Building Consensus Through Risk Assesment and Management of the Department of Energy's Environmental Remediation Program (1994) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Appendix E: Workshop Transcript
Appendix E: Workshop Transcript
Pages 87-108
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 87... ...
Appendix E Workshop Transcript NOTE: This document is only a portion of the entire transcript of the Workshop to Review Risk Management of DOE's Environmen~ Remediation Program held on November 3 and 4, 1993 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC. A table of contents of the entire document is enclosed.
|
From page 88... ...
1993 Welcome Frank Parker, Chairman, National! Research Council Committee to Review Risk Management in DOE's Environmental Remediation Program Philip Smith, Executive Officer, National Research Council Thomas Grumbly, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Restoration and Remediation, Department of Energy Day 2: Thursday.
|
From page 89... ...
. 49 Elizabeth Averill, Oil Chemical Atomic Workers Union Pane!
|
From page 90... ...
. 66 Roundtable Discussion: Committee, Workshop Participants, and Speakers Welcome Frank Parker, Chairman Overview: Victoria Tschinkel, Roundtable Moderator Question I: Can scientific information on environmental and health risks assist those setting priorities for remediation activities to reduce the risks to the public, workers, and environment?
|
From page 91... ...
Question 6: Are there institutional, regulatory, statutory, or other impediments to the use of scientific information on environmental and health risks in managing the risks associated with remediation? Additional Questions and Issues Closing: Victoria Tschinkel, Roundtable Moderator Frank Parker, Chairman 91 112 · 116 123
|
From page 92... ...
As the dimensions of the clean-up problem at the Department of Energy sites become clearer and the monetary pressures become greater, the regulatory agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the implementing agency, the Department of Energy are seeking ways to improve the process so that the most egregious problems are remediated first and in a cost effective manner. EPA has recently issued a draft report which some of you may have seen on the radioactive site clean-up regulations and it is wrestling between four different methods of sending these regulations, one of which is risk based and therefore, this is really a very opportune time to assess the role of risk management in the Department of Energy program.
|
From page 93... ...
However, our philosophical differences over even the definition of risk, the endpoints to be used and the considerations of religious, social and political cost effectiveness impacts make the costs difficult. To be sure that these divergent views are heard and reflected in the report, the National Research Council has sought broad representation on the committee, among the speakers and among the panelists.
|
From page 94... ...
We were expressly set up in our charter from Congress in IS63 to be an advisor to the government on questions of scientific and technical character and objective scientific advisor. We do this by way of the National Research Council which engages many scientists and engineers, public officials, former public officials, health policy officials, beyond the memberships of the two academies.
|
From page 95... ...
We will have public officials, former public officials, there will be Native Americans present, people from affected communities that are in the areas where the weapons complex facilities are located, environmental groups, some of the Energy Department's contractors, representative of labor unions who understandably have concerns about health risk. In taking this job as the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, the President and Secretary O'Leary could not have selected anyone in my own view better qualified than Tom Grumbly.
|
From page 96... ...
~ really am delighted to be here to kick off this workshop aimed at reviewing the Department of Energy's risk management efforts in the environmental restoration and waste management program. ~ am here to ask for all of your advice and assistance in developing, over the next two years, a credible risk assessment and risk evaluation program which will support the department's environmental management mission.
|
From page 97... ...
Now, just four years later, we are operating in an environment in which the environmental management program in energy is not only the biggest program in the Department of Energy, consuming about 35 percent of the total resources of the department, it is the single largest environmental program in the world and in 1995 and beyond, it will continue to be an increasing percentage of the resources in the entire Department of Energy. But we face undiminished skepticism.
|
From page 98... ...
But even though the upshot of that publication was that risk could not be accurately assessed in their entirely, common sense, which, according to the late Senator Rayburn, Sam Rayb urn, is all the sense a person needs, led to the view that hazardous waste sites were not the biggest environmental and public health risks out there.
|
From page 99... ...
In past attempts to define a methodology, many questions have been debated that include what is the maximum dose, who is exposed, what is the individual exposure, who is the maximally exposed individual, and we have got to figure out whether those are the 99
|
From page 100... ...
Secondly, we need to balance the concerns of the public health community which is very concerned about the results of and threats from past events and their consequences and the risk assessment community which tends to focus more on current and possible future problems. For example, at Hanford, Washington, the public health community is still very concerned about what potentially happened in the past and what are the likely consequences the people who are best called "downwinders" at the moment when, in fact, the risks at the site, from people who are looking at risks now may be quite different and somehow we need to find a way to blend the views of how the public health community would view this and how the risk assessment community would view it.
|
From page 101... ...
When ~ currently enter into negotiations for new compliance agreements, we are faced with a variety of environmental laws and regulations as everyone knows and while we believe that an awful lot of those laws and regulations are perfectly reasonable and responsible, occasionally review the agreements as do many people in the industrial community. from ~ Ma e ~ ~ the other side and say, well, we are not really sure that the actions we are being signed up to do really are justified by the risks they are intended to remediate.
|
From page 102... ...
One of the things that we are now doing, in part because we are being commanded to do it by the United States Congress but it is something we really wanted to do anyway, is to undertake a new effort beginning with this workshop. This workshop ~ hope will begin the DOE's effort with the necessary, credible, scientifically based risk assessment program to define on a major site by major site basis in a meaningfu!
|
From page 103... ...
~ think we are going to have to establish new institutional mechanisms because the government entities with the money, the Department of Energy, do not have the credibility to actually conduct the work. We need, ~ think, a unique institutional framework that is credible, that is not owned by us, that is able to relate to the stakeholders, that is able to act in a timely manner and again we need to think about the time frame between now and when these major costs are likely to come on us in 1997 and hence we sort of need some major action in the next two years that can integrate knowledge during these next two years and this is not just because it is needed and a good idea but it is also driven by Congressional directive.
|
From page 104... ...
.. -- r -- ~~ ~~~ ~~~~-~-~ rare so we see the states involved in this process, a blue ribbon panel overseeing it, citizens involved, academic groups and it seems to me that if you think about the central core as the center of a big multi-center study and you think about other academic groups potentially as offshoots, and workers involved as well, ~ think you get a sense of the kind of people that we need to have involved in 104
|
From page 105... ...
We all agree that risks need to be remediated but if they are not pressing to the community or to the public health, should they be pushed back until more cost effective technology is available or should we put our money down now? From all of this ~ think you can say that ~ am not talking about a traditional by the book set of risk assessments derived simply from calculations that others have already made.
|
From page 106... ...
By next March, ~ think ~ have to have incorporated the proposed institutions in the field and if you propose an alternate approach to the one that have shown on my chart, ~ intend to put the highest priority on having your approach implemented by March of 1994. Regardless of the structure, we ultimately have to implement a credible set of risk assessments and it is my goal to have the first draft assessments in one year with a preliminary report to Congress by June of 1995 and this wit; be followed by inclusion of the report in DOE's fiscal year 1997 budget package which will go to the Congress in January of 1996.
|
From page 107... ...
~, We must have truly realistic, meaningful comparative risks if that is an approach that we are going to take as part of this and if we can work with the public to determine what the risks really are, we will avoid discrediting our efforts through meaningless comparisons. This risk assessment effort needs creativity and judgment and the application of all the lessons that we have learned over the last 15 years of trying to work on risks.
|
From page 108... ...
thing will be budget driven rather than plan driven. ~ hope not because ~ really think the kind of risk-based approaches we have been talking about here this afternoon so far is really the way to go.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.