RE: Re[2]: The opinions expressed are strictly mine

["Hornback, Louis A(Z50565)" <LHORNBAC@apsc.com>]

Dear Radsafers
I've noticed the convergence of a couple of threads around a topic that is
dear to my heart, namely communicating with the public. I think that
information overload is at the root of the problem. Almost everyone,
regardless of educational background has ready access to more information
than is humanly possible to assimilate. Outside of our own immediate areas
of expertise or personal experience we are all dependent on the media at the
very least for bringing some new topic to our attention.  In this scenario
you would regard the media as "information brokers" who organize information
into broad catagories and then market their efforts to the public.
Unfortunately our industry is consistently placed in the "Dangerous and
Forbidding" category by default.  What's a beleaguered, unloved industry to
do? Consider one experience we had here at Palo Verde Nuclear Gen. Sta., AZ.

A few years back during a scheduled refueling outage, one fuel bundle had
become wedged into its support plate and could not be budged. After a few
days of media speculation about what was happening, you can imagine how
overblown the story had become. My parents back in Virginia had heard about
it on the national news. Soon thereafter our management took what for them
was the unprecedented step of inviting local TV crews to film inside of the
containment building during our recovery efforts. The reporters got to see
first hand that, even though they had entered the "belly of the nuclear
beast" as one print journalist put it, that their individual dosimeters read
1 mrem or less after all was said and done. Newly armed with some nifty file
footage, all the local news shows did special reports that week regarding
our stuck fuel bundle......and then moved on to something else! Since then,
our local information brokers have reassigned us to the "mundane and
routine" category. So far, we have been able retain this classification
despite the occasional equipment failure or unplanned maintenance evolution.
In summary, we as an industry, would be doing ourselves a big favor if we
were proactive in giving the media access to our daily operations.  Given
the opportunity, the overwhelming majority of the public will find what we
do to be thoroughly boring. That small fraction of the public that is
fascinated by our various activities would be given a basis from which to
arrive at their own informed opinions. 
Obviously this strategy won't work if we don't all strive to make our
practices and policies worthy of being classified as "thoroughly boring".
My humble musings only, 
Louis Hornback,rp technician, 16 years, former navy nuke.  
lhornbac@apsc.com

-----Original Message-----
From: steve.rima@DOEGJPO.COM [mailto:steve.rima@DOEGJPO.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2000 12:08 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re[2]: The opinions expressed are strictly mine


     On soapbox...
     
     Bill,
     
     Just who and what is a "reasonable person" with respect to nuclear and 
     health physics matters? If we are going to spend dollars to go way 
     above and beyond regulations just to be "so safe that there can be no 
     doubt in the mind of a reasonable person," we can't win.
     
     I consider my wife to be a reasonable person, and as an accountant, 
     reasonably well educated as well. However, when it comes to nuclear 
     and health physics matters, she does not have the knowledge necessary 
     to make informed risk decisions concerning low doses of radiation. She 
     must place some trust in experts, whether it's me or someone else. 
     (One time many years ago, she asked me to explain to her exactly what 
     it is that I do for a living. When her eyes glazed over, I quit 
     talking and she's never asked since. :-)
     
     If we applied the 'so safe that no reasonable person has a doubt' 
     standard to all activities in this country, we'd become paralyzed and 
     bankrupt very quickly. I consider myself to be a reasonable person 
     (even though there are some who may at times disagree.) If I don't 
     trust the experts who design and build airplanes, does that 
     automatically mean that they are wrong and that airplanes are not safe 
     enough? That's an absurd standard to attempt to meet.
     
     Although it's not currently politically correct to say that the 
     general public does not have the knowledge to understand something, 
     whether it's a nuclear topic or something else, it's absolutely true! 
     The problem is that the public generally trusts the experts, except 
     for nuclear topics, where they trust whatever the press prints.
     
     Off soapbox...
     
     Steven D. Rima, CHP, CSP
     Manager, Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene
     MACTEC-ERS, LLC
     steven.rima@doegjpo.com


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: The opinions expressed are strictly mine
Author:  William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com> at Internet
Date:    1/19/00 12:35 PM


No, I'm saying just the opposite. We not only have to be safe, we also have 
to be so safe that there can be no doubt in the mind of a reasonable person.
     
The opinions expressed are strictly mine. 
It's not about dose, it's about trust.
     
Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com
     
     
     <snip>
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