's --
l O -
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181 1 MS. DAWES: That is a. great question and it is one
() 2 that we not debate but one that we consider regularly.
\
3: Our goal is to have 50 XL projects by 1998 We have 4 11. We have 27 -- or rather 1999 we have 11 in 5 implementation.
6 We think we are on track to have 50 but we don't 7 know when we will have 50. Clearly we hope to have it 8 before Year 2000. )
9 We pretty sure that XL will -- the program itself 10 will'stop once we get to 50 projects. The question is what 11- is the life after XL and how are we going to integrate what 12 we have learned about running innovative experimental 13 projects into the agency culture as a whole, and we are 14 having a-lot of input from people as to how we do that.
() 15 Ours is not the only program that is working with 16 experimental items. There's also an agreement we have with 17 the Environmental Commissioners of the States.-- oh, boy, I l
18 hope I had that'right -- ECOS, which similarly to XL is 19 designed to have innovative projects that are more focused 20 on what state interests and so between those two programs we ,
1 21 should be able to decide in Year 2000 I think is going to be l 22 the crucial year for us what is life after 50, as we like to 1
23 say. i 24 DR. HORNBERGER: You probably have seen there was l 25 an Academy report that came out perhaps a year or two ago on i
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i 182 1 1 basically barriers to innovative technologies, cleanup A 2 t i technologies --
U 3 MS. DAWES: Right.
4 "
DR. HORNBERGER: Of course, one of the things they 5 point out is are some of the difficulties with the standard 6 regulatory approach that presumably a program like XL could 7 overcome -- l 8 MS. DAWES: That's right.
9 DR .. HORNBERGER: -- and so is that part of your I l
10 thinking?
11 MS. DAWES: That is certainly a part of our 12 thinking. We do have some projects that have incorporated 13 innovative technology into the overall project effort. We 14 haven't had a project that directly gets to the type of
.O
(_,g) 15 innovative technology that you are talking about.
16 Our first projects operating under Superfund, 17 which as I said, I think the program that most parallels 18 what you all do here, is focused on stakeholder involvement, 19 having a more intensive stakeholder involvement component 20 than it would otherwise, interestingly enough, and the goal !
21 of that is to ensure that the cleanup is done -- that there 22 is a stakeholder involvement process in the cleanup so that 23 redevelopment at that site has already incorporated what the 24 community's goals are at that site, so yes, it is a very 25 interesting project -- and that is the Exxon Project we
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183 1 have ---it is not signed but it is one that has been
() .2 - proposed in the Federal Register and we expect it to be a 3 final project agreement sometime this spring.
4 DR ~. GARRICK: Some programs have groups that are 5 . called Citizen Advisory Groups.
6- MS. DAWES: Sure, yes.
7 DR. GARRICK: Now is this as far as you know 8 taking advantage of that experience --
9 MS. DAWES: Yes.
10 DR. GARRICK: -- or is this a similar kind of 11 activity is one question, and in relation to that, some j I
12 problems that have developed with the Citizen Advisory 13 Groups is that certain special interest groups have sort of 14 taken over the Citizen' Advisory Group.
\_ ,/ 15 How do you protect against that sort of thing and 16 the first question was, of course, are you familiar with the 17 Citizen Advisory Groups.
18 MS. DAWES: Yes. Citizen Advisory Groups really
- 19 are linked to the Superfund Program.
20 DR. GARRICK: Right.
21 MS. DAWES: That is where it started. They also 22 have similar groups with the Federal Facility Cleanup 23 Programs, which I am sure you all are familiar with, so are 24 .w here I know of that the Citizen Advisory Groups are part of 25 the norm for the programs.
(
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184 L 1 In terms of working with ongoing stakeholder
()
l 2 groups where you have special interests having a strong l 3 voice, I am not sure how to answer you on that. I am not l
4 the best person to respond to that, except I can say that 5- with XL what we have tried to do is create a sense of 6 balance by saying, first of all, don't exclude -- as you 7 pull together your stakeholder involvement group, don't 8 reaching out to your critics, because if you do they are 9 going to get their way. They are going to find their way 10 onto your stakeholder involvement group anyway.
11 DR. GARRICK: Right. I don't think the issue is 12 that they shouldn't reach out. Certainly they should --
13 MS. DAWES: That'sEright.
14 DR. GARRICK: The issue is that it shouldn't be
() 15 taken over.
16 MS. DAWES: That's right, that's right, and 17 maintaining a sense of balance is challenging to say the 18 1 east. I mean we experienced that with the difference 19: between the local.and the national groups where you have 20 ' national groups who did not participate day to day and yet 21 when they weigh in for EPA we really stand up and pay 22 attention.
23 I don't know what to tell you in order to reduce 24' that, _exceptEto say that you have to keep on reaching out to 25 other groups as well, finding ways of providing -- because l,,. ANN RILEY'& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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185 1 one of the reasons I think that some of those special O
g j 2 interest groups are able to participate more in the day to 3 . day process may be because they have better technical 4 expertise.
5 DR. GARRICK: Right.
6 '@@ DR. GARRICK: Right.
7- MS..DAWES: They have accers to technical 8 assistance. If you make access to technical assistance 9 available to the general -- to other members of the general 10 public, people who have interest in participating _but won't 11 do it without feeling like they can come to the table and 12 speak intelligently about the issues, then I think that !
13 that's maybe one of the ways that you can help get more 14 balance.
15 DR, GARRICK: Does the potential exist for more 16 than one stakeholder' group per project?
17- MS. DAWES: Absolutely.
18 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
19 MS. DAWES: Absolutely. When we say the- I 4
20 stakeholder involvement group, we are assuming for XL that 21 there is a series of different types of representatives.
22 They may be private citizens representing themselves. They 23- may be representing the local church, the local 24' environmental organization, as well as the national 25 environmental or State environmental organizations.
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186 1 DR. GARRICK: When do you think you'll have enough
() l2 experience with this process through the pilot programs 3 to --
4 MS, DAWES: Well, we think we have a lot of 5- experience'now, but I_think.it's one of those areas where 6; you never stop --
7 DR GARRICK: Um-hum.
8 MS. DAWES: Learning. And each -- what we've 9' found is consistent with XL projects is that each XL project 10 is different. So because we -- I think the one area in 11 which we.are quite sure of ourselves is saying that whatever 12 ' process you do initiate,'it has to be clear and transparent, 13 and it has_to focus on building credibility and face-to-face
-14 trust, 15 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
16 MS. DAWES: And without those components, no model' I
17 is going to work, l 18 DR.-HORNBERGER: One of the things that -- well, 19 the terms that we use now quite frequently and you're 20 probably familiar with is risk-informed, performance-based 21 regulation, and --
22 MS, DAWES: Sure.
23 DR. HORNBERGER: Clearly XL is performance-based.
24 There's just no --
25' MS. DAWES: Yes, sir. Right.
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18's 1 DR. HORNBERGER: ' Doubt about it. To what extent
() 2 do you see it having the risk-informed aspect, and how do 3 the stakeholders -- again, how do you communicate this 4 aspect to the stakeholders?
5 MS. IN4WES : Could you help me more with the 6' risk-informed part?
7 DR. HORNBERGER: Yes, well,'I mean, the 8 risk-informed would have to do with the whole idea of there 9 being risks associated --
l 10 MS. DAWES: All right. Okay.
11 DR. HORNBERGER: Residual risks associated with 12 whatever activity you're doing.
13 MS. DAWES: I understand.
14 DR. HORNBERGER: And how do stakeholders buy into (O,) 15 that. '
.16 MS. DAWES: Yes. The key to getting them to buy 17 into any risk associated with these projects is that the
- 18. goal of the project is to produce superior environmental ;
19 performance in the first place, and we also work to ensure 20 that there's no transferring of risk from one media to i
21 another. In other words, if the project is going to reduce 22 risk in air, if it's increasing risk in water, that's not 23 superior environmental performance for us.
24 So by putting that into place, more communities 25' 'are willing to take a risk on a new way of doing things, and
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I 188 1 by ensuring -- the other key that we're finding is by
() 2 finding ways to communicate the results of a project in very l 3 straightforward and technical yet simple terms so that 4 people.are assured that they understand what the monitoring
.5 of the project is and how the project is doing. And what we 6 built into the whole process is should a project not be
- 7. working in sustaining superior environmental performance, 8 we're looking for ways to find a " soft landing" so that they 9 can return toltheir traditional ways.of doing things to get 10 back to the baseline that they were at before.
11 DR. WYMER: To what extent do you think tl:at the
-12 very nature of the EPA. organization and its mission gives 13 you sort of a leg up in credibility, and how do you try to 14 capitalize on this if it's true?
- 15. MS. DAWES: It doesn't give us a leg up in 16 credibility.necessarily. With some groups that's true.
I 17 With many groups it's not. I've been at many a public 18 meeting at which I can assure yon EPA was not considered the 19 guy'in the white hat -- gray at best.
20 So what I will say, though, I think that because 21 EPA has been on the front lines of people's thinking about 22 environmental cleanup that we have been forced to learn a j 23 lot about working with the public and risk communication, 24 But again I'll say we have a long way to go, and a lot of 25 our learning has been very recent, because making the shift l
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189 1 ~from communicating in a forum that is normal for engineers V)
I '2 and lawyers has been hard for us to do, so it's -- I think 3 we have a long way to go.
4 DR. WYMER: That's disappointing.
5 DR. GARRICK: Any other questions? Lynn.
6 MS. DEERING: Yes, a quick question, please.
7 You mentioned that the risk communication -- you 8 are starting to get an education in that more and more. Do 9 you mean across the whole EPA? Is there interest in your 10- average engineer or scientist, you know, getting training on 11 that specifically?
12 MS. DAWES: I would say five or six years ago my {
13 answer to that would be no. I think today most EPA staff 14 recognize the need to be able to communicate well with the
.(-
(,,) 15 public, and to communicate simply and honestly with the 16 public, and that the goal is not to deluge them with so much 17 information that they don't want to, you know, ask you any 18 more questions, but the goal is to really hear and )
19 understand the questions that they're asking.
20 I think we now -- we're having under way a new 21 Environmental Information Office. It's not in place yet, 22 but we're transitioning to that. And one of the major goals 23- of that office will be to develop policies and mechanisms 24 for better presenting technical information and providing 25 technical information to the public.
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t 190 1 MS. DEERING: What was that office called? ,
,cs; j-
\
l '2 MS. DAWES: It's going to be the Office of 1 3 Environmental Information.
L I 14 MS. DEERING: Okay.
5 MS. DAWES: It's under way. It has not --
l 6 DR. GARRICK: Any other questions? !
1 7 MR. HAMDAN: My name is Latif Hamdan. I'm with 8 NRC Division of Waste Management.
9 Actually I have two questions, but they are 10 related. The first question is to the previous speakers. I 11 didn't have a chance to'ask it, and let me ask it first.
12 And that is, there was mention of the importance of the 13 image and credibility to communication of risk, and I just 14 wanted to'ask if considering the problems, the image (Os/ 15' problems that the industry had in the past, if there was any 16- effort to have risk communication training specifically
- 17. targeting this rehabilitation of this image.
18 .The question,for the EPA is are there any negative 19 aspects of XL like, for example, delays and costs and even 20 so much ---even conservatism in the rules ultimately because
.21 you'see this -- or if the program is so good that the 22 nuclear industry can-use to rehabilitate their image maybe.
23 Thanks.
24 MS. DAWES: Of course the program is great. The 25 program is great; XL is great ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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191 1 No, XL is not perfect by any means. It's a very
( 2 difficult program to manage. It frankly is recovering in 3 the last year from three years of difficulties in how we 1
i 4 manage the process. It took very long. The transactions 5 costs were great.. People were unhappy. And so we're really 6 working on rehabilitating our own image right now.
7 In terms of working with the nuclear industry, I 8 would assume and suppose that if there was a project that 9 came in, a proposal that came to EPA, that we would consider 10 it as we would consider any other project. We have projects 11 that we're considering with the chemical industry, so --
12 which I think also has certain image problems.
13 But I think the key to remember is that with the 14 XL program, the only way for a project sponsor to A)
N 15 participate is for it to be one -- for its proposal to be 16' providing superior environmental performance, as I talked 17 about before, and also XL has a compliance screening process 18 where if a sponsor has had regular day-to-day noncompliance 19 with EPA's or a State's regulations, we're not going to move 20 forward on the proposal. So those are the two mechanisms l 21 that XL used.to ensure that when we move forward with a 22 project, the project sponsor is able to manage the process.
23 As to the other program, I can't respond.
24 DR. FAIRHURST: John?
25 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
I l
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E 192 l' DR. FAIRHURST: Just a comment. It was EPA that
(( ) 2 regulated or decided to give the license for WIPP, and I was 3- in the audience'when I heard one of the intervenors say we 4 have been betrayed by the one agency we'd learned to trust.
5 So.once you get associated with nuclear --
6 MS. DAWES: Yes.
7 [ Laughter.]
8 DR. FAIRHURST: There are certain things that are
)
9 difficult. 1 i
)
1CL DR. GARRICK: Thank you very much.
11 I think we have learned about a very important 12 program, and we want to learn a good deal more. So maybe 13 down the road a little we can hear some more about it.
14 MS. DAWES: Certainly.
)
) 15 DR. GARRICK: So thank you for coming.
16 MS. DAWES: Thank you.
17 DR. GARRICK: I think we're right on schedule, and 18 we will adjourn for lunch now and reconvene at 1:30.
19 [Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the meeting was 20 recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., this same day.]
21
, 22 23 i
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193 1 AFTERNOON SESSION
() 2 (1:32 p.m.]
'3 DR. GARRICK: The meeting will come to order. We 4 have a~very interesting opportunity this afternoon to meet 5 with Dr. Bill Travers and Carl Paperiello and have a little 6 bit of a face-off with respect to issues and tcpics. I 7 .think that one of the things we want to get out of this is 8 an opportunity to maybe better coordinate with your office 9 on some of the issues that you see that are important that 10 we might offer advice on.
11 We have heard a good deal about the cultural 12 change that is taking place at the NRC and how implementing 13 that cultural change is presenting some problems with 14 respect to resources to carry on the other initiatives that O
L k ,/ 15 you have in place. So it is a time when we need to be very 1
L 16 careful in our decision-making about what we offer advice 17 on, and so this, we hope, will provide us additional 18, information to help us make good decisions in that regard.
19 One of the things _that we thought might be a 20 reasonable preamble to the discussion would be to give a 21 brief overview of what the committee has been up to for the i 1
22 last year or so, and the staff person that has been helping ;
1 2
.3 us be organized in that regard is Lynn Deering, and so we 24 are going to continue to lean on her for that kind of 25 information, and I have asked her if she would give a brief i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l' Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ;
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E i
194 1 summary of some of those activities as a possible framework
,a
! t 2 for our discussion.
LJ 3 But, anyway, we are very happy you are here and we 1
4 hope that this is the beginning of something that happens 5 quite routinely.
6 DR. TRAVERS: Thank you very much. Before Lynn 7 goes, if you will just spare me a moment I will respond 8 briefly.
9 DR. GARRICK: Sure.
10 DR. TRAVERS: I am glad to be here, glad for the 11 opportunity. I am relatively new in my position, it has I
12 been a little over six months now, but I have been looking 13 forward to meeting with the members of the committee.
14 Certainly, we are open to any ideas you have or 15 maybe we have for better coordination. But I think -- it is li our perception that we have some pretty good mechanisms in 17 place through Carl and his senior staff generally to assure 18 that we are well coordinated. In fact, I have seen your i
19 proposed action plan and some of the informal comments I 20 think you have received to date have given you some sense of 21 views on some of this.
22 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
23 DR. TRAVERS: I would be glad to enter into 24 discussions today a little bit further on that. I should 25 point out that Frank Miraglia, who I have sort of
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195 1- sequestered on budgetary issues, you mentioned the
() 2 ever-pressing issue of resources.
'3 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
4 DR. TRAVERS: And it is certainly one we face 5 seemingly every year, about'this time in particular, because 6 of the sessions that we are called into. Frank would love 7 to be here. He-is unfortunately tied up. It was him or me 8 and I opted to keep him pressed on the budget, so we are 9 going-to let him move forward in that regard. But I know he 10 will look forward to perhaps coming to your next meeting if 11' that is something we can arrange.
12 DR. GARRICK: Great.
13 DR. TRAVERS: .But I will turn it over to Lynn.
11 4 DR. GARRICK: Okay.
15 MS.'DEERING: Thank you. I am just going to take 16 a few minutes. Forgive.me if I say something that you 17 already~are aware of, but we are just going to give you an 18 overview of some of the planning, our planning process, and 19 it is new as of two years ago. .This was the second year 20 that we developed an action plan and the committee believes 21 that~it has really helped'them focus their efforts and 22 produce some tangible results, that, you know, we weren't
<23 totally sure you were-aware of,what we were up to.
l 24 So, in addition to the two strategic plans we also 1-25 produced a self-assessment and that came out only about two l
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l 196 1 weeks ago, and it is a rather thick document. But it was an
?
,m
( ) 2 attempt to look at outcomes, measure the committee's
%J 3 outcomes relative to metrics that we selected. And we 4 learned a lot in that process as well.
5 I also wanted to mention, typically, we take the 6 action plan and we try to coordinate that with the 7 Commissioners and their technical assistants and get their 8 buy-in -- Do you think we are on the right track? -- before 9 we go down the path. And the Commissioners have encouraged 10 the committee to -- before I say that, there is basically 11 three areas. The committee does some self-initiated work, 12 things that they believe the Commission ought to be worrying 13 about that perhaps it is not, and the Commission encourages 14 them to do that. So that is one area that we feel there has 15 been some real accomplishments in.
16 They also respond to the staff, as you know. And, 17 in addition, they -- what is the third category? Things 18 that are most urgent to the Commission, requests from the 19 staff and self-initiated, those are the three.
20 In doing our self-assessment, we thought that some 21 of our most important accomplishments and most effective 22 were the self-initiated. And just a couple of examples this 23 year on topics that were self-initiated include the LNT, the 24 status of the LNT model, which took place a few months ago.
25 And that, we had the endorsement of several Commissioners to l
, /x '
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r 197 1 go ahead and move forward in that area.
() 2 The topic of risk communication this morning. We 3 spent the morning looking at that topic and there are plans 4 for the rest of this to also have more initiatives on risk 5 communication.
6 DR. TRAVERS: Is October a workshop or a working 7 meeting?
8 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
)
9 DR. TRAVERS: I saw some particularly --
10 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
11 MS. DEERING: Yes.
12 DR. GARRICK: we.are going to see what we have 13 learned.
14; MS. DEERING: Right. That is the idea, is to get b 15- an education and then go use it.
16 And I also wanted to mention the_ viability
- 17. assessment comments that the committee made, because that 18 was, again, what we would call a request from the Commission i l
19 and'we felt that was effective, and that it is being sent l i
20 along to the DOE along with the staff's comments.
I 21 Last year, some of the accomplishments of the 22- committee were -- again, that were self-initiated or 1
23- Commission requests were the efforts to try to help make 10 24 CFR 63'more risk-informed'and the topic of dropping the l 25 subsystem requirements. And the committee feels they had
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198 1 some influence on how that regulation turned out, and they l
l .( :2 are proud of that. And they also made comments on the
\_
3 risk-informed, performance-based white paper at the request ,
1 4 of the Chairman last year. And, again, that was what we 5 would consider in our self-assessment a successful outcome.
l 6 DR. TRAVERS: It had a long incubation period, but
)
7 I think it turned out right at the end.
8 DR. GARRICK: Yes, it did. We thought maybe for a 9 while our comments put it to bed.
10 MS. DEERING: I was coordinating with Dan Martin 11 last week ~and provided him a copy of some of the -- these 12 are beans as opposed to outcomes, but some of the statistics 13 for this year, what we have some far, and just very 14 generally, of our five first tier priorities, we have first
) 15 and second tier priorities, the committee has already looked 16 or has already addressed all five of those, with the 17 exception of risk communication, there is not a letter yet, 18 but that is forthcoming.
19- And they have addressed two out of six cr their 20 second tier priorities already this year. And the 21 effectiveness of that advice and those letters will be 22 evaluated this fall when we do another self-assessment.
23 And I just wanted to wrap up by saying that the 24 committee advises the Commission, of course, but they 25 consider the staff a key primary customer of the advice, and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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199 1 the committee' believes that its independent oversight role
() 2 3
dobs add value.to the NRC's process and helps with credibility in the stakeholders' eyes. And we hope that you 4 agree.as well that the committee does add value to the 5 staff's work.
6 DR. TRAVERS: We do, I should add.
l l
l 7 MS. DEERING: There is a commitment in the l 8 strategic plan -- by the way, our '99 one is about to come 9 out in this little format -- to work with the staff in an i 10 environment of mutual problem-solving. And the committee 11 has made a real sincere attempt to try to do that and l
l 12 continues to try to do that, and we all look forward to-13 working with the staff this year in that regard. Thank you.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Thanks very much.
() 15 DR. GARRICK: Thank you, Lynn.
16 DR. TRAVERS: You mentioned one thing and maybe I 17_ can ask you a question about it, because I do have a list of
.18 your first and second tier items, and you have identified ,
}
19 several different groupings under which these particular
'20 items might fall,_self-initiated being one. Commission or 21 staff -- I guess staff requested or Commission requested.
- 22. And I was wondering if you could just briefly l
23~ identify for me, I was just curious as I went through these, 24 which ones fell into which category. I have a list but it 25 wasn't. clear. The first one was viability assessment.
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p 200 1 DR. GARRICK: I don't have a list in front of me.
2 ,Well, is this --
l 3 DR. TRAVERS: I have this one. I could guess at l'
4 the ones the staff probably -- I mean I am sure this would l
5 be us, the staff.
l 6 DR.-LARKINS: Some of these issues are developed l 7 from'the '98 strategic plan, and then the Commission will 8 endorse or~ask the committee to do something additional.
9 Like on the first one, the VA, there was pretty much a 10 strong Commission. interest in having the committee's views 11 on that. And in addition to doing a report, .they also came 12 in for a special Commission briefing on that subject.
13 DR. GARRICK: Well, a summary of this, Dr.
14 Travers, is that the LNT and the risk communication are r
k_ ,
15 self-initiated. But'I think the rest of these are pretty
~ 16 much Commission or staff requested.
17 DR. TRAVERS: Or staff, yes.
18 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
19 DR. LARKINS: But even on the LNT, I think it was 20 first suggested by at least one Commissioner that the 21 committee take a look at the set, after which there were two 22 other Commissioners who requested that the committee keep 23' them abreast of what was going on in this particular area.
24 DR. GARRICK: Right.
25' DR. TRAVERS: There is certainly going on l
1 I .
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L f 201 .
L l 1 internationally and even nationally in this realm, so I can
() -2 understand how that outcome ultimately could affect some of 3 the key parameters, for example, the high level waste 4 repository and some of the design issues. But you are i
E 5 staying on top of it, I think is good. l 6: DR. GARRICK: Yes. Well,.our thought here is to
( 7 monitor it and have a meeting on it based on what we see 8 from'our monitoring,'and right now that seems to be 9 happening about every one to one-and-a-half years. ,
10 DR. TRAVERS: I see.
11 DR. GARRICK: And if there is a major event such 12 as the NCRP report, we try to time a consideration of it 13 when there is new information about to be published.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Yeah, I know. I talked to Dr.
15 Thadani -- Mr. Thadani on the way over here, and he 16 mentioned that there is some considerable work going on in 17 the Office of Research, you know, sor; of-in the national,
, 18 international. front. It would probably be useful from time l
19 to time for us to give you, even from the research 20 perspective, some sense of what we are learning in this 21 realm.
22 As we go forward, maybe we can go into that some.
'23' DR. GARRICK: Right. We learned from our working 24 group that DOE is some research into the LNT area as well-l 25 and we hope to be able to note in our letter where we think
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202 1 the strengths-and weaknesses are with respect to what we 2 know and what we don't know.
3 DR. TRAVERS: It certainly has some large 4 . implications for waste generally --
5 DR. GARRICK: Right.
6 DR. TRAVERS: -- but certainly for the High Level 7 Waste Program in particular.
8 'DR. LARKINS: John, could I add one other thing?
9 Len mentioned the three areas ~the Commission requested, 10 Staff requested and so I'll finish it. There are also 11 individual issues that Commissioners will raise from time to 12 time, some of which if they are of a generic nature the 13 committee would considel. Others which are more specific 14 individual issues like the Trojan vessel and some of the O
V- 15 other things, the Envirocare issue, the committee because of 16 timing and resources doesn't take up in its workload.
17 There are a number of other issues that do come up
- 18. from time to time.
19 DR. GARRICK: 'Yes, and you talked earlier about
- 20. limited resources and no matter how much we try to 21 systematize the process of priorities and select things 22- particularly with respect to self-initiated there are things 23 that we would like to address that either time doesn't 24 . permit or it competes with something, and of course we have 25 . learned about.a couple of those and that is one of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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203 1 reasons we want to get input from you especially prior to 2
[u )\ our next planning session, because there is a sense that 3 there's a couple of projects that we could have addressed or 4 provided advice on that we did not.
5 We would like to reduce those as close to zero as 6 we possibly can. I think one of those was the West Valley 7 Project, that it was brought to our attention that maybe we l
8 could have provided some advice on that and it just got l 9 caught in competition with other issues and we were unable 10 to do so.
11 DR. TRAVERS: Are there other matters of that sort 12 that we have identified a potential for coming before ACNW?
13 DR. PAPERIELLO: I don't know, but one of the 14 things is we have an operating plan and I don't think
() 15 there's much I do that is not in our operating plan. If you 16 will look through the operating plan, unfortunately the 17 operating plan for NMSS is about this thick and I don't 18 think, as I said, that there is much I do that is not in 19 there.
20 From my viewpoint West Valley was -- I am not 21 saying it wasn't important, it was all important, but it was 22 two FTE out of a 450 FTE program that I am running and some 23 of the problems there is I was not here for three months 24 last year, and there's a number of projects where there was
'25 a break and that was one of them -- has affected how the I~ ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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204 1 thing went.
O}
r 2 Yes, looking in retrospect you probably should 3 have looked at it, but I don't know what else is in there, 4 since there's just a whole lot of -- I just have a whole lot 5 of things on my plate. It wasn't a question of conscious 6 decision. It was just shells going overhead.
7 DR. GARRICK: But it is my understanding that some 8 of the key issues that through Carl we have identified 9 certainly include Part 63, which you helped with --
10 DR. PAPERIELLO: Right.
11 DR. GARRICK: -- and you have identified that, f
12 Lynn. Yucca Mountain Review Plan, more recently. We are 13 looking at clearance rulemaking and the decommissioning 14 program, decommissioning standard review plan, which we
) 15 think the committee can add value to as well. I 16 DR. PAPERIELLO: Part 40.
17 DR. GARRICK: Part 40?
18 DR. PAPERIELLO: We owe the Commission a paper in 19 September on Part 40. Part 40 has been ducked by -- for god 20- knows.how many. years. There's two pieces of Part 40, 21 because I am going to probably suggest to the Commission we 22 do it piecemeal.
23- One deals with all the exemptions and the GLs that 24 we have authorized, which were never done from a viewpoint 25' of public health and safety but were done from the viewpoint l
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1 205 1 of control of strategic material historically, but the other (O / 2 piece is the threshold, the 500 parts per million or either 3 something not being source material or being exempted.
4 That is going to be an incredibly difficult thing 5 to deal with because there is no health-based way to move 6 that number without getting us into regulating TENORM, and I 7 just don't think we want to regulate TENORM and licensing in 8 particular is not any way to regulate TENORM, so the 9 question comes down to how do we handle that problem.
10 I had an offsite retreat about two months ago. I 11 think we did a good job in defining the problem. I have a l
12 proposal for what I call an interim fix and then a proposal 13 for a long-term fix, long-term fix meaning legislation, but s 14 I think that would be something that we ought to share with 15 you. It is not an easy problem because the numbers were i 1
picked in 1947 and they were picked from the viewpoint of l
16 j 17 national security and the goal was to ensure that every 18 extractable gram of uranium wound up in Uncle Sam's 19 enrichment plants for weapons and wasn't wasted on other j l
20 things, and then as uranium became more and more plentiful )
21 the regulations were revised to allow more material to flow 22 into, say, researcher's hands or things like that, but 23 nothing was ever done from the viewpoint of radiation 24 prctection.
25 The more I think about it, and I am glad you
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206 1 raised the issue.
() 2 3
DR. TRAVERS: And that is an interesting one, and as I understand it the Spent Fuel Program office reviews or 4 at least activities are going to be briefed to the committee 5 as well some time later this summer. l I
6 DR. PAPERIELLO: I think one thing to do is having 7 the Staff go through our operating plan and see if there's 8 issues in there. We may not have thought they involved I 9 waste but Part 40, I mean it is all entangled in there and ,
l 10 the exemption gets heavily involved in waste disposal. If I j l
11 have waste and it is less than 500 parts per million, does l i
12 it then automatically exempt (c) in Part 30 -- you can't i
{
13 throw material over the fence. You can't distribute stuff 14 that is exempt automatically but Part 40 doesn't have that D
) 15 restriction.
16 DR. TRAVERS: Well, and that is certainly one way 17 to look at it, but I think we would like to go through that I l
18 same operating plan and give you -- I mean we have been 19 giving you a sense that the key issues that we think, at f 20 least from our perspective, selfish as it may be, that the 21 committee ought to focus on Part 63, some of the key 22 technical issues --
1 23 DR. PAPERIELLO: Right. ]
1 24 DR. TRAVERS: -- in the High Level Waste Program )
25- and so forth -- you know, we feel rise to the top, or fx ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- I hopefully can be seen by the committee as rising to the top
() 2 of your activity level and we will certainly take another 3 look at the operating plan, but we will give you a copy as 4 well.
5 DR. LARKINS: The ACNW does have an operating plan
'6 themselves and we try to make sure there is some connection 7 at.least in the timing of things between the two, and also 8 when we.look at. plant activities or accomplishments for the 9 year. We try to compare it with those which are published 10 or available from NMSS also.
11 DR. PAPERIELLO: But the big ticket items, at 12- least in the coming year, still are going to involve high 13 . level waste. The EIS for Yucca Mountain is clearly right 14 now the next big high level waste big ticket. It is kind of
() 15 in parallel with where we go with Part 63, and then of 16- course if the EPA does in fact promulgate a Yucca Mountain 17 standard over the next several months -- I mean a week ago 18 it was going to be last Monday. Well, obviously it wasn't 19 . happened.
12 0 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
21- DR. TRAVERS: I was interested to see of your 22 intsrest in risk communication. I think I know, Dr.
23 Garrick, you have had an interest in this area for some time 24- .and just generally you have talked about some of the work we 1
25 have been doing to formalize some of our outcome based l l
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208 1 planning and certainly public confidence has been recognized
[)
v 2 by the Staff as a goal that we need to actively consider as 3 we move forward in a number of initiatives that we have 4 underway, not just initiatives but in sort of our day to day 5 planning efforts.
6 I would be interested in understanding perhaps !
7 just a little bit better about what your focus is or at 8 least activities or at least where you think you see 9 yourselves heading in that regard, because it can be, as you 10 know, it can be a fairly broad area.
11 DR. GARRICK: Well, it is. I once got myself in 12 great trouble with my risk communication colleagues by 13 telling them I thought it was about a half-hour subject and 14 I have learned a little differently, being a risk assessor
(~
(,g/ 15 not a risk communicator.
16 I argued that one of the things that is required 17 in order to have effective risk communication is to have 18 effective knowledge of what the risks are, and that we need 19 to do that. On the other hand, I have since seen the light 20 as far as the importance of risk communication, partly as a 21 result of participation on this Committee, and having some 22 genuine field experience in being in the cross-fire of a 23 public forum meeting and understanding the kinds of 24 questions that people in the local communities of these 25 facilities, the kinds of questions that they have on their
/)
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209 1 mind, and have gained a great deal of appreciation for it.
() 2 That had something to do with thinking that maybe we better 3 give this topic more attention.
4 But'what we're really trying to do is look at it 5 from the standpoint of technical people and the contribution 6 that technical people can make to the whole process of risk 7 communication. We are not public relations experts. We're 8 not even holding ourselves out as risk communicators. We're.
9 technical people trying to understand what the problems are I
10 and offer rational, reasonable advice on them.
11 But I do believe that what we have learned is that 11 2 communication with the stakeholders, understanding their j 13 problems, and more importantly, conveying to stakeholders 14 that you're interested in their problems as well as
() 15
~
understanding them, and that you are, to the extent that i
16 your charter allows, providing a service to the 17 stakeholders. So we thought that well, in order for us to 18 be an effective instrument in this whole process, that we 19 needed to learn a lot more about it and to do a lot of 20 listening.
21 And to the extent that we can be a player in the 22- process, we will, but we, as I've said, we recognize.that 23 our principal role is to offer technical advice, but that j 24- offering _of technical advice in itself is a kind of a form !
25 of risk communication, especially with an agency that's l
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210 1 transitioning to a. risk-informed way of practicing J2' regulation. So that's kind of behind why we're doing this, 3 and based'on what we've heard,'at least so far, I think 4 we're inclined to think that it was probably a good decision 5' that we do something about it, and we're looking forward to 6 our working group Dession in October, putting some of it to
~7 practice and'seeing what happened, fully recognizing that, 8 you know, there is some risk of doing that. But I think 9 'we're prepared to deal with that.
10 .DR. PAPERIELLO: Can I make an observation here, 11 because - only because-I.also saw a draft Commission SRM i
12' that sort of raised my eyebrow.
"13 Within NMSS the term we're using.is not "public 14 confidence" but! " stakeholder confidence," and the reason I 15 want to -- I think I need-to distinguish is stakeholder 16 confidence includes something which we call the public, 17 whatever that may be. But in my mind it also for me and for 18 us it includes the Congress, and our congressional oversight 19 committees are specific stakeholders that are interested-in j
20 what we're doing and give us direction. It includes the 21' Commission. That's a stakeholder. They give me direction.
22 Licensees who are'affected by what I'do, the industries I 23 regulate, the'public around the facilities certainly has a 24- different interest than say public that may not live around !
25 the nuclear-facility; The State and local authorities that 1
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211 1 are involved with the facilities we regulate. Our technical (n;- 2 peers, both in the United States and worldwide, and things 3 like public utility commissions.
4 So I'm kind of bothered, because when I did the 5 Arthur Andersen process within NMSS and looked at high-level 6 waste, we were very explicit in defining our stakeholders.
7 It was not just the public. There was a category of "the 8 public," but we explicitly said the Congress, the 9 Commission, the utilities, DOE, EPA. I'm just saying 10 there's been a -- I'm worried right now with some of the i
11 what I see happening is somehow this is going to public 12 - confidence, and I guess you could use the term. It's almost lI' like the kicking around what a PRA was yesterday. I kind of 14 look at stakeholder confidence being consciously aware of n
(,,) 15 some explicit special interest groups out there that we 16 interact with.
17 That's all of my observation.
18 DR. GARRICK: Well, I think one of the things that 19 a couple of the speakers observed this morning was the a l
20 importance of understanding who the stakeholders are.
21 DR. PAPERIELLO: That's exactly right.
22 DR. GARRICK: Right.
23 DR. PAPERIELLO: I don't like the idea of somehow I
24 there's a nebulous public. I think you need -- because in l 25 fact there's a lot of people who probably don't pay b)
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212 1 attention to us because they don't feel they're affected.
\ 2 DR. GARRICK: Yes. Yes. And so I think the 3 outcome of this, one of the outcomes of this whole exercise I 4 is'to put us in a better position to offer advice on 5 stakeholder participation, and we -- again, from the 6 standpoint of technical people and what role the technical 7 community can play in that overall process.
8 DR. TRAVERS: I think your expertise may be 9 particularly valuable in that realm, you know, with 10 scientific peers and some exploration of communication of 11 risk within that group in particular, not that it doesn't 12 have importance across all of the organizations that you 13 -were making reference to. Carl, I happen to agree with you.
14 I think it may be a somewhat a question of semantics, but
() 15- you participate in the process. But I think there's a good 16 recognition within the staff and within the Commission even 17 that stakeholders that we are I won't say beholden to but 18 the stakeholders who have a stake in the process are 19 numerous and certainly quite varied and can at times exert 20 great influence on us in some variety of ways, not the least 21 of which being authorizing and appropriations.
22 So, I mean, the Congress, we've certainly 23 identified the Congress of the United States as an important 24 stakeholder, and the way in which we communicate with them 25 as we go forward in a number of these realms, including the O' ANN RILEY &' ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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213
.1 one that you've'recently proffered to the Commission, and
() 2 that is your own strategy for risk-informing and 3 performance-basing, perhaps, but certainly risk-informing 4 the great variety of NMSS programs.
5 I worked in NMSS for just a few years, but I came 6 to understand after having been in the reactor program for 7 most of my career the great variety of issues over which 8 that particular program office, statutory office, has a 9 domain. And in many instances what Carl'is dealing with on 10 a day-to-day basis does not fit so very neatly into the 11 kinds of categories that we're becoming familiar at least 12 and discussing in terms of risk for commercial reactor power 13 plants. So it's even more of a challenge I think as we go 14 ' forward to look at the spectrum of activities that you'have
() 15 and find some sort of agreed-upon basis to which -- you 16 know, for which we can communicate.
17- DR. GARRICK: Right.
18 DR. TRAVERS: Particularly in a risk-informed way 19 so that we have a common understanding of some of this.
20 It4s going to be vital, I think.
21 DR. GARRICK: Yes. Well, I want to make sure that 22- the other Members of the Committee here are involved in 23 these discussions, so since we have a chance to talk to 24 these;1eaders of the Agency, if there's issues or questions 25 on your minds, don't hesitate to come forward.
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214 1 One of the difficulties of getting involved in
)f 2 this whole process is there is'a tendency to want to focus,
! 3 there's a tendency to want to see some examples, and what 4 we're hopeful of in the working group session is that while 5 the subject is rather general and broad, the subject of risk
{
6 communication, that we can look at it in the context of a i
7 particular issue or a few issues. 1 8 One issue that. keeps coming up in this business as
]
9 really sometimes considered to be a major obstacle and 10 sometimes considered to be maybe not as current as it ought 11 to be with respect to the risk perspectives is the issue of 12 transportation.
13 And I'm reminded of how big of an issue it is by a 14 project that does not come under the auspices of the NRC but
) 15 rather the EPA, and'that is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, 16 and the old joke at WIPP for a long time was that the 17 repository has been certified, but the waste has not. And 18 so we had essentially a repository with nothing to put in-19 it.
20 Well, fortunately most of those obstacles have 21 been overcome and material is on the move somewhat to the 22- repository. But one of the components for which there were l 23 lots of questions and lots of confusion was the 24 transportation, and when you start looking at the 25 requirements in transportation, they come from a whole I
l i
i
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R 215 1 battery of agencies and organizations and what have you, and
() 2 I think we -- in connection with WIPP we did a count of at 3 one time of requirements that had to be met to ship material 4 from not very far away, namely Los Alamos to Carlsbad, and 5 there were something like 4,000 requirements to ship a 6 barrel of material from Los Alamos to the Waste Isolation .
7 Pilot Plant.
8 But when you started peeling away the onion here 9 of the requirements, you found that a lot of those 10 requirements were kind of self-imposed and just came about 11 somewhat by rather strange events that occurred that 12 sometimes didn't have a great deal to do with the issue of 13' risk or the issue of safety, but were a product of the 14 management decisions at either the DOE level or the Cs s/ 15- laboratory level or what have you. And the sorting of those 16 things out finally when it was ready to ship the material 17 revealed a great opportunity for streamlining the process, 18 making it simpler without compromising anything to do with
.19 safety.
20 So I'm sure Carl has a lot to say about 21 transportation, but it is one of the areas that we had i 22- identified as possibly being a rallying point for the I
'23 discussion, for example, of risk communication, and I was 24 curious if this is something that you think would be a 25 useful application for us to consider in our discussions of
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'l risk communication.
'2 DR. PAPERIELLO: Well, I think that that would be 3 a good example, because -- and you're right about the fact 4 that there are a variety of requirements. Frankly, the lead 5 Federal' agency for transportation of course is the 6 Department of Transportation, not the NRC, because 7 radioactive material is only one of probably thousands of 8 listed hazardous materials that go, you know, in commerce 9- and on the highways, and so there are requirements.
10 I mean, I had, when I was a section chief and I 11 had to deal with just ordinary shipments, I had a book about 12 this think on my desk that listed all the requirements that 13 . dealt with transportation. Very few were toward the NRC 14 requirements. In fact, for most of what we do, we have a O
V 15 line in Part 71.that says licensees will comply with DOT 16 .-requirements. And so if you're looking at Type A shipments, 17 which in fact the bulk of radioactive material shipments 18 are, when we do an inspection we're really looking at 19 whether or not people comply with DOT -- our licensees 20 comply with DOT requirements.
21 Where we get involved is when -- because DOT says 22 hey, we don't have the expertise, you do, is when you're 23 dealing with large quantities. And so when you deal with 24 fissile material or you're dealing with Class B material, 25 large' quantities of material where you need special i
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l 217
.1 packaging and packaging that can survive accidents and the 2 like, then you wind up -- then we get involved.
3 So yes, I think that would be a good thing to 4 discuss. We have raised the issue with IAEA, because by and 5 large our requirements map IAEA -- international ,
6 requirements,.because transportation is done not only on a 7 national scale but an international scale. And so one of 1
8 the problems you have, for example, is the requirements are i k
9 not risk-informed. 'They are deterministic. And many times
- 10. they are offered by certain national authorities and enough 3 11 people decide hey, that sounds like a good idea, we do it.
12 And it doesn't have the kind of --
13 DR. TRAVERS: Some of them aren't really 14 technically based.
'15 DR. PAPERIELLO: Right. So that sort of thing.
16 So it's an -- I think it's an interesting area, and I think 17 it's clear from the pblic interactions I have had that that 18 is going to be a major issue, in whether or not you have 19 central interim storage or --
20 DR. TRAVERS: Yes. I can't think of a, you_know, 21 aside from perhaps the repository itself, you know, where 22 risk communication comes into play or will come into play in
-23 a more important way. I happen to be -- one of my previous 24 -jobs was at Three Mile Island. I was stationed on site for 25 .3-1/2 years. And one of the things that came up in the t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 84 b3
m 218 1 context of my tour up there was the shipment of the damaged (f' 2 . core off to Idaho. And perhaps nothing since the accident 3 garnered as much attention --
4 DR. GARRICK: Right.
5 DR. TRAVERS: And concern, not just locally, but 6 all along the route, as did.this plan and the ultimate 7 implementation of the plan to ship the damaged core off to 8 Idaho. So it became an important realm.in which to 9 communicate.well. And I don't know that we did all that 10 well, frankly. DOE had some primary. responsibility. We 11 were at'that time responsible for the certification of the 12 package that was used for the shipment, ultimately for the 13 equipment that's-been used-since to store that material.
14 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
15 DR. TRAVERS: But I think if you look at things 16 like the atomic train that's on people's minds today, we're-17 hearing stories about what sort.of the story line is 18 ~ associated with-that, and its implausibility, and so there's 19 a real opportunity I think for all of us to learn and 20 - practice, you know, good communications skills as it relates 21 to risk communication, particularly in the transportation 22 realm.
23- DR. GARRICK: Yes. The irony here, and Carl's 24- already alluded to it, is that there's probably no other 25- issue that stirs the emotions more than the issue of A
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219 1 transportation, and not just of nuclear materials, but all i
O
( j 2 hazardous materials and toxic substances. But on the otner l 3 hand, there's probably no other component of the whole 4 infrastructure of the nuclear program where there's less 5 risk information in terms of analysis, not necessarily in 6 terms of data, but in terms of analysis than for 7 transportation. So --
8 DR. PAPERIELLO: I'm not --
I don't know whether I 9 can agree with that.
10 DR. GARRICK: Well, that's what I wanted to stir 11 you up on a-little bit.
12 DR. PAPERIELLO: Okay. I think there's not only 13 that, there's a lot of-empirical data --
14 DR. GARRICK: Um-hum.
15 DR. PAPERIELLO: On it. Because --
16 DR. GARRICK: Well, that's why --
17 DR. PAPERIELLO: There is an awful lot of 18 shipments of waste, high-level waste, ordinary material. I 19' mean, you've got --
I think you've got a pretty good shape 20 for your risk curve. l
)
21 DR. GARRICK: Um-hum.
22 DR. PAPERIELLO: I think you've got a pretty good 23 shape -- which you don't have for a lot of other risks you 24 look at. I mean, there's -- in fact, one of the things 25 'we're going to be doing is another -- over the next couple g ANN ~RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ;
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! 220 l 1 of years as we did one several years ago as a transportation
! /'T
() 2 survey to try to get some numbers, how many shipments per
! 3 year, and how many -- look at type A shipments, of which 4 there's millions per year with nothing but ordinary 5 protection. How many of them cause a problem?
6 Now you could say well, that's not high-level 7 waste, but you can certainly take a look at accidents per 8 mile and you can -- and the packaging, type A packaging, is 9 designed to do certain things. Does it function as -- I 10 don't know how many crushed packages I wound up inspecting 11 at O' Hare Airport when I was in Region III many years ago, 12 not one of which ever leaked. So -- and these are type A 13 packages.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Is there some work being done to
('M
\_,) 15 update the modal study or some of the experience-based --
16 DR. PAPERIELLO: Well, we're looking at doing 17 that. Right now it dances around with budget constraints, 18 and we have it budgeted to do it, and if we can do it sooner 19 than later, we would like to, particularly if we can get the 20 $4 million that Congress appropriated for the MPC and get i
21 authorization to spend it, we would very much like to do a j i
22 redo, and that redo of the modal study involves the l
23 cooperation of not just the NRC but the transportation i
24 indu.3 t ry , the rails, the Department of Transportation. In l 25 other words, it's not an NRC stand-alone project.
I n
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[.
221 1 But-I think it would be a good thing for our staff 2 to talk to you about what we are doing and then look at risk 3 communication but I think the comment that we don't know 4 that much, I would just have to disagree with that.
5, -DR. GARRICK: Yes. Well, my comment was not so l
6 much that we don't know. I stated it as an exception, the 7 observation -- the data that we had -- my comment was that 8- it has not been under the microscope from a risk analysis or 9 risk assessment as much as other components, even fuel 10 reprocessing facility we have done specific, plant-specific 11 risk assessments for and fuel fabrication facilities and 12 storage facilities, and now disposal facilities. They have 13 all had accompanying with them major probabilistic based 14 either performance assessments or risk assessments.
15 DR. PAPERIELLO: About two years ago we had a 16 presentation here by I am going to say the Department of 17 Transportation, the people who deal with rails, and they not 18 only can show you, they can pull up on the computer not only 19 where all-the rails are. They ran actually give you the l
20 risk of an accident, actuarial data, on a segment by segment 21- section of track, because this is the time we were looking 22 at -- there were issues raised over the transportation of 23 foreign reactor fuel from California up to Idaho Falls, so l
24 there is a lot out there.
.25 DR. GARRICK: So this raises the real question of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'l then why is there'such an absolute fear of transportation 2 accidents where we have,-we actually have actuarial data, we 3 have lots of information, even though maybe we don't have a 4 lot of the analysis that I alluded to earlier. Why is that 5 so? Is this just a risk communication problem?
6 DR. PAPERIELLO: I think that it deals with 7 emotions. Many years ago -- many, many years ago -- when I 8 was in Region III I met with the Aurora City Council. A l 9 rail line went through the town bringing spent fuel to G.E.
10 Morris and it was a question of risk. Now having lived in
'll the Midwest for 15 years, for which there are very few l 12 overpasses or underpasses, and watching crossing gates go 13 down and start counting the diamonds, the hazardous material 14 diamonds on rail cars that go by you, there's rarely a train 15 goes by that you don't see the diamonds, and so then I 16 raised that.
17 The city fathers couldn't see the fact that --
I 18 mean in the Midwest at least you will see large railcars of 19 propane go through the suburbs. Now what happens if a 20 railcar goes over and a spark hits? Does that meet the same I
l 21 test standards as a spent fuel canister? I can assure you l 22 it doesn't but, you know, if that -- people don't do l 23 quantitative risk analysis. I think you are reaching people 24 on'an emotional level.
l 25 DR. TRAVERS: No, when you are in transportation l
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~
1 you are in the mode of delivering the goods into the
() 2 neighborhood. It's a question of optics and my back yard 3 comes into play even if you can discount the likelihood of a 4 problem with a repository for example, I think many more 5 people along the route will have legitimate concerns in 6 their minds, concerns about the risks attendant to the 7 shipment of this material to the repository, so I think that 8 is the context.
9 It doesn't mean that you can't overcome that to 10 some extent.
11 DR. GARRICK: Right.
12 DR. TRAVERS: I think some of what has been done i
13 in the Department of Energy films for example that have
-14 shown some of these packages withstanding tremendous
) 15 impacts -- )
16 DR. GARRICK: Right..
17 DR. TRAVERS: -- you know, at 80-90 miles an hour 18 when shown to people had a pretty strong impact. It doesn't 19 mean everybody gets to see them though.
i 20 DR. GARRICK: Yes. !
- 21. DR. TRAVERS: And so your sort of base case ,
22 without that kind of communication is natural fear of I 23 hazardous waste and nuclear waste even more as you get into 24 transportation.
I 25 DR. GARRICK: But in any event, if we were to j O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 224 1 utilize transportation as a model for our risk communication 2 discussions, you agree that it would be a reasonable one, a 3= reasonable choice 4 There was something else that we were talking 5 about considering.
6 MR. LARSON: Yes. Groundwater had been mentioned 7 because it is such a major issue to the people in Nevada, in 8 the West in general but in Nevada in particular.
9 .DR. GARRICK: Amargosa.
10 DR. TRAVERS: You mean in terms of the risk l 11 communication issue?
12 DP. , GARRICK: Right.
l 13 DR. TRAVERS: Oh, yes, that's certainly -- it has 14 direct applicability certainly to --
() 15 DR. GARRICK: Well, I guess what we would like to 16 .be darn sure is that if there are some issues that you 17 haven't seen on our list or that we don't have in Tier 1 l
18 that you see coming up that we ought to be alert to, this is j 19 among the times to mention them to us because -- when is our l 20 next planning exercise, Lynn? October?
21 MS. DEERING: September, i I
22 DR. GARRICK: September? Yes. So we will 1 23 obviously review the operating plan. Do you have -- yes --
24 yes?
25 DR. TRAVERS: I am not sure that we have i
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~1 identified, in fact I think we haven't identified, but I 2 -think this is a reasonable list, you know, our sort of
)
3 entreaty to you would be to give -- and I think you have 4 done that relatively will -- to give principal focus to the
]
5' kinds of things we have been talking about that have the 6 most direct applicability, some of the deliverables that we i
7 have.
8 I notice in your plan you have outcome stated -- )
')
9 DR. GARRICK: Right.
10 DR. TRAVERS: -- and strategies -- I think that 11 may not be exactly the word you used, but I think that is a 1
12 good tool for helping you focus and give us an opportunity 13 to identify where your focus is and give you some input on 14 that. I trust we have been doing that all along. !
q 15 'DR. GARRICK: Yes.
16 DR. HORNBERGER: Yes.
17 DR. TRAVERS: And we will certainly work with you
.18 to continue that. It's been working well.
19 I would be curious in terms of your question to me 20 about coordination and whether or not the committee feels 21 that you have had the kind of support and coordination from 22 the Staff that you need to plan and to ultimately implement 23 the kinds of reviews that you are most interested in.
24 DR. GARRICK: Yes, we certainly have, and as a 25 . matter of fact our one exposure to risk communication out in AN'N RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
226 1 Amargosa Valley last year, where Mike Bell accompanied us, ,
-(~g y 2 that turned out to be a very valuable resource when we got l
j 3 into the discussions with the ranchers and the people that 4 lived' locally. It was extremely helpful, and we have 5 excellent cooperation with the Staff, getting information 6 and accompanying us on such missions and discussions.
7 I think that we wanted to be darn sure that we 8 were not doing was -- we wanted to be sure we were doing was 9 communicating with the management on some sort of a periodic 10 . basis to make sure we weren't missing some issues at your 11 level that perhaps we did not have as much direct 12 information on as we might get directly from you. So, no, i 13 we have been very pleased with the coordination and 14 cooperation of the staff.
(A_,) 15 DR. TRAVERS: Good. Well, I have a pretty direct j 1Ei link to Carl bere and so we have had the good fortune to be 17 able to coordinate provide, you know, in the main, 18 information through Carl and John'Greeves, of course, to the l 19 committee and we would propose to do that in the norm and be l l
20- happy to come and sit with the committee from time to time 21 and mare sure that we are in contact.
22 DR. GARRICK: Right. And a regular agenda item 23 for the committee is to chat with John Greeves.
24 DR. TRAVERS: I know.
1 25 HDR . GARRICK: Essentially at every -- all of our !
l
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227 1 meetings. And he has been very helpful on keeping us fully
) 2 abreast of what his anxieties and concerns are.
3 DR. TRAVERS: Right. Jim Blaha in my office helps 4 coordinate the list of agenda items that we would recommend 5 be included for your consideration on your meeting list.
6 DR. GARRICK: 'Yes.
7 DR. TRAVERS: And that is a direct result of the 8 kind of continuous sort of interaction the senior management 9 team has through Carl.
10 DR. GARRICK: Right. Right.
11 DR. TRAVERS: And his team. From our perspective, 12 it is working well, 13 DR. GARRICK: Charles?
14 DR. FAIRHURST: I know that the main issue with f
' 15 Yucca Mountain right now is the TSPA and the long-term 16 releases, the long-term does. And this mainly out of my 17 ignorance, not ---I don't say anything is not being done 18 that should be done, I just don't know. But the period of 19 operation and pre-closure is going to be a significant 20 period, 50 to 100 years, and there is a lot of things that 21 will be included in the license application which will 22 relate to the operation of that place and the potential for 23 retrievability and what you do with unshielded casks and 24 tunnels, and if the roof falls in, how do you go in there 25 and get it fixed and so on.
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l 228 1 How is NOC staff positioned to look at the
( 2 adequacy of what is being proposed or not proposed?
3 DR. PAPERIELLO: What I plan on doing is swiping a 4 bunch of-people out of the spent fuel transportation 5 section, because, in fact, we are licensing all the things 6 you would do.above ground or in movement in the operating 7 phase of Yucca Mountain, we already doing. I mean, you 8 know, we are already licensing. People are already taking 9- spent fuel out of reactors, putting them in the canisters, 10 sealing up the canisters, moving the canisters around, 11 unloading canisters, that is all being done.
12 DR. TRAVERS: Is there any dry transfer systems 13 on --
14 DR. PAPERIELLO: The dry transfer system is being s) 15 reviewed right now.
l 16 DR. TRAVERS: I see.
17 DR. PAPERIELLO: So the point is, because i
18 resources were very limited in high level waste, we have 19 concentrated, up to now at least, a.1 ' our efforts in that 20 particular area in post-closure, because there are all the 21 arguments. How can you predict for 10,000 years?, and 22 things like that. But I am not ignoring the above ground 23 and the below ground, the operational aspects, because the 24 operational aspects will be -- but the operational aspects 25 are ongoing right now. Pieces of them are going in l
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229 1 different places. People handle spent fuel.
() 2 DR. FAIRHURST: But you will hear assurances from 3 DOE, and I am not saying they are not right. For example, 4 if they decide to backfill, I am saying it will not be any l 5 big deal to remotely backfill 160 drifts --
6 DR. PAPE9IELLO: DOE has not made a decision 7 whether they are going to backfill or not.
l 8 DR. FAIRHURST: I know they have not. But that is 9 -- you know, does NRC understand the possibility of 10 backfilling remotely and so on, or cot backfilling? I have 11 not seen it done before but maybe it is being done, I don't-
'12 know.
13 DR. PAPERIELLO: Well, I can't give -- ny staff 14 might be able to give the answer, I can't.
) 15 MR. REAME: I think the answer is that we are 16 waiting for that design decision, including the timing of 17 the backfill in order to get a context to respond. We would 18 like to see the proposal kind of settle down into a firm t
19 proposal.
20 DR. FAIRHURST: I understand what you are saying.
21 DR. TRAVERS: Let me ask Dr. Fairhurst, is there a 22 unique aspect that your concern suggests we might want to be 23 thinking about today that'is associated with either remote 24 backfill or the implications of some of that? I was just
! 25 curious about where your line of inquiry was headed.
l l.
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-1 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, there has been a big 13
( y 2 discussion of late about, for example, the initial design 3 _had a concrete liner and there is a great deal of concern 4 that concrete wasn't the right thing to put into the drifts, 5 and to take it out.
6 Then there was a suggestion that, from the drift 7 stability panel, that they could use' grouted bolts and that 8 that would be preferable. There was a big tug of war about 9 that. And one'of the arguments was, well, what is going to 10 happen if there are some rockfalls which interfere with 11 operations, how do we go in there and fix it? We have this 12 blast cooling because it would be hot. It is just a whole 13 suite of things that -- it would be the first high level 14 waste repository in the world.
15 I am not saying it is not going to be done, I am 16 just interested in that I would suspect there will be a fair 17 number'of things that won't go right.the first time and 18_ there are unshielded canisters, at least in the present 19 design. What is the worker exposure? What is the -- again, 20 Carl may be right that, you know, you have operated reactors 21 and spent fuel pools and so on for a long time and most of 22' the issues that will be raised though have already been j j
23 . raised. j 24 DR. TRAVERS: Yes, but sort of as a more 25 fundamental and practical issue, given the failure at least !
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- 1 -- not failure, but the lack of a definitive design having
'2 been decided upon, --
3 DR. FAIRHURST: No, I understand that.
4 DR. TRAVERS: -- we are put in the position of not 5 being able really to sort of explore some of the paths that 6 may ultimately be the ones that are decided upon.
7 I was just wondering if you had identified an 8 issue that you believe warrants some particular early-on 9 consideration that might be fundamental to one of the 10 options, including backfill, that DOE is considering.
11 DR. GARRICK: I think one of the things that we 12 talk a lot about as a committee is the question of what can i
13 we learn during the pre-closure period and during -- that 14 is, during the operations, that will allow us to reduce some
() 15 of the uncertainties associated with the long-term 16 performance And while the NRC is neither operating nor 17 designing this facility, and not the licensee, but rather
.18 the regulator, even the regulator would like to have their 19 knowledge enhanced as much as possible about whether there 20- are some things in operations that they ought to be thinking 21 about, dealing with, that could in fact impact the whole 22- licensing review process.
23 If-we are really thinking from a risk perspective, 24 we know that the long-term performance is going to be 25- accompanied.with a. considerable amount of uncertainty. Now, i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l s~- Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 ,
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[
1 'what are-the contributors to that. uncertainty? And are any
() 2 of those contributors anything we can do anything about 3- during the pre-closure phase? So we have found a lot of 4 those in the WIPP facility, for example.
5 DR. PAPERIELLO: Right.
6 DR. GARRICK: And so the question is, is there a
)
7 ~1esson learned here for Yucca Mountain? ^
L 8 DR. PAPERIELLO: I would say on a generic basis, I i
i 9 would not be surprised that if, in fact, we do complete a 10 licensing action for Yucca Mountain and find it acceptable, 11 it is conceivable that we would put license conditions on 12 them that would require further studies.
.13 Now, I am going to -- just based on my background, 14 I am well aware that in the< licensing of many of the
) 11 5 reactors in this country, there were significant numbers of 16 environmental studies that were mandated in those early 1
17 licenses, because I can remember, when I first joined the 18 agency as an inspector in '75, going out on environmental j 19 inspections where people were doing -- looking at the impact i 20' of, you know, hot water discharged'into the Chesapeake here.
21 I remember going -- in fact, getting rather sick going 22 between hot and cold places at Calvert Cliffs back in 23 December of '75-. But, you know, visiting, going out to l 24 where people had stations and that'was just -- that was that 25 particular era.
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233 1 And I would not be surprised. I don't know what
() 2 the range of' issues are. In other words, I don't know what 3 the range of issues that still might be cloudy by the time 4 we get to an application in the year 2002, but I wouldn't be 5 surprised if there were issues after -- if we did have a 6 successful licensing action there would not be license 7 conditions that you would have to do further monitoring, 8 further studies.
9 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
10 DR. PAPERIELLO: I am not saying there will be, 11 I'm just saying if it happened, it wouldn't be the first, 12- you know, there is precedent in prior licensing.
, 13 DR. GARRICK: Yes. I think the notion that we 14 keep thinking about is we're so used to now as far as Yucca
) 15 Mountain is concerned thinking about tens of thousands of 16 years and maybe even hundreds of thousands of years that we 17 have a tendency maybe sometimes, and this is just something 18 we're suggesting, to not look at the 50 to 200 or 300 years 19 that this thing may be in an operating mode, in which case 20 it would be a situation where we would be licensing 21 something longer than the NRC has ever licensed anything.
22 And that activity is coming up on us much sooner --
23 DR. PAPERIELLO: Well, I would argue with that.
24 We have licensed things perpetually. As a general 25 license --
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234 L
1 DR. GARRICK: That involve operations perpetually?
() 2 3
DR. PAPERIELLO: There is -- Part 40 gives DOE a perpetual license, general license, for mill tailings. I 4 mean, I'm just saying psychologically. I understand l 5 ' differences between --
l 6 DR. GARRICK: Right.
l
! 7 DR. PAPERIELLO: Operations and -- but in fact we i
j 8 in fact have perpetual licenses out there today for DOE for r-9 mill tailings piles.
10 DR. GARRICK: But I guess I see here an actual i
11 operating activity. j 1
12 DR. PAPERIELLO: Well -- )
i f ,13 DR. GARRICK: It's a little different.
I 14 DR. PAPERIELLO: There is annual inspection and if
() 15' need be maintenance, and there are trust funds set up for l
16 that.
17 DR. GARRICK: Um-hum, 'Um-hum.
18 DR. PAPERIELLO: I understand what you're saying.
19 DR. GARRICK: Well, maybe all we need to hear as a 20 committee is more.about this experience base that you refer 21 to. We have discussed the kinds of activities that are 22 going to be going on, especially when you sort of look at )
23 the materials issue, risk issue, versus,say the reactor-risk I j 24 issue, the real risk in materials is probably not in the 25 upset conditions, it's in the operations. And --
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235 1 DR. D"PERIELLO: That's very true.
(O v j 2 DR. GARRICK: So if you have something that's 3 contemplating a real operation where they're moving material 4 and they're dealing with high-level waste and there's heavy 5 equipment and there's long working cycles involved, and if 6 you really have a risk perspective, you might conclude from 7 a back-of-the-envelope analysis that the real risk of Yucca 8 Mountain is going to be that first 50 to 300 years. I'm 9 just --
10 DR. PAPERIELLO: I would suspect in terms of 11 radiation exposure that's certainly true.
12 DR. GARRICK: Right.
13 DR. PAPERIELLO: And probably when you start 14 looking at even industrial risk.
(_ / 15 DR. GARRICK: Right.
16 DR. PAPERIELLO: I mean, I'm aware of people being 17 killed i'.1 nuclear power plants, never from radiation, but 18 people nave fallen --
19 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
20 DR. PAPERIELLO: People have had electrocution.
21 People have been burned in steam ruptures.
22 DR. GARRICK: Right.
23 DR. PAPERIELLO: I'm aware of one individual who 24 may have been horseplay with helium and suffocated. So 25 you've had things that are in the realm of industrial rN t'~
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g 236 1 accidents, ordinary, you know, if you want to use such a (Dj '2- term, ordinary industrial accidents. And I would not be 3 surprised in the operation of -- clearly in the operation of 4 Yucca Mountain in the operating phase that is going to 5- probably be the greatest risk in terms to human beings; the 6 environmental risk and the risk to people offsite will be 7, far less than the risk to the workers. And it would be a 8' combination of radiation -- well, even now, if you go Yucca 9L ' Mountain, I mean, what do you do? You get indoctrinated on 10 underground mine safety. You walk in.with hard hats, You 31 have a mine_ rescue thing you wear on your belt. So it's 12 clear that there are risks in there that are industrial 13 risks.
14 DR. FAIRHURST: Another slightly different aspect j
( ,) 15 of_that is the, you know, the DOE's own TSPA review group, j i
16 who are critical of the lack of real data on which some of 17 the isolation dose estimates were made. We don't have any l 18 real data to support -- there's not enough real data.
19 And the TRB recently came out and said that to 20 submit the license by 2002 is on a very ambitious schedule.
21 And one way one could interpret some of that is to say that l 22 there's a certain amount of -- minimum amount of data that 23 is going to be required before they would think it was !
24 reasonable to give'a license, in the context of saying but 25 on the other hand there's a 100-year period here where I O. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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237 1 know from my point of view I think there's a lot that could
() 2 3
be done during that period.that could actually not be done before. For example, if you want to get better insights 4 .into the water flow. pathways during the time it's heating 5 up, it would be useful to have maybe some observation drifts 6 that were in.a region that got hot but was not exposed to 7 radiation.
8 So maybe I'm asking is NRC thinking about what 9 information they will require, because they're getting --
10 and this is part of what Cal you're saying about maybe 11 requiring something, you know, to be confirmed down the road 12 or something. But I think a real perspective on data, there 13 is some data or are some data that cannot be reasonably 14 gotten before they start stuffing waste in there. During
) 15 the period in which they can take it out if something's not 16 going right. You know, I don't think -- one of the big 17 issues is how much water is going to drop on the canisters. I 18 And I don't want to go into it long --
19 DR. PAPERIELLO: Let me comment on that. I could 20 ask Bill there what thought we've given -- have we given any 21 thought to it?
22 MR. REAME: Really the first point that the 23 Commission goes on record is the site recommendation stage 24 in 2001 where the statute requires that it provide its 25 comments on the sufficiency of the data that the DOE has put O
~/
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i 238 1 together. . We are rioht now working on a plan and a set of 7"N (j 2' steps, a plan and a set of steps that we will bring to the 3 Committee and coordinate with you,. but the short answer is 4 .yes, we are thinking about that question.
5 DR. FAIRHURST: Okay.
6 DR. PAPERIELLO: Now I'll make a comment on it. I 7 think it would be very -- I don't think we could make a 8 ' licensing decision and say go ahead and give a licensing --
9 a construction permit and then say and we'll give you six 10 more' years to gather the data to make your safety case.
11 DR. FAIRHURST: No. Right.
12 ~ DR. PAPERIELLO: You're going to have to establish 13 your safety. basis, confidence that you can meet the 14 standard --
/"%
k,,) 15 DR. FAIRHURST: Sure 16 DR. PAPERIELLO: Before we issue a construction 17 permit. If in the framework of say the -- since we're 18 dealing with performance assessment in a probabilistic 19 distribution, you turn around and say it would be very nice, 20 and you can establish a cost-benefit -- a reason for 21 narrowing, you know, that fuzziness down, then you can 22 certainly condition the construction authorization for 23 continued, you know, to get more data.
24 DR. FAIRHURST: Um-hum.
25 DR. PAPERIELLO: So, I mean, I think right now ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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239 l' it's premature to say.this is the data you're going to have
() 2 3
to gather before you get your license, and here's your program after you get your license. A lot depends upon when 4 I'm ready to license. I'm just making something up. If in 5 ' fact I can use a lot of incredibly conservative bounding 6 conditions and still show that I meet the performance 7 objective --
8 DR. FAIRHURST: Right.
9 DR. PAPERIELLO: Whereas from a scientific 10 viewpoint it might be nice to gather a lot more data over 11 the next 100 years and somebody might do it, for me as a 12 regulator to require a licensee to do it, I don't think I 13- could make the case based on cost-benefit. I mean, I would 14 have an obligation underfrisk-informed regulation to, you
) 15 know, maybe it's scientifically nice, but I don't need it.
16 On the other hand, it would be inappropriate I 17 think if well, we can't make it, but we think if we do six 18 more years of work, give us a construction permit and take 19 us on -- maybe we'll make it, you know.
20 DR. FAIRHURST: No.
21 DR. PAPERIELLO: Do you see what I'm saying?
22 DR. FAIRHURST: Let me give you another example, 23 though. Let me give you another example.
24 Sorry, am I --
25_ DR. GARRICK: No, go ahead.
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! 240 )
i I 1 DR. FAIRHURST: One of the ideas now is to put a F
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2 titanium drip shield, and the price estimate right now is 1 i
f i
3 about $4-1/2 billion. Now if they come in with a license 4 application and say we'll put the shield in and that shield 5 will take care of it, however, if certain things show up 6 that we don't need it, can we go ahead? That to me is a 7 more realistic -- and some other option which costs a 8 billion is going to take care of the problem.
9 DR. PAPERIELLO: And I'll make another 10 observation. It is possible that I come up with an 11 engineering design to compensate for uncertainties in 12 knowledge of the geological system that in fact is 13 cost-beneficial to the applicant over the next 20 years to 14 reduce the uncertainty in the geological system. I know
(-) 15 we're defaulting to a lot of conservative parameters. When 16 we don't know, we default conservri.ive. So what happens is 17 over the next 20 years after I give a construction permit, 18 if that happens, I turn around and measure these things and 19 find out you're right, I don't need your drip shield. I 20 understand that. And I can also see, thinking about that 21 thing being open for 50 years, God knows what will be done 22 in materials research.
23 DR. FAIRHURST: Sure. Waste canisters --
24 DR. PAPERIELLO: In terms of waste canisters. For 25 all I know, they'll grow some fiber canister which will have l
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l 241 1 l' all kinds of wonderful, you know -- I don't know. You know,
() 2 I would be --
3 DR. FAIRHURST: There is somewhat a precedent with 4 the= Swedes saying we're going to use a copper canister, and 5- 'then' find out it's going to take half the mines in the world 6 to supply the canister. But -- and break the bank at the 7 same time. But they did propose'something that convinced 8 the,public that there was a technical. solution available.
9 It may not be cost-effective, but now we've got some time to I i
10 work on perhaps ways of coming back from that. And that's a 11 little bit how I see the titanium shield. Nobody said 12 anything to me. You know, I view that, I think it's in 13 concert with what you're saying, that you're going with 14 something that will work, and as time goes on, it would not
/%
(,,) 15 be appropriate really to tell someone, you know, that we 16 can't save.some money by doing this with a new material or 11 7 whatever.
. 18 DR. PAPERIELLO: I fully expect if a safety case 19 can be made and we do certify Yucca Mountain as a high-level 20 waste repository and this place operates for 50 or 100 21 years, that certificate, that license, like a lot of other 22 licenses, will be amended. And I couldn't begin to foresee 23 the changes. But I could see changes because of materials, 24 I could see changes due to our knowledge of, you know, the 25 geological setting, any number of reasons I could -- !
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242 1 DR. TRAVERS: It's fair to say our focus right now
) 2 principally is on that safety case for the --
3 DR. PAPERIELLO: The initial safety case.
4 DR. TRAVERS: Philosophically I think what I heard 5 Dr. Fairhurst agree to is that we have to be able to when we 6 license that facility it's with that confidence --
7 DR. FAIRHURST: Couldn't do it with something that 1
8 might work.
9 DR. TRAVERS: And then after that I think there 10 are a number of different issues that arise that could be 11 potentially optimized or --
12 DR. GARRICK: I guess the question is can the 13 safety case have design flexibility in it. Can the safety 14 case have design flexibility, or do you have to come with a
() 15' fixed design?
16 DR. PAPERIELLO: I think you~can have variable !
-17 designs, but you can't turn around and say we want ;
18 permission to use these ten designs, but we don't know which 19 'one will make -- I think you need to be able to show you can 20 in fact make the safety case.
21 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
22 DR. TRAVERS: With whatever range --
23 DR. PAPERIELLO: With whatever range of designs 24 you want to use.
25 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
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m 243 1 DR. PAPERIELLO: I don't think -- I don't think, I
() 2 mean, I don't want to prejudge anything at this point', but I 3' don't think.I could turn around, I'm not sure a licensing 4 board would be willing to grant a construction permit on a 5 promise.
6 DR. GARRICK: Well, there is a --
7 DR. PAPERIELLO: .You know, in the sense -- what I 8 mean is we can't show we meet the standard, but let us 9 start, and we expect in three years to turn around.
10 DR. GARRICK: Right.
l 1
11 DR. PAPERIELLO: We have not done that I'm aware 12 of in the past.
13 DR. GARRICK: But in the old days there used to be 14 something called a provisional construction permit. So 11 5 there is a precedent for some flexibility.
16 DR. PAPERIELLO: Before I would even think about 17 that, I'd have to talk to --
18_ DR. GARRICK: Right.
19 DR. TRAVERS: And the five Commissioners as well.
'20 DR. PAPERIELLO: Right.
21 DR. FAIRHURST: When we had I'll call it corrosion l
22 experts here, I remember Staley saying hell, we'll be at 23 least seven -- I don't know he picked seven -- but seven 24 changes of canister design before they get the right one, 25 ' based on design and any other, you know, reactor design too 1
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244 1 that changes.
2 -DR._GARRICK: Yes, I think the reason this is such 3- a big l issue on this one is because of the costs that are 4 involved, number 1, and, number 2, because of the long 5 period-prior to the closure, and the benefit that may accrue 6 to the public from having design. flexibility. I think it is 7 a little different facility than anything we have ever 8 encountered.
9 DR. PAPERIELLO: I know, but I have to -- whatever 10 I do has to be in accordance with, you know, what the 11 Congress has legislated, and --
12 And as I said, I don't think we can issue -- where 13 .I do expect design to change after we issue a license, I 14 particularly when you look at 50 years, and as I said we can 15 learn more about the~ geology over the next 50 years and in 16 fact I think more materials.
17 I just think of the evolution of materials over {
18 .the last 50 years --
1 19' DR. FAIRHURST: We didn't have C-22 fifty years l 20 ago, did we?
21 DR. PAPERIELLO: Yes. It's just that, and 22 synthetic materials and we build aircraft out of carbon 23 fibers and things like that.
24 I mean material science is very likely to change 25 over the next 50 years and wouldn't we allow a change in a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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245 4 1 canister design because somebody designed one with a
() 2 material that is much, much better? But I think you have to 3 make the safety case at the time of licensing. You could J 4 conceivably condition a license where there's uncertainties, 5 where it is expected that the uncertainties would be 6 resolved favorably.
7 As I said, we have conditioned reactor licenses 8 years ago when we started them up to do environmental 9 studies, probably other things too -- the environmental 10 studies I am much aware of because that's one of the areas 11 that I inspected in.
12 DR. GARRICK: Ray?
13 DR. WYMER: Yes. I would like to drop down a 14 level or two from these important technical issues and get
- (_/ 15 down in the area of our interactions, if I can, for a 16 minute.
17 In doing it, I want to return to this topic of 18 communication, with maybe a different twist. In order to be 19 effective you have to effectively communicate. We 20 communicate with you people and we want to communicate 21 effectively with you people.
22 John has already mentioned Mike Bell's 23 contribution the last time we were out in Nevada and had l 24 that open meeting to the public, but in addition to 25 providing technical expertise we got Mike to sort of give us f(j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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246 l
l' his take on how we communicate with you folks, and it was f
D 2 very enlightening and it sensitized us a little bit to the l 3 way that we communicate.
4 One of the things he said, for example, is it
- 5. would be nice if when we write our letters if we would 6 acknowledge that we weren't the first people in the world 7 who ever thought of this. Maybe one or two of the Staff 8 might have had an inkling about it a little earlier. He 9 also made the point that an 'atta boy once in awhile
'10 wouldn't be amiss, you know, where we thought the Staff had 11 done something particularly well.
12 What I am leading up to is I think there is room 13 for improved communication. There always is, and the more 14 effectively we communicate, the more likely you are to 15 receive our communications in the way we want you to receive 16 them, so either now or some time in the not too distant 17 future it would be nice if we got some feedback from you on 18 how we might be more effective, things we might do, the way ;
i 19 we might put things -- anything you could think of, it would
]
20 make our input more palatable, more acceptable, and improve !
21 the communications process.
22 DR. TRAVERS: We will take that as an assignment. l
.23 I think that is a good request. I think it is something 24 that we should reasonably do and I would like to be involved 25 in it with Carl and the senior management team, because that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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247 1 is an invitation to even further better the good A 2 relationship I think we have.
( j 3- I will be honest. There was a time not too many 4 years ago when dealing with ACRS, that the relationship 5 between'the Staff and the ACRS was not that good. We had a 6 number of problems. We couldn't seem to overcome them.
7 That has changed, changed dramatically, and so your entreaty.
8 to us that we continue not to ignore the way -- you know, if 9 you are going to take on communication in its broader sense 10 we have got to make sure that we are communicating well at 11 ~ the start.
12 I think that is a good point and at the same time 13 we would ask for your consideration and any input, 14 criticisms, what have you, that relate to the way we provide 15 information to the committee, the kinds of briefings, the 16 level, and so forth.
17 DR. LARKINS: One recent model that you might 18 think about'is when we did the viability assessment there 19 ~ was a lot of interaction between the committee as a whole, 20' individual committee members, with Staff, and I think it 21 aided in a better understanding of the Staff's views of 22 - DOE's VA and also the committee's views on the VA, and I 23 think it helped present a good picture or story to the 24 Commission.
25- You know,-we didn't agree with everything, but ANN.RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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248 1 there was a lot of agreement and it. led to a good report.
) 2 It was very resource-intensive. I would like to 3 get some' feedback some time if that's -- you know, something 4 we might'want to consider in the future as we do the draft 5 environmental impact statement, the site recommendation 6 review, and some of these other things which are coming down 7 the pike which will probably take a lot of time and 8 resources, so, Carl or Bill, if you think that type of 9 interaction is useful in the future, it would be worthwhile 10 knowing, and there are' things, other things like the 11 research report or some of these other activities in 12 decommissioning I think, because right now I see more work 13 on the committee's plate than it might be able to handle in 14 the future at the current level.
15 DR. TRAVERS: Yes, and we are obviously -- I mean 16 your activities take support from us as well, so we are 17 obviously in self-interest looking to optimize the 18 relationship;in.a way that optimizes our resource 19 expenditure as well.
20 DR. GARRICK: We have identified a couple of 21 resources that are very important to our planning process.
22 One of course is the operetions report that Carl spoke of 23 earlier, and the other is exactly what we are doing now, 24 having this kind of exchange, an6 of course that extends to 25 the other Staff members in exchangee we have.
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249 1 Is there any other mechanism or resource that we
() .2 3
should be consulting or be aware of in doing our planning, because the planning exercise is very critical in 4 establishing on the basis of the best evidence that we can 5 pull together what our. priorities are going to be for the 6 following year or some similar petriod of time -- are we 7 missing a resource or is there anything else --
8 DR. PAPERIELLO: While I am thinking about it, an 9 obvious thought came in now.
10 I think I know I have not met with you very much 11 because I have issues with my own staff on decommissioning 12 for example. I am very concerned about modelling. I am 13 very concerned about what I consider excruciating 14 conservatism in the name of screening models.
k 15 You know, if I plug natural background into a code 16 and I wind up getting a number that is almost an order of 17 magnitude greater than what I know natural background to be, 18 I mean we know very, very well what the dose is in the 19 United States from uranium, thorium, and radium in the soil.
20 We measured it, not only measured external dose but we have 21 done autopsies on people and all that we know to dose.
22 When we go to model and you turn around and look 23 at the parameters we are defaulting to, and you wind up 24 ,getting a dose out of it that is an' order of magnitude 25 greater than what we have measured -- you have got to ask ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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250 1 whether that is a bit --
I don't mind a factor of two but an
() 2 order of magnitude sort of bothers me when you go to default 3 the screening --' finite areas.
4' I just think -- to me decommissioning is a big 5 ' deal, because Yucca' Mountain may be three years from now and
- 6. decommissioning is right now. How do I handle reality? The
.7 L reality at least around the nuclear plant, I got a ditch, I 8 got an underground pipe, I got a tank that leaks --
9 DR. TRAVERS: In terms of their planning, is there l 10 anything --
L 11 DR. PAPERIELLO: Yes, but I don't know how much of 1
l 12 'this my staff has relayed that.to you. Certainly I have 13 ' relayed it to my staff. It occurred to me that we don't 14 'have enough interactions where I coula kind of give you my
(_/ 15 stand on some of these things.
16 DR. GARRICK: So Carl, what you are suggesting is l'/
maybe we need to step up this kind of interaction?
~~
18 DR. PAPERIELLO: Yes. I was thinking about that, 19 you know. Maybe I'll steal some of John Greeves' time.
20 DR. GARRICK: Yes, yes.
1 21 'DR. FAIRHURST: Please do. !
-j 22 DR. LARKINS: I think that would be usaful --
23 @@ DR. LARKINS: Yes, I think it would be. We had a l 24 presentation on all the decommissioning activities and it l i
25 was several pages of potential Reg Guides and changes in the l E
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251 l 1 regulations and I now understand that there is an initiative
() 2 underway to look at risk-informing the decommissioning 3 regulations.as related to Part 50. -That is something we 4 probably would be interesting between the two committees to 5 look at.
6 DR. GARRICK: Yes, that is another thing. We have 7 the precedents now of joint committee, joint subcommittee i
8 between the two advisory committees,-but one of the things 9 'that I want to comment maybe -- and just about in closing 10 here -- is that this committee has the same anxieties that 11 you just expressed about decommissioning, and the screening.
12 process.
13 DR. PAPERIELLO: Let me give you a challenge --
14 you technical experts. What can I do to fix it?
15 DR. GARRICK: Yes.
16 DR. PAPERIELLO: You know, it doesn't do you or me l 17- a whole lot of good to get a letter saying --
18 DR. FAIRHURST: -- this is a problem.
19 DR. PAPERIELLO: -- saying this is a problem, you
- 20. ought to fix it, because I know it is a problem. I am 1
21 1.ooking for somebody to tell me how to fix it.
22 DR. FAIRHURST: We'll send it back. !
l 27 DR. GARRICK: They do They do send them back. !
24 DR. PAPERIELLO: It is -- I am serious. I mean to 1 25 ms this is the challenge. What has somebody done somewhere l:.
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252 1 else? I mean I love to steal. I mean we don't have a big
() 2 3
enough staff to rediscover the wheel around here, so the question is what is -- I find it hard to believe I am the 4 only person who is raising these questions.
5 I think in the whole world somebody ought to be 6 trying to work -- I mean I am not confining myself to the 7 United States. There are a lot of smart people overseas. I 8 can't be the only person thinking of this. What are people 9 doing?
10 DR. GARRICK: Okay. Well, I think we have gotten 11 some idens and we will take your advice as well in trying to 12 figure out how we can get the maximum amount of input into 13- our decision-making process.for priorities, and also, as we 14 say in our plan, that once we make a decision about Tier 1
) 15 and Tier 2 priorities that doesn't mean we are inflexible, 16 that Tier 2 priorities can't jump up to Tier 1.
17 The important thing is that the committee be 18 prepared to address any issue that comes up from any of the 19 three sources that we mentioned.
20 We appreciate the time. It is a very generous 21 amount of time on a busy schedule, and are there any other 22 final comments, questions from either the committee or the 23 Staff?-
l24 We want to, if not, thank you again and look 25 forward:to doing this again relatively soon.
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253 1 DR. TRAVERS: We also thank you for the
() 2 opportunity to meet with you. As I said, this is my first 3 opportunity. I did attend the Commission meeting --
4 DR. .GARRICK: Right.
5 DR. TRAVERS: -- where you briefed the Commission 6 on some of your. activities and I have had a chance to read 7 over a number of things that speak to your contributions and 8 we certainly appreciate them and I look forward to working 9 'with you in the future.
10 DR. HORNBERGER: Thanks.
11 DR. GARRICK: I think even though it is not shown 12 on our agenda, I am going to declare a 15-minute recess.
13 [Whereupon, at 3:02 p.m., the recorded part of the 14 meeting was concluded.]
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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(-
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings
'; before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in
/)
the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: MEETING: 109th ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
CASE NUMBER:
PLACE OF PROCEEDING: Rockville, MD were held as herein appears, and that this is the original
/'~T
( ,), transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
C Mark Mahoney b Official Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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PROJECT XL STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT:
A GUIDE FOR PROJECT SPONSORS AND STAKEHOLDERS s
- R O ro'ect h
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ADVISORY NATURE OF THIS GUIDE:
This guide is designed to help potential Project XL sponsors design and conduct effective stakeholder involvement processes during the development of XL proposals and to advise stakeholders-interested community and environmental groups - how to participate effectivelyin such processes.
The ideas, tools, and resources in this guide are based on the experiences -
both successes and difficulties - of others involved in XL and a variety of other stakeholder-based projects and programs.
The recommendations in this guide are not aformal regulation or rule.
23 . - .
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CREDITS:
This guide was prepared in consultation with a stakeholder group that included the following people:
Linda Breggin, Environmental Law Institute, Washington, D.C.
Kevin Bryan, Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, D.C.
Maura Carney, Environmental Law Institute, Washington, D.C.
Pam Kaster, Citizens for a Clean Environment, Zachary, Louisiana Peter Molmaro, Union Carbide Corporation, Washington, D.C.
Consultant support was provided under Contract 68-W4-0001 between EPA and RESOLVE, Inc, James L. Creighton, Creighton & Creighton, Inc., Los Gatos, California, a RESOLVE subcontractor, served as consultant and principal author.
The Project Officer was Deborah Dalton of EPA's Office of Policy.
The Project Manager was Kimberly Green-Goldsborough, ;
f of EPA's Office of Reinvention.
J
- b.8' d a TABLE OF CONTENTS I SECTION I: PROJECT XL STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT 1
- What is the Purpose of This Guide? I
- Who are the Potential Sponsors of XL Projects? 2
- Who are the Potential Stakeholders? 2
- Who are Cosponsors? 3
- How Much Impact Will Stakeholders have on Decisions? 3
- How Does an XL Project Get Developed? 3
- Where In the Process Does Stakeholder Involvement Occur? 5 SECTION II:IF YOU ARE A STAKEHOLDER 6 l
- How Can You Or Your Organization Participate? 6
- How Should Your Organization Decide Whether to Participate? 7
- What Else Can You Or Your Organization Do to Help? 9 )
- What Should You Or Your Organization Expect from the l Stakeholder Involvement Process? 11 SECTION III:IF YOU ARE A POTENTIAL SPONSOR 13
- What Will a Sponsor Get Out of Stakeholder Involvement 13 Q
- How Can a Potentia' Spor sor Assess its Ability to Work Positively With Stakeholders? 13
- What Stakeholder involvement Does EPA Require? 15
- When Should Stakeholder involvement Start? 15
- How Do You Set Up a Stakeholder Group? 16
- Step 1: Do an assessment of community interest 16
- Step 2: Decide what help is needed 16
- Step 3: Develop a list of potential direct participants 17
- Step 4: Decide what type of process will be used 19
- Step 5: Invite people on the list to participate 19
- Step 6: Hold the first stakeholder group meeting 19
- Step 7: Agree on ground rules 20
- How Can You involve Commentors? 21
- Step 1: Develop a mailing list 21
- Step 2: Send review copies of documents to key groups and individuals 22
- Step 3: Hold public meetings or workshops 22
- What is the Stakeholder's Role While the Sponsor is Working Out an Agreement with EPA and Other Regulators? 23
- What is the Stakeholder Group's Role During implementation? 23 APPENDICES 24
- Appendix 1: EPA Project XI Regional Points of Contact 24
- Appendix 2: Technical Assistance Available to Stakeholders 25
- Appendix 3: How To Find a Third-Party Facilitator 25
- Appendix 4: Other EPA Stakeholder Involvement Resource Materials 27
l
~
Section I: A PROJLCT XL INFORhfATION f PROJECT XL STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT EXAMPLES OF XL PROJECTS Some of the innovations currently being tested as part of Project XL are:
- Taking money spent on compliance The U.S. Environmental Protection with the administrative requirements of the Agency (EPA) created Project XL to give Clean Air Act and spending it to reduce companies, communities, state and local emissions by upgrading and retrofitting agencies, federal facilities, and even industrial equipment.
sectors, the opportunity to propose cleaner, . Preparing a single operating and cheaper, and smarter ways of protecting the regulatory plan for a manufacturing facility, environment. Project XL provides real world rather than requiring compliance with a tests of these innovative strategies. EPA will, number of individual regulatory permits.
after careful evaluation, replace or modify a Lowering overall air emissions from a regulatory requirements, policies or facility in return for greater operational procedures if the proposed XL project will flexibility.
produce superior environmental benefits and
- Substituting a new third-party promote accountability to the public. certified environmental management system To ensure these new approaches truly (ISO 14001) in place of existing permitting, meet local needs and protect the environment, recordkeeping and reporting requirements.
p people from the community, environmental (j groups and workers are included in -
evaluating each Project XL proposal. EPA calls this " stakeholder involvement."
'lhe goal of Project XL stakeholder .
involvement is a collaborative working hat is the Purpose relationship between sponsors - the of This Guide?
organizations proposing new ways of doing Both the sponsor and stakeholders have things - and stakeholders - people who responsibilities if the XL project is to be believe they or their community could be successful. If you are a potential sponsor, this affected by an XL project. guide will show you how to organize an EPA requirements fot stakeholder effective process for including the public in involvement are defined in the Project XL designing and evaluating your XL project. If Federal Register Notice of May 23,1995, and you are from a community where an XL in the Federal Register Notice titled Clarifying project is under consideration or are a the XL Process issued April 23,1997. Both of meraber of an organization that has an interest these documents can be downloaded from in an XL project, this guide will show you EPA's website (www.cpa. gov /projectx1) or you how to participate effectively.
can get them by calling your EPA regional Section I provides general information office XL coordinator (listed in Appendix 1). that is useful to both stakeholders and potential sponsors. Section Il provides advice to stakeholders. Section ill provides advice to potential sponsors.
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A Section I: I ff PROJECTXLINFORMATION Who Are the Potential Who Are the Potential Sponsors of XL Stakeholders? j Projects? {
Any organization or agency whose EPA defines stakeholders as actions are subject to environmental " communities near the project, federal, state, regulation, policies or procedures is a tribal or local governments, businesses, potential sponsor. Sponsors might include: environmental [ local, regional and national]
and other public interest groups or other similar entities."
g Cornpanies who use chemicals or other EPA's guidance identifies three levels of potentially hazardous inaterials in p rticip nts nd requires that each level be manufacturing or produce solid waste or gnven chan:e to participate:
etnissions to the environinent that affect air, water, or land.
Direct Participants Direct participants are individuals or g Groups ofcornpanies or an entire industry, gr ups who choose to work intensively with such as the printing or autornative Project SPons is S Part of an organized industries, that could achieve superior "st keholder group "
environtnental perfortnance through a large-scalcor industry-wide approach to pollution prevention Commentors Commentors have an interest in the project, but choose not to participate directly A federal, state, tribal or local governtnent in an organized group. EPA requires sponsors agency, such as a city or county agency, to provide opportunities for commentors to be water district, sanitation district, or heard during the development of an XL econornic development agency, whose project. These commentors can still affect the activities affect air or water quality or use design and implementation through the previously polhtted land. comments they make.
Cornnutnities who wish to propose new Members of the environtnental management approachesfor General Public a designated geographic area.
EPA requires sponsors to provide members of the general public with easy access to the proposal development process and to information about the project and its results. Members of the general public also
, have the right to participate more actively,if they so choose.
O 2
Section I: A (o) PRO]LCTXL INE0101ATION ff Who Are Co-sponsors? addressed and,if necessary, discussed with A co-sponsor is a state local or tribal the commentor. EPA believes that the views of government, or community, environmental informed commentors are a strong indicator or other public interest organization, that of whether the approach or technology in the joins the sponsor in proposing the project. For proposal may be suitable for use in other example, a local manufacturer might reach an locations. EPA's ultimate decision whether agreement with a coalition oflocal to accept the project.
environmental groups to jointly propose an If individuals or groups choose not to be XL project. This can enhance the credibility of part of a stakeholder group but simply to the project. When sponsors work with outside comment upon the XL proposal, both the groups to develop a co-sponsoring sponsor and EPA will carefully review their relationship, they build working relationships comments. Substantive comments will be that can have continuing benefits for the addressed and, if necessary, discussed with environment, the community and the the commentor. EPA believes that the views of sponsoring organizations. informed commentors are a strong indicator of whether the approach or technology in the How Much Impact Will Proposal may be suitable for use in other I C 'i "S' Stakeholders Have Upon
.. EPA uses " stakeholder support" as one of y Decisions? the criteria in evaluating whether to accept an Stakeholders often worry that XL proposal. EPA is not going to accept an XL "m, volvement" means they will express their proposal that faces across-the-board opinions but their opinions won't be given stakeholder opposition. If a project sponsor f) v real weight or importance. The amount of wants its proposal accepted, it must credibly impact that individuals or groups will have address stakeholder concerns and find an upon a decision depends, at least in part, on approach that is generally acceptable.
the level at which they choose to participate.
If they enter into an agreement with a project sponsor to be a "co-sponsor," thev '
will How Does an XL Project actually be a co-decision maker. Get Developed?
If they choose to become a " direct Every XL project goes through a process participarv"-a member of a stakeholder in which the sponsor prepares and submits a group ad sing a potential sponsor-they proposal to EPA for acceptance. This process will be working directly with the sponsor. is shown in Figure 1 on the next page.
At the beginning of the process they and the The sponsor starts the stakeholder sponsor will discuss and agree upon their involvement process by inviting stakeholders roles during decision making. to participate in developing the proposal and EPA will review both the sponsor's overseeing the development of the final proposal and the recommendations of the agreement between the sponsor and EPA. The direct participants. EPA has stated that the sponsor initiates the process, sets up forums views of direct participants should strongly in which stakeholders can participate, and influence the details of the project as well as may even provide funds for third-party EPA's ultimate decision whether to accept the technical assistance or meeting facilitation.
project. EPA can also assist in these efforts (See If individuals or groups choose not to be Appendix 2). But stakeholder involvement part of a stakeholder group but simply to works best when the sponsor and comment upon the XL preposal, both the stakeholders work together to create m sponsor and EPA will carefully review their both the proposal and the process.
comments. Substantive comments will be 3
i A Section 1:
h PROJECTXLINFORMATION DEVELOPING AN XL PROJECT Figure !
PREPROPOSAL The noor decides whether to p.repare a posal, begins to derme what to include in the and begins talking -ofteninto - with twA and state regulators and with people m commuruty and envuonmentalgroups determme whether a proposal would be hkely to receive support.
U PRO ~POSAL DEVELOPMENT a formal i
%e sponsor gets specific about the details of the project and dev .
Normally a sponsor waliset up a stakeholder group of people (dsreet ' pants) to consult '
with the sponsor on a contmumg basis and will also provide oppo ties for other inter people (conunentors) to comment in meetmgs, or by mail or e-mail. %e eponsor also provides mformation about its proposal to the general public. De proposal will document how the noor worked with stakeholders and the support the has received from sta - Idars.
EPA / STATE PROPOSAL REVIEW EPA and state regulators then review the proposal. If the proposal affects tnballitnds, the tribal regulatory agency will also be a reviewer He government agencks may ask formal questions of the sponsor about the proposal or may require revisions to the proposal. EPA and the sponsor will consult with stakeholders about any sigmficant changes in the proposal U
FINAL PROJECT GREEMENT If EPA and the other reviewers fmd the pro generally acceptable, a wntten agreement called the Final Project Agreement will be prepared. he Fmal Project Agreement spells out what actions the sponsor win take to protect the envuonment, the modifications EPA and/or the state will make in itr normal regulatory practaces, polich:s and pm>cedures, the Inanner m which results will be nwA, and how mformation will be transmittai to the regulators and stakeholders S+abh^Mara will have the opportunuty to comment upon a draft vereton of the Fmal Project Agreement.
U PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION 1
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Once the FinalPro A reement is s l PinalProject Agreemen eve ped m the b2 stepned, the sponsor desenbee how stakeho begins ers will to be imbament the mvolved during project. *Ihe implementation.
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Section 1: A PROJECT XL INFORMATlON ff Where In the Process Does Development of Stakeholder. Involvement Final Project Agreement:
Occur? The Final Project Agreement spells out how stakeholders will be involved throughout thelife of the project.
Preproposal Under EPA procedures, stakeholders will Normally, sponsors will hold preliminary have the opportunity to make comments -
discussions with EPA and state regulators directly to EPA or other regulators on the before there is much open discussion with the draft Final Project Agreement.
community. This is done to screen out projects People who have participated in that have no chance of acceptance and allows developing a proposal often are upset if the regulators to communicate informally with sponsors about whether their changes are made unilaterally. If during the development of the Final Project Agreement environmental compliance record justifies EPA and the sponsor identify significant consideration as an XL sponsor.
changes in the proposal, the sponsor and EPA But once these initial discussions with will discuss these changes with the the regulators have occurred, informal stakeholder group. One of the advantages of stakeholder involvement is strongly discussing this information with stakeholders recommended in the preproposal stage, is that they may be able to suggest options or although it is not required.
help the sponsor and agencies move towards Stakeholder involvement at this stage, resolution if things get stalled.
even if it is informal, can prevent creation of a As the final decision maker, EPA must project that has little chance of community or balance the needs and interests of the stakeholder acceptance, it can also produce G ideas that can make a difference in making proposal acceptable.
sponsors and stakeholders with the legal requirements and other constraints within which EPA must operate. Sometimes these Proposal Development legal constraints can make EPA appear EPA requires the sponsor to work closely unresponsive to the concerns that have been with direct participants (those people who are expressed. EPA always tries to provide a clear part of an actual stakeholder group), as well rationale for decisions it makes that run as to provide opportunities for commentors counter to comments it receives from (people who make comments at meetings or sponsors and stakeholders.
write letters or e-mail messages) to offer ideas.
The proposal itself will document the manner Project Implementation Once the Final Project Agreement (FPA) in which the sponsor has worked with is signed, the sponsor can begin stakeholders and the support the proposal has implementing the project. The FPA describes received from stakeholders.
how stakeholders willbe involved EPA / State Proposal Review throughout implementation. For example, Stakeholders should be consulted etakeholders may play a role in monitoring throughout this stage, since responses or the environmental results of the project.
revisions resulting from discussions with EPA Outcomes from project implementation or other regulators could substantially alter should be reported both to the regulators and the scope or content of the project.
stakeholders on a periodic and regular basis.
I 5
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^ Section I:
$ STAKEllOLDERINTORh1AT10N 1
1 IF YOU ARE A STAKEHOLDER
- 2) Volunteer to be part of tise stakeholder involvement process. To be sure .
- How Can You Or Your that people know of your interest in Organization Participate? participating, you can contact the sponsor, your state environmental regulatory agency, Treat any XL project as your or the XL coordinator in the EPA regional 1 opportunity to: office (Appendix 1).
- Have a voice in important Before you express an interest, consider environmental issues that could affect your how much time you're willing to spend. If community. you become a member of a stakeholder
- Be a part of developing and testing group, you will be making a significant time innovative approaches that could ultimately commitment. There is normally no be adopted at a national level. reimbursement or compensation for this time.
- 1) Thefirst step is to get infortnation Some of the demands on your time about what's going on. Remember that even could include:
though this may be the first you've heard of g the project, the process may have been going Time for regular group meetings. W on for some time. There are several ways you can get information: Time spent reviewing documents
- Call the sponsor. Typically the between meetings.
environmental manager, governmental affairs or public affairs manager at the g Time spent researching or company or agency will be the best source of developing concepts or ideas, information.
- Call the regional office of EPA. Time spent in subcommittees Names and phone numbers of Project XL or communicating with other contact points in EPA's regional offices are stakeholders.
shown in Appendix 1.
- Call your state environmental If you are not sure you can handle this regulator. time commitment, you might choose instead
- Consult the EPA webpage.There is a to be a "commentor," someone who reviews great deal of information about Project XL, information about the project and comments including descriptions of specific projects, by phone, e-mail, letter, or at public posted on the EPA website at www. EPA. gov / meetings.
ProjectXL O
Section I: A STAKEllOLDER INFORA1ATION ff Direct participants who serve as But representing a group raises some members of the organized stakeholder group additional challenges. You need to make sure established for the project are likely to have there is agreement in your group t. hat more impact on the final outcome than working in a collaborative manner on this commentors. But they also make a more project is consistent with the long-term goals significant investment of time and energy. of your group. Your group will also need to If there is an existing stakeholder group decide whether its representative is there as for the project, there may be an established an official spokesperson of the group, stating procedure for selection of new members. If the positions of your group, or is there as an you're not invited to join the group right individual free to express personal opinions.
away, understand that it has little to do with Experience with prior XL projects your qualifications and everything to do suggests that group representatives with controlling the size of the group sometimes feel uncomfortable presenting the (for better group dynamics) and ensuring conclusions of the stakeholder group back to balanced representation. their own group. Group representatives also 3)1dentify and cominunicate your had difficulties getting policy decisions from interests and concerns. Speak up. Insist that their groups in a timely manner. If your your ideas and concerns be considered, but group wants to have an official group also be constructive. Submit comments so representative, you will need a that your ideas will be on the record. Also communication mechanism within your educate yourself - identifying your interests group to ensure that people are kept often requires learning more about the informed of what's happening. You'll also project to be sure you know how your need some way to ensure that decisions interests are best met in this situation. about group policy can be made quickly.
If you decide you can't commit the time Figure 2 on the next page provides a to be part of the stakeholder group, you can self-assessment tool your group may find still make comments in a public meeting or helpfulin deciding whether to participate.
in writing to EPA or other regulators. These Even if you answer "no" to a number of comments are taken seriously by the questions,it doesn't mean you shouldn't regulators and can lead to changes in any participate. It simply means that if your agreements reached with the sponsor. group is going to participate effectively, you will ultimately need to spend some time How Should Your Organization addressing these proceduralissues.
Decide Whether to Participate?
Many XL stakeholder groups include representatives of community and environmental organizations. Others include labor unions or other organizations representing workers. Some groups include representatives of national business or environmental groups as well.
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A Section I:
%*f STAKEllOLDERINFORMATION Figure 2 SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL .
FOR STAKEHOLDER GROUPS ,
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1)Does your membership support working with the sponsor in YES NO j a collaborative manner?
2)Is there agreement within your group on the goals for the process? YES NO 3)ls your ory,anization able to commit the time and resources that YES NO participation will require? j 4)Are there well-established mechanisms for the representatives YES NO of your group on the XL stakeholder group to communicate regularly with your members.
- 5) Are there mechanisms in place for your group to make YES NO timely decisions regarding the XL project?
6)Do you already have established communication with the sponsor? YES NO h 7)Does the proposed stakeholder group membership or process YES NO provide adequate representation to all interests?
8)Do you believe your voice will be heard during YES NO development of the XL,propor.al?
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Section 1: A
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7s STAKEHOLDER INFORMATION ff What Else Can You Or Your Help the Sponsor Recruit Organization Do to Help? Other Stakeholders for a In addition to volunteering your own Stakeholder Group.
participation, there are many other ways you Even if you are not able to participate, can help: suggest people or groups who may be Inform Others About the Process. interested in the project. Help the sponsor by if you belong to a community, calling other people and asking them about environmental, or business group, talk about their mterest.
the project. See if you can get others You could also take on responsibility for interested. Find out what their interests or recruiting additional group members. You concerns might be. EPA, the state or the may be more effective in recruiting sponsor will make a presentation to your stakeholders than the sponsor, particularly group,if requested. with someone you know or who shares Help the Sponsor Develop similar interests. A leader of an environmental a Mailing List of Interested gr up may be more willing to participate if Stakeholders. appr ached by another environmentalist, just as a business person may be more responsive Give the sponsor names and addresses of people who should be on the mailing list. If t an ther business person. In particular, you think everyone in your organization pr vide a bridge to people or groups who may be wary of the sponsor or the project.
would like information, provide your mailing Be sure to coordinate recruitment with list to the sponsor or offer to mail materials to your group's members. Check with other the sponsor to avoid unnecessary duplication.
Volunteer to Serve As a O organizations to see if they have names and addresses that should be included on the list. Member of a " Core Group" Help the Sponsor Plan the That Helps the Sponsor Stakeholder Involvement Organize a Stakeholder Group.
Process. Sp ns rs often find it helpful to meet Help the sponsor think through the first with a small group of representative various community and environmental stakeholders to help in setting up the full interests that should be represented in the stakeholder group. This core group may help decision-making process. Then help the in recruiting the membership of the group and sponsor identify people who can speak for will discuss how the group can work together each of these interests. to ensure the whole group feels the process is Get information about other stakeholder f ir and meets the needs of stakeholders and processes in your community, and share the sponsor. This core group may also work information with the sponsor about what with the sponsor to develop a draft version of made them a success, what problems arose, gr und rules for the group, subject to review and how these problems can be avoided or by the full group once it is assembled.
addressed. Help the sponsor evaluate whether the Check with other groups with whom you stakeholder group, once established, needs an are affiliated, such as national environmental uP-front, team-building session or would or business groups, and find out what they've benefit from joint training on how to work learned about participating in stakeholder t gether effectively as a group.
processes.
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O Section I:
% STAKEHOLDER INFORMATION Encourage others in the stakeholder Improve Your Technical group not to rush through issues about how Understanding of the Issues. !
you will be working together in order to get This increases your ability to participate I to the substance of the proposal. These issues in a meaningful way and puts you on a about "the process" can prove to be very stronger footing during technical 4 important later on. Encourage others to be discussions. You can ask the sponsor for patient during discussion of process issues. information, or you can speak with EPA, Help the Sponsor Hold Public state, or local government technical l Meetings and Communicate specialists or regulators to get information or With People Outside the access to people who can advise you.
Stakeholder Group. If you want to get information from The sponsor is expected to conduct third-party sources, technical assistance may public meetings and provide information to be made available through a local university.
interested people who are not part of the In some cases, sponsors may be willing to organized stakeholder group. The sponsor provide third-party technical assistance, or, and stakeholder group may decide that where requests for technical assistance come members of the stakeholder group should from the entire stakeholder group, EPA play a major role in communicating with the funds can be used to obtain expertise.
broader public. The stakeholder group Appendix 2 provides information about EPA might, for example, review draft versions of technical assistance programs.
public information documents and give the Talk With Friends and sponsor feedback on whether the document Members of Groups to Which seems objective and easy to understand. You Belong About Their Stakeholders may also play a role in Interests and Concerns.
designing and conducting public meetings. You can serve as a conduit for other During public meetings you might be people's views. This is also a way of being asked to present a report on the issues sure that you don't " lose touch" with what identified by the group or give a group the rest of the community is feeling.
report on the advantages and disadvantages Sometimes people get so involved in an issue of var;ous alternatives. Remember that that they forget that others in the community whenever you speak for the stakeholder or in their organization don't have all the group you have to represent the entire information they do.
group, not just your own position. Similarly, if you are asked to lead a meeting or small Seek Measurable Results.
group discussion, you will need to act like a XL projects must produce superior facilitator, remaining neutral on the content environmental performance - better than of the discussion. what is being achieved now. You can help by pushing for well-defined procedures for measuring whether, in fact, these results occur. Ideally these measures should be 10 g
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Section I: A STAKEHOLDER INFORhfATION ff something objective that are easy to identify Everybody will be treated with and evaluate, such as substitution of mutual respect.
environmentally preferable substances for Stakeholders, sponsors, consultants, hazardous products or raw materials, and regulators should all receive respect.
reduced emissions, or increases in the Respect means that people are listened to number of acres of land cleaned-up, or and given serious consideration, and technologies tested. everyone is assumed to have a genuine concern for both the environment and the What Should You or Your community. All are assumed to have a Organization Expect From constructive interest in the outcome of the the Stakeholder Involvement project.
Process?
Everybody will have a genuine You should expect that:
opportunity to influence outcomes.
The payoff for people who participate is The process will be open the sense that their participation has made a and transparent. difference for the environment, the economy, Everybody should know what the and their community. This means that there' process will be, what's going on now, who's must be genuine opportunities to influence doing what, and what happens next. the project's development. To make this happen, stakeholders need to be offered Everybody will have opportunities to participate before decisions access to information. are made by either the sponsor or the If it's going to feel like a partnership or regulators. This opportunity to participate team, everybody is going to need access to should be early enough that stakeholders' the same information. The sponsor may need ideas can contribute to the decision.
to keep some information confidential if it is Having "an influence" doesn't mean important to its competitive position. But that everything must conform to your other than that, the sponsor and the beliefs. But all participants need to leave the stakeholders need to go into the process process feeling their ideas were given serious expecting that all relevant information is on attention.
the table. At the same time, stakeholders should expect that while they will be provided full information related to the XL project, the sponsor is not expected to provide information unrelated to the Project XL proposal.
If the XL project is about the operations of a physical facility, stakeholders may need to visit the facility itself. Some sponsors need to limit access to facilities due to security, protection of proprietary information or quality control procedures. If visiting the facility is essential to the work of the stakeholder group, arrangements can usually be made to provide access, but not without reasonable lead time and careful planning.
A Section 1:
(f STAKEHOLDERINFORMATION Everybody will take responsibility for a positive outcome.
Everybody needs to feel ownership of the project and be committed to its success.
With this attitude, if something isn't working everybody concentrates on fixing the problem. They find an approach that works for everybody.
The sponsor alone can't ensure that the expectations listed above will be met.
Meeting these expectations will require the commitment of both the sponsor and the participants. .
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Section lil: A SPONSOR INFORMATION $
IF YOU ARE A POTENTIAL Stakeholder involvement is also a way for you to enhance your relationship with the SPONSOR community. At a minimum, you will receive important information about how your operations affect the community. Stakeholder involvement is a way of building good willin the community. That good will may make a What Will a Sponsor Get Out difference not only for this project but also of StakeholderInvolvement? when you want community support or Although your organization will need approval for other aspects of your operations.
to spend time and effort to make stakeholder involvement work, most people '
who ve conducted stakeholder involvement How Can a Potential SE onsor programs believe it is a wise investment with Assess its Ability to Work significant returns. Positively With Stakeholders?
To begin with, stakeholder support is a A starting point is your organization's precondition for acceptance of your XL current and past relationship with the proposal. Stakeholder involvement is the community. If you have a strong positive primary means of assessing whether there is relationship with the community, you'll start broad-based support for the project concept. out with credibility. You probably have Stakeholder support can even speed up the already established relationships with many approval process, because regulators are of the people you will need to include in the more confident the impacts of the project process.
will be carefully reviewed since the But if you have adversarial relationships community and other stakeholders may play with some of the possible participants, you a role in monitoring implementation. Also, may want to ask yourself if you are willing to effective stakeholder involvement increases do the extra work it will take to build a your credibility with regulators and helps positive working relationship. The rewards reduce the amount of time it takes to build may be great, but it will take extra effort.
trust between you and the regulators. One way to determine whether you are There may be savings involved even if likely to work together effectively with you find there is opposition. It's better to stakeholders is to do a self-assessment of your find out if there are potential problems or existing relationship with the community. To issues as early as possible. If you know about conduct a quick self-assessment, complete the people's concerns early on, you can address assessment tool on page 18.
them before becoming too committed to a If you find you answered "yes" to all the particular approach, or you can make a items, you are starting from a strong position decision not to submit a proposal, saving for working with the community to develop an money that might have been spent on an XL project. If you answered "no" to some of the unsuccessful process. items, think about how you will address these Stakeholder involvement also issues with your stakeholders. The more "no's" contributes to well thought-out plans. you have, the more challenging the stakeholder Stakeholders often identify assumptions or involvement process is likely to be.
problems that could prevent effective implementation. Because they approach the issue differently than either sponsors or .g regulators, stakeholders may identify options or issues that the technical experts i might miss.
13
l O Section lil:
%"1 SPONSOR INFORMATION SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR POTENTIAL SPONSORS Figure 3
- 1) Your organization has a history of active involvement in this community. YES NO
- 2) Your organization has a good reputation in this community. YES NO
- 3) Your organization has a good compliance record (no major fines or violations). YES NO
- 4) Employees of your organization live in and are a part of the community. YES NO
- 5) Your organization has established communication with all racial and economic segments of the community. YES NO
- 6) Your organization has a good employee relations history. YES NO rs have periodic
- 7) dialogues Senior manafh wi your organization's neighbors (commercial and residential). YES NO
- 8) Senior managers have periodic dialogues with your organization s critics. YES NO
- 9) Senior managers know some environmental and commumty group leaders well. YES NO
- 10) Senior managers are willing to discuss issues brought up by stakeholders and consider changes based on these suggestions. YES NO
- 11) Senior managers are willing to commit your organization s time, effort, and resources to (
making this project a success. YES NO
- 12) Senior managers are receptive to ideas and concerns expressed by workers. YES NO i
14 Oi)
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o Section lil: A L) SPONSOR INFORMATION ff What Stakeholder Involvement When Should Stakeholder Does EPA Require? Involvement Start?
EPA requirements for stakeholder You may want to talk with EPA and involvement are defined in the Project XL state regulators before you begin talking Federal Register Notice of May 23,1995, and with stakeholder groups. There may be in the Federal Register Notice titled Clanfying regulatory or other reasons, other ile the XL Process issued April 23,1997. Appendix stakeholder reactions, why your proposal 4 describes other EPA guides and information would not be accepted. Also, at some point that may be useful. EPA and state regulators will conduct a Achieving " stakeholder support" often screening for eligibility based on the requires a more substantial stakeholder Guidancefor Compliance Screening available involvement program than what is defined in on the Project XL web page. If they have XL program guidance. concerns, you may want to know about these Generally speaking, the scope and before you begin a public process.
complexity of the stakeholder process should But once these initial discussions have match the scope and complexity of the project taken place, the experience with earlier XL itself. If the sponsor is asking for significant projects shows that you should begin to changes from existing environmental consult stakeholders early, while you are still requirements and national policy or if the thinking about whether to develop or submit project could have widespread impacts on the a formal XL proposal. Early consultation community or particular segments of it, then may be quite informal, such as an the stakeholder involvement process may exploratory discussion over lunch or small O. need to be equally significant. If the changes informal meetings.
or impacts are modest, then it may be Early consultation should include appropriate to scale back the involvement individuals or groups you think might be process. interested in the project. They, in turn, can The scope and complexity of the process suggest others to whom you should talk.
also reflects the level of interest and Don't avoid people you think might enthusiasm of the stakeholders. On some XL oppose the project, as these people often proposals it has been difficult to stimulate have valuable information about what it stakeholder interest. On other proposals the would take for the project to be successful.
involvement process has greatly exceeded the Also, " opposition" is sometimes created by minimum requirements. how people are or are not included in the process. People who are included from the beginning often feel very differently than people who believe something is being forced upon them. People who don't agree with the project are stilllikely to respect the fact they were approached directly by you at an early stage in the process.
15
O Section Ill: ,
%*$ SPONSOR INFORMATION How Do You Set Up Are there mechanisms by which w rkers can be represented?
A Stakeholder Group?
- Will the project affect minority or Below is a series of steps you can follow ec n mically disadvantaged people to set up a stakeholder group. Although you m re than others?
have the primary responsibility for carrying
- Who needs to be included in a out these steps, the stakeholders role becomes stakeholder group in order for it to more important with eacn step. Experience be seen as representative?
shows that in the most successful processes,
- What is the most effective way to the sponsor and the stakeholders co-create the inv lve stakeholders,(e.g., a series of process.
workshops, a defined stakeholder )
group that meets regularly, etc.)?
Step 1: Do an assessment Remember that various parts of your of the interest of community organization already have established and environmental groups. relationships with people in the community.
At this stage you are still deciding Do a quick check around your organization whether or not to prepare a proposal and to identify these existing relationships. If what kind of things to propose if you do- other people in the organization are the You've probably held some preliminary primary point of contact with people in the conversations with the regional EPA office and community, have them set up the initial get-your state regulator. You are now ready to together, perhaps accompanying you.
begin developing your stakeholder involvement process. . Step 2: Decide what help is needed.
Your first step is to talk to people in the There are three kinds of help you might community to make an imtial assessment of consider: project co-sponsorship, start-up how much interest there is likely to be. The ass stance and routine meeting facilitation.
simple rule is:If you want to know how much interest there will be in a project, ask the .
people who are most likely to be interested.
g Co-sponsorship ,
Y u m y want to form a partnership with Conduct a series of informal discussions with .
with a credible community or environmental stakeholders you know, e.g., state and city gr up ( r gr ups) who will serve as Project officials, employee representatives, leaders of Co-sponsor (s). A co-sponsor may be environmental or community groups.
particularly important if your organization is Questions you unay want to ask include: not well-known, or does not have an
- What is the level of community established track record for environmental interest in the facility? excellence. If you are going to seek a co-sponsor
- How knowledgeable is the it is important to do this early in the community about the issues process. Orj;anizations are not likely to be surrounding your facility? willing to be a co-sponsor if they are not
- What kinds of issues have been included in the original planning.
important to the community in the past?
- How active is the community on environmental or public health issues?
- Are there organized groups representing the community or environmental interests?
O 16
Section Ill: A SPONSOR INFORMATION
$ Start-up assistance Because neutrality is a matter of EPA can provide assistance to sponsors in perception, sponsors may want to talk with initiating the stakeholder involvement process. people who could be direct participants EPA will provide support through a neutral about which facilitators would be acceptable.
facilitator. The facilitator will help sponsors Sponsors won't want to hire a facilitator who of a stakeholder group, and lead the is viewed as having a bias, because the value kick-off meeting, helping the group develop of neutrality will be lost. Appendix 3 provides agreement on the process and ground rules information on finding a facilitator.
for working together. Once the group is established, the start-up facilitator has Step 3: Develop a list of completed his or her job, and the sponsor and potential direct participants.
stakeholders will continue to work together to Once you decide what assistance will be build their own process. Contact your Project helpful, identify people who are willing to be XL regional coordinator to get information on part of a stakeholder group that will meet how to obtain this assistance from EPA. with you regularly to discuss and develop the proposal.
S Routine meeting facilitation One way to get started is to make a list Project-related start-up assistance of people who are likely to see themselves as provided by EPA is free of charge but affected by the project. Here's a quick generally ends after the first meeting, checklist of the reasons people might see But EPA strongly recommends that you themselves as affected:
have a neutral facilitator throughout the entire stakeholder process.
- Proximity / exposure,
- O. A facilitator plays two roles: (1) an (e.g., workers or people who live experienced facilitator has knowledge about near the facility or could be how to help groups work together effectively affected by land, air, water and can help the sponsor plan a stakeholder or soil pollution, or by involvement process that will be effective; construction impacts) and (2) facilitators are trained meeting
- Concernfor the effects of this leaders who can help design and conduct project upon otherland uses good meetings, on this or adjoining land, Facilitators are effective both because (e.g., whether this project frees they have training and experience in helping up or forecloses the use people work together but also because they of other land) are neutral about the contents of the
- Concernfor the effects ofIhis project proposal. Even if there are people in the upon the environment, sponsoring organization who have (e.g., impact upon air or water, facilitation skills, stakeholders will react or on endangered species) more positively to an outside facilitator
- Economics,(e.g., jobs, potential because the facilitator does not have for economic development) a stake in any particular result.
l 17
^ Section lil:
h SPONSORINFORA1ATION
- Mandate, (e.g., agencies whose Be sure you don't leave out job it is to protect a particular these groups:
resource such as wetlands or endangered species, or who @ State, regional, and regulate land use) national groups
. Values /politicalphilosophy, State, regional, and national groups (e.g., people who are strong may see themselves as stakeholders because advocates for " environmental local XL projects test ideas that may later be stewardship," or " reducing applied nationally. Don't assume that the governmental waste and positions of local environmental or business paperwork") groups are identical with those of comparable national organizations.
One way to expand the list of It is better to seek participation from potentially interested people is to ask for state, regional and national organizations recommendations from people such as: from the beginning (assuming they are
- State agencies interested), rather than have them get
- Alayor, or County Exccutive involved late in the process after agreements
- City Council enconbcr have already been reached with local
- State legislators stakeholders.
- District school board unernber
- Local health officials O Economically disadvantaged
- Pastors ofcorninunity churches stakeholders or groups
- Current andforrner Cornmunity-Advisory Panel (CAP) mconbers representing these interests EPA is particularly concerned about (if your organizatson already avoiding disproportionate adverse impacts has one)
- State and local environinental on such groups and is very interested in organi:ations
- Academia or local universities experienced by such groups.
- Neighborhood associations of residents near afacility O Employees
- Environenentaljustice Employees are a crucial group of organizations affected stakeholders. Some facilities have a You can show these people thelist plant employee environmental advisory ,
you've developed so far and ask them who committee or other group from which else needs to be included for the stakeholder candidates may be recruited. At union group to be seen as credible or plants the method of selection may be representative. subject to contractual requirements.
There are several issues you will need to address to ensure adequate worker The goalis to involve the representation: How can you eliminate fear stakcholders representative of all of retribution if workers take positions the inafor interests associated different than management? Is time spent on with the proposal. an XL stakeholder group paid time? How can you ensure that the worker representatives are in fact perceived as representative?
18 O
r Section 111: O O
la Step 4: Decide what kind SPONSOR INFORMATION h Recruitment of stakeholders may take of process will be used. positive and creative action on your part.
Stakeholders often want a voice in You may need to seek people out to get them decision making, not just access to involved, rather than expecting they will just information, and have needs and come to you. You may need to try new expectations of their own. The stakeholder approaches to stimulate interest and involvement process is something that has to generate the willingness to participate.
be agreed upon by all the parties who are If national groups are interested in the participating. project, you may need to create mechanisms, When people are invited to participate, such as conference calls or videoconferencing they are going to want to anticipate what to include people from these group in the time commitment is involved. For example, discussions.
will the group participate in a series of If your project is of great interest to workshops scheduled for key points in the stakeholders, your challenge could be to development of the proposal, or will there be keep the group to a workable size. When regular meetings? groups get larger than about 20 people, Sometimes decisions about what kind of group dynamics become increasingly process it will be can be resolved in one-on-one difficult. But limiting the size of the group discussions with potential participants. must sometimes be balanced with the need in other cases you may want to assemble a to ensure that all major interests are core group of stakeholders with whom you represented.
can discuss the options. Even the core group
_ should include a range of viewpoints. If Step 6: Ifold the first
( major interests feel left out, it will undercut stakeholder group meeting.
C')' the credibility of the process. The first meeting is usually an
" organizational" or kick-off meeting in the Step 5: Invite people on sense that it focuses primarily on how the the list to participate, sponsor and stakeholders will work together, Once you are confident the list is not the contents of the XL proposal. During representative and credible, invite the people this first meeting the group needs to gain on the list to be part of the organized mutual understanding about the process and stakeholder group. A personal contact is participants' expectations and roles, rather almost always more effective than a letter, than try to reach substantive agreements.
although the sponsor may want to follow up Consider the possibility of starting with the personal contact with a letter. a team-building session with the group or Remember that you are asking people going through joint training on how to work to donate their valuable time to the project. together as a team. EPA may be able to Even if these individuals work for organizations provide third-party process assistance for which are active on environmental issues, this team building, facilitation, or training.
project must still compete for their time with Frequently the first meeting focuses on other important environmental issues in the the ground rules for the stakeholder group.
community. You may have to convince people This is discussed in more detail below.
of the environmental benefits that can be achieved through the program before people will make the needed time commitment.
m I 19
l I
O Section lil:
(# SPONSORINI'ORMATION Step 7: Agree on Ground Rules. Afutual respect rules The ground rules define your role and Does the group need guidelines to respor.sibilities, and the role and ensure that everyone-stakeholders, responsibilities of the members of the sponsors, consultants, and regulators - is stakeholder group. They also define the treated with respect?
procedures you and the stakeholder group will follow throughout the development of Afethod ofdecision snaking the XL proposal and agreement. Who are the decision makers? Will The discussion of the ground rules decisions be made by consensus? What typically begins during the first meeting of constitutes consensus? Does any single the group. But the process may take more stakeholder or constituency have a veto?
than one meeting. How will disagreements be resolved? If there These procedures should be adopted by isn't unanimity, can people submit minority agreement of the participants. If you can't reports expressing their disagreements?
get agreement on how you are going to work together, there's little hope of agreeing on the Afernbership of thegroup project itself. Of course " consensus" doesn't What are the criteria for membership in always mean that everyone is equally the group? Are members considered enthusiastic. It does mean that everybody representatives of their groups or
" consents" to the ground rules. constituencies? How will additional Typically it is easier for a group to react stakeholders be selected if more are needed to and modify a "strawman" set of ground or vacancies are created? Who makes the rules than create the ground rules from decisions about who gets added to the scratch. The word "strawman" simply means group?
that this is a preliminary proposal that (because it is only made of straw) can be Definition of responsibilitics/
readily discarded or changed. The strawman accountabilities may be perceived more neutrally if it is Beyond the ultimate authority of EPA generated by the convenor or facilitator, and the state to decide whether a project Topics to be covered in the ground rules
, goes forward, what are the roles of the include:
sponsor, the governmental agencies involved, and the volunteer stakeholders at Role of the stakeholdergroup c,cy g,ep oggge procesg7 Is the group advisory (e.g., it gives advice or makes recommendations), or does facilitator's role it make decisions that are binding on the Will a facilitator be used? Will the sponsor? What obligations does the sponsor stakeholder group participate in selecting the have for reporting what it did in response t facilitator? What role will the facilitator play?
recommendations?
i l
20
Section lil: O 0 SPONSOR INTO101AT10N ff Methad of corntnunication How Do You Involve How will the group share correspondence, "Commentors"?
meeting notes / minutes, or reports among the
Commentors," as EPA defines it, are stakeholders? Who has the responsibility for stakeholders who are interested in an XL making this happen?
project but are not able to commit the time and resources necessary to be members of Treatment ofconfidential the organized stakeholder group. But they infortnation are willing to write a letter or e-mail How willinformation deemed message, makc a phone call, or attend a competitively sensitive by the sponsor be meeting or workshop to make a comment on protected and/or shared? the proposal.
EPA requires sponsors to provide Technical assistance information to potential commentors and Do the direct participants need training create periodic forums in which they can or technical assistance and what kind? Who express their comments.
will the stakeholders rely on for technical Here are some suggestions on how to information? Is there a need for third-party involve commentors:
technical assistance? Who will decide whetherit is needed? How will such Step 1: Develop a mailing list.
assistance be selected? Who will pay for it? You will need to mail information -
bulletins, newsletters, reports, meeting Decision not to procced announcement-to commentors. Begin O If the sponsor decides not to submit a proposal or not to proceed with a project, right away to develop a mailing list that can be used for such mailings.
what obligations does the sponsor have to Some of the people to include on the s;akeholder group? the list are:
- Immediate neighbors of When you've completed the steps the site / project above, you are formally launched. From this
- Employees of the sponsor point forward, the process can be
- Local and state elected officials determined by mutual agreement between
- Government agency officials with you and the stakeholder group. As provided responsibilities related for in the ground rules, you and members of to environmental protection the stakeholder group will now work or cleanup, water or air quality, together to build a successful XL project. or land use
- Community, environmental and business groups (including local and national organizations)
- Local newspapers, publications, or organizational newsletters 21
O Section lil:
%f SPONSORINTORA1ATION Every time there's a public meeting, Step 3: Hold public meetings or have a signe list to record the names and workshops addresses of any attendees who are not Set up periodic meetings at which the already on the mailing list. Set up the public can get more information or make mailing list so that there will be the option comments. The most effective time for public later of targeting specific audiences. meetings is just before major decisions, when all the information is available but the public Step 2: Send review copies of can still influence the decision. The key times for documents to key groups and public meetings are:
individuals.
One important way to keep 9 To review the draft proposal.
commentors informed is to send them review copies of the important documents g To review possible substantive related to the project. Invite them to submit changes in the proposal resulting comments on these documents, within from questions or suggestions specified time limits. The key documents to from regulators.
consider sending out are:
O Draftproposal Q To review the draft Tinal Project Agreement.
9 FinalProposal Some of the ways to publicize public meetings are by issuing news releases, by 3 Questionsfrom regulators putting out a newsletter containing the (and your responses) nformation people will need to participate effectively, and by paying for ads in the Q Draft Final Project Agreement communication media.
If the meeting could be controversial or
$ final Project Agreement challenging, consider hiring a neutral facilitator. Facilitators not only have skills at if the documents are long, prepare a conducting meetings, but their neutrality short synopsis and send that along with a helps keep things calm.
mail-in postcard on which people can Be sure to consider formats other than request a copy of the complete document. public hearings. Workshops-where people include the same postcard with any copies of actually work together to complete a task-the actual documents, so that people who or other interactive kinds of meetings are receive them can request that the documents usually far more satisfying than a hearing be sent to others. Some sponsors have format.
developed web sites which allow people to download the documents that interest them.
Another option is to publish a periodic newsletter. Include a hotline number in any newsletter stories so people can request copies.
O 22
em Section lil: O
() SPONSOR INFORMATION ff What Is the Stakeholders' Role While the SponsorIs Particularly when people have been inv Ived in developing the proposal, they may Workin8 out an A 8reement have very strong feelings about changes made with EPA and Other in the project. It would be a very unfortunate to Regulators? develop strong stakeholder support then lose it Once you submit a proposal, EPA because stakeholders weren't included during reviews the proposal in collaboration with the final negotiations.
state, local, and /or tribal regulators. Often the regulators will have questions or suggestions for changes that will make the What Is the Stakeholder proposal more acceptable. Once the proposal is Group's Role During ,
accepted in principle, a Final Project Agreement Implementation?
(FPA)is worked out between project sponsors The Final Project Agreement will define and the regulators. This agreement captures the the role of the stakeholder group during intent of the signators in carrying out the implementation. EPA strongly encourages project proposal. XI. sponsors to actively involve stakeholders To this point the sponsor and in reviewing reports of the results of the stakeholders have been working very closely ' project. Some groups have maintained a to develop the proposal. Now the sponsor continuing interest in how the results are and regulators are working together directly, measured. In other cases, there has not been and there may be considerable dialogue significant irarest except in the final results.
between them, sometimes leading to Sponsors will need to find the appropriate
(" significant changes in the propasal. It is easy for stakeholders - who've donated level ofinvolvement based on the stakeholders' level of interest and the nature considerable time and energy helping the of the project.
project get this far along - to feel " cut-out" If there is high interest or potential for of the process during these negotiations. controversy, it pays to sustain the You .ud the stakeholder group need to involvement of stakeholders. Their develop agreements,in advance of this stage, continued involvement lends credibility to on how stakeholders will be kept informed the study results and reduces the risk that and involved to the extent that they desire to stakeholder groups will challenge the be. One of the issues to discuss is how big a manner in which studies were done.
proposed change in the proposal must be to trigger a review by stakeholders. If it isn't easy to agree on "how big" a change must be, talk about "who decides" to notify or reassemble stakeholders.
The compelling reason for keeping stakeholders informed and involved is to be sure they continue to support the project.
Their continuing involvement is also a way to identify any new concerns that could derailimplementation.
q 23
l A APPENDICES
& O The appendices provide additional resources: 1
- Appendix 1 hsts Project XL contacts at each of EPA's regional offices. Call them to discuss your proposal, to request convening assistance, or to request technical assistance for your stakeholder group. EPA will support the efforts of project sponsors and stakeholders to develop XL proposals.
- Appendix 2 discusses the kinds of technical assistance that EPA can provide to
>ponsors and stakeholders.
- Appendix 3 discusses how to how to find a third party facilitator.
- Appendix 4 lists other EPA guides or documents that provide additional advice i about stakeholder involvement. l Appendix 1 i EPA PROJECT XL REGIONAL POINTS OF CONTACT Region 1 (ME, Nil, VT, M A, RI, CT) Region 6 (NM, TX, OK, AR, LA)
Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency John F. Kennedy Building 1445 Ross Avenue, Ste. 700 Boston, M A 02203-0001 Dallas, TX 75202-2733 George Frantz (617) %5-2752 Adele Cardenas (214) 665-7210 Fax (617) 565-3415 fax (214) 665-3177 Region 2 (NY, NJ, PR) Region 7 (NE, KS, I A, MO)
Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency 290 Broadway 726 Minnesota Avenue New York, NY 10007-1866 Kansas City, KS 66101 Aleksandra Dobkowski Dick Sumpter (913) 551-7661 (212) 637-3676 fax (913) 551-7976 Fax (212) 637-5045 Region 8 (MT, ND, WY, SD, UT, CO)
Region 3 (PA, DE, DC, M D, VA, WV) Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency 999 - 18th Street, Ste. 500 1650 Arch Street Denver, CO 80202-2466 Philadelphia, PA 19103 Mary Byrne (303) 312-6491 David Byro or Beth Termini (215) 814 5563 fax (303) 312-6741 Mindy Snoparski(215) 814-3316 f ax (215) 814-5103 Region 9 (CA, NV, AZ, Ill)
Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 (KY, TN, NC, SC, MS, AL, G A, FL) 75 Hawthorne Street Environmental Protection Agency San Francisco, CA 94105 61 Forsyth Street SW Mark Samolis (415) 744-2331 Atlanta, GA 30303 fax (415) 744-2360 Michelle Glenn (404) 562-8674 fax (404) 562-9594 Region 10(WA, OR,ID, AK)
Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Sixth Avenue Region 5 (MN, WI, IL, MI, IN,011)
Seattle, WA 98101 Environmental Protection Agency Bill Glasser (206) 553-7215 77 West Jackson Boulevard Chicago,IL 60604 3507 fax (206) 553-8338 Linda Martin (312) 333-9486 fax (312) 353-5374 O
24
n APPENDICES O N.] ff Appendix 2 Appendix 3 TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE HOW TO FIND A THIRD-PARTY AVAILABLE TO STAKEHOLDERS FACILITATOR EPA has set up a mechanism to provide Typically, a facilitator is someone who is not task-specific technical assistance to XL associated with any of the parties and has no !
stakeholder projects. The Institute for vested interest in the decision being made. This is j Conservation Leadership manages this service to make sure that no one worries that the way a l
under a cooperative agreement with EPA. meeting or workshop is being run gives any j The kinds of services available under particular organizatmn an advantage.
this project include assistance with:
- Understanding technicalissues it is helpful-but not mandatory-for the
- Interpreting and evaluating facilitator to be familiar with the organizations technicalinformation involved and the subjects of discussion. As a e Facilitating the stakeholder process minimum, the facilitator needs to know enough l
- Providing other kinds to be able to follow the discussion. Since agencies l i of professionalexpertise often use numerous acronyms and technical jargon, this can be an important point. On the This assistance is limited to $25,000 per other hand,if the facilitator is too directly group and is available only when requested by involved in the subject matter he or she may the entire stakeholder group. have opinions that make it hard to remain neutral, or he or she may be seen by one of the For information, contact: parties as biased or partial towards a particular i point of view or organization. I Institute for Conservation Leadership (3/
f 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 420 Takoma Park, MD 20912 There are many levels of skill and experience among people who call themselves (301) 70-2900 facilitators. Some have just completed their i e-mail: peter @icl.org or dianne@ici.org training, while others may have 20+ yea s of facilitation experience in a variety of l If the project involves hazardous waste, circumstances. Typically, their fees reflect these technical assistance may also be available differences (although some relatively junior through a program called Technical Outreach facihtators may seek " senior facilitator" fees).
Senices for Communities (TOSC). The goal of Facilitator fees range from $500/ day (in 1999 the TOSC progren is to inform, educate and dollars) to $2,000/ day or mcre. A fully qualified l empower communities with hazardous waste facilitator can normally be hired in the $750 to j problems by providing technical information and $1,500/ day range. I guidance. TOSC uses five Hazardous Substance Research Centers (HSRCs) and a network of 23 universities nationwide to provide this support.
These services are coordinated by the Superfund Community involvement Coordinator in each region. Your Project XL regional contact person can connect you with this individual. e ;
I n f v
25
1
- % APPENDICES There are several sources of information International Association for about qualified facilitators: Public Participation
- Each EPA region has an
- ombudsman" P.O. Box 10146 who is also responsible for providing conflict Alexandria, VA 22310 resolution assistance throughout his/her region. (800) 644-4273
- fax (703) 971-0006 Each ombudsman has a hst of quahfied E-Mail:iap2hq@ pin.org facihtators. Your Project XL contact person can provide you with this information.
- In October 1998, Congress established the
- For a number of years, EPA has U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict maintained a national contract for dispute Resolution. At EPA's request, The U.S. Institute is resolution services to support its environmental in the process of constructing a " National Roster and pubhc policy efforts. Through this contract, of Environmental Dispute Resolution and EPA obtains the services of numerous qualified Consensus Building Professionals." They expect dispute resolution and stakeholder invoh ement to have this roster in place by Summer 1999. The specialists around the country. Deborah Dalton, Institute expects that the roster will contain up to the EPA contract manager, can be contacted at 400 names of experienced environmental Dalton.Deborah&pa goe, for information about facilitators, mediators, and arbitrators. The roster consultant 3 can be used by Federal agencies, state agencies, .
- Traming othcers of sponsoring or parties to disputes with federal agencies.
organizations may have lists of facilitators who Contact Information: U.S. Institute for have conducted team building or management Environmental Conflict Resolution,110 South development programs for the organization Church Avenue, Suite 3350, Tucson, AZ 85701,
- Most professional facilitators with (520) 670-5299.
environmental or public policy experience belong to one of the two professional organizations listed below. Typically, these organ.izations will provide rosters of their members)(whether they are active facihtators or not), and do not comment on the qualifications of the people on the rosters. You can get lists of professional facilitators by contacting:
Environmental and Public Policy Sector Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution 1527 New llampshire As enue,3rd Fhur Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 667-9700
- fax (202) 265-1968 E-Mail: spidr@spidr.org 26 l'
APPENDICES O O Appendix 4 Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder
$ 1 i
OTIIER EPA STAKEllOLDER Pmcesses, US EPA, Office of the Administrator, INVOLVEMENT RESOURCE EPA 1CO-7-98 009, September 1998. This report MATERIALS describes lessons learnedfrom a carefud evahiation of the stakeholder inwivement processesforfour ofIhe first XL projects.
Draft EPA Manual on Consultative Project XL Best Practices for Proposal Processes: Better Decisions through Development, US EPA, Office of Reinvention, Consultation and Collaboration, U.S.
EPA 100-F-99-002, February 1999. This guide Environmental Protection Agency, March 25, provides a templatefor preparing a Project XL 1968. This guide provides an oivrview of all types of proposal consultative and collaboratize processes used by EPA Guidance Icr Compliance Screening ior mcluding stakeholder involvement and alternative Project XL The document describes how EPA will dispute resolution (ADR) appmaches.
screen potenttal Project XL sponsors to determine Constructive Engagement Resource Guide:
chgibihtyfor Project XL The purpose of this Practical Advice for Dialogue Among Tacilities, screening ss to make an informed judgment regarding Workers, Communities and Regulators, US EPA, the hkehhood of the sponsor 's abihty to achieve Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, EPA-745-superior environmental results.
B-99-008, March 1999. " Constructive The Model Plan for Public Participation, Er gagement" is a term used in the computer and Public Participation and Accountabihty electronic industryfor efforts between facdities and Subcommittee of the National Environmental stakeholders to ucrk together in a cooperative, non-justice Advisory Council, Office of adversa rial way to estabhsh and monitor afacihty's Environmental Justice, U.S. Environmental environmental management system. While this guide Protection Agency, Washington D C.,10 pages, coters a wider rangc of acticulies than Project XL, it 1996, EPA 300-N-96-003. This short guide contains a sti!I provides considecable practical information statement ofguiding principles and critical elements O appropriate to Project XL stakeholder involvement programs and is more deladed than the guide you are reading.
for an effective public participation program. It also presents a statement ofcore vahsesfor the practice of public participation.
Community Advisory Group Toolkit, Guide for EPA XL Project Teams, US EPA, Office of Sohd Waste and Emergency Response office of Reinvention, January 1999. This is a (OSWER), US EPA, EPA 540 R-97-037, September guidefor EPA staffprovidmg guidelinesfor hoze to 1988. Although this guide is writtenfor Superfund orgarte as an effective XL team and describing projects, it contains a great deal ofinformation about internal EPA roles and responsibilities at each step in advisory groups that wdl be equally usefsdfor Project the XL process.
XL stakeholdergroups. It also contains detailed descriptions of over 30 tools (techniques)for commumty invohrment that can be used to reach "commentors" and the generalpubhc.
27
1 P O Q O P O C T I V D O N PuDllt@g lman l'revared by the Nuclear Energy Institute _- March 1999 Speaking About Clean Air and Waste Legislation: Lessons Frons the Research im Ann S.13isconti, Ph.D.
Best Reasons To Use Nuclear Energy unreys conducted throughout 1998 "I'nt going to read some staternents about nuc! car energy and for each one, S ly link two important illustrate that Americans don't reade.
I,d like you tosubjects:
tell ine how good a reason youfeel it is to use nuclear energy as a source of Cicetricity in the United States. You can use any numberfrom
- 1) nuclear energy's contribution to clean
- cro to 10 to express yourfeelings. 7ero means it is not at all a eood reason.
air and 2) the federal used fuel legislation and 10 means it is an afrenu'ly cood reason."
needed to allow continued plant opera- Percent Rating Menage 810 (very good or extremely good reason tion, thereby preserving those clean air to une nuclear energy) benefits. Recent NEl research shows, Jenway Juh however, that with greater awareness of IIII IIII clean air benefits Americans have a Nuclear energy plants keep the air clean. 64 62 greater incentive to support federal used Using nuclear energy reduces our reliance 62 62 on energy from unstable parts of the world.
fuel legislation.
Messages for communicating with the As our population and economy grow, more 61 62 electricity from available sources like nuclear public about nuclear energy and waste energy will be needed.
legislation were tested in 1998 as an add- Using nuclear energy preserves 56 53 on to several opinion surveys for NEl by America's natural resources for Ilisconti Research Inc. This research '" "" E * '"" "*
included two nationally representative Us g nuclear ergy ps pmwnt 52 climate change, because nuclear energy surveys of college graduates who are reg- plants provide a large part of the electricity istered to vote, as well as several surveys we need without emitting greenhouse gases, among the general public.* Tl.e opinion New advanced design nuclear energy plants are safer. 48 50 research depicts the attitudes and percep. Nuclear energy is the second cheapest 42 44 tions people currently hold; the message fonn of ekctricity production in the United States, second only to coal and research indicates which points make the h ss expensive than natural gas.
strongest case for increasing support for New advanced design nuclear energy 32 35 I nuclear energy and for waste legislation plants by U.S. manufacturers have been I
among these audiences. certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for use in the United States, For both the college graduate / registered and two of these U.S. plants have already j voter segment and the general public, the been built in Japan.
O Ann S. Biscontiis president of The National Academy of Sciences and "Y "" "^' '" "'E " """"
agree that the method of nuclear waste 23 25 Bisconti Research, Inc. disposal that is underway in the United States is safe for current and future generations. iconese cr.duate., negi.iered 1. voie>
best reason to use nuclear energy is to air message, which relates to the value of fuel disposal issue, and the US. is well pre-
" keep the air clean." environmental protection: " Nuclear energy pand to apply this knowkdge in safe stor-13ut what does clean air have to do with plants are needed because they generate age and disposal of our used nuclear fuel.")
used fuel legislation? NEI n search for 20 percent of the nation's electricity with- Points about the extra cost to store used many years has found that reminding pen- out emitting any air pollution or green- fuel on site continue to rate somewhat ple about the benefits of nuclear energy house gases." Tw& thirds of the public said lower than the others. Environmental pnw gives them a compelling rationale for sup- that this point would increase their support tection, responsibility, and safety rank porting waste legislation. for federal legislation to take used fuel to a above economics in the hierarchy of values in December 1998, we tested five mes- centralind temporary storage facility. that link to support for waste legislation.
sages in support of used fuel legislation Equally persuasive are points about among the general public. These messages responsibility ("We have a responsibility
- All the surwys tecre with nationally repre-incorporated kwsons leamed in earlier to future generations to begin long-term sentative sarnples of LUUU. The vnargin of years and speak to key values: environ- storage now at a single federal storage error for tin.s sarnple si:e is plus or rninus mental protection, taking responsibility, facility") and safety ("It would be easier to three percentage points. ,
safety, and economic security. monitor and regulate fewer storage sites,'
All the messages are quite persuasive, and "We've colk cted vast scientific knowl-And among the most persuasive is a clean edge in seeking to solve the used nuclear I Clean Air Is Leading Benefit "Which one of these benefits 66%
clean ei, of nuclear energy scerns inost important to you?...And which *****'**hg*g*,*,*
,p f* 9 l } 40% W of these others is rnost irnpor- g,,, y,,,,, y,,, l
-~
tant?"(Tbp two selected) dependense l 37%
)
No greenhouse l sas emissions 31 % j l
l Source U.S. public, Daemb., t998 0 20 40 60 80 100 I
. ;. . ;w .. . . ..
1 Staternents in Support of Waste Legislation "I ain going to read several staternents. Please tell ine if the statement would increase your support a lot, increase your support a little, decrease your support a little, or decrease your support a lotfor Icgislation for thefederalgoverninent to take the usedfuel to a ternporary storagefacility until the perrnanent nuclear wastefacility is ready."
Response to statements 2 i
wm Pcrcott Saying Mecccgo WO:Id Increuse Support for Legislation To Take else Used Fuel to a Teniporary Storage Facility O ,o,ei ... ...
l We have a responsibility to the ,
69 74 65 environment and future generations to begin long-term storage now at a single federal storage facility.
Nuclear energy plants are needed 68 73 64 because they generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity without emitting air pollution or greenhouse gases.
It would be easier to monitor and 67 69 65 regulate fewer fuel storage sites.
We've collected vast scientific knowledge 65 70 61 in seeking to solve the used nuclear fuel disposal issue, and the U.S. is well prepared to apply this knowledge in safe storage and disposal of our used nuclear fuel.
O rae "eea ##cie>< reei ie e- e'ered t si == **
more than 100 nuclear energy plants, and new storage facilities costing millions of dollars each will have to be built at many of the plant sites,if no federal storage or disposal site is completed soon.
Percent Saying Message Would Increase Support 'a Lot' Yotel Men Women Responsibility 38 41 35 No air pollution 31 34 29 Easier to monitor 30 29 30 l
Scientific knowledge 26 28 24 I O wmees er aeiiere 22 22 22 Soorte U.S. piMic, December 1998 $
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- GEPA Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes Executive Summary
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{} Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes September 1998 -
Executive Summary and Recommendations V
Project XL-which stands for excellence in Leadership-is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-sponsored pilot test of facility-specific innovative strategies to prouce superior environmental performance. In accepting proposals for initial XL projects, EPA established a criteria of demonstrated stakeholder support as one of the conditions for obtaining EPA approval of the project. When Project XL was first announced in May 1995 in the Federal Register, EPA outlined its desire for stakeholder involvement, but did not make specific -
recommendations about the design of the stakeholder processes, leaving the responsibility for creating a process that would meet the criteria to the industry sponsor or applicant.
This report provides a review of t ie design and conduct of the stakeholder processes at four of the initial XL projects to reach Final Project Agreements (FPAs). It outlines the varieties j of models developed by company sponsors, and reports stakeholder perspectives on the processes j as gathered in a stakeholder survey.
l Several different models of stakeholder involvement resulted from the original call from l EPA for XL project sponsors to design a site-specific model for stakeholder participation. The four sites examined in this report demonstrate two basic models:
s Consensus Decision-Making with Stakeholders a Public-Consultation and Information Sharing The processes used by Intel and Merck fall into the first category; HADCO and Weyerhaeuser are examples of the second.
The interviews, observations, and survey data gathered for this analysis provide an initial view of the strengths and weaknesses of the tivo basic models of stakeholder involvement that emerged in early XL efforts. Neither the consensus decision-making model nor the public-consultation and information sbaring model was clearly determined to be a superior method of involving stakeholders in the XL FPA development process.
The survey and observation results showed clarity of structure and objectives for the process is more important to success and credibility than type of stakeholder involvement process. The XL project rated as most effective by survey respondents was a public-consultation process at Weyerhaeuser that relied heavily on long-standing community-company relationships to
, establish support for the regulatoiy experiment. The project rated least satisfactory on most measures was the public-consultation and information sharing process conducted by HADCO.
The two consensus decision-making processes were ranked in between the other two.
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Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes September 1998 Benefits of the XL stakeholder processes noted in the survey of stakeholders also provide indications of desirable elements to preserve in any model. The benefits noted include:
m Improved, flexible, and realistic environmental planning a Involvement of all interest groups, including community and intergovernmental players a Opportunities for citizen involvement in future monitoring of project implementation The weaknesses noted in the survey of stakeholders provide indications of pitfalls and conditions to avoid. They include:
a Confusion about, and time consuming nature of, procedures for approval of the FPA.
m Perceptions that the company could " orchestrate" stakeholder support, a Intervention by national environmental groups that is disconnected from local l citizen involvement. g The survey conducted for this report found that processes rated as highly effective (i.e.,
clearly structured with adequate resources) had a combination of broad distribution of benefits and high individual and organizational satisfaction with the outcome of the negotiation. Processes with perceived barriers to participation (e.g., lack of technical information, unclear objectives, inadequate resources to participate) had lower satisfaction with the distribution of benefits and with the outcome. Thus, process satisfaction and substantive results were closely linked; both are critical elements of the success of future XL projects.
Recommendations Consensus Versus Advisory Role for Stakeholders a Determine up front what type of process is appropriate, to allow stakeholder responsibilities regarding time commitment and authority to commit to be addressed in a realistic way before the process starts.
m Use consensus decision-making processes when:
-Serious objections to the final outcome might succeed in blocking g implementation, and options exist for addressing the objections. T 2
. Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes September 1998 ,
,. -Strong community ownership of outcome is desired.
m Use public-consultation and information sharing processes when:
-V -Issues in proposal are not controversial. ,
-Public notices do not generate much comment. i
-Issues are narrow in scope and don't impact' policy concerns.
- a. If a consensus decision-making process is the desired approach, allocate time for 1 training in collaborative process negotiations and on the technical issues likely to
. be the~ subject of discussion. Time also will be needed in the initial meetings for procedural negotiations to ensure all stakeholders feel the process is fair and likely to produce an outcome they can live with. If consensus is the goal, agreement on the definition of consensus will be a key procedural negotiation. Defining consensus as "all can agree to live with, and support, the outcome" is a practical
. option.
' Consider the use of a facilitator to prevent inadvertent bias from arising when company sponsor is both negotiator and mediator of disputes arising in consensus decision-making processes.
a ' Through consultation with stakeholders, each XL stakeholder process should be developed into a'well-defined structure. The' experiences outlined in this repon
.O- . should assist participants anticipate time commitments and other responsibilities new projects will require. The development of a shared understanding of what all
. panicipants can gain from the process is an imponant first step in building
]
stakeholder support. This could require initial one-on-one conversations with .
1 affected interests and a synthesis of concerns and issues raised in the one-on-one discussions for all to read and understand. Neutrals often can help with these' tasks.
]
)
National and Local Environmental Group Participants u - National environmental groups have commented extensively on past FPAs, but have not participated directly in stakeholder groups. In consensus decision-making processes, communication between the national environmental group and some local environmental groups needs to be improved. Methods for addressing this includer
-Identifying opportunities for national environmental groups to panicipate in the stakeholder process.
-Developing viable links between national groups and the local groups who
~'
are direct participants.
-Establishing consultation with national groups by the stakeholder group as a ,
- formal part of the process of public consultation throughout the FPA 3
1
Evaluation of Project XL Stakeh' older Processes September 1998 development process.
Technical Expertise for Citizen Stakeholders a Funding for limited technical expertise already has been adopted by EPA as a strategy for supporting citizens in the technical discussions. Ensuring the funds are used to answer questions important to all involved in the specific negotiations will be essential. The technical assistance program should be monitored and evaluated by EPA and environmental groups.
m National environmental group staff often have the substantive expertise that citizen environmentalists lack. Implementing recommendations noted above for pairing national and local environmental group direct participants also can improve the technical resources available to local groups.
e To address perceptions identified in RESOLVE's survey that local groups achieve less than other constituencies of what they seek in the XL stakeholder processes, the following strategies might be useful: provide training in negotiation, scope out the stakeholder negotiation issues with the local groups in advance, coach the local negotiating team as the process proceeds, and clarify expectations with local representatives at the outset.
h Costs and Benefits '
s Improving the integration of the XL process with government agency approval processes might reduce concerns about the time-consuming nature of the stakeholder processes.
m Monitoring stakeholder involvement as implementation of the FPAs proceed will help to further evaluate whether the time spent resulted in the benefits predicted by the stakeholder group.
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Ligiarred FWr Owips pr K00 Qincal Ftars (as >lLO NA NA pnkas kas gaters)
MillisdirW 9/ ulans Safety $ystem lknavailability 0lSU) AA Fleran t 1 1 1 (ausage dpntos 12 ganes) Brisyrry Ftmet >3m1 4 0161 >10A1
>2EDG1 >38161 >100161 >20.0161 Skts1 1 1 1 650 1 M011 0 >l20161 >50A1 FIC 1 >lat M01(1 >2),0161 ROC 1 M0161 >l20161 >500lt1 1001 >20let >10161 >10.(P61 fBRs1 1 1 1 ffSl1 >20lt1 >50%1 >10A1
- M1 >201h1 4 0161 pl2A1 IUR >2016 >5016 >10. Ole Safety $ysicm Fisulmsl Fdksts (aer ptMos kas 40 NA NA gasters)
O Table I PERFOkM ANCE INDICATORS Cent'd Cornerstone ind6 eater Thresholde inevessed Required Lh Regulatory Reguistory Ps Reepomoe Band Response Band Be Barrters i Reactor Cootan System (RCS) Spectac Acuvely (mammum > SO 0% p l00% N
- Fuel Claddmg 1 montNy values, perceni of Tech, Spec limit, during previout ,our ausraers) 4 Reactor CoolarW RCS Ident!Aed Leak Rate (maximum monthly values, > 50 M > 100% N, Sysiem i percent of TectL 5pec. llmit dunrig prewnous four quarters)
- Coniainment Containment Leakage (maximum montNy values. > 60.M N/A 4 percehlage of1,aovet the previous four quaners)
E mnergemey Dditanercise Performance (over previous elght quarters) 4900% e 70.M Ni Preparedness ERO Dnti Parecipation (percentage of Key ERO personnel e 80.0% 1 e60.0% 1 Nr that have peruckpated in a drill or eserclae in the previous eight quaMers)
Alert and Notincason System Rellability (sercentage < 94 M e 90.0% Ne rehabillly duHng previous four quarters)
Oeempshonal1 Occupationai Esposure Control tRecoveness (occunences >$ >11 N/
Redlebee $sfety dunnt fwevious 1) quafters)
Public Radiation RET &ODCM Radiological Effluers Occurrence >1 >3 N/
Sefery (arcurterwee dudnz previous four quarters)
Phyekal Pressettes Protected Area Securley Equipment Performance inden > 0 05 > 015 N/
(over a four qu6tter peded)
Personnel Screening Program Performance (separtable 23 >$ N/
events during the previous four quarters)
Fitness-for Duty (FFDyPersonnel Rehability Program >2 35 N/
Perfortparre (repor2ahle events during the prevlous four O
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O Major Transition Milestones
- Commission Presentation -January 1999
- 1 Public Comment Period - February Final Commission approval - May Workshops / Training sessions - April /May/ June Begin Pilot Projects - June Implementation Workshop - October Complete Pilot Projects - November Implement New Process - January 2000
- First AnnualReview - April 2001 Complete Project - June 9
.__44 6th ese <m=_ 4 e=eM-_e_4,4-mm+ _ __ = - - _ _
l O
Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste Angelina S. Howard :
Senior Vice President l May 12,1999 NEI O ,
Of College Graduates Registered to Vote . . .
Nine out of ten support license renewal Three out of four favor keeping open option to build more nuclear plants More than half said U.S. should build more plants in future NE O
1
O From NEl Focus Groups . . .
Those identifying themselves as favorable to nuclear energyperceived:
Nuclear energy more part oflife in other countries than in U.S.
U.S. nuclear plants number fewer than 10 There are no nuclear plants in local area (when they in fact are there) l NEI O
Information influencing Views on Waste Legislation Percent saying information would increase support for used fuel legislation. . .
. . . plants are needed because they generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity without emitting air pollution or greenhouse gases." 68%
"It would be easier to monitor and regulate fewer storage sites." 67%
NF l O
2 l
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o o
Perception Gap Asked of Those Who Favor Nuclear Energy . . .
"Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity for the United States?"
"Do you thmk that more people in your community are in favor of or opposed to nuclear energy?"
Perceived Own Opinion Community Opinion Favor nuclear energy 65 % 21 %
Oppose nuclear energy 33 % 61 %
Don't know 2% 18 %
ME O
NEl Recommendations Recognize wide range of public audiences Require risk communication training Adapt to appropriate context Solicit routine feedback ME O .
3
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