Regulatory requirements and tools for environmental assessment of hazardous wastes: Understanding tribal and stakeholder concerns using Department of Energy sites

Abstract

Many US governmental and Tribal Nation agencies, as well as state and local entities, deal with hazardous wastes within regulatory frameworks that require specific environmental assessments. In this paper we use Department of Energy (DOE) sites as examples to examine the relationship between regulatory requirements and environmental assessments for hazardous waste sites and give special attention to how assessment tools differ. We consider federal laws associated with environmental protection include the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), as well as regulations promulgated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Tribal Nations and state agencies. These regulatory regimes require different types of environmental assessments and remedial investigations, dose assessments and contaminant pathways. The DOE case studies illustrate the following points: 1) there is often understandable confusion about what regulatory requirements apply to the site resources, and what environmental assessments are required by each, 2) the messages sent on site safety issued by different regulatory agencies are sometimes contradictory or confusing (e.g. Oak Ridge Reservation), 3) the regulatory frameworks being used to examine the same question can be different, leading to different conclusions (e.g. Brookhaven National Laboratory), 4) computer models used in support of groundwater models or risk assessments are not necessarily successful in convincing Native Americans and others that there is no possibility of risk from contaminants (e.g. Amchitka Island), 5) when given the opportunity to choose between relying on a screening risk assessments or waiting for a full site-specific analysis of contaminants in biota, the screening risk assessment option is rarely selected (e.g. Amchitka, Hanford Site), and finally, 6) there needs to be agreement on whether there has been adequate characterization to support the risk assessment (e.g. Hanford). The assessments need to be transparent and to accommodate different opinions about the relationship between characterizations and risk assessments. This paper illustrates how many of the problems at DOE sites, and potentially at other sites in the U.S. and elsewhere, derive from a lack of either understanding of, or consensus about, the regulatory process, including the timing and types of required characterizations and data in support of site characterizations and risk assessments.

Native Americans: Where in Environmental Justice Research?

“…Such challenges are exacerbated within Native American studies for several reasons. In general, indicators typically used to reflect environmental inequality are derived largely from “western” science and do not coincide with Native American understandings of risk, health and comfort (e.g., Burger et al 2010; Charley et al 2004; Harris and Harper 2011; Martin 2002; O'Neill 2008). Common EJ measures reflecting, for example, distance to hazardous facilities do not capture the complexity of Native American connections to landscape.…”

“…Indeed, energy, resource, and military development on tribal lands are perhaps three of the most extensively recorded and studied Native American EJ challenges (e.g. Burger, Powers, and Gochfeld 2010; Gowda and Easterling 2000). …”

The Construction of Goshute Political Identity: Negotiation of Voice Regarding Nuclear Waste Policy Development

“…The voices of tribal members regarding the impact of such policy on their cultural and political lives and their relationship with the natural world must be recognized. More than just an issue of environmental justice, political voice creates social legitimacy and the assurance that tribal members will be heard and their concerns will be taken into consideration and addressed through policy development processes (Agrawal, 1995;Nadasdy, 1999;Blowers, 2000;Kinsella, 2004;Rosa and Short, 2004;Endres, 2009a,b;Burger et al, 2010b;Nelson, 2014).…”