Re: Radiophobia - Who's Responsible

["Duncan Howe" <howe@DCSMSERVER.MED.SC.EDU>]

I would like to suggest that the main cause for the public's 
radiophobia is the inability of those in the nuclear industry and 
government regulatory agencies to have an open dialogue with the 
public - a dialogue which accepts the inevitable expense in time and 
begins at the very beginning of plans to site nuclear 
facilities.

The Department of Energy and its predecessors have effectively 
destroyed public trust in energy policy for several generations into 
the future because of their policy of hiding behind national 
security as a rationale for not including the public in discussions 
involving safety analyses.  The resistance of DOE sites like Hanford 
to working with state regulatory agencies to achieve compliance with 
EPA effluent and hazardous waste requirements in the 1980's is a 
prime example of this behaviour which destroys public trust.   

A recent case in point in Columbia, SC.  A nuclear laundry which has 
been in operation for 25 years in Columbia received a contract from 
the Savannah River Site to process SRS laundry about 1.5 years ago.  
The site was to be constructed next to the SRS site but because of 
public resistance by residents who would share the same sanitary sewere 
system, the contractor decided to use their laundry facility in Columbia.
This decision was not shared with the surrounding community which 
believe it or not envelopes the facility like a glove.  The state regulatory 
agency was aware of this addition to the laundry's operational mission.  
So, one morning the residents wake up and find that this facility is processing
laundry from the SRS site.  The facility apparently has adequate 
safeguards for contamination and exposure control and control of atmospheric and 
liquid effluents and doesn't present a health hazard to the 
community.  However, because of this prime example of bad government 
- their total disregard for what the surrounding community thought about this
additional activity in their midst, there is a great deal of resistance to the
site's continued operation and a continued public misperception of the risks
associate with operation of the facility.

If I lived in this neighborhood, I would be raising holy 
hell too because of the contractor's and the state regulatory 
agency's total disregard for my concerns about the quality of life in 
my neighborhood.

Much of what I read on this list serve with regard to LNT and radiophobia 
reflects an arrogant and condescending attitude toward the public which
only continues to aggravate the distrust that the public already feels 
toward the nuclear industry and its regulators.

We've made our own bed and now we have to sleep in it.