Future Land Use and Concerns About the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory: A Survey of Urban Dwellers

Burger, Joanna; Roush, Donny; Wartenberg, Daniel; Gochfeld, Michael

doi:10.1007/s002679900253

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…These tools have been used at five DOE sites (Burger, 2004): Brookhaven National Laboratory (Burger, 2005), Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (Burger, 1999b(Burger, , 1999c(Burger, , 2001Burger et al, 1999cBurger et al, , 2000aBurger et al, , 2000b, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Burger, 2000c(Burger, , 2003a, Oak Ridge (Campbell et al, 2002), and the Savannah River Site (SRS; Burger, 1997bBurger, , 1998aBurger, , 1998bBurger, , 2000bBurger & Sanchez, 1999;Burger et al, 1997bBurger et al, , 1998Burger et al, , 1999aBurger et al, , 1999bBurger et al, , 2000aBurger et al, , 2000c.…”

Section: Sensitivity Specificity and Predictive Value In Biomonitormentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Understanding stakeholder perceptions is key to building trust, to determining the best possible land use, and to designing a long-term stewardship program that the public supports. Managing ecosystems, and remediation on them, is a social process (Meffe & Viederman, 1995;Norgaard, 1992), and understanding the perceptions of elected officials and the public is a critical component (Lowrie & Greenberg, 1997).Over the past ten years, the Consortium for Risk Evaluation and Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) has been involved in assessing the views of a number of different stakeholders about various aspects of DOE operations and land use (Burger, 2000b(Burger, , 2001(Burger, , 2003a(Burger, , 2004(Burger, , 2005Burger et al, 1997bBurger et al, , 1998Burger et al, , 1999aBurger et al, , 1999bBurger et al, , 1999cGoldstein et al, 2000;Greenberg & Lowrie, 2001, 2002Williams et al, 1999). In addition to examining the perceptions and views of public officials, planners, and the general public, methods have been developed to assess the views of the public about ecological services, ecological resources, resource use (i.e., hunting and fishing rates), and future land use.…”

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A framework for analysis of contamination on human and ecological receptors at DOE hazardous waste site buffer lands

Burger

2007

Remediation Journal

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This article discusses a framework and tools for evaluating ecological resources and the effects of cleanup on hazardous waste sites, particularly those with ecological buffer lands. Environmental professionals are faced with assessing the risks of contamination to humans and ecological receptors (organisms and ecosystems) at hazardous waste sites. While exposure assessment has focused largely on human receptors, environmental managers have recently taken a broader view, recognizing the intrinsic value and aesthetic importance of ecological resources and services, and of including a range of stakeholders in remediation decisions. The assessment process involves understanding exposure pathways from source to receptor, and determining how best to interdict these pathways. Environmental characterization and exposure assessment, indicator and biomarker identification, and biomonitoring and surveillance are the major components of ecological assessments. Using the Department of Energy as a case study, this article offers a framework for ecological exposure assessment, recognizing that humans are important components of ecosystems and, like other biota, are exposed to contaminants that move through environmental media. O c 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. INTRODUCTIONIncreasingly, the public has become concerned about environmental contamination from industrial, utility, urban, and agricultural sources. Governmental agencies and private industries that own contaminated lands face the often costly burden of remediating these lands to reduce current or future risk and to render the land usable. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is faced with the task of cleaning up contamination left from the Cold War and the production of nuclear weapons. This daunting task involves some 113 sites in 34 states that contain chemical and radiological wastes (Crowley & Ahearne, 2002; DOE, 2001). DOE and other federal agencies are relinquishing some land that is no longer required for the agency's mission to other uses, and protecting the ecological resources on others. Many hazardous waste facilities have extensive buffer lands that hold important ecological resources. For example, approximately 79 percent of DOE land has been undisturbed for over 50 years because it served to buffer the nuclear production facilities 71A Framework for Analysis of Contamination on Human and Ecological Receptors at DOE Hazardous Waste Site Buffer Lands (DOE, 2001). The approaches and tools needed to examine the human and ecological risks, particularly on buffer lands, are varied and range from qualitative assessments to sophisticated geographical information system (GIS) models with predictive value.The objectives of this article are (1) to present the context for incorporating ecosystem exposure and ecological risk into future land-use planning, (2) to review tools and approaches needed to select appropriate future land uses, and (3) to weigh options at DOE sites for important buffer lands. Although human health risk considerations (both public and occupati...

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Section: Sensitivity Specificity and Predictive Value In Biomonitormentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

A framework for analysis of contamination on human and ecological receptors at DOE hazardous waste site buffer lands

Burger

2007

Remediation Journal

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“…Future land use is another concern that must be faced at HLW sites.The DOE sites have been protected for more than 50 years, and hence have become important ecological sites with ecosystems that are not found elsewhere (Burger et al, 1999).When ecological values collide with legal mandates, it is difficult to decide the best course of action. For example, if there is soil contamination in an area, is it better to remove all the soil in order to return the land to a state where housing could be built on it?…”

Section: Future Land Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Choosing remediation and waste management options at hazardous and radioactive waste sites

Greenberg¹,

Burger²,

Powers³

et al. 2002

Remediation Journal

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This article discusses a process for finding insights that will allow federal agencies and environmental professionals to more effectively manage contaminated sites. The process is builtaround what Etzioni (1968) INTRODUCTIONThe two objectives of this article are (1) to describe a multiple-stage decision-making process for finding insights that will allow federal agencies and the regulated community, specifically the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to more effectively remediate and manage the U.S. high-level waste (HLW) legacy and (2) to present a checklist, which is a critical part of the multiple-stage process described in this article.The article begins by reviewing the issues of risk and cost, which are always concerns for environmental managers. It is then followed by a discussion of concerns about the definition of HLW, land use, economic and social impacts, and stewardship, which individually and in their linkages with each other can vastly complicate remediation and management decisions. Although this article focuses on DOE sites, the concept of multiple-stage scanning and the checklist presented at the end of this article are useful tools for all environmental professionals. UNCERTAIN RISK AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF RISKHigh-level waste is material produced by chemical reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and irradiated target elements. HLW is highly radioactive and contains short-lived fission products, hazardous chemicals, and metals.The bulk of it sits in more than 200 tanks (NRC, 1996; U.S. DOE, 1995 U.S. DOE, , 1996 U.S. DOE, , 1998a at the Hanford and Savannah River sites. However, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) facility contains some of the material, as does the West Valley, New York, site.Contaminant mobility, persistence, and other factors are important in determining risk at these sites. How dangerous is HLW at these sites? Some waste storage tanks are old and have leaked, but there have not been any major ruptures and discharges that have killed scores of people or widely contaminated the environment.The DOE prepared an environmental impact assessment (EIS) for spent nuclear fuel for the Savannah River Site (U.S. DOE, 1998b). Dry storage, one of the approaches presented in the EIS, is used as an illustration of the risk.The major threat associated with dry storage is an earthquake, which is estimated to have an accident frequency of once in 33,000 years.The consequences of this accident are estimated to be a 12-rem exposure to a non-involved worker, 0.2 rem to the maximally exposed non-worker, and the exposure of 8,300 people.The kind of exposure is not specified. However, latent cancer fatalities are estimated at 4.2.The risks attributed to dry storage typify what this EIS estimates as human health risk. However, these analyses did not take into account the threat of terrorism and recent leakage in some of the tanks.We suspect that the risk is higher than the 1998 document suggests.The current storage in the tanks is not stable; eventually more will leak a...

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Pollution, Contamination and Future Land Use at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Burger

Gochfeld

Shukla

et al. 2008

Arch Environ Contam Toxicol

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Scientists interested in contamination normally deal only with pollution itself, not with people's perceptions of pollution or the relationship between pollution and land use. The overall objective of this article was to examine the relationship between people's perceptions of pollution and their views on future land use. People were interviewed at an Earth Day Festival near the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) on Long Island, New York. On an open-ended question, people thought that BNL should be left as it is, or maintained as a preserve, park or conservation area, or used for environmental research. Almost no one thought that it should be used for housing or industrial purposes. When asked to rate a list of possible future land uses, maintaining BNL as a National Environmental Research Park for research and for recreation were rated the highest (nuclear storage was rated the lowest). This was consistent with the subjects' views that pollution was the greatest concern about BNL. The congruence between perceptions about concerns or problems and future land use preferences suggests a unified view of management of contaminated sites, such as BNL, at least among a group of people whose environmental interests were evident by their presence at the event.

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Future Land Use and Concerns About the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory: A Survey of Urban Dwellers

Cited by 7 publications

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A framework for analysis of contamination on human and ecological receptors at DOE hazardous waste site buffer lands

A framework for analysis of contamination on human and ecological receptors at DOE hazardous waste site buffer lands

Choosing remediation and waste management options at hazardous and radioactive waste sites

Pollution, Contamination and Future Land Use at Brookhaven National Laboratory

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