Florig H Keith
Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, USA.
Health Phys. 2006 Nov;91(5):508-13. doi: 10.1097/01.HP.0000232650.11844.74.
The history of radiation risk management is replete with contentious public debate between public interest groups and the technical community of radiation protection professionals. To promote a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, this paper describes the rationales and values underlying public-interest group positions in one radiation risk domain (low-level waste) and contrasts them with those of the technical community. Public interest group objections to recycling of radioactivity-contaminated materials and to discarding of other low-level wastes are made on fairness, risk assessment, and energy-policy grounds. Concerns about procedural fairness stem from the continuing use of top-down expert-driven, rather than deliberative, systems for low-level waste policy-making. Concerns about distributional fairness arise because the benefits and risks of alterative low-level waste policies accrue to different stakeholders. Risk assessment is faulted for failure to acknowledge hidden subjective assumptions (e.g., on screening vigilance in materials recycling, on integrity of disposal facilities in the far future). Skepticism of technological risk management arises from a history peppered with unexpected untoward events that lay outside the design bases of protection systems. Finally, public interest groups view low-level waste issues as part of a larger debate on wise and legitimate energy policy, and are reluctant to support measures that provide relief to a nuclear industry that, in their view, established itself outside the democratic process.
辐射风险管理的历史充斥着公共利益集团与辐射防护专业技术团体之间充满争议的公开辩论。为了促进对这一现象的更深入理解，本文描述了在一个辐射风险领域（低放废物）中公共利益集团立场背后的基本原理和价值观，并将其与技术团体的原理和价值观进行对比。公共利益集团基于公平、风险评估和能源政策等理由，反对回收放射性污染材料以及丢弃其他低放废物。对程序公平的担忧源于低放废物政策制定持续采用自上而下的专家主导系统，而非协商性系统。对分配公平的担忧则是因为替代低放废物政策的收益和风险由不同利益相关者承担。风险评估因未能认识到隐藏的主观假设（例如，材料回收中的筛选警惕性、遥远未来处置设施的完整性）而受到指责。对技术风险管理的怀疑源于一段充满意外不良事件的历史，这些事件超出了防护系统的设计基础。最后，公共利益集团将低放废物问题视为关于明智和合法能源政策的更大辩论的一部分，并且不愿支持为核工业提供缓解措施，在他们看来，核工业是在民主程序之外发展起来的。
