WILL HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF? LESSONS IN EMERGENCY PLANNING OFFSITE INTERFACE

摘要

With the anticipated resurgence of orders for nuclear power plants in the United States, it is time to look back and learn from our history of emergency planning interactions with the public and local jurisdictions. In the 1980s nuclear industry opponents seized opportunities to discredit well established assumptions about nuclear plant risk and the bases for planning for nuclear plant emergencies. This presentation will recall problems we have experienced in the industry experienced and the consequences such as project shutdown, spoiled working atmosphere, loss of public confidence, and loss of financial viability. Based on history, I will revisit the warning signs of problems in offsite relationships for emergency planners-based on history-and how to avoid problems. In this paper I will examine how nuclear emergency preparedness was (and still is) an emotional issue and a technical subject not well understood by the average citizen. False charges are easily made and understood; answers are much more complicated and technical. Examples will be provided. The passing of years has not changed the fact that discussions of nuclear emergencies have the inherent quality of generating fear in the general public, and even in some professional offsite responders. Stories from the industry's past can give emergency planners the questions to self-evaluate and set strategies to help prevent problems in public and offsite agency relations that stymied nuclear industry initiatives in the past.