Stakeholders and Scientists

It has become fashionable to include stakeholders in environmental ­decisions, yet this inclusion often takes the form of one-way communication that involves imparting information or assessing concerns and perceptions. While risk communication and perception analysis is important to the process, a consensus can be reached in many contentious situations by the wide inclusion of stakeholders in a process whereby they actually participate in problem formulation, data acquisition and analysis, and in the final decision making. This chapter provides an introduction to stakeholder involvement, defines stakeholders, provides a template for the different­ types of stakeholder involvement, and suggests approaches to improve stakeholder participation in environmental and energy-related issues. Stakeholder participation includes Community-based participatory research, another method or description of collaboration between researchers and communites.

The most eloquent decisions are most often made when the decision-making process includes multiple perspectives. In the past, the lack of participation of minority and low income populations has lead to disproportionate impacts as a result of decisions affecting the environment and human health. In 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898 to require all federal agencies to develop a strategy to ensure fair treatment and meaningful participation of minority and low income populations. This chapter outlines the range of minority and low income stakeholders that should be considered in environmental and energy decision-­making processes, their unique roles, and some of the key issues that should be included when identifying the stakeholders.

Energy, climate, food, and economic development are intertwined at regional, national, and global levels. There are large international disparities in the availability of, and demand for, energy which will be exacerbated in the near future as world population increases and per capita demand grows. The traditional energy chains from fossil fuels to electricity, heat, and transportation are being diversified by increased reliance on renewable energy sources, as well as new technologies in varying stages of development. As fossil fuel reserves dwindle, thereby becoming more costly, and carbon and climate considerations grow, diversification to low carbon renewables becomes more attractive and cost-effective. Layers of stakeholders include owner–investors, workers, consumers, and regulators, each with different stakes in different energy chains. Issues of economic, ecologic and aesthetic consequences, footprint, emissions, and costs challenge stakeholders to agree on energy options. Often overlooked in stakeholder discussions, investors play a powerful role in the invention, design, demonstration, and implementation of new technologies. Often undervalued, workers facing health and safety hazards are stakeholders influencing the design, construction, and operation of energy chains. As energy dispersion (rather than large centralized power plants) becomes more popular or necessary, siting issues will confront larger numbers of neighbor stakeholders. Certain groups like the United Nations and the U.S. Department of Energy are positioned to facilitate stakeholder input on the international and national scale, achieving a diversity of energy chains.

This is an account of the Fernald Uranium plant, the pollution from the plant, and its impact on the community. The Fernald Feed Materials Plant provided uranium metal to the United States nuclear weapons program from 1951 to 1989. In 1984, public awareness and concern over environmental releases began to grow, culminating in a lawsuit against the operators of the plant. Public reaction to the site was so negative that it became difficult, if not impossible, to operate or remediate the site. Systematic application of a program of public participation restored institutional credibility. Stakeholder input dramatically improved the quality of decision making, resulting in reduced costs and an accelerated environmental restoration.

Many states issue consumption advisories to provide information, mainly to anglers, on the risk from eating fish from contaminated water bodies. The Savannah River passes between South Carolina and Georgia, yet, in 1999, the state-issued consumption advisories for self-caught fish were not in agreement. This chapter examines a stakeholder-driven process that involved state and federal regulators, wildlife biologists, Center for Disease Control, Department of Energy (DOE), fishers themselves, and others to reduce risk for people eating self-caught fish from the river adjacent to the Savannah River Site (a DOE facility). The process included problem formulation, stakeholder identification, identification of the scientific data needed to answer the key questions, development of studies to address these questions, refinement based on stakeholder collaboration, and then development of a mechanism to advise potentially affected persons of the risk. In sum, data on fishing behavior, consumption patterns and mercury levels in fish indicated that people who ate fish frequently were at risk from excess mercury exposure from eating some fish, and an information brochure embraced by the several regulatory agencies and jurisdictions was developed that specifically addressed these issues for people fishing in the Savannah River. This solution sidestepped competing jurisdictional issues between the two states and allowed all parties to create a Fish Fact Sheet brochure that could be distributed annually to those fishing along the Savannah River.

Diné College is a key stakeholder and partner with the U.S. Department of Energy in efforts to develop and implement sustainable and culturally acceptable remedies for soil and groundwater contamination at uranium mill tailings processing and disposal sites on Navajo Nation land. Through an educational philosophy grounded in the Navajo traditional living system which places human life in harmony with the natural world, the College has helped guide researchers to look beyond ­traditional engineering approaches and seek more sustainable remedies for soil and groundwater contamination at former uranium mill sites near Monument Valley, Arizona, and Shiprock, New Mexico. Students and researchers are asking first, what is Mother Earth already doing to heal a land injured by uranium mill tailings, and second, what can we do to help her? This guidance has led researchers to investigate applications of natural and enhanced attenuation remedies involving native plants – phytoremediation, and indigenous microorganisms – bioremediation. College faculty, student interns, and local residents have contributed to several aspects of the pilot studies including site characterization, sampling designs, installation and maintenance of plantings and irrigation systems, monitoring, and data interpretation. Research results look promising.

The Nez Perce, like other federally recognized Tribes, is a sovereign Nation, and the United States is required to consult on a government-to-government basis with the Tribe on action that stand to effect the Tribal resources, such as the cleanup of nuclear wastes at the Hanford Facility near Richland, WA. This chapter examined the Nez Perce perspective on treaty rights and the U.S. government’s obligations, using the case study of the handling of Greater-than-Class C (GTTC) Low-Level Radioactive Waste, with an emphasis on the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. It also provides an overview of how the Nez Perce view the environmental features and values that effect their lifeways, including seasonal rounds, gathering times, Tribal values, and Tribal perspectives. While the chapter focuses on Hanford, the history, perspectives, treaty rights, and obligations are common to other Tribes and other environmental situations.

Traditional scientific research proceeds from development of a hypothesis, through data gathering to final conclusions, and without much input from stakeholders. This chapter proposes that the melding of scientists and stakeholders throughout the process can reduce conflicts and lead to acceptable solutions for problems that are inherently complex and have eluded resolution. We use the closure of the Department of Energy’s Amchitka Island, where three underground nuclear tests were conducted from 1965 to 1971, as a case study to illustrate how stakeholders can be included as participants throughout the process, leading to acceptance and incorporation of the science, and a path forward. Success was dependent upon interactions to stimulate relevant science investigations, in a participatory process. Without such inclusion, well-intended policies and practices may be ineffective and may not lead to a solution, particularly to such difficult problems as closure of chemical and radioactive waste sites, and the handling of civilian and military nuclear wastes in the future, both of which influence the future of nuclear energy in the United States.

The decommissioning of nuclear facilities provides good examples of stakeholder issues and concerns and approaches to resolution. Nuclear power stations, licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), typically strive for license termination conditions that would permit unrestricted use of the site so that, in some cases, reutilization of the site would be possible for a specific use. Former nuclear weapons production facilities are decommissioned to a variety of end states, consistent with the ongoing mission of the site. In all cases, stakeholder concerns must be factored into the decision and the overseeing agencies, the NRC, the Department of Energy (DOE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and State oversight agencies must be sensitive to their concerns.

In this chapter, we provide an overview of decommissioning activities, the types of facilities undergoing decommissioning and the different regulatory frameworks. Desired end states are discussed along with stakeholder concerns and issues. Examples of drivers and constraints for major decommissioning decision factors are examined. We end with a selected case study – the decommissioning of the Big Rock Point nuclear power station and lessons learned from this and other decommissioning activities.

The Salem Generating Station is a nuclear power plant along the Delaware Bay in New Jersey that uses once through cooling. At the 1990 NJ NPDES permit renewal (required for operating), New Jersey DEP decided to require PSEG, the facility owner, to build cooling towers to address egg and larval fish loss in the cooling system that had been permitted a decade earlier. Rather than building cooling towers, PSEG proposed mitigation, part of which included salt marsh restoration to increase fish nursery habitat in Delaware Bay. In the years since the plant was first proposed in 1966, environmental education and awareness had expanded such that PSEG realized more public involvement would be needed than in the past. Hence the company implemented an outreach and education program that informed stakeholders.

This chapter provides a brief overview of conflict in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area and an in-depth description of the joint fact-finding process designed to improve stakeholder consensus on the complex scientific issues associated with avian fatality and wind power. High political and economic stakes and contentious, uncertain science has created a highly complex environment for crafting policy. The chapter provides a brief history of research and avian mortality issues, the policy and political environment, and key stakeholders and interests. The joint fact-finding process and the consensus-building structure and collaborative outcomes are illustrated. The author concludes that the Scientific Review Committee has successfully fulfilled its charge, yet the larger policy question associated with minimizing avian fatalities and maximizing wind energy has remained largely unresolved. As the wind companies and other interested parties move toward replacing outdated turbines, a different consensus-seeking approach will likely be necessary to grapple with the scientific, political, economic and policy issues necessary to affect change and realize consensus.

Wind energy … what’s not to like about it? With growing concerns about climate change and tightened regulation of conventional air pollutants, the United States is climbing on the wind energy band wagon. Wind and other renewable sources of electricity are being promoted at the federal level through production tax credits and at the state level through renewable portfolio standards. But how do utility-scale wind energy projects play at the local level? Not well. Focusing on a proposed 80-MW project in southwestern Vermont, this chapter examines both the possibilities and the limitations of stakeholder involvement in large-scale wind turbine projects.

The Penobscot River is the largest river within Maine and historically one of the most important rivers in New England for Atlantic salmon and other migratory fish. For more than a century, the economically and culturally important fish populations have been depressed dramatically due to hydropower dams on the mainstem river that prevented access to spawning habitat. In 2004, a broad coalition of stakeholders – including a hydropower company, the Penobscot Indian Nation, state and Federal agencies, and several conservation organizations – signed the Lower Penobscot River Comprehensive Settlement Accord. The Accord features two primary projected outcomes: a dramatic, ecologically significant increase in the proportion of the basin accessible to migratory fish combined with maintenance of, or potentially an increase in, energy generation. Increased access to migratory fish habitat will be accomplished through removal of two dams and construction of a naturalistic fish bypass around a third, while the energy generation lost due to dam removal will be recouped through structural and operational changes to remaining dams. Here we emphasize two essential conditions that made possible an agreement on the Penobscot that will benefit both energy generation and environmental and social interests. The first condition was the degree and type of stakeholder participation within the Penobscot’s decision-making context and the second is the spatial scale of the decision making – the entire system of dams on the lower river. The Penobscot Accord reflects the evolving role of stakeholders in hydropower decision making. Emulating the spatial scale of the Accord, which allowed the stakeholders to select from a broader range of alternatives to benefit both energy and the environment, will require further evolution of stakeholder involvement.

An assessment was conducted of the known and documented effects of electricity generation on vertebrate wildlife in the New York/New England (NY/NE) region. A Comparative Ecological Risk Assessment incorporating Life Cycle Assessment (CERA_LCA) was constructed to make objective comparisons among the six types of electricity generation important to the NY/NE region: coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, and wind. Nonrenewable electricity generation sources, such as coal and oil, pose higher risks to wildlife than renewable electricity generation sources, such as hydro and wind. Based on the comparative amounts of SO₂, NO_x, CO₂, and mercury emissions generated from coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro and the associated effects of acidic deposition, climate change, and mercury bioaccumulation, coal as an electricity generation source is by far the largest contributor to risks to wildlife found in the NY/NE region. The focus of this chapter is primarily on the role of stakeholders and how interactions between the authors and these stakeholders influenced and improved the final product. Thus, while the scientific aspects of the study have been much condensed to provide a full accounting of the stakeholder process, we hope that sufficient coverage of the technical aspects has been provided for the reader to fully appreciate the derivation of our conclusions. For those who would like additional information on the original study, we refer them to the March 2009 report available on line at http://​www.​nyserda.​org/​publications/​Report%20​09-02%20​Wildlife%20​report%20​-%20​web.​pdf.

Many state-level policies in the United States have been adopted in an effort to reduce carbon emissions, reduce exposure to fuel price volatility, and encourage economic development by creating a renewable energy industry. Experience with such instruments, however, has been mixed. In this chapter, we argue that a series of obstacles prevent a single actor to take the lead in designing the rules necessary to fill the institutional void that is created by the introduction of novel command and control energy policies. Using case study evidence from the state of Minnesota, we find that the collective action problem we describe in this chapter tends to impede the implementation of renewable portfolio standards despite the new and additional certainty that has been provided by a legislated mandate.

Communications between experts and the public are often fraught with misunderstandings and approached with trepidation by both groups. This chapter aims to improve these communications by providing readers with a better understanding of who the “public” and “experts” are, the unavoidable differences between experts and the public that can lead to misunderstandings and friction, and suggestions for bridging the public–expert gap.

In the early part of the twenty-first century, it appears more likely than ever that the United States will need to consider siting additional nuclear power plants as part of its overall strategy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. At the same time, there is a continuing need to manage legacy wastes from the nuclear weapon development era, as well as current and future high level wastes from power generation. An important determining factor in the ability to locate and build needed nuclear facilities will be the reaction of the nearby residents. As these proposals and projects are discussed in local arenas, their coverage by local media will serve to inform and possibly shape residents’ views about the facts and issues that are important to ­consider. This chapter discusses the influence of media stories on public perceptions about hazards and risks, and then presents results of a recent content analysis of ­stories about proposed new or expanded projects at existing nuclear power or waste sites. Finally, we describe some implications related to media, local stakeholders, and alternatives for expanding nuclear facilities in the age of the Internet.

Stakeholders are all the interested and affected parties, and include (but are not limited to) Tribal nations, U.S. governmental agencies (federal, state, local), nongovernmental groups (conservation groups, recreational groups, hunting and fishing groups, citizens’ groups), industry and their representative organizations, the media and information organizations, and the public. Governmental agencies include not only regulators, but human and ecological health groups. There are several levels of stakeholder involvement, including informational, acquisitional, dialogue, intragovernmental, stakeholder involvement stakeholder-driven, and stakeholder collaborative. In all cases, however, a range of stakeholders is involved in different phases of decision making. I suggest combining stakeholder models of involvement and collaboration during all phases from problem formulation to solutions and decision making, with an adaptive management approach. This would involve an adaptive management approach of a structured, iterative process of optimal decision making, with stakeholder involvement at all phases.