This book reviews the efforts of New York state to site a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. It evaluates the nature, sources, and quality of the data, analyses, and procedures used by the New York State Siting Commission in its decisionmaking process, which identified five potential sites for low-level waste disposal. Finally, the committee offers a chapter highlighting the lessons in siting low-level radioactive waste facilities that can be learned from New York State's experience.

Since the 1960s and 70s, a wave of environmental awareness has swept the United States. News reports of oil spills, DDT damage to wildlife, and the nuclear near-disaster at Three Mile Island have, along with other incidents, contributed to a widespread distrust of industry and a collective fear of all chemical processing facilities. This fear has been translated, according to Kent Portney, into local political opposition to the siting of much needed hazardous waste treatment plants--the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome. The failure of federal, state, and local governments to effectively control improper hazardous waste disposal has further strengthened the NIMBY syndrome. Portney argues that once it is understood what motivates the array of local attitudes toward hazardous waste treatment facilities, and the political constraints placed on the search for solutions, effective compromises can be reached. The book begins by focusing on the facility siting dilemma and what can be done to find new policies that work. Chapter two analyzes what does and does not work in easing the effects of the NIMBY syndrome. Democratic political processes are investigated in chapter three, especially those that contribute to the development of NIMBY opposition. Chapters four and five present empirical correlates of changes in peoples' attitudes and explain how people can ultimately be convinced to support local hazardous waste treatment facilities. Social, cultural, and psychological construction of opposition to facility siting is studied in chapter six. Portney presents viable solutions to the facility siting problem, in light of the NIMBY syndrome, in the concluding chapter. This important book will be of great value to practitioners facing actual siting decisions, members of statewide siting boards, private sector parties wishing to site facilities, and those teaching courses in environmental policy or politics.

In 1979, provoked by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, governors of states hosting disposal facilities for low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) refused to accept additional shipments. The resulting shortage of disposal sites for wastes spurred Congress to devolve responsibility for establishing new, geographically diffuse LLRW disposal sites to states and regional compacts, with siting authorities often employing socio-economic and political data to target communities that would give little resistance to their plans. The communities, however, were far from compliant, organizing nearly 1000 opposition events that ended up blocking the implementation of any new disposal sites. Sherman provides comprehensive coverage of this opposition, testing hypotheses regarding movement mobilization and opposition strategy by analyzing the frequency and disruptive qualities of activism. In the process, he bridges applied policy questions about hazardous waste disposal with broader questions about the dynamics of social movements and the intergovernmental politics of policy implementation. The issues raised in this book are sure to be renewed as interest grows in nuclear power and the disposal of the resulting waste remains uncertain.

Planning for the management of nuclear wastes -- whatever their level of radioactivity -- is one of the most important environmental problems for all societies that produce utility, industrial, medical, or other radioactive waste products. Attemps to site low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities in Western industrial societies, however, have repeatedly engendered conflicts between governments, encountered vehement opposition on the part of local citizen groups, and given rise to overt hostilities among involved parties. LLRW Disposal Facility Siting is the result of a study designed to learn more about the causes underlying failed and successful efforts to site LLRW disposal facilities. The study is based on case histories of LLRW disposal facility siting processes in six countries. Siting processes in five states within the United States and in five additional countries are analyzed using information obtained from public documents and supplemented by interviews with key participants. The selected states and countries are major generators of LLRW and each has made efforts to establish LLRW disposal facilities during the past decade. They vary widely in the approaches they have adopted to LLRW management, the institutional structures developed for managing the siting process, the means used to involve stakeholders and technical experts in the facility siting process and the amount and type of data used in making decisions. The analysis of these case histories provides general lessons about the advantages, disadvantages, strengths, and weaknesses of the various approaches that have been attempted or implemented. LLRW Disposal Facility Siting provides valuable data for academics and researchers working in the area of environmental management.

This publication summarizes the reviewed information distributed in previous IAEA publications and provides an up to date, overall picture of the management of disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRS) based upon the current status and trends in this field. It incorporates the most recent experience in source management, including newly developed techniques used for DSRS conditioning and storage. Problems encountered and lessons learned are also highlighted in the publication in order to help avoid the mistakes commonly made in the past in managing disused sources.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations on how to meet safety requirements on the disposal of radioactive waste. It is concerned with the disposal of solid radioactive waste by emplacement in designated facilities at or near the land surface. The Safety Guide provides guidance on the development, operation and closure of, and on the regulatory control of, near surface disposal facilities, which are suitable for the disposal of very low level waste and low level waste. The Safety Guide provides guidance on a range of disposal methods, including the emplacement of solid radioactive waste in earthen trenches, in above ground engineered structures, in engineered structures just below the ground surface and in rock caverns, silos and tunnels excavated at depths of up to a few tens of metres underground. It is intended for use primarily by those involved with policy development for, with the regulatory control of, and with the development and operation of near surface disposal facilities.

Focused attention by world leaders is needed to address the substantial challenges posed by disposal of spent nuclear fuel from reactors and high-level radioactive waste from processing such fuel. The biggest challenges in achieving safe and secure storage and permanent waste disposal are societal, although technical challenges remain. Disposition of radioactive wastes in a deep geological repository is a sound approach as long as it progresses through a stepwise decision-making process that takes advantage of technical advances, public participation, and international cooperation. Written for concerned citizens as well as policymakers, this book was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and waste management organizations in eight other countries.